After a good month of updating in February, March has become quite slack so I’ll do my best to fill in some gaps of what has been happening since then.
I took the ferry down to the South Island with the majority of the guys on the Stray bus and the first significant stop after arriving in Picton was at a vineyard in the Marlborough region for some wine tasting. Claire is a bit of a wine connoisseur so she had all the appropriate techniques for sampling the wine and could differentiate between the styles and qualities of the wine, whereas I just drank and simply replied with either “that’s alright, I quite like it” or “I’m not a fan of that one”. I guess that illustrates the differences between those from South East and South West Northumberland! I think there were around a dozen or so wines in total but I had to retire at the halfway mark due to my lack of food and ever lightening head. Once we had our fill of wine we made our way over to the Abel Tasman National Park to stay at a place called Old McDonald’s Farm.
The farm was as much in the middle of nowhere as I think it’s possible to get, it’s situated roughly in the far north west part of the South Island. We stayed in a load of cabins that were dotted around the farm and it had a centrally located building with a kitchen, barbecue area, showers and all that kind of thing. Most people were booked up on kayaking or boating activities or walks or things like that, all sounding very exhausting but I took the opportunity to just chill out and wander around the place, see what the llamas were getting up to. I’d had my adrenaline shots in the North Island so this was time for relaxing! As we were there for a couple of days, we had ample supplies of all the essentials but James and Hughie made sure they wouldn’t run low on the beverage front by finding a reliable source nearby. Later that night, we all got round the table in the barbecue area for some fun and games and we had a real good laugh, although I became a bit of an easy target during the Fuzzy Duck/Ducky Fuzz game (thanks to some cruel Europeans) so I quit before I got into any more of a mess.
The next stop (after brief moments of sight seeing) was Baz Vegas itself, a bustling hub of activity boasting a thriving population of well over 130 people and countless more sheep. There’s a saying that whatever happens in Barrytown stays in Barrytown and that’s probably for the best, although less than flattering photographs seem to be finding their way on to Facebook as I type! It was essentially one long night of messy fun, women’s clothing, a scary Canadian clown, worrying Norwegians and that damn green peg. It was a good laugh though, definitely something to remember (despite my best efforts to forget) and there was a cute little black and white kitten that seemed oblivious to everything that was going on around it.
Franz Josef (and its glacier) was to be our next base for a couple of days but the weather wasn’t to be that cooperative. The village itself has some amazing scenery, the whole South Island does, but this place added yet another variety to the many types of terrain New Zealand has to offer. The Southern Alps form the backbone of the region and the glacier seems to dominate the skyline above the village and even though I’ve never seen a glacier before and have nothing to compare it with, it’s something quite special. A bunch of people from the group had organised hikes up and through the glacier itself but Tongariro well and truly put me off hiking of any kind and so marching through ice was a certain NO! I did go with Yves and Claire to take photos of the glacier though, that was easy as we just took a bus to the bottom of it and clicked away.
I can’t remember what else we did in Franz Josef, just more chilling out I guess and talking to other people in the group as other people had joined us along the way. Yves is Belgian (Flemish) and works for a TV news station in Belgium reporting on the EU and he had lots of stories to tell us about all the people he’s met and he also filled us in on what’s happening in the country itself, as I had no idea, and it seems that it’s pretty much split in two between the Flemish and French halves, both quarreling with each other for control of Brussels and there’s certainly no love lost between the two peoples (although I wasn’t too shocked to learn of yet another example of anti-French feeling on the continent!).
