Queenstown/Dunedin/Akaroa

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Queenstown = Party Town. Especially if you are staying at the Base Backpackers downtown. Its hard to not get drunk every night when staying here. Its a good time, but after a few days of nonsense you need a breather. We decided to get this little breather in Dunedin. Dunedin is a college town and you can certainly party there as well, but you can do a fair bit of chilling out in cafes and museums too. There is a castle in Dunedin! We didn't go as its not walking distance from town, but it looked like it might be cool to visit if you had some extra time there. We did go to the Cadbury factory and the Speights brewery. They were both interesting ways to pass the time. When you first walk into the Cadbury factory you are confronted with a mountain of mini crunchie bars. You're just about blinded by this wall of shiny golden chocolate. It seriously goes up to the ceiling. And of course you get lots of free chocolate along the way. Even better was the beer tasting in the Speights brewery afterwards. We took a walk out to the university grounds and checked out a couple of museums and an art gallery while we were there as well. Its a nice little city and I enjoyed my time there.
Back in Queenstown we managed to avoid the party scene this time and spent our time just exploring the town and its parks. Its really a beautiful area. We weren't keen to spend any time here though because although its pretty, its ridiculously expensive. So we continued on back to Christchurch. On the bus back we ran into some of the people we had been travelling with before Queenstown so then Christchurch became the party town. Christchurch is not an exciting city, but we made it into one!
We stayed in Christchurch for a couple of days not really doing much of anything. We were waiting for abby to have days off, so it was useless for us to head anywhere too far from Chch. We spent a couple of days in Akaroa for a change of scenery, but there wasn't much going on there either. We did catch a local rugby game though! Oddly enough, rugby is a sport that I can get into. When Abby finally did have days off the three of us headed off to Ashburton to meet her mom and some of her hometown friends. Not exactly a tourist spot, but we had a good time. Got a good feel of the farming industry in the area...and the local pubs of course. I had a lot of fun in that little town, just hanging out and catching up. It was the close of our south island adventures, as we are now in the North Island looking forward to some caving and hiking in the next week or two. Thats really all for now, but there will be more to come!

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