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Team River valley
Charlie, Claire, James, Lena and Matt Having sat around in Taupo waiting to do the Tongariro Crossing for many a day, we eventually submitted to the fact the weather was against us on this one and got back on the big green bus of fun. Our first stop was Mordor, yes you know, the mountain of evil evil stuff in Lord of the Rings. We posed our very own characters for some photos, but we both look like such knobs that you wont be seeing them. On to River Valley we drove, with 'Pumba' as our driver, later to receive fame as the one who drove a bus over a cliff edge, but luckily we'd got off it by then. River Valley was a pretty pointless place, I played golf with the kind of boys who say things like 'God, I havent played in like, 7 weeks!' whilst I managed to hit myself with the golf ball on a rebound off a tree. Not many people can do that. The place we stayed was strange indeed. The beds were like giant shelves against the wall with mattresses piled in one big long row so you were sleeping in a bed with 7 other people around you,
above and behind you. We managed to sleep well after a few beverages and an incredibly boring amount of Uno. James met with trouble in the middle of the night trying to wee as the toilets were tin shacks miles away from the dorm, out in the snow and he couldnt find his shoes bless him. Poor little mite. Just another one of those James things.
We traveled on the next day to Wellington, with a new bunch of friends under our hats; Charles, Matt and Lena. Strange but lovely folk. Upon arrival in wellington we lost the lovely Lena and James, Charles and Matt decided a boys drinking session was in. So here is James to inform you of that nights adventures. Hello all again, well having arrived and eventually checked in, me Matt and Charles headed straight for the bar. It was generally a normal night with two exceptions: first the discovery of jaegar bombs which, to put in a polite way, erm, made us a little worse for wear. Secondly was Charlie; he had a very strange technique for enticing women which involved flirting with as many in as short a time as possible and then
moving on to anyone else who entered the room. whilst this was going on me and Matt sat back and chuckled humorously at him in our own self confidence. Apart from that not much else to tell really other then a tiny guy from our room did come up to me a wee bit drunk and pleaded with me to get Claire to show him affections. I politely told him that he should try make a move in the hope id witness Claire's wrath.
Yes there certainly is something in the water here. If you're single and desperate ladies I truly recommend New Zealand. We spent our first day in Wellington absorbing the culture in the Te Anau museum. By this I mean we went to the kids sections where I got to do rubbings and play with the giant animated toys. Yay! We also saw millions of ducks which of course excited me. One in particular had got himself a little confused - see if you can guess why in the picture. We spent the night back on the beverages, I got to witness Charlie's randiness first hand. Awful. That night we changed hostels onto one, strangely enough
Wizza-Wazza
Sorry Kathryn x located on Wakefield street. To our enormous dismay it became quickly apparent that we were sharing the room with an orc-demon possessed-darth vader-mountain goat cross breed. I cant dignify his noises as snoring, it would be too fair on him. More like gargling, moaning, grunting etc. For the first two nights we were scared by the hideous noises sounding from his bed, by the third we had resigned ourselves to the fact sleep was an impossible aim, and took to shouting things like 'Luke, I am your father' 'Find the halflings!' and other such derogatory mockings of the boy. I would feel bad about it, but on the second night he came in drunk and tried to get in the girl above his bunks bed, She was terrified and moved rooms in the morning. He also took to shouting down his phone at about half 5 in the morning after none of us had got any sleep, and after three days without sleeping you loose compassion.
Our second day in Wellington we decided it was high time we climb up another volcano. Yes we just cant get enough, whoop, no we just cant get enough. It was exactly the
The botanical gardens
The day the mormons came to convert christ... same as every other volcano we've climbed pretty much. James is insisting I tell you we were attacked by wizza-wazzas, this is James' terming for the tree weta's that inhabit the New Zealand forestry areas. There's hundreds of em all over the trees and their big ole beasties. We saw 300 at the cinema too. Pretty good, not awesome, but better than Spider-man 3 chico.
