South Island

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I've spent two weeks in New Zealand now. I probably should have done up a post a little earlier than this but I guess I'm getting towards the end of my trip and am getting even lazier than usual.

After getting up at 6.30 to watch the Champions League final, my Stray bus arrived shortly during the second half to pick me up from my hostel. It was 1-1 at the time, but I wasn't surprised to hear Bayern managed to win in the end. They usually do. The bus was full, which meant about 24 passengers. They drove us outside Auckland to the Stray offices where we were given some spiel and time to mingle. At that time of the morning I really couldn't be bothered and went off to sit in a chair somewhere. I was going to be on a bus with these people for at least five days, plenty of time to chat. The bus then took us to... Raglan. To be honest I had to check the itinerary on the Stray website to find out exactly where we went to. It's actually quite nice getting on a bus in the morning and not having to worry about where I'm going, I've paid somebody else to do that for me. Stayed in a little surf lodge hostel outside the town and got to know some of the people on the bus, who pretty much all turned out to be very nice. Got chatting to one of the guys who said he'd been travelling for 3 and a half months, about the same time as me. Turns out we were actually on the same flight from Heathrow to Bangkok back in February, which I thought was kind of weird/cool. Didn't do much that evening besides drink a few Tui's and play some pool.

The next morning we were given the chance to see some glowworm caves in Waitomo, I'd never seen them before so decided to go along. It seems they're not worms, they're actually maggots. And for some reason that I've since forgotten, they emit a blue glow at their tip. Put a bunch of them together in a cave and turn the lights out and it looks very pretty. Unfortunately my camera was too crap to get a good photo without any natural light, so you'll just have to imagine it yourself. Later that day we were taken to a Maori cultural evening, where we stayed in a traditional Maori house. I'd seen photos from other people who travelled to New Zealand of the traditional Maori costumes etc. but this was a little more low key. They were dressed normally, but did put on a Maori show for us. Towards the end of the show all the guys were taken off to learn the haka. After about five minutes practice we were put up on stage and made idiots of ourselves, which I guess was the point. We finished off the evening by getting the chance to ask questions to one of the locals, who turned out to be a guy called Séan who was half Maori and half Irish. An interesting mix.

For some reason I'd signed up do white water rafting on the way to the Maori evening, and the next morning was put in a van with five others from our group heading towards the local rapids. They freaked some of us out a little bit in the van on the way there telling us what to do if we fell out of the raft etc. I don't swim that well, which I neglected to tell them. I'd be ok in the ocean, but screwed against the current of a river. I'd just have to concentrate on not falling out so. The rafting lasted about 25 minutes, and was a lot of fun. I was put at the front of the boat, and got a bit wet in a couple of the smaller rapids at the beginning. Then came what we were told was the largest commercial waterfall in the world, at 7 metres. The reason we were told so much about what to do if you fall out of the raft is because there is genuinely quite a large chance of it happening here. As we went over the edge and held on for dear life, the raft hit the water and was fully submerged for about a second. I managed to just about hang on with one arm, and when we surfaced I was still in the raft. In fact we all were. Rafting really was a lot of fun and I'd love to do it again, although maybe in the summer as the rest of the trip down the river was quite cold after being underwater. We then went to Rotorua to have lunch and then look around and smell the place (it stinks). Finished the evening in Taupo where I had contemplated doing a skydive but decided not to bother after the white water rafting earlier. The weather wasn't good enough to skydive anyway. Went out to the local Irish bar and met up with some of the girls I'd been on the Whitsunday Island cruise with who happened to be there. In fact they're on another bus doing almost the same route as me down to Queenstown so I've seen them in a few places now.

After Taupo we headed to Blueduck Station, a farm that has turned to tourism in an attempt to get some more money in the door. Went for a walk to the local waterfall and did some clay pigeon shooting in the evening. I was given a 12 gauge shotgun and ten shells, five practice shells and then five competition shells. After my disastrous shooting displays in Vietnam and Cambodia I am glad to say I am capable of pointing a shotgun at a piece of moving clay and pulling the trigger at the correct time. I ended up hitting 4 out of 5 which was enough to see me win the competition. There was no prize though, scabby bastards.

We were on the move early the following day to head to Tongariro National Park. This is where you can do the Tongariro Crossing, supposedly one of the best walks in the world where you get a good view of Mount Doom. I'm sure this mountain has a real name outside of Lord of the Rings, but I can't be bothered learning it. Unfortunately we had originally been told it would be $35 for a bus transfer from the hostel and that was it. However the snow had arrived early and we weren't allowed to do the walk without a guide, which was $120 per person. On top of this you'd need to rent snow gear etc. This meant most people (myself included) didn't bother doing the walk. After arriving at around 8am at the hostel, we fought off the urge to start drinking until about 1 o'clock, which we were quite proud of. Nothing else much to say here, unless you were on the walk there was absolutely nothing to do that day but sit around and talk about how cold it was outside.

