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Yes, I smuggle Bananas. I have to hold my hands up to this crime. Some people prefer smuggling class A drugs and making money that way but I just cant get enough of the yellow fellas.
On the flight over from Sydney we had been given the usual paperwork to complete for customs. The usual questions were on there, have you got any animals/ explosives / cocaine ...... the important one for me turned out to be food ! Rather innocently ( or stupidly ! ) I had decided to "save for later" the banana I had been given with a meal on the flight. I put it in my hand luggage and thought nothing more about it. An hour later it was pulled out by a lady in customs ( she had spotted the offending banana on the xray machine ) and I was fined 200 dollars. Doh !!!! She didnt even let me eat it !!!! Gill couldn´t decide whether to laugh, cry or just hit me really hard. Even the guy with the case full of heroin just used my troubles as a decoy and went through scott free. Welcome to New Zealand !
Anyway moving
on.......Christchurch..... we found ourselves somewhere to stay which was ok and would do the job. Straight away Asia prices go out of the window and everything feels really expensive. Suddenly I was even missing India ( thats a lie ! ) , but it felt too much like home ....... no cows wandering the streets , rules when driving , health and safety ....etc. Christchurch itself is fairly flat, boring and more like a town than a city. It does have a nice river running through and we did find a good curry house so not all bad !
We arranged to hire a camperven for the next 4 and a bit weeks and the next morning we picked it up. Driving heaven it was not, but after months of public transport it was brilliant. Just the freedom again of going where you want, when you want and stopping when you want. We headed off to a place called Akoroa about an hour away from Christchurch for the day. We stopped of to buy some food,wine and beer along the way and pulled over at a really nice spot to make some dinner. Looking back now things couldn´t have
been better but there were to be four phases with the van and our love for it ..............the 1st week we absolutely loved it, the 2nd week we just werent getting on the same, into the 3rd and we hated each other and in the 4th we couldnt wait to split up ! Gill and I had got on really well for months even though we have been literally with each other 24/7 , but living/cooking/driving/sleeping in such a small space starts to drive you mad after a while ! We got to the point were we couldnt wait to stay in a hostel for a bit of space.
Anyway .. In the early days it was superb. Akoroa is a really nice little town, we had a good wander round and then had a few drinks and some quality fish and chips ! We headed off the next day to Mount Cook ( New Zealands tallest mountain ) , we stopped off at some gorgeous lakes along the way and then pulled over to watch the sunset over the mountains. We stopped off in a picnic area, a few other cars were doing the same. We met a
really nice South African couple who invited us into there campervan for some wine, we liked it a bit too much that we then had to park there for the night ! The South African fella was into his photography and wanted to be there for the sun rising in the morning. The wine flowed and we decided to do the same.
Sunrise was really nice, but very hard to get up for ! We headed off further into the Mount Cook region to do a bit of walking as we had heard it was superb. We wanted to do a particular walk and visited the info centre for some maps / info ...etc The scenary was stunning and along the way we even saw a mini avalanche which was amazing. I think we were still dazzled by that as we missed the path we should have been on ....bugger ! We then made it up as we went along but ended up having a really good close up view of Mount Cook across a small lake.
The first few days in New Zealand had been quality and introduced us to just how amazing the South Island scenary
would be. ( I´ ve just read that back to myself, I sound like a cheesy idiot but have decided to leave it in anyway ! )
Steven "Palin" McCabe
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Maureen and Steve
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Hi Gill and Steve, What fantastic experiences so far. I've really enjoyed reading your travel adventures - MIchael Palin - definitely got nothing on you two. Chris is sorry he missed you but is only just going to mainland Australia in two weeks time. Andrew now booked round world trip and sets off at the weekend - didn't realise my cooking was that bad! Hope you enjoy the rest of your adventures - see you both when you get back (or should I not have mentioned returning home!) xxxxxxxxxx