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Published: July 14th 2010
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Lake at QueenstownOur sixth week on the road with the Caravan Club started at 2am with Englands must win game against Slovakia. We wrapped up warm and tackled the minus 4 temperature outside, heading to the Pig and Whistle Pub. The game was Englands best so far (thats not saying much!) and they scraped through to win a 1-0 victory. Still sleepy after the footy match, we headed back to the warmth of BIG FAT SUE to get a few more hours sleep! Refreshed after our lie in, we headed to the Queenstowns waterfront where the girls dragged us into a cafe called Patagonia's, which is essentially a chocolate lovers heaven with everything from hot chocolate to chocolate ice cream and even chocolate fondue! From here we popped into the Post office to sort out our IRD numbers which will allow us to work in NZ, after which I bought a hoody with the slogan 'Sweet as' on, which has been my most favourite saying over the trip so far! That Evening we decided to try our luck at a Pub Music Quiz at an Irish Pub in town. I say we but I might has well been in a team on my
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Winterfest Stage own! We came 2nd...... from last! Mainly thanks to me pulling some answers out of the bag, such as ''who recorded the 1994 dance version of Bonnie Tylers Total Eclipse of the Heart?'' (answer will be at the end of the blog) We ended the evening by gate crashing a kids karaoke party at a near by bar!
The Next morning we decided that due to the aches, pains and our bad knees from the snow action up on Cornonet peak we'd give skiing a miss today. We took our rental gear back into town and purchased some tickets to the next evenings ice hockey match. After lunch we headed to Caddyshack City to play some indoor Crazy golf. Now this wasn't any crazy golf, it was a mixture of Babbacombe Model Village meets Crazy Golf! Holes ranging from castles to ski resorts to Willy Wonkas Chocolate factory! With me and Matt feeling confident we decided that the loser of the Crazy golf game would cook dinner that night! So that Evening we had Cerri's Loser Lamb Burgers to eat before heading back down to the waterfront in town, as tonight was the opening ceromony for the Winterfest. We
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Couples Combo at Queenstowns Lake watched the fireworks and even got to see New Zealands Prime Minister open the evening's festivities bizarely with some Star Wars Storm Troopers and Darth Maul! Next we went to the World Bar to sample some of the famous cocktails which you drink out of Tea Pots! Several drinks and a few slurrrssss later we thought we go to the Casino as there was some live music on that evening and try our luck on the slots, sadly me & Cerri got denied entry due to not having any ID! Slightly embarrassed we headed back to SUE and called it a night.
The next day was started by watching the Winterfest Carnival Parade work its way around the streets of Queenstown, by watching all the various different floats go by. Highlight being Kate having a photo with Ronald McDonald and the local firemen singing the childrens disco classic 'The Time Warp'!!! Its was another bloody cold day so we decided after lunch to go to the Cinema (again!), the girls chose 'Shrek 4' whilst the boys chose 'The A Team'. The Films finished just in time for us to make it to the ice rink ready for the evenings
ice hockey game: "I love it when a plan comes together!" After warming up in the cinema we went back to being freezing cold at the ice rink. The game was between the Southern Stampede and the Canterbury Red Devils, which actually looked like a local devonshire derby between Torquay and Exeter with the Stampede in Yellow & Blue and the Red Devils in Red & White. The Ice Hockey match also went like the majority of the Devonshire Derby's, as the Red Devils smashed the Stampede 5-0, best part of the match was the big fight towards the end which made one player go to the changing rooms early as punching people directly in the face is frowned upon in ice hockey! We then decided to head back to the Casino where me & Cerri were denied entry the previous night, a couple of beers later we hit the Roulette table and obvoiusly lost our $20 limit we'd set ourselves. Cerri did a little better on the slots, winning a huge $12!