Last stop on the North Island was Wellington, which I thought was a fairly nice city. The bus was going onwards to the south island the next morning, but I elected to stay in Wellington for a couple of extra nights. This meant saying goodbye to the people I'd got to know over the past week, which kind of sucked. But I'm not sure I'll ever be in New Zealand again, and wanted to spend more than a few hours in Wellington. I stayed in the city on my first night and went out with the crowd from the bus. My favourite part of which was having a pint in the Welsh Dragon Bar, the only Welsh bar in the southern hemisphere (probably the only Welsh bar in the world outside of Wales). The place was covered in Welsh flags and was run by a slightly eccentric valley boy who was good fun. After telling him my Dad was from Wales, it wasn't until I answered some of his riddles correctly that he accepted I was smart enough to be a Welshman. As my sister had been living in Wellington 12 months previously, I was kindly offered a place to stay for my next night by two of her friends, Nicola and Marty. It was nice to be out of a hostel for the night, and I got to see some of the sights of Wellington that I wouldn't have got to without a car. I was also taken for a steak and onion pie, which was awesome. My final night in Wellington I spent back in the city. I just checked out the Te Papa museum before meeting the Whitsunday girls for a couple of quiet drinks. Unfortunately they refused to come to the Welsh bar, even though one of them is from Wales. Shauna, you are a disgrace to your country.

I was up early the next day to catch the ferry to the south island, which was smoother than I thought it would be. After arriving in Picton I met up with my new Stray bus and was driven to Abel Tasman National Park. My initial impressions of the people on the new bus weren't great. It's a smaller group and five of them are Dutch (need I say more), but they're slowly growing on me. Our first night in Abel Tasman was spent playing quite a few drinking games and having a barbeque. On our full day we got a water taxi up the coast so that we could do the 11km walk back to the farm we were staying on, this turned out to be a bit of a disaster. As we were dropped on the beach, we had to walk down a ramp at the back of the boat and time our jump so that our feet didn't get caught in a wave. I was pretty happy with myself after managing to keep my feet dry, little did I know in 30 minutes time it wouldn't make a difference. None of us had bothered to check the forecast too closely although we knew it wasn't great. We all assumed that if there was heavy rain forecast the water taxi company would warn their customers against doing the walk, apparently not. It started to drizzle as we were dropped on the beach, and about 20 minutes later the heavens opened. It was absolutely chucking it down, and pretty much didn't stop til 10 o'clock that night. We were in the middle of nowhere, with nobody to come and get us and nowhere to hide. We had little choice but to just continue walking for another three hours, getting absolutely soaked. After an hour or so there was little point in avoiding puddles that had built up on the ground, every inch of every piece of clothing was drenched. The only good point of the walk really was the point at which it ended, which was a shame because some of the scenery was spectacular. After getting back to the farm and drying off, the evening was spent playing yet more drinking games. My camera survived the walk, but my phone has since died. It was working up until a day after though so I'm hoping it's something other than water damage.

We had a long drive after Abel Tasman, leaving at 9am and not getting to our destination until after 4. I actually can't tell you where we were because it's not on the usual Stray itinerary. There was little to do in the evening and people started doing vodka shots at 4.30. I was probably the biggest alcoholic on my first bus, but I'm small time compared to these guys. I neglected to partake in the shots, and the less said about the shenanigans that night the better. I can say however it did involve lots more alcohol, a couple of idiots going skinny-dipping at night and almost drowning in the riptide, some curry pancakes, a noodle fight, and some other stuff I'd best not mention here.

Ended up at Franz Josef last night. It's another two night stop, as we arrived too late to do the heli hike on our first day. Spent the evening getting some all you can eat pizza and enjoying a few beers in the surprisingly nice hostel bar. It felt like being in a fairly posh mountain bar somewhere in the Austrian Alps. Went up and did a heli hike on Fox Glacier this morning. This involves a short helicopter ride to the base of the glacier, and then a three hour walk. It was pretty cool, but for someone who has a geography degree I really know nothing about glaciers. I'm sure I did at one stage, but I've forgotten all that stuff a long time ago. We head to Wanaka tomorrow and then on to Queenstown where I'll be staying for about ten days. It seems I've screwed my dates up though and only one of the ski areas will be open while I'm there, Coronet Peak. Though I'm sure there are plenty of other things to keep you from getting bored in Queenstown.

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Photos

Waterfall
And beer

Maori
He's angry

Rafting
About to go under

Abel Tasman
It's quite pretty when you're not completely soaked

Wet
Very wet

Moustache
Awesome