Zombies, kayaks, pancakes, glaciers & adrenaline rushes galore!

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Just 3 days so far in the south island and we're having a blast. The bluebridge ferry crossing from Wellington to Picton went off without a hitch. I took some heavy duty travel sickness pills which turned me half zombie for the entire crossing. We pretty much had a new b us load of people; just 7 of the originals left including the driver, but despite the intial shyness, everyone is now getting along great.

Out first overnight stop in the south was Abel Tasmin, true beauty personified! We arrived and chose our accomodation (tents or dorms) and settled in quickly to get some grub. Earlier in the day we pooled our money so we could put on a BBQ for everyone. We were cooking for a good 2 hours and the end product was tasty. Everyone pitched in and enjoyed themselves. At around 9pm is when it all started getting messy. Ellen (from Bedford) got out her pack of cards and we started playing the drinking game Ring of Fire aka Kings. Within 30 minutes I was well on my way to 'Drunken Jenny' land. Our bus driver added a rule to the game that we had to add 'In between my legs' to the end of every sentence, so everyone was in hysterics for the duration of the game. After most of the group went to bed I stayed up around the fire with the girls I was sharing a room with (Ellen, Emily & Ruth) and Tom. It was such a nice atmosphere. It really did feel like a camping trip.

The following day we all woke up pretty late, but wanted to make the most of the time we had left so Tom, Emily, Ruth and I went to hire Kayaks for a freedom trip around Abel Tasmin. The guy we had to see was Mitch...proper rough around the edges and majorly sarcastic = my kind of guy. He gave us a very quick briefing and had us out in the sea kayaks by 2pm. I went in the Kayak with Tom and Emily was with Ruth. We made our way over to Fisherman's island because we had heard there was a beautiful beach to chill out on over there. It took us just under an hour at a steady pace to make it over to the island. It was such a lovely hot day...I think we were really lucky. As soon as we got our kayaks up on the beach I went for a swim over to a beautiful rock arch which was set a short distance away from the beach. The water was refreshing and I just really enjoyed taking my time swimming and spent the next 30 minutes climbing out onto the rocks. There were a few rocks which couldn't be seen from the beach so I sat there for a fair amount of time just soaking up the sights and enjoying the calm day. Ruth and Emily stayed on the beach and sunbathed whilst just enjoyed swimming about. Poor Tom had to sit in the shade because he burns too easily. After a couple of hours we had to make our way back to the pick up point on the mainland. This is when things got interesting. Tom and I were going at a relaxing pace, but I personally was feeling more drained on the way out. We were maybe about half way back when Tom kept stopping to wipe his eyes. Turns out he got suncream in his eyes and in rubbing his eyes inadvertently dislodged one of his contacts and pushed it behind his eye ball. OUCH! So...out of a two person kayak only one of us could see...or so you would think. I was wearing my reactive glasses which and darkened from the sun and also had smudges all over the lenses from the salt water. I had already been pretty much blind for the past 20 minutes. If only there was something dry I could use to wipe my glasses, but there was nothing. That was it...2 blind people trying to navigate a sea kayak to safety. At the time we didn't laugh. All we wanted was to get back on dry land as quickly as possible in 1 piece. Admitedly there were a couple of times I snapped at Tom, but I'm not sure if he heard me. Ah well! We actually made it back in record time in the end by cutting straight across the more challenging part of the waves and quickly getting ourselves up on land. As soon as we were out of the kayak Tom was wiping his eyes and I was searching for somewhere to clean my glasses. For the rest of the evening we were laughing about it and telling the epic story of how two blind people managed to navigate a sea kayak. That evening I stayed up really late again chatting with a few of the other guys and gals. It was a nice chilled out evening even though i didn't get to bed until 3am.

