Wellington Fly By

All good things must come to an end and so has my time in Wellington. I finished work on the 30th after a full weekend of last minute testing and configuring while my final Monday involved the huge unnecessary upload as the help desk people were unwilling to let us rename a directory to make our site live, so we had to upload the whole thing. Ah, help desks, useful for something, I’m sure. I left part way through the upload, leaving it in the hands of Tony and Katrina but a voicemail message at 10:30pm had me back in the office! There was some problem with incorrect paths in the search engine cache file but that was soon fixed and I stayed until half 11 or so as a few more minor imperfections were ironed out. I had a lot of fun working at the IRD, it was a good place to be and I enjoyed my many random conversations with Tony, we covered all subjects from Pastafarianism to made up words and a mountain-based action film featuring Sir Ed, Pol Pot and most of the cast of Die Hard. Expect to see that one straight to DVD by 2010. I think that’s all the work related news I have.

A few weeks ago I was up in Auckland to see the mighty All Blacks play the not so mighty England at Eden Park, probably not the best weekend I’ll ever have but at least I saw the All Blacks. Before the game there was some large medieval-style battle recreation by a bunch of enthusiasts, one side was England with the other being New Zealand and it was never really explained just exactly why this was happening. Although a load of 12th century-themed men in armour and chain mail fighting each other isn’t the best representation of Pom vs Kiwi, I suppose it’s a bit more politically correct than having Gatling gun wielding Red Coats squaring up against spear carrying Maori. Needless to say, the New Zealand knights won this particular battle with action scenes that made The Last Samurai look plausible and historically accurate (but only just).

I didn’t really do that much in Wellington over the past few weeks, just worked and saved money for my onward travel. There’s been a slight alteration in my Trans-Mongolian adventure as the fine Australian company I planned on booking with decided to charge me an extra $2000 for the privilege of traveling on my own, bringing their quotation to almost $8000. Now there’s even a financial punishment for being single! Although it was tempting to pay this perfectly logical increase for something that barely costs $4000 when booked independently, I politely declined the use of their services and was refunded my deposit. In spite of the Australians’ best efforts, I’m still going to do my Asian adventure but on my own, getting my tickets and visas along the way, all adding to the fun whilst reducing the cost.

After a couple of days in Wellington once I’d finished work and sorted myself out, I hired a car in Picton on Thursday and decided to have a bit of a drive down to Queenstown. When I got off the ferry there was a rep from the car hire company with a sign with my name on it, I felt so important! After the formalities were signed and paid for, I took to the road in my mighty Toyota Starlet and made my way down the coast. On this part of the drive, things were fairly uneventful and I was in Kaikoura by around 3, staying an hour or so for soup, coffee and photographs. Then it was back in the car for the drive to Christchurch, again, in keeping with the general theme of Canterbury, not a lot happened but I did make another stop in a little provincial town for more coffee. I got into Christchurch at around 7 but drove round aimlessly for an hour as I wasn’t too sure where I needed or wanted to be, a quick glance through Lonely Planet guided me to Foley Towers hostel, which I really liked. My little road trip just happened to coincide with a huge lorry protest planned for the middle of Christchurch the next day, so my escape would have to be postponed until late morning. By some miracle, I managed to guess my way out of the city after filling the beast up with petrol and was soon on my way to Greymouth, or so I thought. After another hour or so, I ended up in a little town called Darfield for another coffee break when I overheard some people mentioning how awful the weather conditions were on the way through Arthur’s Pass and that driving was not the best idea. With that in mind, I quickly altered my not so firm plans and decided to head south west towards Queenstown because that would be much safer. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Getting down to Twizel was no bother at all, I stopped off a couple of times to take in the scenery as the Southern Alps were looking amazing and I thought things should be fine towards Queenstown even though it was still pretty far. Wrong again. If I had any sort of knowledge of mountains and roads and more importantly the combination of roads within mountains, I think I’d have flown down. There’s only one way to get straight to Wanaka from Twizel and that’s through Lindis Pass, a route which will live long in my memory. My only real concern was that it was getting dark but that was soon eclipsed by a blizzard which seemed to come out of nowhere and the wind was pushing it straight into me. The snow continued to fall by the bucket load and I probably should have taken more note of the absence of any other vehicle, apart from the odd one or two. Anyway, I kept driving on but I was really starting to slide and some roads in New Zealand aren’t that easy at the best of times. In the distance, through the darkness and snow, I saw half a dozen cars pulled to the side of the road with their hazard lights on, the drivers were hurriedly attempting to put their snow chains on and so I made my best decision of the day and attempted to get mine on the old Starlet. After coming to an eventual, yet ungraceful stop, I gave myself a crash course in fitting chains but the darkness and four inches of snow didn’t really help things. My fingers were absolutely freezing as I somehow got the chains on, a camper van full of French travellers pulled alongside to get their chains on too and in a brief example of Anglo-French co-operation, we managed to help each other out. I was filthy, wet and cold by this point, it was pitch black and the snow was still falling. At times it was quite scary as I’ve never been in that position before and I hope I’m not again but I did manage to drive out, slowly but surely, for about an hour to reach the end of the pass where I pulled over and took the chains off. It was quite surreal as the place where I pulled over was almost completely dry and it was as if there had been no snow at all, like I’d just imagined it all. If only! There was no way I’d be even attempting to get to Queenstown that night so I made my way to Wanaka and found a motel.

