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Published: November 27th 2008
Day one - Nov 25th 2008
Monday we had a couple of beers and said goodbye to our friends in Melbourne, I was completely wasted after a hard weekend. But drinking a few beers anyway was obviously inevitable, and as often before it was rather late before I managed to go to bed and fall asleep. So when my alarm clock tried telling me that it was time to get out of bed at 6 AM, I wasn’t totally convinced that it such was a good idea…
Anyway, half asleep I got myself ready for being picked up by Amanda at 7 (thanks). Due to the morning traffic, we were kinda late for the check-in. Standing in a check-in queue while being tired as, is not my favorite thing in the world by the way… When we finally got to check-in, it took forever because apparently it’s almost impossible to check-in anyone with an ‘Ø’ in their name… Eventually it did happen, and we got aboard the plane. We arrived at Christchurch airport at 3:45 PM local time.
A shuttle-bus picked us up and drove us to the car rental place. We got our car, a bad-ass Toyota Corolla sedan,
in a matter of minutes, and everything ran very smoothly.
I was a bit nervous about the whole driving in the wrong side of the road thing, but I was blessed with a kick-ass co-driver, and without any trouble we got to a backpacker hostel in Timaru approximately 160 km south of Christchurch.
Day two Nov 26th 2008
I woke up at about eightish and thought that some fresh bread from the nearby bakery would be nice; however I soon discovered that the NZ definition of a bakery is somewhat different to mine… They didn’t really bake their own bread, but instead they sold like a billion different sorts of toast bread, rolls and what not, all of it was the kind of bread you will find in a supermarket, in fact it was like a small supermarket with bread only.
Anyway I had a cup of coffee back at the hostel, woke Martin up and after a little stop at a local Vodafone shop we were heading for Mt Cook. The first few k’s where not super interesting, but once we hit the alps, New Zealand really started becoming awesome as! Over every top and after every
turn a new breathtaking scenery was revealed. It seems that this country never ceases to amaze its spectator; almost each kilometer has been packed with beautiful and dramatic landscapes. The variation is completely unbelievable, one moment you’re sweating your ass off in what looks like a tropical rainforest, 5 minutes later you’re standing on a block of ice at the bottom of a glacier.
The first time it really hit me how fantastic this land is was when we stopped at Lake Tekapo; the water was completely turquoise, purple and pink flowers were growing on the shores and in the background the snow covered peaks of Mt Cook and the surrounding mountains were standing majestically, almost looking fake like the background in a school play version of sound of music, or something. Anyway, take a look at the pictures, they don’t pay just to the real experience at all, but even with my point and shoot camera it was hard not to take some magnificent shots.
As the Toyota reliably and steadily carried us upwards, with the automatic transmission constantly struggling to pick the right gear on the steep ascents, the landscape turned more and more barren and the only
type of vegetation was crippled bushes and patches of moss or dried out grass.
Melted water from the snow and glaciers ran in the opposite direction through creeks and streams carved in the mountains by years of erosion. The riverbeds were almost dry, and where the water no longer ran was massive flats of grey pebbles and rocks carried down by the snow that had been melted by the fierce burning sun - even though we were on our way to the highest mountain in Australasia and the peaks were frosted with snow and ice, the altitude and the hole in the ozone layer didn’t let us forget that the sun was still riding high and the summer was commencing.
We had late lunch at the café at the foot of Mt Cook, the girl who took our orders was hot! - every little detail is just perfect in NZ.
After a nice piece of vegetable quiche and a salad on the side we drove through a valley where there had once been a glacier, at the end of the road a fifteen minute walk led up to the remains of the glacier. It was basically a small lake with
Lake Pukaki
My kick-ass co-driver and me = ) a few blocks of dirty ice, it looked pretty cool, and the look down through the valley was impressive indeed.
Uplifted by the awesomeness, we drove on through the New Zealand Alps, we had ridiculously high frequency of stops; all the time we had to get out of the car and take a glance at mother nature, she’s truly quite a lady!
We watched the sunset at Lake skipped stones on the glassy surface of the lake while for some reason a male Amstaff or something like that gave a blowjob to a male jack-russel terrier - maybe they had been overwhelmed by the beauty as well, who knows but I reckon that was weird, that was!
