From Welly to Dunedin

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Finally arrived in Wellington where I had arranged to stay at one of my friends friends who is living just outside of town center and happened to be working at Weta Digital as an animator.
He picked me up from some random spot in Welly and drove me to his apartment, though mansion would suit the size of it better. His place was huge! and he's basically living there for no other reason than because he can. Guess I would've done the same 😊
Anyway, he prove to be an amazing guy and a great host - not because I doubted it - and we came along very well.
Only problem with living there was the temperature. For some reason central heating never really reached New Zealand and neither have insolation so living in a big appartment like that and only having one electrical heater doesn't quite do the job. Guess you just have to get used to it.
All in all my stay in Welly went like a charm. I said Hi to Louise (A danish girl I've known for quite a while who was the one that pushed me the last bit towards traveling to NZ) and got introduced to a lot of her friends which again caused a lot of drinking and great laughs. Very pleasant company! 😊 As for Weta and my plans for applying there which has been my all times dream job for as long as I've know computer animation, I managed to get 3 different interviews, none of which was what I'd planned, got one actual offer which I decline for a couple of different reasons and now feel like having been reborn. My career goal has evaporated and I'm considering my options. One of which includes the last interview which was at Weta Workshop (Indstead of Weta Digital) concerning robot constructions and doing REAL animation which I'm pretty excited about, but there's no chance of telling how it turns out by now. Many other options exists but any further thoughts on this topic will be kept in secret until someone asks me about it.
Back to the physical world, Louise had earlier told me about some danish friends of hers living a town called Blenheim in the northern most part of the south island whom she wanted me to meet, so we did our best to find a way for that to happen.
As louise had work to do in the week days we could only go there over a weekend and after having stayed in Welly for the first week, the weekend had suddenly become pretty interesting and I couldn't leave just yet,
so the trip was postponed a week for me to explore the nightlife a tad more thoroughly. When the next weekend closed in on us and we were supposed to book the ferry tickets, the weather had turned against us causing the ferry to cancel it's doings and me to consider how I would spend another week in Welly.
It IS a nice town but the fact that I only knew people living there, hence people working there, had started to get a wee bit tiresome due to my social time being only from around 20:00 till 23 or 24 between people getting home from work, doing their stuff, having time for me and then heading for bed to be ready for the next exiting day of work awaiting them.
One more week wouldn't do.. After some thinking it seemed flying instead of sailing would be a good idea and only a little more expensive so the plan was set. We were only one day late, taking off saturday instead of friday and Louise had taken an extended weekend so everything should be just fine. The weather wasn't though. In Wellington a gale was blowing and the ferry was still cancelled cos of that so getting up in a tiny 12 passenger plane didn't seem the best idea ever. They even requested heavy luggage simply to keep the plane steady.
We did it though and it actually wasn't as wild as anticipated. Bumpy yes but no spontanious loops and wings breaking off and it only took 25 minutes compared to the ferries 3,5 hours so I was a happy bunny and so were Louise after being safe on the ground again.
We got picked up by Louises friend Barbara, driven to their house, met their dog Tiki and had a wonderful time watching danish movies, tasting wine, eating venison (Hunted down and killed by her husband) and sleeping with an actual Dyne (douvet).
It was great! Only problem was that I got all confuzzled again about languages having talked danish for 2 days.

After Blenheim I'd decided to visitn Nelson for a bit, talking a walkabout in the Abel Tasman National Park which was supposed to be pretty pretty. Found a bus, got to Nelson, moved into a great hostel, turning out to be crap cos of a strong allergic reaction to their chillout lounge. I even missed out on the free chocolate pudding they were serving every day at the hostel. What agony and suffering!Anti-histamin and chocolate pudding the next day saved me from a mental breakdown (exaggeration helps selling the story).
In a wild and spontaniously decadent moment I went out and bought some hiking shoes thinking that I desperately needed new shoes that could be used for everything which made them well worth collapsing my budget. After my little investment I randomly met a nice israeli couple who I wandered the town with the rest of the day. Random is good!
Next day I headed out to Abel Tasman Nation Park for a little stroll. That was boring! Same scenics as I've seen hundred of times before in NZ but I was walking with a girl from Taiwan who were fun talking to, and the weather was quite good too, so not a complete waste of time - and yeah, I've noticed that I'm getting spoiled by all the amazing views, but that doesn't mean I can't critize when the country doesn't live up to it's own standards 😊
My shoes messed up my feet though so they went straight back to the shop... sort of free shoe renting and my bank account thanked me.
Bustrip back from Abel Tasman was for some reason extremely thrilling, though nothing happened. I just felt overly happy and had a buzzing in my belly throughout the whole drive for reasons still unknown. It was well enjoyable though.

Later that day, doing whatever at the hostel I noticed a wet spot on my backpack which turned out to be a leaking mosquito repellent, tropic strength containing DEET - you know, the stuff that's illegal in Denmark - and it seemed to be melting my backpack. Where it had run out I could scratch off dissolved backpack. It even hit my harmonica and turned the mouth piece into some weirdly shaped thingy I don't ever wanna touch with my lips again. I'm no longer suprised that it's illegal in DK and I'm starting to consider what's worse, putting that shit on my skin or getting malaria...?