Leaving Franz Josef, we made our way through to Fox Glacier (there were no mints) for a photo opportunity and then on towards Makarora, a place which makes Barrytown look like New York City! I know it’s probably a strange thing to say about a place but the bed in Makarora was probably the best I’d slept in whilst in a hostel, a few of us said that so it’s not unique to me. Like most places in the South Island, it’s miles and miles (or kilometres and kilometres, for any Kiwi reading this) from anywhere and that point is firmly made when the only thing to do in this place is karaoke. When asked if I’d be stepping up for a number or two, one of the things I replied with was along the lines of I’d rather skydive naked but maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say as I would later witness a few guys in Queenstown doing their bungy in their birthday suits so I suppose a naked skydive isn’t out of the question either, although I doubt the dvd would be pleasant to look at as it does get very cold up there…
Queenstown was next up for us, it’s often labelled as the adventure capital of New Zealand and probably the world. It’s the home of bungy and there aren’t too many things that you can’t either jump off or swing from in this town. (Un)fortunately I didn’t get involved in anything like that this time around so the only extreme activities I did was the luge (not too thrilling but the view was amazing) and a night out with the Irish guys. I think I was in Queenstown for just under a week and I can’t remember too much about it. A handful of the guys and girls went off on their various bungy excursions, including Claire who did the Nevis – the third highest bungy in the world at 134 metres! I could easily give you a list of a million other things I much rather do than that, especially after seeing her video, but it was great that she did it! Jo won a canyon swing whilst in Makarora so she did that and Jacqueline went too for moral support, so that was their activity. Instead, I went for breakfast with Desiree, it wasn’t that extreme but the bacon was very nice, if that counts for anything? The Irish guys (Hughie and James) and Finland (we had a tendancy of calling people by their countries rather than their names but Finland = Heter) were leaving us early for their flights from Christchurch, so on the Tuesday night we had a big old farewell for them as our group was starting to break up. Again, things got a bit messy after such a strong start but James introducing me to new drinks was to be my downfall (blaming others is so much easier) and I somehow made my way back to the hostel in the early hours where I found Jo and Jacqueline in the corridor outside our room and they took good care of me, their airline training coming in very handy. Apparently I kept on asking them where they got their burger from but I can only remember asking once. Ferg burgers, by the way, actually are the greatest things in the world. I could write a full entry dedicated to them alone but I’ll refrain.
Wednesday was a write-off, as many of us were still tired and emotional, so Claire and myself did our best to help each other around the coffee shops of Queenstown, which can be regarded as both an adventure and an achievement in itself. Sometime in the late afternoon, Claire decided to find a patch of grass to claim as her own for the remainder of the afternoon (I’m sure she’ll thank me for saying that) so I waited around for Holly as she was arriving that day. The luge was Thursday and I left Queenstown for Christchurch on Friday. By that time, most of our group had left or would be leaving soon so there wasn’t that many of our original group left and that was quite sad as I’d had such a great time with them all and made some good friends. Travelling the rest of the South Island would be different now.
The drive from Queenstown to Christchurch, although in itself was uneventful, offered probably the most spectacular scenery I’d seen so far. It was like were escorted by the Southern Alps each step of the way as we made our way through tiny little towns and villages for the usual coffee/cake/pie stops. Getting into Christchurch, the second largest city in the country and the most English according to whoever you talk to, was quite underwhelming especially after Queenstown and the matter of constant, miserable rain. I had the pleasure (not the most accurate word but probably the most diplomatic) of being in Christchurch for a long weekend and other than helping Claire with her uploading skills and finding somewhere for coffee, not much was done. We went to the cinema and had some soup and wandered round looking for something, anything, to do. We did stumble upon some Oriental festival thing in one of the little parks one evening but, and I kid you not, the second to headline act was a couple of kids pouring tea, albeit in a kung fu style. Pretty much sums up Christchurch, although maybe I caught it on a bad few days? It was sad to see Claire go back to the West Island as she continued her travels although we’ll meet up again in either Northumberland or London once I return back to the mother country.
The Great Escape from Christchurch took me to the familiar surroundings of Kaikoura and an opportunity to see some seals up close, providing yet another photo opportunity. I was only in Kaikoura for one night before heading back up to Picton and then on to the ferry back to good old Wellington for some decent coffee, wind, blanket man, wind and cricket.
As with all updates, I think I’ve got most things included but no doubt I’ve missed some things out but I’m sure I’ll be boring you all to death with the same old stories upon my return. I’m actually in Taupo at the moment for the Easter weekend so I’ll update about the cricket once I get back into Wellington.
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