We spent our third day in the botanical garden, having adopted said earlier terrified girl from our room as one of our own. She was called Chenny. Nice girl. Nice indeed. I think she rather liked me though. Kept offering me the comforts of her new double ensuite to escape orc boy. The botanical garden was a bit of a let down, but I think, having spoken to people since, its because we didnt make it to the Begonia House, where the flowers actually were, so merely stood in a park in the rain. What can you do? There were ducks. Thats pretty much all for Wellington, except James got a hat, but its not as good as mine.
We were forced up and early the next day for the ferry ride to
the South Island. This was long and boring but the scenery coming into harbour was amazing. James is getting upset because apparently I talked about dolphins again. Once landed we went wine tasting in Marlborough. They were well tight. I had a bottle in the coach as well, darn it, but you're not allowed drink while they drive. On to Nelson we went, and Nelson is pretty. I liked it a lot. And we finally got some sleep there too. Its well picturesque and lovely, I wanted to move house there and then. There's all crystal clear rivers and countrysidey stuff and huge surrounding hills and pretty little houses. Yes I liked it muchly. After our first nights sleep since the terrors of orc boy, we climbed yet another hill to the exact centre of New Zealand. We didnt do it for that, we did it for something to do, but the view was amazing
(and Im not big on views) and we had a picnic on top. Lovely stuff. Nothing more interesting arose from Nelson so I shall move swiftly on. Our next port of call was Westport and we were quickly informed by our new bus driver that
Westport was renowned for its inbred population and that the person who could bring back the best picture of an inbred would win a Canyon Swing worth lots of money. We were mildly horrified by the notion, yet when we did finally arrive there were points where we'd both walk past people and sort of absent mindedly make eye contact and giggle just a bit. We're still horrified though. We stopped that day by a beautiful lake for a picnic and a walk, where a duck managed to steal one boy's entire baguette from him and ran back into the lake with it. The lake was awe-inspiring but James got attacked by the sand flies and it seems to have scarred his memory of the place. We were forced through unforseen circumstances, to stay in Westport over night and in doing so left the inbred obsessed bus driver behind. We watched dvds for the day waiting for the other bus to catch us up and then met with Justin, the man to be our new driver. My first introduction to Justin was 'we're having a war party tomorrow, its fancy dress, you can be a nurse if you want, they're
Uncle Les
700 and still sharp and looking good. very much to do with war.' James decided he wanted to be a landmine immediately and I told Justin I'd give his nurse idea a bit of thought.
The following day was ANZAC day, hence the 'war' theme for the fancy dress, but this unfortunately meant the shops were closed til one and we still had to get to the next place (the "Poo pub") before we could make our costumes. Somehow along the way I managed to shake off the all enticing idea of dressing up as a nurse and instead came up with the preferable idea of becoming a tank. Two cardboard boxes, a roll of gift wrap and a can of spraypaint later I became the tank, a name that would stick to me for the next few weeks, and James, with a host of little toy army men became a one man army. The party was good, although I was quite isolated by my sheer bulk. I couldnt even get to the jukebox properly without help and some nice young Welsh girl helped build me an extra long straw so I could drink my pitcher. James tells me he spent the night being, and I
quote, 'a divvy'. He became somewhat noted for his boisterous nature. 'A legend' he tells me. The party was hosted by an 700 year old man called Les who reappeared from midnight onwards and proved himself to be surprisingly on the ball. Impressive. From here we were on to Franz Josef, a story for another blog, but just to let you all know, James and I won both the fancy dress prizes, I managed to bag the Canyon Swing (a thought which immediately terrified me, I just wanted to be a tank!) and James won the 'Mad Dog River Boarding' which equally terrified him, but its good that we won all the same. well done us.
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Pen-woo
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Tanks and things
Mate, I am severely taumatised that I didn't give your tank the loving it deserved the other day, it's brilliant and I am very proud of you for coming up with such an amazing idea, in true Clairos style. When you come back I'm going to have so much fun coming home every other night with various objects and then annoying you til you can make me something fun using said objects, something like like a pony. Though I'd understand if you couldn't bring it to life, and promise I wouldn't resent you too much for it. Ps this Matt, he is hot, bring him back please. xxx xxx