So today is my last day in New Zealand, after 4 weeks of travelling around. As everybody said to me beforehand, the south island IS much more fun than the north island and I started to cheer up a couple of weeks ago... eventually!
Picking up from my last story, I hung out at the SPCA dog shelter for a few days and really enjoyed getting stuck in with cleaning kennels, feeding the dogs and walking them. I also made a couple of good friends so it was a good thing to do all in all.
After that, me and the 2MAD van drove down to Lake Taupo in the middle of the north island. This is a well known tourist destination, the lake is huge and beautiful, and there's lots of bungy jumps, sky dives etc for those with money. I opted for an afternoon on indoor climbing, on a whim as I drove past the climbing centre. The climbing instructor was a nice guy from Holland, and afterwards we went to drink a couple of beers in some local thermal springs and talk about life back in Europe.
Next day, lonng drive down to Wellington, killed a few hours in town and then got a late ferry across to the south island. I arrived at midnight and parked up on a quiet residential street for some kip, making sure I was up before the locals in the morning! From the ferry port at Picton, I drove towards Nelson where I met some hippies who were camping in a carpark on the way. They were doing a long walk to raise awareness of environmental problems in New Zealand, and filled me in a bit more on dairy farming and the water pollution it causes. Hmm.
Next stop was Abel Tasman national park, where I camped overnight in a huge Department of Conversation campground by the sea. The coast is known as Golden Bay, and when I walked down to the shore to watch the sunset, I realised why - the sand is an amazing deep apricot colour. Unfortunately the area is plagued by sand flies and my legs were bitten all over within minutes. Next day I went for a 4 hour brisk walk up the side of a mountain to look down over the top end of the south island. I hardly saw another soul and really enjoyed the feeling of being on my own in woods and mountaings again.
After that I drove down the west coast to Westport, which was quite uneventful except as I was leaving there the next morning, a girl approached me as I put fuel in the van to ask if I was heading to Queenstown. She offered to pay half the fuel, and so I had a passenger. It was really nice to have some company, we got on well and suddenly New Zealand started to feel more like fun. We headed down to Queenstown over a couple of days, which is where I was meeting a friend from England, Leigh. All the way down the west coast were gorgeous deserted beaches, we were spoiled for choice for lunch stops. The weather was warm and sunny, bright blue skies but just the beginning of a cool wind as the winter is approaching.
On the way down the coast, we stopped at Fox Glacier - a small town built around a mountain with an ice glacier. We decided to do a half day walk up the glacier which was really quite amazing, the ice is hundreds of years old and apparently the whole glacier moves by a metre or so every day. First we had to climb a steep hill for 15 minutes or so, then 500 steps cut into a mountain! Then we came out level with the glacier so we could walk out onto it. We had crampons (metal spikes) to fit to our boots n everything. It was really cool, although my feet were freezing after 20 minutes of standing on the ice.
Once we got to Queenstown, we let our hair down and partied - not that we had much choice as Leigh had an itinerary for the first night which involved two Jagerbombs (Jagermeister and Red Bull) in quick succession, then 3 G&Ts, then 50 minutes in Minus Five, a vodka ice bar, where we necked 3 Vodka cocktails and didn't have to wait long for the combination of freezing temperature and strong drinks to knock us off our feet. Next we went to a bar with a huge roaring fire and comfy leather seats, and predictably the end was near..
Next day, hungover, we went to try the Luge which is a kind of go-kart track which starts at the top of a big hill and you slide down the concrete track on plastic boards with handles and a pull-back brake. Leigh insisted that I wasn't to use the brakes, but I did and so it wasn't me that got the cart up on its side nearly resulting in a severed hand...
For our last full day in Queenstown, Leigh and I went paragliding. Queenstown is basically adrenalin-junky-central and people go there to jump out of planes or do massive bungy jumps. I felt that I should do 'something' but skydiving was really expensive and I was scared, I admit it. So instead we strapped ourselves to a pilot each, and ran off the end of a mountain hoping that the parachute would stay open and catch our weight. Actually it was much less scary and more fun than it sounds. I was surprised how easy and calm it was once we were flying, although I did scream a bit when my pilot started turning into the wind, making us fly round as though we were on a swing hurtling towards the forests below. In 10 minutes it was all over and we landed gracefully on the ground. Luckily the DVD and photos don't show the attractive shade of green that my face had turned.
So next day it was time to leave Queenstown, yet again with a hangover from hell after a repeat of the first night in the ice bar. We made it as far as a town called Milton and decided to stop in a hostal that sounded fun from the guide book. Actually it was so good we stayed for 2 nights. It was run by a Swiss guy called Tony who had once cycled halfway across the world and was by his own admission a little eccentric but a really nice person. The first night, we sat down to watch a DVD about Tibet which was very interesting and timely. I realised that Tibet and Buddhism and self-awareness are topics that have been coming up a lot lately, and I took this particular stop as another sign, although of what I'm still not sure. Anyway I feasted on his huge collection of books and learned a bit more about myself and Life. On the second day, Tony took us to see the 20 acres of land that he bought a few years ago - completely overgrown, untouched land covered in huge old trees, which he plans to use for a tree house some day. We picked some fruit and mushrooms, then went back to read in hammocks in the sunny garden. Quite an idyllic couple of days, which was just what we needed after Queenstown. Tony was very sad to see us go, and actually I was sad to leave.. but time was moving on.
And so we drove the 320km to Christchurch, arriving at night very tired. Next day was time to drop the campervan off, which has been my home for the last month - quite a sad moment. Well it was until Wicked charged me $20 for returning it 2 hours late. Later that day Sarah and I hopped on a bus to Kaikoura for our last excursion in New Zealand. This is up on the east coast, is famous for whales, dolphins and penguins, and is a lovely combination of bright blue ocean and snow-topped mountains.
Tomorrow morning, I head back to Christchurch for my flight to Melbourne, Australia. Once again I am not particularly excited about this part of my trip. All I hear about the east coast of Australia, which is where I'm going, is that it is expensive and touristy. Yuk. So considering my rapidly disappearing funds, I think I will only spend 2 weeks in Oz and get to Thailand as quickly as I can. I guess I could be wrong, but we'll have to wait and see for the next exciting instalment won't we!
