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Published: April 17th 2008
In an attempt to maybe, just maybe, get onto the featured travel blogs on this website, seeing as I don't have much longer left travelling, I've stopped putting the photos chronologically and have pulled some of the better ones to the front for this entry. Some of the bloggers have such fantastic photos and writing skills though, so it's a long shot but...you just never know! So I hope you enjoy the ones of Mount Cook National Park and then the photostory actually starts properly with the 'Blue Cod' fish and chip sign!
Tuesday 8th April - Newton The Search Continues
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From: MandyB
Sent: Tuesday, 8 April 2008 10:34 a.m.
To: BrownKiwi
Subject: To Hannes - Please send the bear
Dear Hannes,
Further to our telephone conversation this morning, please could you kindly post my bear, Newton, to the following address a.s.a.p as I will be staying there tomorrow and Thursday and so can pick him up:
Amanda B
On Top Backpackers Lodge
Corner Filleul Street & Moray Place
Dunedin
New Zealand
If you don't mind to also post the cards and the coaster that would be great. However, if you would like to
Mt Cook National Park
View from Hermitage Hotelkeep them please do so with my blessing. They are very nice and are from the Botanical Gardens shop in Sydney. Please keep my Lonely Planet guide with my compliments.
Thank you very much for being so kind and helpful and helping a small bear get home.
Many thanks.
Kind regards,
Amanda
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With a view to getting over to Dunedin, I firstly got the bus from Wanaka to Queenstown, leaving Wanaka at 2.35pm and arriving at Queenstown at 4.25pm, with a quick stopoff for refreshments. For some reason I'd been feeling for days that I had to visit Dunedin, don't know why, I just had a feeling I had to go there. So instead of it floating about in my mind for potentially years if I didn't go, I spoke to intercity and they said I had to go from Wanaka to Queenstown and then go east to Dunedin. So Queenstown being the enroute stop, I stayed at Pinewoods backpackers again in the evening and bumped into some friendly, familiar faces. Did a clothes wash, went into town for a bite to eat and recognised so many people, then got a good night's rest.
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RE:
Mt Cook National Park 2
View from Hermitage Hotel To Hannes - Please send the bear
From: Brown Kiwi
Sent:08 April 2008 00:34:15
To: Mandy B
Hi Amanda,
Newton is sitting, well rather trapped, in an envelope and should arrive within the next two days, hope he’s not getting sea sick.
Thank you
Hannes
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Wednesday 9th April - I got the bus from Queenstown to Dunedin, leaving Queenstown at 7.45am. Am almost getting used to navigating my bags into the centre of Queenstown, I take turns pulling the big rucksack on wheels with the right hand for about 10 minutes then change to the left hand! I arrived in Dunedin at around 12.45 and maybe it's me, but I don't think so, I'm pretty sure that the lady at the bus station gave me the wrong directions into the city! So instead of a 5 minute walk I ended up doing a big rectangle for about 30 minutes, thinking never again! On the plus side, I saw more of Dunedin that way I guess. I ended up walking down George St in the middle of the shopping district, but as it's a city I didn't get too many funny stares even though I was
Statue of Sir Edmund Hillary
At the Alpine Centre, Mt Cook Village walking with luggage. I checked into 'On Top Backpackers' and they handed me a parcel with Newton in and the cards! So Newton and I were happily reunited. Whilst Newton was recovering from his trip ;o) I went off for a walk around the 'Octagon', the centre of town, which is only a minute away. I saw some nice paintings at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, which has the largest collection of European art in NZ, lots of lesser known english artists too like Stanhope Forbes. That evening I made friends with Susana from Spain and Julie from Scotland and we went off to the cinema next to the the Town Hall with another UK girl from our dorm. Then Susana and I headed off to a bar at the Octagon and exchanged life stories whilst drinking Pinot Noir and listening to a very good band, who played my request, 'Fake Plastic Trees' by Radiohead, lovely eve.
Thursday 10th April - I went off at around 1pm to the Otago Peninsula on a wildlife tour with a very very good company the name of which escapes me. The guides were extremely well informed and the whole thing was great
value at $69. Unfortunately we didn't see any big Royal Albatrosses, but we did see some normal ones, I loved it and hope you enjoy the photos. In the eve, the hostel was invaded by immature juveniles from England who decided to take turns to scream and throw-up in the bathrooms. The male and female bathrooms were separated but you could still pretty much hear everything that went on. Susana and Julie are travelling with the KiwiExperience bus and Susana said she would never do it again, thank goodness I'm doing my own thing! Some guys decided to talk right outside our dorm at about 1am so Susana went out and asked them to go somewhere else, Susana you're my hero, honestly it was like Basildon on a Saturday night! ;o)
Friday 11th April - Julie and Susana left early morning to travel to Invercargill i.e. further South. I decided to do a bit of shopping and bought a book that Julie recommended about a woman in her mid-thirties being dis-illusioned with her life and heading off travelling, ha, half the female backpackers are reading it! It's quite unputdownable actually. I did a bit of travel organising and crossed
off some run-of-the-mill things I had to do on my task list. I came back in the evening and some new girls had moved into the dorm from London. Maybe it's cause I didn't get much sleep the night before... but I got a weird vibe when I came back in and their stuff was on my bed unnecessarily, and all over the floor (when you're backpacking you really do value whatever space you can grab) and one girl said 'strangely I thought' oh are you travelling on your own - didn't say it normally. Then two of them were all over each other in the lounge, hugging, unnecessarily, I thought. Anyway, in 6 weeks of travelling it's the first time I'd met someone I really didn't like who was in my dorm, actually it's the first time it's happened ever. So I just thought, why lie awake all night worrying and instead I moved dorms and met a nice Aussie girl called Maxine, who I blurted the whole thing out to. I took myself off for a bit of internet therapy and a calming peppermint tea in the McCafe afterwards! Realised today I've only got about 2 weeks left
here in NZ and then it's back to Blighty (well after San Francisco).
