As far as travellers go, Germans don't have the worst reputation, nor the best, but there is something in the tourist spirit, the inner Schweinhund if you will, that runs amok when unleased from its tired stomping grounds into the great overseas. Freed from the social rules and niceties of the homeland, the young globetrotter does what ever pleases his fancy.

Backpacker Jan Philip Scharbert from Munich was climbing New Zealand's Franz Josef Glacier this week and decided on his way up to make his mark for posterity on the rocks lodged in the glacier with aeresol spray paint, i.e. leave his tag. Herr Scharbert apparently forgot that these days everyone and his cousin carries a digital camera. This photo, shot by English backpackers on the glacier, made its way to the NZ police. While he was boarding his bus to the next town the Kiwi cops arrested him in the line, ordering him to go back and remove his graffiti, a job that took one and a half days as Scharbert reportedly endured plenty of heckling from passing guides and tourists.

Fark.com is currently brimming with eager commenters to the story. Apart from the usual rehash of German cliches, one Ami says, "WTF? Travel halfway around the world to deface a natural park? I'm just relieved he's not American."