Anyway we didn’t get any blowjobs so we thought that we might as well get our tired but indeed satisfied selves to Wanaka and find a hostel. A short drive later we arrived and found out that all the hostels apparently close the reception at eight pm, it was about half past… Dammit! Anyway we managed to find a nice receptionist that checked us in at The Pink Cow Hostel just before she closed down.
Tired as we were,
we still needed a brew and something to chew on. This is how we discovered that NZ has one other big flaw apart from gay dogs giving each other blowjobs in the sunset: Karaoke! Don’t ask me why but we didn’t manage to go out for a few brews anywhere down here without ending up at some bar where people for some reason were dedicated to sing songs they didn’t know in keys they would never hit. And for the record we did not go out a lot!
Day three Nov 27th 2008
Again I got up a bit earlier than Martin, that man really appreciates a good sleep. I took a walk down to the lake, had a latte and bought some breakfast and stuff in New World - the biggest NZ supermarket chain I reckon.
We packed the car and left Wanaka at about 10 am, for the first couple of hours the landscape looked like the day before - unbelievably fantastic! Then it changed a bit we saw more creeks, rivers and falls and the mountains turned greener as we drove downwards heading for the west coast. Again we had to make a lot of
Mt Cook
Going up stops along the way.
At a place called blue pools we took a 45 min walk. The path went down through a rainforest and down to a river where a swing bridge (is that what it’s called?) led to the other side. In small pools out of the strong current’s reach, the water was completely still and green/turquoise-ish. There was a sign indicating the hight of the flood water during a storm in January 1994, the water level was at least 4 meters higher during that storm compared to the day we paid our little visit.
After a good amount of driving and stops at different kick-ass places we arrived to the Franz Joseph Glacier. This was properly what I had been looking most forward to, and was not disappointed! You literally walk through a rainforest and now and then you get a glimpse of the glacier making its way down between the mountains, and then suddenly you are next to a huge flat area consisting of rocks, sediments and ice that has been carried down by the rivers and creeks created by the melting glacier. There’s a fence telling you that only experienced people should carry on beyond this
Narrow bridge
they have these kind of bridges everywhere point….
Since I have plenty of experience on glaciers and stuff; I’ve snowboarded on a glacier heaps of times, I thought that I might as well get a bit closer. And seriously; I didn’t get anywhere near a point where I could have been hit by falling blocks of ice (I AM taking care mum). I had to go through some of the melted water, which, surprise, surprise, was rather cold. It was all worth it though; while Martin was cleaning sand out of his vajayjay I had an awesome time taking pictures and enjoying the moment.
We spent the night in a pretty nice and cheap hostel in , the sunset on the beach was pretty nice, and so was diner.
Day four Nov 28th 2008
This day was more of a day of transportation than the previous two, nature was still fantastic, but somewhat a downsized version of what we had already seen. We drove to Nelson where we found a nice hostel. We then took a little trip (about 150 km) up to the north tip of the south island were we saw yet another sweet sunset. Back in Nelson we thought
it would be a good occasion to get a bit tipsy for the first time in NZ, realizing that the amount of beer we had wouldn’t get us anywhere near drunk, we found a bottle shop and bought a couple of six-packs.
The guys at the hostel in Nelson were really cool, and there was a guitar, so Martin could play a couple of tunes - sweet! When Martin found that the time to go to bed had come, I reckoned that I could drink one final beer before I went to bed myself - that was a terrible idea. I guess that Martin had passed, because he didn’t hear my knocking. He had bought a new SIM-card in the previously mentioned Vodafone shop, so I couldn’t even call him.
Since I had no intention of waking everybody else in the hostel, I thought sleeping in my sleeping bag on the lawn in front of the hostel was a good move… It turned out that it wasn’t the best move EVER, I woke up kinda cold and my sleeping bag was feeling a bit wet. Therefore I took my sleeping to the car. That was however a marvelous move and
I actually managed to sleep like a baby. At six in the morning I saw that Martin had texted me when he had realized that I wasn’t in our room. I called him and got three good hours of sleep in a proper bed - how lucky can one guy be?