Saturday 12th April - I was off to Mount Cook National Park early (pick up from the hostel hurrah), so got up at 5.30am and was faced with a red-haired, pale-skinned irishman in his underwear wandering to the bathroom, it was really funny when he struck up a conversation with me, it was a rather surreal moment. I arrived in Mount Cook National Park at around 12.30 and stayed for a few hours. The weather was very very hot and I popped into the Alpine Centre. I couldn't stay any longer, as the YHA there was full and instead I had had to book to stay at the YHA in Lake Tekapo. I booked a shuttle, for 4pm, through 'Mount Cook Connections' to take me to Lake Tekapo and the driver was a bit too grumpy when I wasn't standing in the right spot (even though as soon as I realised my mistake I phoned the shuttle hq). I arrived at the YHA at Lake Tekapo at around 6pm, I think this was my longest day in and out of buses. This was also my first
At Dunedin
With the girls from my dorm at On Top Backpackers. Susana seated to my right, Julie in the front. Very tiny room, only about 8 seats! We saw the film called 'Once' YHA on the trip, I've been mostly staying in BBH hostels (which are very good). However, they have matching crockery and more than one knife in the kitchen, it's a bit of a revelation actually. There are a lot of quiet, well-behaved asian travellers and also families. The only thing that got on my nerves was one man (not english) who loudly slirped and sniffed when he was eating (oh and somebody decided to play the piano at 7.40am the next morning)! In the eve, I went off to a Japanese restaurant (I hate roughing it food wise - love super noodles but can't do them more than twice a week, would cook more if the kitchens were decked out like this one) that was recommended by the YHA and had absolutely delicious combination tempura (king prawns, blue cod, veggies) and Japanese Asahi beer. Absolutely gorgeous. Then I made myself a coffee from a Robert Timms coffee bag, they are really handy, don't know why we don't have them in Essex (Janet and Tom got us onto those) and settled down to reading my new book.
Sunday 13th April - Lake Tekapo is very very pretty. I decided to
Found this bookmark
In Dunedin Public Art Gallery do a bit of pampering and dyed my hair in the morning, yep it's not natural folks! ;o) Got chatting to a nice Korean girl called Sami in the bathroom, who then went off for a walk so covered up with hat, scarf, sunglasses that she looked like a celebrity in disguise! I spoke to the really helpful lady running the YHA to work out my best route to Frans Josef. Originally Wanaka i-site information office had advised me that I could fly with 'Air Safaris' over Mt Cook and then land at Frans Josef, but after the lady at the YHA made enquiries, she advised that the planes don't land there. Soo.... there was nothing for it but to book a bus back to Wanaka and then around to Frans Josef. After sorting out the booking with intercity on the phone, I went for a walk up to Mt St John and then had a half hour back and shoulder massage in the Alpine Spa, which was excrutiatingly painful at the time, but very relaxing afterwards. I then got a take-away and managed to be in the dining room at the same time as the slurper again, which wasn't
so relaxing.
Monday 14th April - I pottered about at the YHA in the morning and then had lunch by Lake Tekapo and so was running later than normal to get to where the intercity bus stops to go to Wanaka. So at 1pm (the bus was due at 1.30pm) I ran off to the YHA to get my bags, when I heard a cry 'Mandy?!' and it was Susana from Spain that I'd met in Dunedin last week, she recognised me from my hat! It was brilliant to see her! We had a very quick catch up chat and then I went to where myself and Christine from Kent thought the bus was leaving from. Christine was saying how she'd just had the happiest 6 months of her life travelling. She's 48, sold the business and the children are grown-up and doing their own thing and she hasn't got any stress or worries. We thought it was a bit strange that 1.30pm had gone by and the bus hadn't turned up. Then the lady who owns the YHA walked past and said we were standing in the wrong place and that was our bus at the end of
On the way to the Otago Peninsula
A Cabbage Tree and overlooking Otago Harbour. Captain Cook had Cabbage Tree leaves boiled up to rid his men of scurvy, but the tea tasted like cabbages. the shops about to leave! Luckily Peter the driver was a nice guy and was giving us a few extra minutes or else we would have had to wait until the next day. I've not missed a bus in 6 weeks of travelling and Christine hasn't done that in 6 months! ha. I arrived at Wanaka at around 4.15pm and stayed at The Purple Cow again. Off to Frans Josef tomorrow.
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Gray
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Featured Travel Blogs!
I want to vote! There should be a place where we can vote for you -- and all log in dozens of times and add more votes! Your blogs are great. I hope you're going to back them all up as they'll make a fantastic record to look back on! Enjoy the last of your holiday here :-) Gray XX