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Published: December 12th 2004
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Rosy
Oooh er! Evening all, and hope you are well. Its been an eventful couple of weeks, mostly for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been travelling round New Zealand and have a number of scrapes to tell you about.
Banks Peninsula
My first stop was a small town called Akaroa near Christchurch on a piece of land called the banks peninsula. The peninsula is a big semi circle of mountains with a large sea inlet running up the middle of them. So I get there at about 3pm… go for a quick bike ride up on of the big hills so I can get a good view of the place.. and it starts pissing down. I took shelter under a tin roof at a lookout poiint while a huge storm passed over which involved hail, fork lighting (only about 100 meters away from me) over the whole valley for about an hour. Pretty spectacular. The storm passed and beautiful sunshine appeared again.
I went down into the town to find accommodation, but most of it was full, so I decided I would sleep in the car, “why not?” I thought, that’s why I got an estate car. Got changed and then
Top of the Hill
1 hour solid uphill, worth every second. went to the Pub, had a beer and got chatting to a British guy who invited me to a party with a load of locals that night. So off I went to the party via someone’s minibus, and then promptly realised that I couldn’t find my car keys. I was pretty sure I had left them at the bar so I thought Id head back to the Bar before closing time. So I met random people at party.. and then the heavens opened so I stole (temporarily) an umbrella from the party which had a big comedy smiley face and ran 3 miles back to the Pub to get my keys, getting soaked in the process.
However… It seemed that the pub had closed early for no particular reason(as things seem to in NZ).
So, there I was.. no accommodation.. no car…. Buggered. So. I sat for about 10 minutes waiting to see if someone who was staying in the pub (was also a hotel) would come back. Sure enough somebody did, and not only that…. They were the only resident with keys to the Bar area for some random reason. V lucky. And then even more luck when
A Tiny Horse
um.. A tiny horse I then found my keys on the Bar… phew!!!!
The randomness did not however end there. I had only had a couple of glassed of wine, so I drove back to the party. Spent a couple more hours there, and in the process met a young Scottish couple who said I could stay with them for as long as I wanted (3 nights in the end) Marvelous. Turned out they lived in a really nice little French cottage in the middle of the town, which they left permanently unlocked, so I could come and go as I pleased. So I rode my bike around the area while they went to work each day, and then bought a bottle of wine, and tidied the place up each evening as payment for their generosity. Super nice people that I got on like a house on fire with and will definitely been in touch with when I/they return to the uk as they are on a years working visa in NZ.
Arthurs Pass (middle NZ)
So, back to Christchurch for Rosie’s (Girl who I had been staying with) birthday, and then I set off to go the the west
Bagpipes
What a guy! coast the day after.
To cut a long story short, I broke down 150 kilometers from anywhere, and had no mobile phone. So I abandoned the car, walked about 1 km to some roadworks, and luckily managed to get a lift back to Christchurch with the Gaffer about 30 mins later. Very fortunately he lived just round the corner from Rosy, so he took me all the way home and I gave him a couple of Beers. Nice chap.
I called the rental company who apologised and said if I went back to the rental place they would give me another car, which they did. And off I went again. This car was much better than the last which was a heap of junk. Sorted.
So, attempt two at getting across the mountains was successful. I stayed a night in a nice hostel in a shithole of a town called Greymouth. Very industrial.. nothing going on. Lots of pics of the trip across the mountains, which I will make available asap.
Glaciers (west coast)
There are two large Glaciers on the west coast which I visited, again, pics soon. On the 25k trip between them
Cool
Which is cooler, me or the Glacier? -hmm I picked up a Canadian guy who was hitchhiking and turned out to be a good laugh. So I went out for a few beers with him and some people from his hostel. All good. Never picked up a hitch hiker before, and he’d never hitched so it way pretty amusing.
The glaciers were very impressive but quite dangerous as they are constantly falling apart and reforming as the ice melted, and it snowed at its peak. Interesting.
Wanaka (South lakes)
Awesome place.. very beautiful little town which I will be going back two for a couple of days. Fantastic mountain backdrop and right on a massive freshwater lake. Spent a couple of days riding in the day, and going out at night.
One comedy evening was when there was a Scottish bloke (also travelling) staying in the hostel who produced a full set of bagpipes and proceeded to march up and down the hostel car park while everyone had a beer and watched. Hilarious, he was however very competent on the old pipes. I then gave a lift to a girl who was going to my next stop who I went out in the evening with
Arthurs Pass
Just before the car broke down! for a drink and couldn’t remember her name for the entire night but didn’t want to be rude and ask again having spent all day with her… haha
Queenstown ( South Lakes)
Now, a lot of people rave about Queenstown, Yes it has great scenery, but it is far too touristy, expensive, and lacks character. So I’m here at the moment but I’ll be leaving tomorrow. Basically you can do every conceivable outdoor activity here, but it will cost you. Trekking, Biking, Heli Bikling (take you to the top of a mountain and you bike down), rafting, 4 wheel driving , Rally driving , Bungi Jumping the list goes on and on.. You can even drive a bloody American monster truck…too touristy and false for my liking. Just basically done more biking here, and took by far my favourite picture here.. no , not the one of the tiny horse (haha, you’ll see), one of me with my bike at the top of a massive hill with a 360 degree of the surrounding valleys.
Anyway. I’m pretty tired from all this biking (life is hard), I’m ready to leave this part of the world and get somewhere with a beach and a different dialect and culture. Going to stop at Milford sound (more glaciers), back to Wanaka, then Mt Cook before going back to Christchurch, and leaving for Bali in 9 days. Sorry if this is lacklustre compared to my other feats of hilarious prose. Just a bit knackered from late nights and lots of “riding”(haha, sorry).
Big shout out to Lee Willis for becoming a Dad in the last few weeks. I wish you and family all the luck in the world, and at least you know your not firing blanks,
Hope all is well with you all, and if you don’t hear from me again before the end of the month, happy bleeding Christmas 8-)
Everyone who gets this email is in my thoughts. I wonder what every single one of you are upto now and then (ahhh).
Captain "Car Wrecker" Brown
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