Until Next Time New Zealand...

Helloooooooooooo,

How's it going? All ok in the uk? Any more snow at all? I'm sort of pining for some cold weather myself actually, I can't remember the last time I was cold and sleeping, eating and walking in the heat 24hrs a day is getting slightly unpleasant at times. Then again I bet if i was cold i'd wish for the opposite.

I've got wayyyy behind with the blog again so am trying at every moment to get it up to date but then we end up doing something else and it's a horrible never ending cycle of news stretching ahead of me!

We're now back in Australia and have been for a week, first to Melbourne and then onto the 'Groovy Grape' bus to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road. It was weird flying back into Oz, almost like returning home in way which was nice, but again, odd. The last 6 weeks seem to have come and gone slightly too quickly, a time warp of memories trapped back over in New Zealand. It's unbelievable to think that I had no plans to visit there when I left the UK...although I think perhaps the intention was always there.

So back to Queenstown, NZ...during our 5 days there (which we loved!) we spent a lot of time chilling out and treating ourselves to ice-creams and other goodies. For some reason Tina and I have a habit of turning the most simple task, one i'm sure many would accomplish in an hour by referring to the Lonely Planet, into an all day marathon which sucks all energy and brain power from us. The example here being our search for a hostel that had reasonable priced twin rooms that we could book out for our return to Queenstown on the 10th. We wanted to get away from the dorms for a couple of nights seeing as it was my birthday on the 11th and thought the upgrade would be justified.
Anyway, after 3 to 4 hours of traipsing around every single hostel in town and exhausting all possible options we decided on The Black Sheep (one of the first ones we saw) and booked ourselves in.

We tried to go out a couple of times during our first visit to Queenstown but it didn't really work out as there were really only two bars that got busy and they were catering solely for the backpacker crowd. I know that technically we are backpackers but there's only so many 18-22yr olds dancing around to chart music in togas I can take and i'd like to think I left them back at Bournemouth Uni!
There were a couple of cute wine bars (for us old biddies) but they were dead, we think they were the type that
would fill up with good looking kiwi snowboarder types in the winter season so made a note to go back to those next time we're over.

It was great to really chill out there and feel like we were holidaying, on one afternoon the gods answered our prayers by putting a dj from one of the bars down on the promenade. He played a mixture of house and reggae music as the sun moved across the sky and behind the mountains. Generally it stayed really hot right until the last dregs of sunlight were gone so one night after a particularly nice spaghetti bolognaise Tina and I went down to sit by the lake and watch an amazing sunset, I even went in for a solo swim which turned out to be a bit of an emotional experience! The water was cold and refreshing but out in the middle of nowhere with only the sound of silence around me and flecks of gold and orange reflecting onto my face it felt pretty close to perfection.

On our last night we met up with a friend we'd made called Davie who turned out to be the nicest guy in New Zealand, we sat by the lake and he told us stories of the crazy things he and his mates get up to and then preceded to give us a big chunk of green stone (jade). He said it was a gift and being obviously touched by the gesture, said we would do our best to get a bit carved off to keep.

Tina and I left Queenstown on the 4th of Feb and joined onto the 'Bottom Bus' which takes us round the bottom on New Zealand starting in Dunedin. We then travelled through the Catlins wildlife area for an overnight stay in Invercargill and then up to Te Anau which is the gateway to Milford Sound and all the Fiord land areas.

Our first stop was Dunedin, a fairly small historic town with a student based population (this is where one of the 6 uni's in NZ is based). It wasn't very busy there as most of the students were still away on holidays but after being on the empty west coast for the last couple of weeks even this small increase in people seemed a bit intimidating and quickened the blood pressure...i'm not quite sure how i'll ever deal with London again!

There wasn't loads to do there but we were staying in the nicest hostel yet called Hogwartz which had a loose Harry Potter theme floating throughout the rooms. It was an old bishops house that had been converted and had a big black door to the broom cupboard with Gringotts painted on the front as well as 'Dobbys room' which was the laundry lol. There was also a cool mezzanine level for reading with beanbags and couches which felt a bit like being up in a hidden tree house...I like mezzanine levels because I like tree houses..I think i'm going to build one into my future house.

I met a guy in the hostel kitchen who told me there were Bikram yoga classes in town for only $10 and seeing as my body feels so unexercised and polluted with bakery goods at the moment I jumped at the chance to join him and get a work out in. Bikram yoga is conducted in a sauna type room in 38 degree heat, you run through a series of 30 different stretches and it's pretty challenging but i've done it before in London. The thing is...i don't think he knew what he was in for and when we got there the teacher said 'once you start the class you are NOT allowed to leave, the door is sealed' (you know these yoga types!).
So there we are in class with legs and arms contorted in weird positions and all water leaving my body when he goes white and has to lie down. The teacher wouldn't let him leave so the poor guy had to suffer on his back for the full 90 mins without trying to be sick lol, i told him it would be hard!
I also went to the local art gallery and really enjoyed an exhibition by an American photographer as well as spending another day on the beach in the strong NZ sun which burnt Tina and I pretty badly :(!

