Advertisement
Published: December 10th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Nelson is apparently the sunshine capital of New Zealand. That is a lie. Apart from half a day when we could make use of the pool at the hostel, it pretty much pissed down the whole time and has done ever since!
After stopping off for some wine tasting, we ambled off the bus and found our hostel around 5pm. A group of us decided to cook up a feast and all clubbed in to cook up some fajitas. Despite our German friend not knowing what to do with them, nor how much food to put in them (Ryan was particularly annoyed at the amount of poultry he was using), they were tasty and made a change from pasta and noodles. The hostel we stayed at also had a bus out the back to party on, this was used excessively and was the place where we heard Dan’s infamous “I have never” stories. Fortunately they are far too crude to post on here.
The main reason we stayed in Nelson was because it gives easy access to the Able Tasman national park. Fortunately for me, Ryan couldn’t make it so i went along and caught a boat out to one
of the beaches and started a four hour walk back. The six hour walk was offered to me, but after 4 hours of sleep I was not in the mood to strain myself. The walk was pretty easy and flat with some great scenery along the way and was worth the effort of getting up at 6.30 for.
We had to leave Nelson the next day to go to greymouth, which is a small town on the way to franz joseph. The bus journey there was pretty eventful, after leaving 3 Korean girls behind at a toilet break, it was time for everyone to try and win a free shot from the driver if we could guess someone else’s nickname. I managed to win one after having to find someone nicknamed “stretch”, Luckily a guy on the bus from Holland is 6”9 so it was pretty obvious. The bus basically stops in greymouth for one thing and one thing only, the Montieths brewery tour! After getting the boring shit out of the way about how they put stickers on bottles, it was time to sample the brew and try to make our money back. I really went to town
and managed to drink about 6 glasses in 20 mins.
Feeling slightly pleased with myself at robbing the brewery, if not a little pissed, a big group of us headed out for a meal and to a bar where we tried to forget we had to get the bus at 7am the next morning. After receiving the free shots from the driver, along with drinking a few $6 jugs of beer, we played singstar in the bar, murdering jonny cash’s ring of fire in the process. After that we thought it was probably the right time to head to bed before ryan had any chance to do some Michael Jackson tribute shit.
The bus the next day turned into the worlds biggest hangover club, worryingly, this included the driver. The next stop was Franz Joseph, this is basically a little village with a big ass glacier where you can climb and hike across it. We weren’t booked on the glacier walk until the next day so the rest of the day was spent in the hot tub nursing our heads. Our driver soon joined us and tried to persuade us to go out again tonight for some drinks.
Being easily persuaded we went to the ice bar where we found out why he was so keen for us to join him. He offered a few people some shots again, now this must have been one of the few occasions i have turned a shot down and i couldn’t have been happier. Turns out these shots were pure chilli sauce, made with the hottest chillies you can find. One guy started crying and had to drink a litre of milk, another guy went straight to the toilet and one girl simply left to go home, I however, was loving it. Rich our driver then offered us a free pub crawl in Queenstown if we did one, i refused after seeing the pain on other peoples faces but Ryan, thinking he has been hardened up by his dads own chilli sauce, accepted the challenge, he soon regretted it. He left within 30 seconds and wretched all the way home. I on the other hand, simply walked all the way home.
The glacier walk started at 8am and would last for around 8 hours, with 6 being spent on the ice. Luckily the rain finally stopped and we had a
dry day. The glacier was huge and would take around 18 hours to hike to the top, we managed to get just below half way and at times the climb was pretty difficult, especially trying to squeeze through a hole the size of a cars wheel! We also had to climb up ridges and slide through thin canyons, trying to avoid any crevasses in the process. It was an excellent day and well worth the money, despite nearly catching frostbite and losing a few toes. Ryan went off on his own ice climbing. You also get access to the glacier hot pools included in the ticket, so that evening i tried to inject some life back into my feet and just soaked in a 40 degree hot pool until i could feel them again.
Queenstown is our next stop where we are gonna stay for a little bit and try and catch up with all the people we have met. This will probably involve alcohol. Bye for now!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.038s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 23; dbt: 0.021s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb