From Stupid Hostel Owners to Clever Sheepdogs

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Then we moved on to Adrenaline heaven - Queenstown. We had tried to do a skydive over Lake Wanaka
on the way down to Queenstown it would have been very impressive especially with Mount Cook in the background but alas the weather was too windy and too dangerous. On to Queenstown. We happened to mention to our driver the hostel we had booked in Queenstown and he was horrified. It was the highest rated hostel in the BBH guide for Queenstown so we assumed it was a safe bet. The driver warned us away from the place. We didn't know who to believe. We suspected that the driver was possible trying to steer us towards one of the Magic Bus affilliated hostels and away from the competuition. But what if he was right.

We were waiting to get picked up by the hostel and were trying to tell ourselves that everything would be alright, that the BBH guide was alright. It was then that Maeve first mentioned the mixed reviews that the hostel had gotten on line and that half the people said the owner was a nutter and the other half said he was ok. A really shitty Toyota Carolla came and passed and I said to Maeve that if the bus was anything like that car we were bunched, especially as we had booked 4 nights there. Around the bend you could hear an engine straining and whailing and then appeared the shittiest and crappiest van in the history of shitty and crap vans. Fuck, was the first and only thought that entered my head. Lets just say this was the wierdest and worst experience we've ever had on our travels.

I'm in the 'he's a nutter' camp. After carefully (really really carefully) detailing our route to and from town he led us into his 'special' honeymoon guest room. The room not only had dirty walls and ceiling, red carpets, blue walls and a dity and off-white ceiling it had a double bed with yellowy goldeny mustard bed clothes - my head was spinning from this cycadelic fusion of interior hideosity. And that wasn't even the worst part. It did have ample storage but this was blocked by the single bed. Yes folks that's right the crowning glory of the Honeymoon suite is that it had 2 beds (in case the Honeymoon didn't go to plan I suppose, or your Britney Spears). It's funny how quickly lifes priorities can change. One minute all you want to do is get into your room, relax and take it easy, the next you want to get the hell out of there and find somewhere else. We did find alternative accomodation for the following 3 nights but we did have to stay there that night. We left straight away and tried to stay out as late as possible and then try to leave as early as possible. The whole set up was odd, we came back in at about 11.30pm after a feed and a few pints in front of a fire. When we came back the owner and a few of the other guests were up. They started talking to us like they really knew us, making jokes and acting wierd. I think it could really have been some occult stronghold and they weree trying to recruit us, it was just wierd, wierd, wierd. The next morning I, being the man, had to break the news to the owner that we were leaving. No you can't, was his first response. He was being quite rude, obstinant and really stupid, then after 10 minutes of explaining we were leaving I just walked off on him, leaving him still arguing to my backside. He insisted that we pay for all 4 nights and all this crap. There was no talking to him. Anyway we just paid him for 2 nights and left. Then he just turned around and thanked us and wished us well on our way. We were just glad to get out of there and away from him.

Queenstown is a really nice city, the scenery is spectacular and there's plenty to do. In our time there we went on the Shotover jetboat. Imaging going 50mph in 4 inches of water facing sheer rockfaces, powersliding around rocky beaches and doing 360 Degree handbrake turns inches from massive boulders. That's jet boating, it was brilliant. Pity the photos don't do it justice. We also took the gondola up the mountain to get great views of the town and the lake and valleys all around. Then we went Luging which was good fun until it got competitive. Maeve 3 - 2 John. I'll say no more. Again our efforts to go Skydiving were thwarted due again to bad weather. We spent our last day visiting Milford Sound. All night and morning it was raining and even snowing above 600m. It took 5 hours to get out to Milford, it rained all the way. Then we got onto the boat and the sun came out. Milford Sound is a massive Fjord with steep cliffs climing up to 2000feet and a deep sea floor - carved out by glaciers. Milford Sound gets 268 days of rain a year totalling up to 12 metres of rain a year, so it was not unusual for it to be raining on this particular day. It was glorious after all the rain there were thousands of waterfalls all around us and as the day took up they started to fade away. By the time our cruise finished therewere just a few pettering down the valley walls. We got just the perfect weather to appreciate the Sound.

After Queenstown we moved on to Dunedin, billed as the Edinburugh of the South. It was supposed to be rich in Scottish heritage and buildings. The bottom of my boot looks more like Scotland and the only real thing of interest was the Cadbury's chocolate factory and the railway station, hardly bastions of Scottish heritage like Haggus and a Kilt. We did find a nice pub with a nice fire and the Speights brewery did a great feed for very little. Dunedin is also the furthest point south on our travels around the globe. That itself was probably the most interesting about the place.

Next we passed through McKenzie country. This is vast hilly sheep farming country. Legend has it that Mr McKenzie trained his sheepdog to go out to the neighbours farms, while McKenmzie himself went to the pub with his neighbours, and steal 4 sheep every time. His neighbours were baffled as they could never figure out who was stealing the sheep and as McKenzie was always in the pub with some or all of them when the sheep were taken he was never suspected. What a clever dog!!

Our next stop was Lake Tekapo which was pretty but not worth the night we stayed there, again in a portacabin. Then we arrived back in Christchurch which we enjoyed again. We got the very nice tram around and stopped at some nice spots including the Arts centre market, lots of really nice stuff here. It's a real pity that we can't buy any of these nice things we see as we travel around but we'd have to hire a ship to get them home. It is a great excuse to herd Maeve out of all the shops though. After a nice relaxing few days we headed north to Kaikoura for a bit of Dolphin swimming and then on to Piction to get the inter Islander Ferry top the North Island and into NZ's capital Wellington.

The South Island is so spectacular that this blog and photo's couldn't do it justice. It was so enjoyable especially after all of the hardaship in Australia and a lot more intersting. You could drive for a week down the east coast of Australia and not see anything different. The vegitation may change a bit (mainly sugar cane though) but everything else is the same. In NZ the scenery is always changing from flat plains, to forests, to volcanies, to glaciers to Alpine scenery, to green hills, to brown hills to yellow hills to glistening beaches, to rocky cliffs. All of this is easy to get to and ensures that driving around is never boring or arduous.

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