In Wanaka on Saturday morning, I had a bit of a look round the town, I’d been there before in March with everyone on the Stray bus and that brought back some memories. Last week was the Winterfestial in Queenstown, due to end on Sunday so I had a look in the leaflet to see what was happening and that night there was an event called Big Night Out, which was a gig featuring The Checks, Opshop and Evermore. Opshop and Evermore are two of my favourite New Zealand bands so that was an amazing surprise! I quickly made my way to the Wanaka iSite to see if tickets were still available and I was told that I could get them at the venue in Queenstown. A quick petrol stop and I was on my way! Driving from Wanaka to Queenstown was certainly less eventful than the previous night’s driving and after a brief stop in Cromwell, I arrived by half 2. All hostels had completely sold out as Queenstown’s population quadrupled for the festival but seeing as I’d worked relatively hard at the IRD, I thought I’d treat myself so I stayed in a rather nice hotel on the lake front. After getting myself sorted and having a bit of a wander round town, I made my way to the Events Centre for the gig. I’d never really paid too much attention to the Checks but they were quite good, although I was so much happier once Opshop took the stage, I last saw them in September when they supported Snow Patrol, they even did a cover of Message in a Bottle, which was good. They played for quite a while before Evermore took the stage and they were fantastic, I really enjoyed the whole gig, especially as I had no idea before that it was even on. There were buses outside the venue to head back into town but they were taking ages and it was freezing outside (I had 4 layers on) so I got into a taxi with a load of people who were also waiting and we were back in town in a few minutes.

On Sunday, I just had a wander through the town, it brought back a load of good memories from the last time I was here, I saw the World Bar but I made sure I stayed on the other side of the road, just to be safe from temptation. I went up on the gondolas and took some photographs to compare how the town looked between summer and winter. I really love Queenstown, it’s one of my favourite places in New Zealand. I later heard that the Lindis Pass was closed sometime on Friday night (just after I drove through) so I was very lucky to get out. They were saying on the TV that it was the worst weather of the year so far.

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do next so I decided to get the bus over to Dunedin and that’s where I am now. I always knew of its Scottish origins and themes (hence its name) but it really is like being in Scotland, especially with the weather we’re having and they even sell Irn Bru! I’ve missed that stuff so much. I’ve had a couple of days here and I’ve rearranged my flights so I have to leave New Zealand next Tuesday so I’m starting to make my way back up north now. I wanted to stay longer here in the south, especially in Queenstown but then I wouldn’t actually be able to leave, it was hard enough letting go of Wellington so there’s no point in delaying the inevitable. So I’m going to Christchurch tomorrow and then I’ll see what happens when I get there, which probably won’t be a lot.

That’s pretty much everything or at least the main details, I’m about to start my travels so in theory that should lead to an increase in updates as I’ll have things to update about but I know what I’m like.