New Zealand

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Day 1 - Sunday 28th June 2009 - Christchurch

Woke up to the sound of someone incessantly buzzing the flat door at 5am today, and just as I am about to go crazy and shout to them to give it a rest, I realize it is our taxi driver for the airport! I had set my alarm for 4.30am but must have slept through it and have visions of Tasmania all over again… We run around like crazy and grab our suitcases- no time to wash or even brush our teeth, and it’s probably just as well that we both slept in our clothes. Jacki sleepily pops her head round the door and laughs as she expects nothing less from us. Thankfully the taxi driver waits for is and we’re on our way. I am soo tired it is unreal and feel manky cos we haven’t had a chance to wash or anything. I try not to breathe on the taxi driver as I may knock him out. We end up having to pay double the fare it should be when we get to the airport which is a complete rip off, but not much we can do about it as it is our own fault. The check in queue is massive and so is the security check queue. When we get to the front the woman behind the counter asks us if we’ve filled in the information card about where we are travelling too, which of course we haven’t. So we have to leave the queue to go and do that. We make it to our boarding gate with about 2 minutes spare, just enough time to gulp down a bacon and egg sandwich. We just love cutting things fine but at least we made it this time. Our flight is probably the oddest I’ve ever been on- there seems to be a harri Krishna convention going on at the back of the plane. The flight isn’t full so I take advantage of the spare seats and go for a sleep.
I wake up to the pilot informing us it is 3 degrees outside so it’s just as well we brought our jumper and scarf. It’s actually not as cold as I thought, but cold enough! After we have collected our luggage (and declared our timtams, yes- seriously!) we look for the transfer bus that should take us to our hostel. We wait for about 15 minutes but no sign of anyone or a bus that resembles the one we are looking for. I end up phoning our tour operator which costs me 5 NZD for 1 minute. She tells us there should be a bus there and we go outside again to have a look. Nothing again, but Greg goes back into the terminal to see if he can see anyone waiting there. This time there is a guy standing there with our names on it- thank goodness. Turns out he was just running a bit late. Whilst waiting at the Airport, the All Black rugby team head into the airport. These guys are ENORMOUS, and have arms bigger than my legs, which is saying something.
It’s only a 15 minutes drive to Christchurch CBD and it’s nice to relax and enjoy the scenery. I feel like we’re home already as the scenery is so British. By the time we get to our hostel it is a toasty 9 degrees. The YHA is actually really nice with a massive kitchen and dining room, although our room is tiny. We get organized then head out for a quick look around and to buy some gloves and a jacket- think we’re going to need them! The supermarkets are much cheaper here than Australia, although everyone told us they’d be more expensive, so we stock up on the basics and our tea for tonight.

Day 2 - Monday 29th June 2009 - Christchurch
Had a bit of a lie in today as we only had 3 hours sleep yesterday. We do the obligatory tourist things today, looking around the main square and taking photos. We also take a ‘punting’ ride on one of the gondolas on the Avon River (yes, it was named by a wealthy British family). It’s really relaxing and once again, the scenery is very British. Our ‘punter’ tells us that this is one of the most British looking places in New Zealand, so it will be interesting to see what the rest of it is like. We splash out on an Indian meal tonight which is absolutely delicious. Afterwards we decide to have a game of Monopoly to while away the evening- it’s nice not relying on T.V all the time, but the downside is it means we need to actually SPEAK to each other lol. I am kicking Greg’s ass at Monopoly but then it all goes Pete Tong and he ends up thrashing me.

