The Hitch-Hiker

I think unemployment is a fact of life, and the sooner that people realise that, and accept that some people aren't suited to working, and are never going to be able to work, then that'll be better.

– An unemployed house truck resident

Well I finished my job — or quit my job last November. I was market investments for an investment bank . . . and then I just decided that this male environment that was hard-hitting wasn't really for me.

– English woman on why she quit her job to travel New Zealand

With men you can be yourself, because other men are there being themselves as well. Whereas with a woman you have to behave yourself.

– Matthew from Porirua, on the differences between men and women

...the youngest street kids in the country: two little girls aged six and nine, completely unsupervised, waiting for anyone to give them a lift and buy them lollies. So I took them to the dairy and I dropped them home. After all, better safe than very very sorry.

– Ginette McDonald stops in Turangi

People of all different ages, from all walks of life, both New Zealanders and overseas travellers, feature in the documentary . . . The Hitch-Hiker shatters the preconceptions many of us have of others simply due to the way they look.

– Director Eric Derks on this documentary, The Waikato Times, 30 May 1996

Yes, more travelling than working no. This year in Austria, in Morocco, in India, the United States, in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Greece and New Zealand. Ten countries in a year. And last year 21 . . . I see 109 countries in the world.

– Belgian hitchhiker Robert on the countries he has visited

No real trouble, except you're doing 55 kilometres an hour on a 100 kilometre highway . . . make sure that you allow others to go through. Between here and Rotorua there's not a lot of places to pass.

– A Traffic Police officer lets Ginette know she's driving quite slowly

I am on a very slow journey from Auckland to Wellington. But I'm also on another kind of journey, a journey to seek out stories from the road. And who better to tell them than that eternal optimist — the hitchhiker.

– Ginette McDonald, at the start of this documentary

...it's been really interesting talking to all these hitchhikers. It's amazing how prepared strangers are to share things with the group.

– Ginette McDonald, at the end of her trip