Taking the tranz coastal train down from Blenheim to Christchurch was a beatiful trip. On arrival I checked in at a hostel called Foley Towers and while still being showed around by the owner I ran into a lot of people in the kitchen who instantly invited me out later that night and started chatting about everything so I pretty much got to know who everyone were during my first 30min there. The following 2 days went along the same lines and were extremely ejoyable so currently this hostel is holding the 1st prize for best social experience.
Last night in Christchurch was yet another evening out in town and this time I had a train to catch early next morning which resulted in giving up on sleep that night and heading straight for the train station. Tired as I were I were surprised that I actually made it through the 5 hour train ride without falling a sleep. It was beautiful though, so that may have been what kept me awake.
The train was called the Tranz Alpine going from Christchurch to Greymouth and is recognized as one of the world most beautiful scenic railroads, so no wonder 😊
Getting to Greymouth I was supposed to stay there for one day only and checking in on a great hostel which was extremely comfortable and nice in every way, met some friendly people and had a great time.
The following day I checked out around 7am to reach my bus leaving town center at 8am so I walked up to the pickup point and waited.. waited a little longer and then waited a bit more and still no bus. After 45 min I was too cold to stand still any longer and walked a bit back and forth and eventually ended up on a café trying to get warm by a cup of coffee.
Having given up on the bus and thinking I might have been too late for the pickup as I remembered something about being there 15 minutes before departure, having been there only 10 min prior and NZ people being very good at leaving too early, I headed for another hostel which is connected directly to the bus company I'm traveling with giving them pickups straight from the hostel so I wouldn't be late again. When I spoke to the guy at the office though he told me that the bus had been late that day and that it had been going past the pickup point where I had been standing just around the time I couldn't stand the cold any longer, so that was quite annoying.
I any case, I checked in at the hostel and it's so far the worst hostel I've ever stayed at in New Zealand. It was freezing everywhere, the windows couldn't be closed completely, it was ugly as hell and almost empty.. only good thing was an arrangement with a local bakery giving away all the leftovers everyday which made for some great and free meals.
After two boring nights at the crap hostel I finally got picked up by magic in the morning taking me to a village called Franz Josef located at the base of a huge 'varm' glacier which goes by the name Franz Josef Glacier. Doesn't those two names almost sound too similar to be a coincidence 😊
Staying in Franz Josef a couple of days I spend one of them doing a glacier hike which was AMAZING! I wanna do that again and I even considered to go do some training for being a glacier guide. In general I've done a lot of thinking lately about outdoor jobs which could be used as a diversion from the usual sit-in-front-of-a-computer kinda jobs every once in a while when I'm between jobs. Could be awesome to have two things to switch between!

After Franz Josef came Wanaka. That's one of the most beatiful towns I've ever seen.. almost too much! and I desperately tried to capture it on camera but it'll never work. You all need to come and see for yourself some day.
Wanaka also turned out to be the place I did my skydive. Had been planning it for a while, jumping out over a great scenic area which I've thought to be a glacier at first, but the glacier skydives all had some aspects that sort of turned me off. Anyway, I ended up jumping out of that perfectly functional plane at 15.000 feet giving me a 60 sec freefrall with flips, flops, spinns and going through a cloud (Which was amazingly cold!!) before activating the shoute and getting a mere 6 minutes of falling with style through the most amazing scenic views I've experienced so far. It's definitely recommendable to everyone and for those of you who are afraight of hights, it doesn't matter with skydive as you can't relate to the distance anyway.

On the road again

Queenstown, the big 'city' of the south followed. From here I went to a place called Milford Sounds, sailing around between huge peaks of mountains and saying: "wow" every once in a while. After that I went snowboarding at Coronet Peak - The only ski resort in Queenstown already open - did a bungy jump, or actually two as you got the second for free if you felt like it. First jump was forward 'swan dive' which was pretty cool. Didn't quite do it for me though. Not to appear matcho or anything here but I was really looking for something scary that would make me think twice about 'giving my life away' but it was no more than some excitement about looking down 43 meters to the surface of a lake and then jumping, wind in my hair, bungy string tightening, bouncing around and waiting for the boat to pick you up so you wouldn't have to hang upside down any longer.
Second go was backwards, leaning out over the edge while someone was holding a string so I wouldn't fall too soon. That was pretty cool thinking that whenever she wanted to let go I would be flying. Prior to that jump we had arranged that I would touch the water with my fingertips if I stretched out. It turned out though that they had done some miscalculations and I went in to my waist. Unexpected but pretty damn cool! and cold :P Have a feeling though that it was in purpose, but hey, I enjoyed it and got a free extra t-shirt so I'm good.
At my last day in Queenstown I went out Luge-ing, but that's not interesting enough to talk about here.

Now finally I've caught up with my actual position as I'm staying in Dunedin (or Port Chalmers to be precise) where I'm couch surfing and staying at some girls place who's got the most amazing view (once again I'm staying somewhere amazing!), a son who's funny to play around with and a cat that I for some reason don't seem to be allergic to?
First day in Dunedin I went to watch a rugby match between the All Blacks NZ rugby team and France. Being my first game I've ever watched from beginning to end and also first ever match I've watched from the actual stadium it was quite exciting. I didn't know the rules though, so I missed out on a lot of reasons for the random cheering and buh'ing that seemed to happen.
Next day I stayed indoors to finally relax a bit while my host was at work and today, as I'm writing, we're trapped in Port Chalmers as the only road out of here is closed cos of a snowstorm so we are hanging around in the living room with all the heaters running full power, dinking heaps of coffee and wine, eating chocolate pudding, reading and, in my case, writing. I don't mind snowstorms :D

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