Deepest Darkest South New Zealand...strange place!

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I got out of bed and showered jsut after six. I was fairly knackered, but the incidents of last night were effectively washed down the plug hole! I cleared up the deck from last night and then woke Rob, who slept like a sack of tatties!

We were up early to catch the early bus to Dunedin but it turned out it didn't arrive until half nine, which was actually closer ten. But eventually after bumping into bloody Seb and Somer again, its not all that bad to be honest, and catching up we were on the road.

The scenery changed dramatically, so did the weather. It grew darker and colder and teh landscape reacted. The weather was coming from the Antarctic. The landcape became smoother and rolling and the colour went from a lush green to a beige and yellow.

The journey was unbroken, except for a cream tea in a small sleepy town. It was tiring. Long stretches on the stuff mini-bus with non-changing scenery and a lack of sleep sent me drifting in and out of sleep.

Dunedin, allegedly, is alot like Edinburgh. As far as i could tell, other than occasional street names, it wasn't! Even a few Lothians staying at the YHA agreed with me. The hostel was ok, very much like an American Frathouse!

We went on a brewery tour. The Speights Brewery. It was great, but the girl, bless her, was trying so hard and to no avail, and you feel out of place being the only two laughing...we hit the pumps afterwards. We were given freedom to have as much beer as we could in an half hour period. Good times!

We had an early bus to get to Invercargill with our lovely and beautiful driver Steff. She drove us along and we stopped at various points to see wildlife and have cups of tea. We saw Dolhpins, Seals, SeaLions and Penguins all in one day. At Curio bay we were at the closet point to Antarctica, and its felt like it. The south gets all teh weather from the Antarctic, wet, cold, windy, miserable. A bit like Invercargill.

Not much goes on here. We did a quick shop, bought a lotto ticket. had spaghetti on toast for tea, a few pints with Anna and Gemma before running back to bed.

We had a nice lie in this morning, Steff didn't. She was supposed to be in Q'Town at 7 am but crawled out of bed at 9...Our new driver was called Don. Imagine a 75 year old guy without a clue and your about there! Numerous times he forgot he had a headset on and got trapped in the door as he got out. We stopped at a shell jewelrey factory and can only be described as less than exciting...we did stop off at some incredible and dramatic coastal scenes with crashing waves and trees that only had green on one side beacuse the side facing the elements couldn;t. They looked like windwept beehive hair cuts.

He was raving about Te Anau, a place where there is even less going on than the last place but slightly more attractive with a Lake and Green moutains either side. Don was raving about a bar called the Ranch and the jam night they were having that evening. After a pasta dinner we went along, played a bit of pool then a little later on the music started. Basically you walk up and pick up and instrument and the resident band will fill in the rest. I got up and we played the Blues, The Animals and Bob Dylan.

The following morning we were head for Milford Sound and then back to Q'Town.

Peace Out.

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