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Chef's special
delicious served per Jamie Oliver's 5 hour roast lamb Having left Queenstown, the adrenalin capital of New Zealand, a quieter pace followed with a week consisting mostly of David Attenborough and Johnny Morris impressions....
A new bus from Queenstown meant new friends - really good bunch who liked a few drinks of an evening and were lots of fun to be with. We headed to Milford Sound - sight of the typical South Island vision of Mitre Peak rising out the Sound. Happy to report that it didn't disappoint atall - the sky was blue and the views were stunning. Even the dolpins came to swim alongside the boat.
The following day we visited a sheep farm in the south-west region and oddly enough the farmer spoke with a trace of West country accent - apparently in this part of the country they roll their 'r's - though not enough to make a good job of 'where's it to?'. Anyway he used us to round up 2000 of his sheep - no jokes about dogs please - and then we went off to the shearing shed. A few people had a go at shearing but by the time it came to my turn the poor thing had no
wool left to shear and had been nicked by the shears so many times it was turning into a bloodbath!! Couple of sheep facts for you: New Zealand has a population of around 4 millions people and some 40 millions sheep; in the winter the farmers grow fields full of swedes and then just leave the sheep in the field to eat them all!
Stop that evening was a little place called Invercargill on the south coast. We decided to visit a couple of local pubs to check out Saturday night in Invercargill - and suddenly I realised why people say that NZ is 20 years behind the rest of the world. While all the girls danced around the pool table in their glittery spandex tops, all the boys stood around the edge of the pub eyeing them up and trying to look cool. I'd never seen so many mullet haircuts in one room - it was like being at the world mullet championships. Most popular song of the night was a little number called Cotton-Eye Joe which resulted in a near-on stampede to the dance-floor!
The drive through the Catlins to Dunedin offered more Johnny Morris moments.
Sea Lions
I predict a riot We were lucky enough to be able to see some yellow-eyed penguins - which are the rarest breed of penguins in the world. It was great - they did that funny penguin walk up from the sea and proceeded to try to hop up a steep embankment looking like they had their feet tied together. In my head they were having hilarious conversations in Pingu voices - I think everyone just thought i was slightly mad.
We also saw some sea lions who were getting edgy with each other - trying to shove each other when they have stumpy flippers instead of arms is quite entertaining to watch. They just kind of barked/honked at each other in a grumpy manner.
Dunedin for the night meant we could watch the England - Ecuador game in a bar at 3am in the morning - not brilliant when you have a 7am start the next day, but I'm getting used to it. Still managing to scrape through by playing badly....
At Kaikoura the animal-fest continued with a whale watching trip. We were really fortunate and got quite close to a sperm whale - it was massive!! The guide reckoned that
Mitre Peak
rising out of Milford Sound it was up to 15 metres long! Anyway, it hung around for ages and did a couple of dives so we got to see the tail hanging in the air. We also had a school (pod??) of dolphins swim past the boat - there were probably about 50 of them and they were jumping out of the water and generally showing off.
A couple of days back in Auckland with Karen and Steff for a bit of r&r and the end of England's world cup campaign - crashing out on penalties to Portugal gave me a slight sense of deja vu... I was predicting a Germany France final, but thankfully Italy have saved us from the unthinkable.
I've spent the last couple of days visiting the Bay of Islands right at the top of New Zealand and was lucky enough on the way to visit a bird sanctuary where I saw a one legged Kiwi bird - which i figure is better than seeing no kiwi birds atall! More wildlife in the form of shags (which are birds of the cormorant family) and more dolphin spotting.
So its goodbye to the Land of the Long White Cloud.
A big thank-you to Karen, Steff and Rhionna for making me feel so welcome - I promise to come back in the summer to catch those things I wasn't able to do this time - zorbing (sorry Susie), Tongariro Crossing and lazing on beaches in the sun.
Talking of which, I'm now going to Fiji for a few days before I head to Australia for the next leg of my trip. Hopefully by the time I next update I will have warmed up and gained a bit of a tan.
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Chris Morden
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More spandex tops please
Can we have some photo's of the girls with spandex tops dancing to cotton eye joe! I'm getting more envious of your new free-living, traveling lifestyle every time I read these! Keep it going Chris