Magic Bus

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Our magic bus arrived on time and we were on our way to Taupo or at least we thought we were.  It now transpires that we may have benifitted from actually reading about our bus ticket that we booked so many months ago. The magic bus is less like a Greyhound bus and more like an old persons day out to Bogna Regis bus. Instead of taking the 1 hour drive to Taupo, we took a 10 hour diversion over to Waitomo. In the afternoon I decided that this really wasn't such a bad thing because we get to see stuff that we wouldn't ordinarily have seen. For instance Thumper (our driver) took us to see his mum at the shearning shed who owns 350 rabbits and makes stuff from their fur, she claims the rabbits enjoy it but being tied to a vice and being turned bald didn't look like a lot of fun. However by the time we actually arrived in Taupo and drive past our hostel twice! I was slightly unimpressed.

On arriving we got in touch with Andy and Kim and after a quick booze run (It was actually a pretty slow booze run because the mugs at the pack and save would accept our English driving lisences) we were at Andy and Kims holiday home tucking into some barbecued steak.    

That night we had a few beers with Kim, Andy and their friends they were staying with and amongst many other things discussed I discovered that Amdy was doing a bungy jump in the morning. Naturally I was compelled to get involved.

In the morning we woke up late and got picked up to go to the bungy centre. Andy was annoyingly upbeat about the whole thing and I was quite simply terrified. I had a theory about how to approach it which was that if you just lean forward, gravity will do its thing and there's no chance of backing out. It worked, however the consequence was that I looked like i'd fainted and just fallen off the ledge. The jump was awesome but everything happens a bit too quick to process. By the time I'd realised I was falling, I was soaking wet and just hanging In the air.

The rest of the afternoon was occupied with some fun at the swimming baths and a cycle to the craters of the moon (not the actual moon) where on the way Rachel made friends with a crazy homeless person. In the evening we met our friends for an Italian where I apparently got drunk and oppinionated but we were still friends in the morning.

We were picked up promptly by Young Joe Young to go to Wellongton, my favourite of the drivers so far. He's an old pie loving Aussie who invented bus bowling which he is currenty trying to get recognized as an olympic event. The competition was tough but one by one the remaining 26 competitors dropped out leaving me the proud owner of 54 dollars which Rachel promptly spent at the bar.

After a night of beer and Michael Jackson videos we went to Te Papa, the national museum. We both had fairly sore heads and weren't absorbing information particularly well so we didn't stay long. What we did learn though is that New Zealand is pretty much a death trap. Any second now there's likely to be an earth quake or a valcanoe is going to errupt or Godzilla is going to attack!

We met Andy for a coffee then spent our afternoon in the botanical gardens before meeting up with Kim and returning the their home in the mountains. There's something pretty cool about looking out of the window in the morning and seeing clouds directly in front of you. That night we went for some Malaysian food with the whole family including 7 year old Harry and 16 year old Ellie.

In the morning Kim and Andy set about there business whilst Rachel and I went to pump some iron at the Gym with Ellie. Up until this point I could not understand the rumors that I look like my dad but on seeing my red face in the mirror I realised it was a possibility.

After a quiet night in with the family Andy dropped us off at the ferry terminal to catch our boat to Picton. One of the good things about being on the bus is that there's always plenty of amazing sights out of the window. It turns out that this was also the situation with the boat. Rachel was listening to classical music and watching hills go past and she told me it was like being in a Disney film.

From Picton we got picked up and driven to Nelson. The guy at our hostel was suggesting things that we could do like go to the cinema then at the last minute said 'or you could walk to the centre of New Zealand?' not much of a choice really. The walk was pretty steep but the view from the top was stunning.

The evening continued to be a good one when we stopped off at the spring ad fern pub. The place was wicked, they had local beers on tap and you can order food from the fish and chip shop next door and get it brought to your table. We played some chess and made some friends then in the morning we got on The bus with 'Lisa Two Times' and headded to greymouth. I have named her 'Lisa Two Times' because her name is Lisa and she says everything at least two times but usually many more. She's a very nice lady but at times I want the bus to crash just so that I don't have to listen to her anymore.

In greymouth we stayed at Noahs where each room has it's own animal theme, we got the panda room. They also had a dog named Bes who at one point I thought Rachel was going to try to put in her backpack.

In the evening we went to the Monteiths brewery for a tour. I'm not sure that I've ever been as excited as I was taking a tour of a brewery and sampling beers. I was quite litterally like a kid in a sweet shop. The tour included a free meal so in the Company of gay Alec who we met the previous night, Melissa and Zack we ate and drank. Actually it was mainly Zack and I that drank. Zack is a spitting image of the comic book guy from the simpsons and ironically enough used to work for a company that brought and sold collectables! The point being that he is twice my size and much better at drinking beer than I am. I did not feel particularly clever in the morning and Lisa Two Times was not helping the situation.