Day 3 - Tuesday 30th June - Hamner Springs
A bus picks us up early this morning so we can head over to Hamner Springs, renowned for it’s natural hot springs. It sounds right up our alley so after a two hour bus journey, we take full advantage of the hot, soothing pools. They have three completely natural sulphur pools too, which are completely roasting- 41 degrees each. They smell really eggy but the heat is worth putting up with the smell. We have gorgeous views of the snow-covered mountains in the background- stunning. After a while, an eastern European old women climbs in to our pool and takes the best viewing point. We figure she’ll be gone within 10 minutes, but half an hour later she is still there. Greg starts to get really competitive and is determined to stay in longer than her. What ensues is a 1½ hour stand off between Greg and the European. She keeps staring us out and vice versa. I am melting after half an hour and have to get out, but even though Greg looks like he could self combust at any moment, he stays put. Eventually it is time to leave, and Greg stubbornly gets out. The old lady is still there and so he has to bow out graciously. I’m not certain, but I’m sure I can see a little smirk on the woman’s face. We head back to the bus smelling like a couple of egg sandwiches, but it is well worth it.
We have a relatively low key tonight as the magic bus is picking us up at 7.15am for our Tranzalpine train journey across the alps. Yipes!

Day 4 - Wednesday 1st July - Greymouth
We get up at an unsightly hour this morning and think I am a bit delirious from lack of sleep as I find myself singing and dancing at the bus stop while we wait for our pick up. When it arrives, it turns out there are too many people on the bus and not enough room for Greg. I go to get off too but the driver tells me to stay put as our luggage is on board. I start to panic a bit as Greg doesn’t have a phone, and our train leaves in only 25 minutes. When I arrive at the station, I have a nail biting 15 minute wait, hoping Greg has managed to get on the next bus. It doesn’t help when one of the other people on my bus comes up and warns me that the train leaves soon so I better get my tickets asap. Yeh, thanks for that reminder. Greg turns up 2 minutes later and we grab our tickets and jump onto the train. For the next four hours we drive through some of the most stunning scenery I have ever seen. The train has a viewing platform outside at the back so we can get some good pictures of the snow covered Alps, but it is really cold and a bit hairy to say the least- the train is hurtling along at about 100 mph and there is a 50ft drop to the side of the train.
We get to Greymouth in the early afternoon and have a difficult 10 minute hike with our bags to the hostel. After some lunch we take a look around the town which is really small. The sun is shining and it’s really pleasant even though it’s still crisp. If Scotland was like this most of the time it would be much nicer. There isn’t really much to do here, so we head back to the warm lodge and play a quick game of scrabble before dinner ( I win hehe). The night ends watching Tom Cruise in Cocktail (Greg has never seen it before) and it makes me miss working behind the bar.

Day 5 - Thursday 2nd July - Franz Josef
Why is it that tours always start at ridiculous times of the morning? Why not pick us up at 12am, which would suit us down to the ground! We are picked up at 7.45am this morning, and luckily this time we manage to wake up. The bus takes us through some stunning picturesque towns until we reach Franz Josef at midday. We spend our afternoon hiking up a glacier, like any normal person does. The glacier climb is great fun and the ice reflects lots of blue colours, making it look really pretty. It starts to absolutely pour with rain while we are on the glacier and the waterproofs they gave us are not quite as waterproof as we would have expected. We are soaked through and freezing by the time we get back to the hostel. Thankfully they have a sauna inside the hostel and we take full advantage of that. It’s so relaxing and warm I don’t want to get out. Needs must though and after spending an hour trying to dry out our gloves, hats and scarves with a hairdryer, we head to bed.