The Next morning we said our farewells to Queenstown and got on the road, our destination was a town called Timaru. The trek took us a
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Cerri looking for her golf ball! good 3 / 4 hours, and once we'd arrived next on our itinerary was to find a pub that would be showing England's quarter final clash with the arch enemies Germany. After asking in a couple of bars, it was clear that nowhere in Timaru was going to be showing the game the next morning. WIth this we called up a campsite in Christchurch, checked that they had a TV room that would be open at 2am and after a thumbs up off we went. The trip further north to Christchurch took another 2 hours, we got there and decided to get an early night ready for the footy the next morning.
We awoke a little early than the planned at 1am to ring our good friend Adrian Worsley, who was on his stag do. He was a little worse for wear but we did manage to find out that he'd been clay pigeon shooting whilst wearing a mankini during the day!!! After the quick chat, we went back to bed for another hours kip before sleep walking over to the campsite's TV room, thinking we'd get there early to get a good seat. Well there were only 3 of
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Teapots 5 & 6 us in the room, me, Matt and a random guy from Wolverhampton! A 4-1 thrashing later we wished we'd never got out of bed! Later that morning we headed into Christchurch City Centre, which is the most English looking city you can visit outside of England. We had a walk around the city centre, were we saw the Cathedral and got on a tram to have a ride round the city to get our bearings. After which we went to Ballies Irish bar for a beer before having our final supper as the Caravan Club at the Little India restuarant.
Our last morning in BIG FAT SUE started with the dreaded packing of the bags, after several attempts we finally managed to zip up the back packs. We then decided to visit the suburb of New Brighton, as Matt & Kate used to live in Brighton back in the UK. Also that morning Matt had been struck with the dreaded "man flu" we parked up by the sea front and me, Cerri and Kate had a wander on the beach, along the pier and around the shops whilst Matt had a rest in the campervan. We looked around the
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Teapots 7 & 8 shops and found a Quicksilver outlet store which had a 70% discount sale on, i'm sure me & Cerri will be visiting this shop again at some point! On our way back to the camper we noticed that Matt was out of the van and he had made a friend in a local tramp who we donated our food to . . . . that was going off, he was more than happy to take it off our hands! The rest of us quickly dodged the tramp and had a nice spot of lunch on the waterfront before driving to Apollo HQ in Christchurch to drop BIG FAT SUE off. As you are probably aware we've had a few issues with SUE during our New Zealand road trip, so we were geared up ready to argue our case to get some compensation and we did. We managed to get a refund of $425, Happy days! We then said our farewells, not only to SUE (who had got red carded by the apollo team!) but also Matt & Kate who would be travelling on to Fiji. We'd had a fantastic 6 weeks on the road with them and was taking away
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Winterfest Fireworks some awesome memories; so wished them safe travels and went our separate ways . . . sad times! We jumped in a taxi and arrived in Halswell, a small suburb 6km outside of Christchurch City Centre where we would meet our new landlord Mel and her cat Sawyer as we are going to be looking to spend some time here and finding some work.
A few Caravan Club Facts.....
Total Nights Spent in BIG FAT SUE = 45
Total Nights Free Camped = 31
Total Nights we blagged there were only 2 people in the Campervan = 11
Total Kilometres travelled = 5742.7
Total times Matt asked Kate ''Have you seen the wallet?'' = 102
So the final day of our Sixth week in New Zealand was spent getting used to our new surroundings in Halswell, obvioulsy after a lie in!!!
Ben & Cerri's Tip(s) of the Week - Always remember to take your ID out with you & the Casino always wins!
Answer to the Music Quiz Question = Nikki French
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Wurz
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Bonjour traveller!! Thanks agin for the call is was great to hear from you, even if I was a little worse for wear after a sessions with the bubba keg (basically lying in a bath and having a beer keg poured down your neck and face etc... Turnips ideas). The trip is soundi great so far - it seems like you have done loads in the last 6 weeks. The mankini was terrible - when we went zorbing I was standing I. Front of some small children and elderly people, if I stood facing them they got my cock and balls and if I stood facing away they got my arse in a thong... What to do!! Looking forward to the next installment, take care