Early the next morning we were on our way to Barrytown where Stray usually have their dress up night. Mambo decided we would have a Zombie dress up night and everyone on the bus was well into that theme. We stopped or in Marahau leaving Abel Tasmin to buy some costume aids. It was hilarious seeing the whoele stray bus running a muck at the trinket and fancy dress shop in little ol' Marahau. It was a long day driving for Mambo. I slept quite a bit in between the stops to do the Truman walk and the Pancake Rocks. Once we arrived in Barrytown it was a race against time to get all out costumes sorted. Everyone was well and truly involved and made a brilliant effort to look the part so it didn't take long for the night to be in full swing. Drinks were cheap and drinking games were played resulting in a large amount of drunkards taking over the Barrytown pub. One game introduced by Mambo was to Sting's song 'Roxanne'. Everytime they sing 'Roxanne' the guys had to drink and spin on the spot. The same went for the girls everytime he sang 'Red light'. To make matters better or worse, depending on how you want to look at it, they played the song 3 times! Throughout the night a few of us mingled with the locals. They were really cool and very GENEROUS. I will explain that when I see you in person. Just say Jimmy The Kiwi and I'll know what yo're talking about.

The following morning a few people got up early to go to a bone carving class, but I opted to try and sleep in since we didn't have to make a move until 12:30pm. Unfortunately I was up at 7:30am. It wasn't all bad though. I spent the morning walking along the beach and sitting in the pub garden writing in my journal. It was nice to have some quiet time.

Next stop...Franz Josef. I had been looking forward to this for quite some time because I had put money aside for the Helihike, which involved a helicopter ride straight to the blue ice on the glacier and then a 3 hour hike on top before taking the copter back down again. Unfortunately, when the time came, it was too cloudy so it got cancelled. There was one other person, Ellen, who had booked the hike with me and we were totally gutted and pretty much close to tears that it couldn't go ahead. It wasn't a total loss in the end though. We were joined by another girl in the group, Karolina, and went around town asking if we could hire a car, since the only place that provided the service had rented out all their vehicles. In the end, some random guy called Cliff said we could take his car for the day as long as we brought it back by the time he finished work at 6pm and put some petrol in it. He was a cool guy. He didn't ask if I had a license and even left his house keys on the set he gave us. First thing we did was put in a full tank of petrol and then drove straight to the car park of Franz Josef. We spent a couple of hours there hiking and following the laid out routes. Next stop was Fox Glacier, about a 40 minute drive away. We were all in agreement that Fox was much nicer because the blue ice was much lower down the glacier. We spent about an hour walking around the base there and then hit the road again to make sure we had the car back in time for Cliff when he finished work. It felt great deviating of the tour even if just for a day. The girls and I had ourselves a great mini-road trip with cheesy sing-a-longs included.

That evening the people who weren't too tired from their hikes went to Blue Ice in the township for another crazy night. We really didn't care that we had to be up for the 8am departure the next day. I for one was just enjoying taking it easy and letting loose for once since I hadn't had this opportunity anywhere else on my trip.

8am the following day we began the drive to Makaroura. We already knew we were in store for another crazy night. The weather was awful again, which eliminated any possibility of taking part in activites. There is only one thing to do in Makaroura when the weather is bad and that's KARAOKE! My cup of tea! The accomodation was beautiful and I'm sure the surroundings would have been stunning if it wasn't so cloudy and pissing it down. We started pretty early on in the night with a pub dinner and the karaoke was on a roll by 9:30pm. Once again, everyone got involed. I can't stress enough how cool everyone on the bus was. People were always game for a laugh! I sang a few...as usual :o) The mayor of Barrytown was their too (Rick) so I spent some time chatting with him. He was steaming drunk; much more than the rest of us anyway. In true Stray fashion we all wanted to carry on drinking and it was up to the barman to kick us out at the end of the night. We all split off into smaller groups heading off to sleep for the night. I ended up sitting in the hostel kitchen with a couple of others eating all their food. hahaha! By the time we made our way back to the room it was about 3am so I was sure the other 7 people in our room would be asleep, but too my surprise the lights were on and they were having a little party of their own. Ruth, Emily, Ellen and Marjun decided their weren't enough females on our tour and turned the lovely Tom into Thomasina! I only made it back after the comotion, but their was photo evidence showing Thomasina in a dress and with make-up! Poor guy, though I don't think he put up much of a fight to be fair. I ended up staying up till 5am chatting with the guys. They basically had to kick me out of their room when they wanted to sleep. At this point in the tour I had quite the reputation for drinking, staying out late and never sleeping. I didn't mind too much though.

