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Published: April 29th 2007
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Whilst in Wellington Leez and I had a fantastic night out, which we very much needed after not having been out for a good fortnight!! We hit the town with some guys who were sharing our dorm. It was great fun! In the early hours I popped to the loo, only to discover a guy looking up at me from the cubicle next to me... As you can imagine I was slightly hesitant about leaving my locked cubicle, but finally found the courage after whimpering, 'er, is anyone there...?'. Luckily he'd left the toilet, which I had discovered once I'd legged it out of there, James Bond style, looking all around me, and swiftly headed down to reception to mention my little incident. When I described the gingery/blond colouring of this mans hair, the lady said that someone who matched this description had previously caused a bit of trouble at the same hostel. So she insisted that we search the entire building for this creep.
Half way up we spotted someone on the flight of stairs above us, but then he vanished. Half a tic later and we found a locked toilet...the manageress spoke to the person inside, saying that
'We had to check if everyone was ok, so we would wait until they had finished'. Almost instantly he opened the door and it was the same guy. He was being suspiciously defensive and she said he smelt of alcohol;before this I was hesitant to accuse him, being in slight shock and I didn't want to get the wrong guy, understantably. However it was obvious it was him, from the way he looked at me and so a guy that we'd picked up along the way to protect us girls, subtly followed him downstairs. Once he'd reached reception, he did a runner before the police could get there; the manageress and someone else who'd managed to get involved ran after him, but he disappeared again. That's when the police came-so I gave a statement and they got a good CCTV portrait of the guy.
Later on that day, Leez and I decided to visit the botanical gardens and on the way I saw 'toilet guy' again, just strolling around; I wanted to call the police, because I thought that he had someone else's wallet as well as him just being gross, but Leez said that there wasn't any point. I
wish I had called them, but we would have had to follow him whilst talking in phonebooths to the police; not having a mobile and all...Anyway the gardens were really pretty!
The next day we packed our bags and went to catch our bus. This turned out to be our ferry, meaning that we had missed it and now had to spend two more days in Wellington doing relatively little. This was a particularly crappy day, because I had booked the 'bus' and had presumed that buses could go on the ferries, considering cars could. Leez promptly ticked me off, but I was angry that they hadn't said it to me, or written this info on their timetable and we lost those hours. I was not a very happy Hannah!
The following day, feeling guilty, I went to make sure that I knew where the ferry would leave from. I did eventually find it, after I'd ventured off into random criss-crossing roads and found this cute little church; inside and out. I had a much better day!
After just sitting and reading in the park, I finally gave in to Liza's constant pressure for me to go to the museum
and managed to stay long enough to see the sciency floor. Then I got bored and distracted once I saw a little hill in the distance, which I decided to climb. At the top of Mount Victoria, there were amazing views(my parents would be proud!).
We caught the first (extremely early) ferry to Nelson the following day, which I found had fantastic sofas to sleep on. Later on, when we pitched up at our hostel, Leez found something very rare....a couple of pianos. Although both were terribly out of tune, it still felt fantastic to play on them.
Then came a bit of a shock...Leez got an email from her Dad, asking if she wanted to go back to the UK, for a footy match, then back out again to Brazil. At first we were both like wow! and thought it was a pretty fantastic opportunity. Then after some thought, we decided it wasn't what she wanted, since we only had a short time in South America.
The next afternoon we arrived in Franz Josef, just in time to use the hot tub have some of the free vegetable soup the hostel gave to it's guests!
At 10.30am the morning
after, we got kitted out for our glacier climb; It was unbelievable to be in the middle of what felt like a mountain range made from ice. It was vast and on our descent we actually heard the glacier moving underneath us; it moves just a bit too slowly to feel it though...That was an incredible experience though.
On the way to Queenstown the next day, we stopped very briefly at a beach. I happened to find some flat stones, so quickly ran down to scim them. It was then that I saw two dolphins just bobbing along in the water. It was incredible-such a shock! Then once we had arrived in Queenstown, I had another uncanny sighting; of a friend who I used to work at waitrose with, called Adam Bryant. I'd already seen him and his girlfriend in Australia a few weeks before; we said our goodbyes, but said that we would probably see each other soon!
I didn't stay long in Queenstown as everything seemed to cost loads of money and I'd already wanted to go to a place that I'd read about, just north of Christchurch, called Kaikoura. It sounded like my kind of place. So
after an early start;7.30 the next morning, I reached Kaikoura at around 7pm the same evening and a lovely bus driver got us through it. I stayed in Sunrise Lodge, which had fantastically friendly owners, but it was a really quiet hostel.
After waking up incredibly early, I went for a walk along the coast, but with the weather being absolutely appaling, I managed to get blisters on the soles of my feet, as they were soggy and had started rubbing...not nice. However, I did get to see quite a number of seals at the seal colongy, which was cool.
It was an easy desicion to check out of 'Sunrise BORING-FULL-OF-GERMANS Lodge' and into 'The Lazy Shag', which is named after a bird, not after the activities of backpackers... which is much nicer and friendlier, with free internet! Liza's getting the bus here tonight, so I'm going to meet her there. We have one day left in Kaikoura and then it's off to Auckland, by plane, and then to Argentina baby!!!
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Alex - brother
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Amazing places
It looks stunning down there, such an untouched wilderness. Funny how you keep seeing names related to everything you know, very wierd, but I think Bo is happy to have a boat named after her. I went home this weekend and saw Charlotte and Granny Betty becuase it was Granny's birthday. I have also just finished my 2 weeks of officer training in York, and that was absolutely mental, learnt to fire pistols and machine guns and we ended up attacking a hill at 4am with all of this and smoke grenades, and they let me be in charge, very cool. Anyway it sound slike you are well but maybe getting a bit tired of a ll the constant travelling ( I know you're enjoying it but the organising and going places just gets tiring) so I hope you have a nice week planned on a beach in Central America or something, always important to get a tan before coming home to show off to everyone, all my love Alex