Day five Nov 29th 2008
As the clever reader might have guessed; we got up around nine. After eating free breakfast at the hostel, we pointed the bonnet of the ‘Rolla towards Picton where we were supposed to catch the ferry to Wellington on the north island at 2 pm. After ‘checkin-in’, or whatever you call it, we had to wait for a looong time before the let us on the ferry, which was a pretty boring and warm experience…
It turned out that the trip was much worth the waiting; we sailed through a maze of rocks, islands and peninsulas, the view was picturesque. Arriving at Wellington harbor we had nice view over the city and the surrounding landscape.
We drove round in Wellington, which by the way is the capitol of NZ, for a while before we managed to find a vacant hostel. But what
a hostel it turned out to be! Across the street was a supermarket, and in that very supermarket they, ladies and gentlemen, had Tuborg - brewed by appointment to the royal Danish court! I know it’s not Ceres, but being pretty much as far away from Denmark you can get on this planet, it was a nice surprise.
There was a nice table sheltered from wind and weather just outside the hostel; it was a nice place to start a little drinking session. So we sat down with our beers and soon a nice crowd of drinkers from across the planet had gathered. Someone even had a guitar, so once again Martin had the chance to fiddle a bit, the fourth time the receptionist told us to keep it down, and he also told us that we would be kicked out if we didn’t. That was the end of the guitar playing, but not the drinking. At this time the second 12-pack had been consumed… The rest of the evening is a bit blurry, but I do remember that it was great fun!
Day six Nov 30th 2008
The next day we took a cable car to the
botanic gardens on top of hill with two cute Spanish girls we had met the evening before - the playground was really good!
We left Wellington, a city that for sure had surprised us in a positive way, and drove toward Mordor. The first 100 kilometers weren’t exactly fantastic, but as we got into the green rolling mountains it just continued to get better and better. We passed yet another hilltop, and then out of the blue, or should I say green, we could see the first volcano covered with snow rising up in the horizon. It was truly a surreal and magnificent sight. As we continued, the landscape turned into a dessert with the volcanoes rising from the flat dessert plains. For the first time, the weather wasn’t great, but as a great LOTR fan you can’t really complain about dark clouds hanging over Mt Doom can you?
At this point we realized that NZ is in fact not great nature, it is the product of engineering, all these mountains, rain forests, glaciers, tropical beaches, and so on, simply can’t have been created by nature itself. Some weirdo has built these islands as some sort strange experiment or statement.
I don’t fully understand this guy’s motives yet, but everything is just too bloody perfect. You can’t point out anything that should or could be any different in order to make it cooler. That little purple flower, and that twisted died out tree is always there to make it stupidly freakin’ brilliant! I know that what I just wrote maybe doesn’t make perfect sense (except from the gay dogs and the karaoke), but go there and check it out - and you will see just what I mean.
Since the sun had started to crawl down in the west, we headed for a town where we could stay for the night. About the same time we arrived at the hostel, it started pouring down. We bought some beers at the local supermarket, and on the way there we saw that at the end of the rainbow, there is no bowl of gold, but instead the very hostel we had just checked in at. We drank a couple of beers and watched pictures from our trip so far before we went to bed.
Day Eight Dec 1st 2008
When we woke up it was foggy has hell, no even
more foggy, foggy as the Faroe Islands! Anyway we drove to the top of some mountain and walked about in the snow. We stayed in Tauranga were we had a nice steak in a nice traditional British pub. A the hostel we met some cool and rather crazy people and had beers and coffe-Baileys - great success!
Day Nine Dec 2nd 2008
We drove up to Auckland, chillaxed for a bit in our room, went out for some beers, and of cause they had bloody karaoke every-fucking-where!
Day Nine Dec 3rd 2008
Drove up North, I had a little swim at Goat Island before we took a trip round the island on a boat with glass in the bottom - that was neat, that was! After that we saw another beautiful sunset at the peninsula west of Wellsford. Martin had his debut behind the behind the wheel and drove the rest of the way back to Auckland, it was nice just enjoying the ride and relaxing. The sky looked freakin awesome!
Day ten Dec 4th 2008
Got up early and flew to Sydney - bye bye NZ, see you again!
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Jkidd
non-member comment
Like your style!
Jeg vil også afsted!!