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Published: February 18th 2014
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Time for the first time in a long... er time to be a tourist in my own country again. Armed with a car, an iPod and an overly sensitive accelerator pedal I set off in haste from Dunedin to get down to Te Anau... sadly haste was nowhere to be seen at first as I (along with many others) got stuck behind the slowest moving campervan you could imagine. The driver was doing 80km/h on the open road, and at first I was thinking "oh well, it's nice that they're keeping to the speed limit and not letting us peer pressure them into going faster than they can manage in that big old thing" as soon as we hit a passing lane however and there is a chance that we can all get in front of him he suddenly rockets up to 110km/h... wanker! Luckily I can pull out the 120 needed to pass him and suddenly I have the road to myself and I am in Queenie bliss... No i'm not saying that I am a queen, my soundtrack for the first part of the trip consisted of the Queen albums "the works" and "innuendo" much fun to sing along
to while barrelling down the highway!
Quick stop in Balclutha while i figure out their new fangled self serve petrol pump (self serve on weekends only) and then onwards in the burning hot sun with the windows down!
Hmm what else to say about the car trip? It was a few days ago so let's see, listened to Stadium Arcadium by the chili peppers and on one particularly straight and empty stretch of road I took the car up to 140, good fun!
I pull into Te Anau and check the place out, it all looks a bit more touristy than I'd expected to be honest, kitschy Italian and Chinese restaurants, people everywhere, the entire lakefront taken up with accommodation venues. I check into my accomodation, the Lakefront Backpackers and, having not eaten all day I head into town to find sustenance.
I go to a place that has umbrellas outside so that I can enjoy a beer and food while reading my book (seeing as I have nobody to dine with), having heard a bunch of hooplah about the author Jodi Picoult I am reading one of her books (House Rules) in order
to find my own hooplah, good so far.
The restaurant is kind of odd because it mixes the new touristy aesthetic of Te Anau with it's small town NZ roots, inside this reasonably upmarket place is a bunch of guys in singlets sitting at the bar, drinking beer and listening to country music.
I have the fish, which is a little overcooked but otherwise spot on.
I have a bit of a wander about the town and then head back to my room. One of my roommates, a young Malaysian guy is just getting into some togs talking up the idea of hitting the lake for a swim... seems like the lake could potentially hit back with a big ol' fist of hypothermia even on a scorching day like today, so I figured I'd wait until he was in the water and if he didn't scream, go blue, or suddenly explode into a big red cloud... he didn't so after a moment's self consciousness blah blah blah i whip my t-shirt off, exposing my hairy moobs to the world and plunge into the water... it should probably be pointed out that i take my shoes and socks off and don't have my phone with me when this happens.
After a day sweating through the seat in my car and sweltering in the hot hot sun, a lake dip is just what this body needed. i go for a walk afterwards just cos, it's getting all twilighty at this point (the sun is starting to go down, there were no sparkly vampires involved) I wander around the lake, kind of missing SH, I see a jetty which has awesome clear water under it and then eventually find a wildlife sanctuary, I kick it for a while with a moody morepork, I suggest "less rice" might be better than "more pork" but he doesn't really seem to share my thoughts on that one.
After that I spend a bit of time around the paradise ducks and other assorted 'aquatic fowl' but they're a bit too friendly and their calls sound a bit too much like sex crazed hillbilly laughs, which worries me, so I leave them to it.
Get a good 150 pages into the Picoult book before hitting the sack... kind of had to put up with a guy watching a movie or something on his laptop in the bed next to mine (yeah watch it in the dark room full of people trying to sleep, not the computer room or the tv room just 20 metres away!).
day one, out!
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