Day 6/7 - Friday 3rd July - Queenstown
We have a long way to travel today so as you’ve probably guessed, we leave at another really early time of the morning. First we stop at Lake Matheson, a lake that is meant to reflect the mountains on the surface of the lake. It is really grey and drizzly so we don’t quite get the views we were hoping for. To top it off, the track to the lake is being renovated and we have to trudge through big muddy puddles. Greg isn’t too happy as he has white trainers on. We arrive at Haast Pass at about 11.30am to drive over and through the mountains towards Queenstown. The only problem is it has been snowing for the last few days and the roads high in the mountains are rather treacherous so they have closed the road. Our driver seems to think they will reopen it again by the early afternoon, so we wait and wait for another 2 hours until finally we are given the all clear to go through. As we reach the top of the pass, the views are once again breathtaking. The snow covered treetops are picturesque. It’s not so good for our poor bus which gets stuck in the snow and we all have to get out to push. By this point it has started snowing really heavy again and our driver doesn’t seem very hopeful that we’ll make it to Queenstown. For the next 3 hours we drive at about 15 mph through the snow until we eventually reach civilization and the weather has cleared up well enough that we can take out snow grips of the tyres. It’s still another 2 and a half hours to Queenstown from where we are, so by the time we arrive, we will have been on the bus for 12 hours. My back is breaking by the time we arrive in Queenstown and I am desperately needing the loo. The driver lists through all the hostels he is dropping off at but doesn’t mention ours so I begin to fret slightly. I go up to check with him and he tells me ours is the second last drop off, so I will need to hold on a bit longer. We get dropped off about 9pm only to find the reception for our hostel has closed for the night. I think I may have to squat behind a bush at this rate, but thankfully I manage to sneak in through the lounge and find a toilet. When I get back Greg has managed to find the manager, only to be old they don’t have a room booked for us for tonight or tomorrow night. There was a confusion over the confirmation of the booking, so she didn’t hold the room for us. It’s the winter festival in Queenstown this weekend too, so not many places have any beds left. The woman is apologetic and blames magic for the mix up, but we are fuming. She helps us out by phoning a few other hostels only to be told they are completely full. Eventually she manages to find a double room in a hostel for us, but only problem is it is quite expensive and at the moment we will need to pay for it out of our own pockets. We will definitely be haggling for magic to reimburse us, but according to the woman in the hostel, they may not be so easy to crack. We make the decision to go for it anyway as otherwise we will be out on our ear. We plough along with all our suitcases only to be told when we get to the hostel that she has made a mistake and they don’t have any rooms left. I think I may collapse into a little ball of tears at this point as we have been travelling for 13 hours, we’ve had no dinner, and potentially may have to either sleep on a sofa in the hostel lounge, or in a 10 bed dorm separately. Greg sees my fragile state and runs across to the other hostel across the road to try them in the off chance they have anything. When he gets back, he informs me that there are 3 other girls in the exact same situation as us. One is from Glasgow too and Greg gets talking to them. They are going to go to the local internet place to check the internet for any places so we decide we might as well go too. In my mind though I am thinking that it is hard enough for 2 people to find somewhere tonight, let alone 5. We check our email to see in case magic have told us there has been a change of plan and we are booked in somewhere else, but they haven’t sent us anything. The girl at the internet place is really helpful too, and she phones around another few places for us. I notice an advert for another motel not too far away from where we are, so I give them a phone just in case. I explain our situation and that there is 5 of us, and someone up there must be looking out for us, as she offers us a 2 bedroom self-contained apartment for 40 dollars a night each. Not only that, but she says she will come and pick up all our luggage so we don’t have to traipse it all back up the hill. The 3 girls we met are relieved too and we all head up together. The apartment is really nice with a big TV and comfy beds with electric blankets on them, which makes up for all the agro and stress we’ve had tonight. So at 10.30pm we finally grab something to eat and definitely a few well deserved beers!
The 3 girls turn out to be really nice and we sit up talking to them for a few hours. Lisa from Glasgow, Nicola and her sister Kerry from Widnes.