8am the next morning we made our way to the big QT (Queenstown)! We had been out in the stix for so long we were all excited to be in a city...and not just any city, but 'The adventure capital of the world'. There was one stop on the way at Kawarau bridge wher Tom, Tyler and David did their first ever bungy jump (34m). It was exciting just watching them. We were all checked into the BASE hostel in QT by 6pm. My first port of call was to book my white water rafting trip for 1pm the next, to give me time to sleep in. With that all sorted, we all went for dinner at Fergburger. I had heard so many great things about Ferg I was eager to find out what all the fuss was about. At this point, I hadn't eaten any meat for 2 weeks, but I had promised myself a proper Fergburger and followed through with ordering a Fergburger with Blue cheese. YEP....It was so tasty, but unfortunately I hardly made an indent on the thing. It mas MASSIVE! We all met up for drinks at Altitude bar after dinner to get the night started and ended up in World Bar drinking teapot cocktails. The group got smaller as the night went on with the sensible ones opting to head off early and get some rest. Surprise surprise, I ended up in world bar till closing with Iain and Tom. We had a very silly drunken walk back to the hostel talking complete rubbishness, but they had me in fits of laughter. Tom soon went off to bed and I stayed up talkig with Iain sitting outside our rooms until 4:30am.

The next morning I was up at 10:30am feeling ridiculously hungover as well as completely shattered. The lack of sleep over the past week was definitely catching up with me. Nevertheless, I was determined to go ahead with the rafting trip down Wakitipu. By 2pm I was on the river with the guide Gwynn from Wales and the rest of the people in the boat who we decided to call Team Denmark; yep...because they were all from Denmark. The whole trip took 2 hours and it was without a doubt the most challenging and fun white water trip I've had so far. There were several rapids, graded 3 to 5 and even a tunnel. On a couple of occasions our raft almost capsized...part of me wishes it did, because I'd like to see how I'd handle it, but I guess it's a good thing it all went off without a hitch considering I had a stinking hangover. After the rafting I hung out with a couple of the guides at Queenstown rafting and they took me to the Canyon Swing. Over the course of the afternoon I did 2 109m swings/drops (whatever you want to call it). One was the normal drop and the other on the 'Chair of Death!' They sit you down in a plastic garden chair and and duck tape you the arms of the chair. You then sit facing backwards onthe edge of the platform and they tell you to keep rocking in your chair, they way you did when you were back in school. Eventually you tip right over and fall down. It's was AWESOME! I would have done it again if I had the time. I'm totally gutted I didn't get a DVD of it though. All my stuff was in a locker back at the rafting base since this wasn't planned :o( It's ok...I have the memories!

When we got back to the hostel we saw altitude were having a Karaoke competition with the first prize being a 1500ft NZONE skydive. Everyone said I should enter so I did singing one of my old faithfuls. It was a really long night, but long story short...I won :o). My plan was to sell the skydive so I could do the Nevis bungy, but that would have to wait since we were leaving the next morning to do the Southern loop of the South island. It ended up being quite a sad night in the end because a big chunk of the group were leaving us to end their tour in Christchurch or stay in Queenstown anothe couple of days. I was most sad to see Tom go. He was such a laugh, but we're all going to keep in touch anyway.

x

P.S. I really haven't had time to put up any photos, but will do ASAP

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