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Hello!!! We finally made it to New Zealand! It is going to be difficult to do the blog for New Zealand because we are always moving on a coach tour called the
Kiwi Experience, so I am going to write about NZ in sections. First off we landed at 10.30pm in Christchurch and we were leaving at 8.05am the next day! We went to our hostel via shuttle and once we had dropped our stuff off, we went to the local diner where a truely memorable moment occured! A random local girl started winking at Dan and then got a waitress to bring him her number written on a napkin! She ran off when we turned around and Dan and I couldn't stop laughing. Once we were up, the next morning, we got on to a small mini bus...not what the brochure described! There were six of us on this mini bus. Two guys called Adam and Dave, and two girls called Kathryn and Emma. Dave and Emma were on a break from a uni course in Sydney and decided to check NZ out. Both Adam and Kathryn were on their own and had come from South East Asia. Our driver
was called Buzz and he was a true Maori. He had so many tattoos and they all had a specific meaning. He also knew everything there was to know about NZ. He was taking us to meet a large coach in West Port. We stopped off several times to get some great pictures of the scenery. When we finally met our group we found that it would be a different driver. So we left Buzz and went with Phillipa. She too was from NZ but not a Maori girl. Our coach wasn't full which was good because we nearly all got two seats each! Now the Kiwi Experience has a reputation as being and 18-30's holiday on a bus! So we had know idea what it would be like walking on to the bus.....nearly everyone was asleep! Maybe they had a long day I thought to myself. Nope. We actually had a really relaxed bus! At first I was a little shocked, but I soon realised this was a lot better than constant drinking. Can't believe I just wrote that but it was true! Everyone welcomed us onto the bus and were very friendly asking about where we had been
and what we had done. Once we got to the hostel Dan, Dave and I got a room together and prepared some lunch for the next day! We went to a local pub that evening and had a couple of drinks with half the people from the bus. It was a good way to get to know each other as we would be going down the entire West coast together!
Next morning, we set off at 8.30am to head to Lake Mahinapua via Greymouth. The drive we made is supposed to be one of the top 10 drives in the world and it was very beautiful. We stopped at somewhere called Pancake Rocks and that was cool, although a bit cold! After the rocks we made our way to Greymouth to pick up two more people and get our costumes for the
Fancy Dress Party that evening. The theme was 'M'! Rubbish! I saw some mirrored 'silver' paper and tape in the $2 shop, so I decided to go as a mirror man complete with $2 mirror shades! Dan decided with some tape around his hands, a bit of face paint and some pretend cuts he could go as......Muhammad
Ali 😊. After the two people didn't show we made our way to the Mahinapua Hotel where we met the owner, Les! Legend! He gave us a funny speech about what we could and couldn't do, including no face paint....uh oh. Once settled in we had a kick about on the beach with Dave, Bethan and Geraldine. Very funny and a couple of times I ended up having wet feet from the ocean! After the kick about it was time to get into our costumes. Disaster struck when I realised I hadn't read the label of the mirrored 'silver' paper...."Shiny Mirrored Paper In Assorted Colours"....Red, Gold, Silver, Green, Purple! Mirror Man was off due to my lack of attention to detail! Luckily I came up with a genius idea that I could go as the....Multi-coloured Metal Man! Oh Yes! I'm sure you will all have a good laugh looking at the pictures of Muhammad Ali, with a white body and brown face, and the Multi-coloured Metal Man, struggling to walk, but it was funny for us too! Everyone got on really well and there were some funny costume, from Miss Market Bag 2008 to the Milky Bar Kid and Marge
Simpson! Lilly the Milk Maid won the competition with Jane the Maori girl coming in second. It was a great night and really funny. Next day we set off early again and it was freezing! We stopped at a place called the Bushman Centre. Another legend appeared in Bushman Pete. He was a true New Zealand Man and feared nothing. There was a little film and some wild animals. A giant wild pig even attacked Adam! But the best bit I thought was the cooked breakfast! Next we set off for Franz Josef Glacier Village where we would be staying two nights. We booked a skydive for here but unfortunately the weather was rubbish and it was cancelled 😞 We could see the Glacier from quite a distance and the next day we would be climbing it! That night we all met in the bar to watch England get their ass's kicked by the All Blacks for a second time 😞! Unfortunately there was a local Kiwi rugby team in the bar too....I got ripped to shreads by them because before the game I was shouting my mouth off about how we were going to thrash them and that they
were a bunch off bottle jobs in all competitions. Some people may of thought that this was a bad idea but the cool thing about rugby is that everything off the pitch is friendly and just good banter. They found it hilarious and we all had a great night. Dan and I even sang Oasis - Wonderwall in karaoke, teaming up with Kathryn and Ciara, an Irish girl.
The following morning we were up at 8.30 to go on the all day hike up the Franz Josef Glacier. We were supplied with wet weather gear, boots and crampons for walking on the ice. We made our way to the Glacier and all was fine until we started to climb it but then it started to rain, and kept raining, and raining, and raining...you get the picture!? This really pissed me off and I don't think I really enjoyed the Glacier as much as I should have. It was amazing and beautiful but the rain was making me cold and wet because the stupid "Wet Weather" gear was crap! I soaked right through. Sure enough as soon as we got off the steep Glacier the rain stopped. Can you sense
I'm getting angry! So I made a point of making the walk back to town as quick as possible. However everyone at the hostel somehow managed to get into the showers before me and the queue was massive. I then made the decision to go outside, in the rain (it started again by the way), and get into the hot tub! It was so nice. I was the only one in there for a while but then I was joined by Andy, a Scotish guy, and we had a good laugh in the rain! After the hot tub, I got showered and went to the bar where I cheered up straight away because of the $5.50 jugs (Proper Jugs! Not crapy Australian Jugs!) of beer all night 😊! Soon I was no longer stressy and back to my old self. Although I didn't count on the 8am start the following day...
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Lee
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The Beer ...oh and babes
A++++ top blog again oh mmmmm babes. Where was i, ah another enjoyable read and great photos. Must have been a shock to the system with the cold weather in NZ! It will be a shame for you to come back to work, as i get a buzz reading this. Lucky bugger :-) Lee