Day 7 - another long drive

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it's been a long day. and it started last night.

it started out good enough. while cooking dinner at the hostel, deja and i met an attractive dutch girl who's sister is currently living in p.e.i. following our meal and a quick game of battleship, we attempted to do our first load of laundry for the trip. bad idea! when we started, there were three washing machines and two dryers. by 12:30 am, there were three washing machines and only ONE dryer... the fiasco started like this: deja and i were going to share one washing machine since we had small loads (yes, i know, i was going to wash my dirty laundry with someone else's...) and kevin was going to take the other small washer. the third machine was being used by someone else. anyway, both deja and i accidentally brought tide with bleach. since he already loaded his in to the machine, i let him go ahead while kevin and i bought regular detergent at the corner store. when we got back, keving started his load and i waited until deja's machine freed up. however, in that time, the other girl loaded her clothes in to a dryer, leaving one free. deja's used the second machine and keving waited his turn. however, when kevin fired it up it shorted out! sparks flew out the top and everything! so that meant that he and i had to wait for the last dryer to be free. all told, i think i waited around 4 hours before i could get my load done. and i discovered i was missing a sock at the end of it. stupid laundry gremlins... luckily i located it in the washer before we checked out this morning.

phew... long story about laundry. sorry to vent... i'm sure you want to read about more interesting things.

we proceeded down the coast to our present location in wanaka. we made several side stops along the way, checking out the coastline and beaches. and luckily the weather held up for most of the day. the water out here is remarkably blue, and there's a lot of little fresh water lakes just a couple of hundred of meters away from the ocean. i found the beach we visited to be largely rocky, and less sandy. i hope the stone i found will suite deanna's needs...

i also did my third stint at the wheel. luckily no birds were injured today. i find that driving here is like trying to learn to drive all over again. whenever i try to turn on my signal light i end up turning on the windshield wipers. and i'm totally concentrating on the road. it's hard for me to focus on a conversation and watch where i'm going at the same time.

we've checked in to a hostel down here called the "purple cow". we thought we had a great deal - a studio unit with two bunk beds, a kitched and a sofa bed - all to ourselves. imagine our surprise when they decided to place a fourth person in to our room. we haven't had a chance to talk to her much, but she's an austrian currently living in france. hope she doesn't mind three snoring guys...

we're off to queenstown tomorrow, where we'll try to get on a whitewater rafting tour. if we find that they're full, we'll probably stay there the night and try again first thing the next morning before moving on to te anau.

i'm also trying to find a place that will let me connect my camera to upload some pix. so far no luck...

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Comments

[Adam]

Crikey Laundry
New Zealand is known for their laundry issues. It’s a national pastime, called laundry shenanigans-similar to Japan’s MXC. They play with tourist’s minds (like they did with yours), video tape it and then replay it on local cable TV at Christmas. I hope you, Deja and Kev weren’t walking around in your tightie-whities, while this all happened. I guess the attractive dutch girl may have been impressed, but the locals could get offended. Remember lots of pictures! Dutch ones too! Glad you are having fun, save the birds and say hi to D & K. AJ

[Tuan]

But what about the girl...
As I only ready the first few paragraphs, all I heard was "I met an attractive dutch girl but I decided to do laundry with Deja instead". Geez, was it even strip battleship!? ;) Anyways, there better not be another story like "well I as walking and met 2 English girls that wanted to go lingerie shopping with me but I had to meet up with a buddy..." There better be some pics later on...

[becks]

Laundry
You lost me at the part when Deja bought Tide with Bleach, but I'm glad your got your loads of laundry all sorted out... Any luck with the cute dutch girl? Did you seal the deal?? Remember, you've got to come back! No Dutch girl better steal my desk partner away! I have faith that you'll woo her with your video game talk and how you have "virtual dogs". She'll be putty in your clammy hands! haha...Drive carefully!