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Published: February 10th 2008
It’s already a while ago, but last weekend I went to Wanaka for the Rippon festival! On Friday afternoon, Henry, Chris and Phoebe picked me up and we drove up to Wanaka. The road to Wanaka was quite impressive, mainly because it was a whole lot of nothing… We drove for hours and hours without seeing much more than green hills and sheep. It is a very strange experience to see how much space they have here, compared to our packed little Holland! After about 5 hours of driving they dropped me off at the hostel I was staying in for the two nights in Wanaka, Holly’s Backpackers. The hostel was fine, I slept in a shared room with three other people, who I didn’t actually see very much, since I came in very late and left early again. That Friday night I decided to go out and discover Wanaka’s night life. After walking around a little I went into a bar and ordered myself a beer (it was one of those very rare times that I actually felt like drinking beer). Within two minutes I was talking to a guy who invited me over to sit with him and his
friends, that’s the cool thing about going out alone: you get to know new people very easily! Although as soon as I told them I was Dutch they offered me XTC - they seemed so normal :S - so soon after that I decided to go back to the hostel… Also because I had to have a good night’s sleep for Rippon the next day of course!
On Saturday morning, Heleen and her friends picked me up around 9 for a champagne breakfast before the festival. Heleen is another Masters student from Maastricht who I got into contact with via e-mail once I heard she was in New Zealand, who then invited me to come to the festival with her and her friends (sweet as she is…). After the very decadent champagne breakfast we walked to the big arena-shaped field where the festival was held, and installed ourselves at a good spot to see all the bands. The whole day was very relaxing, sitting in the sun drinking wine from the Rippon vineyard, listening to the different bands, walking around, chatting to random people, etc. It was also tiring though, since we were there from around 10 in the
morning to 1 am the next morning! But we had a lot of fun, and I learned some more of the kiwi culture, since all the bands at the festival were from New Zealand. After the festival we walked back to the hostel, which took quite some time - partly because it was quite far, and partly because we had to drag some not-so-sober people along. I arrived at the hostel around 3 am, so I was completely exhausted, but satisfied!
After a very good sleep I got up the next morning to check out of the hostel, and since the people I was driving back with were not yet awake by then (can’t blame them…), I went into Wanaka. I bought a book and sat at the beautiful Wanaka lake in the sun, reading - can’t say I minded the wait! Around midday Henry and Chris picked me up to go to Phoebe’s family lunch in Cromwell (she was already there). I was invited over, since I was driving with them, and because kiwi’s are just so hospitable. The lunch was very nice, it was a barbecue (of course…) with family and neighbours and so on, which was
very “gezellig” (still lacking a proper translation)! Then we went into the orchard to pick cherries to bring home, and later we went for a swim because it was so hot! In the end we ended up staying in Cromwell almost until the evening, because it was such a nice day. Then we drove back to Dunedin, after a really great weekend!
Over the past week I have also done some stuff, but I’m too tired to write that up now (it’s 1 am and I have to get up early tomorrow), so I’ll try to post a new blog as soon as possible! Uh-oh, I’m already building up a backlog… 😉
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Melina
non-member comment
hallooooo!
hey annelies!! leuk verhaal, ja idd gezellig.. whahaha is eigenlijk helemaal geen woord voor. wat grappig die kiwibands :-P. mooiie fotos (word een beetje afgezaagd (A) ) kus melina