The continental drifter

GEOFF COLLETT meets an ambitious young traveller.

Hap Cameron can tell a good yarn, and that's just as well, because he's not yet 30 but already has enough material for a couple of lifetimes' worth of storytelling.

Maybe, for instance, he could regale you with the Banff hokey-pokey incident, or the vomiting on his Korean tae kwon do master episode. There was the time he was deported from the United States after testing the limits of his visa, or the couple of months he spent living in his car in a Canadian oil town, washing in a nearby river and eating in a soup kitchen for the homeless while scrounging for work.

He could throw in the one about working in the lap of luxury on a super yacht in Spain, or helping as a labourer at the US Open, climbing a tree to watch the final moments of Kiwi golfer Michael Campbell's stunning victory. And the not-so-happy memories, like nearly breaking his neck on a rope swing in the Marlborough Sounds.

What else would you expect, though, from someone who seven years ago, newly besotted with the possibilities of exploring the world beyond his hometown of Richmond, set out with the aim of living and working on all the world's continents before he was 30?

It might sound like the flight of fancy expected of a product of generation Y, but as 28-year-old Hap (Mark to his mum and dad) has learned, it's all life-changing stuff.

Today, he is six-sevenths of the way there, still with 20 months of his 20s to go. He arrived back in Nelson this week for a brief catch-up with his parents, Geoff and Lynn Cameron, in Richmond.

Then he is off with his American girlfriend, Mandy Todd, for an extended stop-over in Melbourne where he'll regather his energies before completing his wanderings in Africa next year.

The most recent continent conquered, so to speak, was also the most challenging, although not for the reasons you might expect.

He had not originally intended to include Antarctica, reasoning there probably was no work he could realistically find there. But when he was pulled up by a friend who questioned how he could leave out the most impressive continent of all, it went on to the list, and came close to breaking his spirit.

It is telling that when he talks of the two lowest points of the past seven years, one was in 2007 when he and his sister slipped from a rope swing in the Marlborough Sounds during a brief family reunion, damaging his spine; the other was his Antarctic experience.

While voyaging through 25 countries, including extended stints in Korea, Australia and North America, had demanded decent helpings of determination, guile, contacts and charm to keep his plans moving, when it came time to reach the Ice it seemed beyond all his worldly experience.

After hitting brick walls trying to get work at one of the Antarctic research bases, he approached the dozens of cruise companies who send ships there during the summer. It became a long, depressing run of rejection. Even shifting to South America with Mandy to be near the departure points for the ships, and learning Spanish, did not help. Rock bottom came when he could not get shortlisted for a volunteer job painting window sills at New Zealand's Scott Base. "It was rejection, rejection, rejection. All I wanted to do was clean a toilet in Antarctica – I wasn't asking for much."

His last-ditch effort was to head to the southern Argentinian port town of Ushuaia in the faint hope he could somehow wangle a spot on a cruise ship, a fishing boat, or anything else that would allow him to set foot on the Ice.

Finally, in December, he snared a waiting job on a super-luxury cruise ship after a new crew member failed to front for work – although it meant he had to shear off his beloved dreadlocks to look acceptable. And whatever elation he felt at finally making it to the Ice was rapidly tempered by the bleak reality of life below decks.

Until four months ago, when people asked him what his worst job had been, he would um and ah. But now, he can safely say that working on a six-star cruise ship in the world's most stunning wilderness "hands down takes the cake. I just hated it". The relentless workload, the windowless "cell" that was his living quarters and the working conditions quickly ground him down.

He lasted two months and chucked it in at the beginning of February.

It would be unfair to call him a quitter, though, even if he admits an uninformed glance at his CV might suggest that Hap has stickability issues. The longest he spent in a job, and the job he loved most, was a year as a geological field assistant in the West Australian outback.

The most rewarding was as an orphanage volunteer in Mexico, on the Guatemalan border.

The weirdest was as a toilet attendant in a nightclub in Canadian ski resort Banff, where he was paid to hand towels to patrons, and sell various accessories to a night out, such as condoms and cologne. It wasn't as bad as it might sound, he insists. Because of the unappealing job title, it paid more than his mates were earning on the ski slopes, and the tips were great.

And the hokey-pokey incident? That was also in Banff, where he had a second job making and packing fudge in a confectionery shop window, as a sort of live tourist trap. He and another Kiwi were on the job and had to make a batch of hokey-pokey; it was Hap's first effort and his mate had to leave early, but gave detailed instructions.

Unfortunately, he did not quite explain the implications of being too heavy handed with the baking soda, but Hap knows now that it has volcanic effects on the mixture.

He tells a great yarn of how the boiling bicarbonate-charged goo boiled up and out of the giant pot and across the shop floor, and of what it is like to spend an evening chipping away at industrial quantities of hardened hokey-pokey.

He would not recommend it and like so much else he talks about he would not necessarily do it again – but he would not have missed it for the world.

Read more of Hap Cameron's stories at his blogsite, hapworkingtheworld.com.

HAP CAMERON'S JOBS SO FAR 

SOUTH KOREA

1. English drama teacher – kindergarten and elementary school

2. English teacher – elementary school and adults

3. Private business tutor – English language

SPAIN

4. Private tutor/chaperon, teaching English and commerce, and chaperoning for sport and exercise

5. Super yacht crew

AMERICA

6. Assistant marketing manager

7. Painter/labourer

8. Installer of corporate tents ( including US & PGA Golf Open)

9. Landscape labourer

CANADA

10. Oil rig worker

11. Chocolate and fudge worker

12. Toilet attendant

13. Motel cleaner

14. Construction site labourer

MEXICO

15. Orphanage – volunteer worker

AUSTRALIA

16. Mine exploration – field assistant

THAILAND

17. Dive master

PARAGUAY

18. Storyteller in schools

19. Website editor

ANTARCTICA

20. Assistant waiter – luxury cruise liner

- © Fairfax NZ News