On the way to Franz Joseph we stopped at a museum and I think it may have been the strangest experience of the trip so far. I watched a video of men jumping out of helicopters and wrestling deer whilst Rachel fed a possum. 

We'd both been looking forward to Franz Joseph for a while on account of the half day glacier hike we had planned. Ready and raring to go the trip was called off due to dangerous weather conditions. We were not impressed but understood that these things happen and like the soldiers we are made our own way to the glacier. It was an awesome sight! We didn't get to touch the ice but I don't feel that we missed out and we managed to save $200 in the process. After the glacier there was dinner in the hostel and some sleeping.

We arrived In Queenstown with just enough time for some beers with Lisa Two Times and gay Alec. I was planning to stay out longer but fortunately Rachel the voice of reason saved me because it turned out I was actually a bit drunk. In the morning we got on Bruce's glass roofed bus for our trip to Milford Sound. It rained for the entire day but this only served to make the day better as we saw hundreds of waterfalls which otherwise wouldn't have been there. It's a fantastic place to look at and I took a silly number of crap pictures in the rain. That evening we got a pretty early night in preparation for another early morning and our date with the Nevis.

The day after our 47 metre bungy, Andy went off and did 80 metres at which point I suggested that I would have to do 134 in Queenstown, The Nevis. I had been panicking about this ever since and now the day was finally here. We met John and to my surprise Gay Alec at the pickup point and got taken to the sight. The setup is basically that at the end of a terrifying drive up the side of a mountain you get harnessed up and jump into a tiny cable car which takes you out to a pod which is hanging in the middle of a canyon 134 meters above a river. Rachel came over with us and started flirting with all the boys and taking their pictures for them. We jumped in weight order, heaviest first and not being the biggest of fellas I had a pretty long and tense wait. Incidentally by the time I did come to jump our camera was to filled with pictures of Alec to actually get any of me. The jump was awesome and it was a proper jump this time not a fall. However I think I was the only one who enjoyed the ride up more than the jump. After the mayhem in the pod there was something pretty special about hanging from a piece of string with a 360 degree view of a canyon in complete silence.

The days activity was set to continue with some handgliding but unfortunately it was cancelled due to dangerous weather conditions. On the bright side this made way for round 2 of the Luge championships. I won't lie, I got beaten and I got beaten badly. This was the start of Rachels winning streak. 

We went for dinner at the Speights Brewery restaurant because we keep forgetting we're poor. After Rachel had what was clearly the better steak we went to the bar for a few beers and some pool. Rachel was dominating the pool table and was eventually challenged by Mike and Ian who in there own words were 'pretty good'. Let's just say they were pretty quiet by the time we left.

We were in Carl's bus in the morning and bound for Dunedin. My brother Tony describes this as a sleepy little teon but it seemed anything but. We only had one night there so didn't get to go out but it looked like a cool place for a night out. Having a large uni nearby has no doubt helped that. We in fact spent our evening doing a wildlife tour with john the Mancunian. John was a lovely guy who was incredibly passionate about his job which made it a good way to spend an evening. We saw yellow eyed penguins, seals, sea lions, royal albatross and a number of other rare species of bird. We also learned heaps about how much damage the Maori and the European settlers have done to the countries ecology. Entire species have been wiped out either from being hunted by people or by any one of the number of mamals we felt it necisary to introduce.

In the morning we were back on Carl's bus to go to Lake Tekapo, the colour of which is quite unbelievable. I'm not sure if I've got this right but I think there us a type of mountain flower which gets churned up finely as the glaciers melt to give the lake an awesome blue colour.

The hostel was a bit of a rip off and just as Rachel was in the process of getting angry about it she was attacked by a couple in a Spaceship campervan. That couple quite unbelivably turned out to be Wayne and Emma who we met in Malaysia. I was cwertain that our paths would not cross again but they were in possession of our itinerary and had planned to spend their day driving around Tekapo trying to find us and amazingly they succeeded. The mood changed instantly and we had an awesome afternoon. We took a hike up Mount John, had dinner together and then they were gone once more.

Carl picked us up in the morning and threw us out a few hours later at the sky dive centre. This was really my last box to tick in New Zealand but it wasn't to be. We got as far as strapping into our funky suits when they called the whole day off after a second abandoned jump. 

We proceeded to Christchurch and went out for a farewell to New Zealand dinner. The day which followed was a most welcome one. When you spend all your time driving and have little time to spend in your destination it feels like you have to sign up to some sort of activity to avoid missing out so for the first time in a long time we relaxed. Christchurch was fairly reminicent of our Christmas holidays in Edinburgh. We drank beer, ate crepes and did a lot of walking.

New Zealand was closed with a fish and chip dinner and a disrupted nights sleep with some gypsies fighting outside our motel room.

I've said it before but it really is a stunning place to look at and I would be sorry if we never come back here. Not only are there areas which we didn't get to see but there is also a list of places which I would already like to go back to.

A very good three weeks indeed!

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