Day 7
The next morning we have to get up and out by 10am which is a pain, as our original plan was to have a long lie in and catch up on our sleep. We head down to Kiwi discovery to see if they will let us phone magic from their phone instead of paying for it out of our own pocket. When I speak to the guy from magic, he is apologetic and tells us apparently we were booked in to stay at a luxurious hotel for the 2 nights instead to make it up to us. It’s a shame no one bothered to tell us! He says he told the driver who was meant to tell us, but we are dubious, as surely the driver wouldn’t forget something like that, especially when we made a point of asking him about our hostel. He also blames the hostel for mucking up our booking, but I tell him that isn’t our issue, its theirs. Thankfully he confirms they will refund us the accommodation that we have paid for, but it will take about 5 days, which is not so good when our trip ends in 7 days! Still, at least we won’t be out of pocket. He tells us we are booked into the hotel tonight as well, but I tell him we are more content staying where we are already, as it means we would have to hump all our luggage to somewhere else again, plus we don’t want to let the girls down. After some humming and hawing, he eventually agrees- I think it’s the least they can do. Greg says he is going to have a word with the driver when we see him tomorrow to find out if it was his fault or if magic are talking rubbish. So a bit less stressed we head back to the motel to grab our camera and have a look about. The guy in the motel is lovely and refunds us our money for the night before straight away. He says he will invoice magic on our behalf, so that’s good news.
We then make our way back down to the marina so that we can go on a jet boat ride down the Shotover river. The jet boat doesn’t disappoint as the driver keeps doing donuts and skidding about on the shallow waters. The views are amazing, the lake itself is gorgeous, but we are surrounded by snowcapped mountains called the Remarkables. We are freezing by the time we get back on land, and head to a chocolate/coffee shop to have a hot drink. I opt for a hot chocolate and it is made with real chocolate pieces- pure decadence.
When we get back to our wee apartment, the other girls are all in bed after doing a skydive this afternoon. Sounds like it was really good fun but expensive- they paid about 700 dollars in total! In the evening we all gather round our wee TV to watch a film called ‘wanted’ and have a few bevies. We end up talking until about 12.30am then decide we should head to bed as our bus picks us up at 8.05am!

Day 8
We have a sprightly walk this morning to where the pick up point is for the bus this morning due to the mix up with our accommodation. I am absolutely knackered and can’t deal with these early mornings- can’t wait to get to LA so we can get a bloody lie in! Greg asks the bus driver if we can speak to him about the mix up from the night before and the driver states he knew nothing about it. He is quite mad they have blamed him, so he says he will get it sorted out. We head onto Dundedin today, apparantly nicknamed the second Edinburgh. To be honest, I don’t see the resemblance at all. I was hoping to really love Dunedin due to its Scottish heritage and connections, but quite frankly it is a bit of a tip. To make things worse we find out that the Cadburys factory tour we wanted to do isn’t operating today. The actual central street of Dunedin isn’t too bad and has a statue of Rabbie Burns in the middle is cool, but that’s about it.
We manage to find a little pub that does a ‘pie, peas and pud’ for really cheap so we decide to go for that. It doesn’t disappoint at all and is just what we were hoping for. Nothing beats some stodgy food on a cold day. In the evening we head to the cinema to watch a rather low key film called Bunch of Amatuers. It’s quite funny and a nice way to pass the evening, making a change from playing board games again.

Day 9
Next stop is Lake Tekapo today. We make a stop at the Makouri boulders then head on to Lake Tekapo. It’s another long day of driving, arriving into Lake Tekapo at about 4pm. However, we passed some gorgeous scenery on the way, including a mirror lake reflecting all the mountains in the background. It is absolutely FREEZING when we get there- much colder than anywhere else we’ve been. Luckily the lodge we are in has a nice open fire and we heat up in no time. The whole magic bus tour cooks a BBQ for dinner (I am on sausage duty) and it is absolutely millions of food for a tenner. They have beers too and no one else seems to be drinking them, so Greg and I polish them off. Waste not want not I say. It’s good to talk to a few more people on the bus who turn out to be quite nice. Later on we head over to the ice rink for some skating. Greg is a bit reluctant at first, but soon gets into the swing of it. The concentration on his face is funny but he does much better than I thought he would. By the end he is starting to show off a bit. The girls come with us and it is a good laugh. We finish off by playing Uno for a few hours in the warm living room then off to bed.

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Photos

Hanmer Springs
42 degrees of pure BLISS!

Dunedin
Rabbie Burns