After 3 days we were ready to leave Dunedin and headed south through the beautiful Catlins area which is not only another stunningly beautiful piece of NZ but is home to a whole bunch of Antarctic type wildlife such as yellow eyed penguins, fur seals, sea lions and hector dolphins.
The bottom bus (which is only mini bus sized not the usual 50 seater monster bus) stopped at 'nugget point', a coastal point with a scenic lighthouse that Abel Tasman named after seeing the rocks underneath the cliff face glinting in the sun like gold nuggets. After a brief walk and yet more photos we parked up by the beach and got to walk right up to a sea lion who was just marinating on the beach. He looked kinda sleepy but as usual there was some cocky geek who wanted a close up photo and pissed the sea lion off by sticking a lens in his face so he reared up and starting grunting in a scary way, I think the guy nearly wet himself it was so funny.
Throughout the day we saw all the above wildlife in their natural habitat which was much more satisfying than any zoo and made me want to plan a trip to the arctic to start a seal rescue expedition or something!

Our driver Mike was hilarious, really, really dry humour, totally deadpan in tone and had a likeable geekness just like Alan Partridge. He made the journey pretty funny and informed us that our next stop was Invercargill, and I quote, 'the arsehole of the world'.
After our nights stay there we joined onto the southern scenic route to Te Anau stopping off at a green stone factory along the way. We managed to get the carver to examine Davie's 'green stone' to be told it wasn't green stone but the good intention was there so we bought a tiny piece of real jade and agreed we'd make it into a necklace when back in Queenstown for my birthday.

Te Anau was quaint but really only exists as a stopover for tourists heading to Milford Sound which we were indeed doing. We sat on the shingle beach for a bit, climbed a tree, all the usual things really. The next day we piled onto yet another coach and headed to Milford for a cruise around the area. There had been a lot of build up about it, everyone saying it's the 8th wonder of the world etc and yes, it was very beautiful...but...I feel i've seen other views that i've personally found more breathtaking in NZ. The drive there was spectacular in itself, defo worth doing but they need to lay off the hype a bit.

That evening we finished our loop on the bottom bus and headed back to Queenstown as that was where we were spending the 11th, my birthday!
It was so nice to return to a familiar place, there's so much change going on that some familiarity is comforting in a strange way. We had decided to push the boat out and upgrade for my birthday nights into a twin room, ooooooo exciting lol.
Our plans immediately began to unravel when reception told us they'd made a cock up with the bookings and that we might need to stay in a 'sealed off' dorm. What they didn't realise is that this was Tina and Doxie they were talking to and we wern't going to put up with that, not when we'd been looking forward to having this private room for weeks!
They palmed us off with a free beer for a while and then the manager not only upgraded us into a 'deluxe double' for the 2 nights, we got it at a reduced rate, BONUS!
You'd have thought we'd one the lottery or something but when Tina and I opened the door and saw a posh big king sized bed with thick squishy mattress and comfy bedding we thought we'd died and gone to heaven and started dancing around the room.

The good times kept rolling that evening as when walking along the beach we spotted a crazy little device motoring across the harbour towards us. It looked like a home made barge, a large floating square of wood, welded metal and oil barrels.
On the barge were people sitting on 3 old sofas and beanbags, a wood burner, bbq, sound system blaring out reggae and lots of little fairy lights wound round posts. It was the coolest thing i'd ever seen in my life and I wanted to be on it. As it happened we were on our way to meet Davie, our extremely cool new kiwi buddy and when we got talking he asked us whether we wanted to go hang on, you guessed it, his mate's home made barge!!!

All the plans we'd made for my birthday fell into place too and on the morning of the 11th we woke up in our amazing deluxe room and then headed out to town to buy the picnic lunch. It was the perfect weather to accompany our quiches and avocado salads which we washed down with a cold beer and then in the afternoon we headed up to the bead shop to put together our NZ necklaces, complete with the real green stone!
That evening we met up with Davie who bought us some cocktail teapots to celebrate and then took us to a tiny hidden gem of a club called Tardis which was playing reggae music to all the locals. The best bit of the night was when Davie jumped on the mic and started mc-ing, he was SO amazing and it was just an unbeatable spontaneous night.

We only got to bed at 5am and had to be up at 7am so it was fair to say we were shattered on the bus up to Christchurch the next day. It was a scenic drive but we only arrived into the city at 6am so didn't really have any time to explore it although it was better than what I was expecting. We bought the most amazing curry and went to bed early as had another horrible 6am start the next day.

The next and second to last stop was Kaikoura which was a fairly cute little seaside strip of shops, it's main tourist attraction being the dolphin and whale watching you can do in the area. We went on a really nice afternoon walk there but didn't have the nicest experience with our room mate which was a horrible old witch of a woman from Canada, really snooty and bloody weird to be honest. She insisted on having all the windows open so the room was freezing and then INSISTED on keeping the curtains open all night or I shall quote, "it'll feel like i'm in a prison".
After an emergency discussion meeting between Tina and I in the toilets we decided to stand our ground, she might have been 70 years old but we didn't care, there's always room for manners! When we returned to the room we closed our windows and curtains and ignored her tutting and protests from the corner.
At 6am, and no, i'm not joking Tina was woken up by the old bag hovering over her bed and drawing back the curtains with an almighty swish. What a freak!

So anyway, that was pretty much it for NZ, we had a 3am start (!) and flew out of Wellington and into Melbourne (via Sydney which was not fun in our sleep deprived state) on Monday the 15th.

I'm going to do a separate entry for the next bit otherwise it all gets a bit much. I try to keep it all quite minimal but
somehow they all end up like essays, sorry!...