Campervan

---

Haven't updated in a few days as been pretty busy. Will give a brief rundown of events.

Flew into Christchurch on Tuesday. Wandered around and booked the first hostel I saw. Really nice hostel met a guy called Andy we got on pretty well so thought we'd get a campervan to do New Zealand in! He met someone in Auckland for about a day who expressed an interest so we had three. Later we met a couple in the bar who already had a van so we had a convoy now! We watched an entertianier in the bar for a few hours - he was pretty good and do loads of strange tricks and stuff. Then watched a live band there, it is good I found a good hostel as Christcurch is pretty quite and it is one of the bigger cities! Meant to be the most english, i can see why. Could have been Cambridge.

Wednesday Andy and I went and hired a van, we found another girl to travel with us so we had four for our van so we hired a huge four birth ford van. $105/day was only $69 but we paid extra to reduce the excess as they wanted to take 5k out of our accounts for excess in advance. Couldn't afford it. Later we went out for a meal with the couple (Nick & Robin) and watched another entertainer in the hostel. Ah Gav go to Basepackers in the main square for a hostel, was pretty sweet. We drove around for a while, went to a small port town and Andy decided to jump in the sea from the pier. Nick was going to, took his trousers off then when Andy jumped in and swam out asap he slowly pulled his trousers on again. I had no delussions, no way i was going in. We then walked back thru the small town with Andy naked adn locals taking a lot of interest in him. Andy's a card.

Thursday
We started driving towards Nelson to pick up our 4th passenger. We stopped at Hamner Springs on the way to bath in the hot springs. Pretty fun but we got told of loads for larking oaround in the water. They are rather strict there and you are not allowed underwater... Driving a campervan round the NZ mountains is alot of fun. The roads are amazing, the views are stunning.

Friday
Picked up Doogald


Saturday
Nick's birthday.

Sunday
Hungover. Football.

Monday
Zipwire. Football.

Tuesday
Paintball

Wednesday
Quad bikes

Thursday
Ice climbing. Got up for 7.45 to go out on the glacier for a day of climbing. It was rainning. Our first day of rain in New Zealand. Unfortunatly they don't go climbing in the rain so we didn't go on the glacier. However, it was 2 for one for indoor ice climbing so we did that. Good fun, you get picks and spike shoe things, got up the straight ways okay but then we got cocky and went up one with a huge overhang. My mate Andy made it look like walking, he strutted up the ice like he'd been doing it for years. I didn't. Overhangs are really, really, really hard. After a good effort and about 2/3rds of they way up my arms fell off. Andy works for his dad as a stonemason during the uni hols so is so much stronger than I am. I'm as weak as a jelly-armed man when it comes to ice overhangs. All good fun tho.


Ok will update properly later, haven't much time at the moment. Thought I'd better post something so people know i'm still alive.


Will edit later.

---