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Well here we are, I can't believe it but this is my penultimate blog, how 8 months has flown by!
So after our final night piss-up in Oz, we had about an hours sleep and then made our way to the airport to catch our flight to New Zealand. The flight is only a couple of hours, so in between getting up, the bus to the airport, waiting at the airport and the flight, we hadn't had any time to get any decent sleep. So you can imagine what state we were in by the time we found our way into our Christchurch hostel, we were wrecked. We hit the sack straight away and caught up on some sleep! Our first impression of Christchurch as we drove in was just how similar it looks to England. It was great as it felt like a home away from home. As it happened this theme continued right through the country and I can honestly say the Southern Hemisphere has its own green and pleasant land. No other country has felt more like home.
Christchurch itself was nice to look at but that's about it. Considering it is the biggest city on the South Island, it feels more like a large English town. Apart from walking around the gardens there, drawn by the fact that the 'River Avon' flowed through it, that's our West Country roots coming through, we didn't really do anything else. There was a cool cathedral in the centre, we had a look, but in all honesty none of this was the New Zealand we'd come to see.
The real New Zealand we wanted to see was the amazing scenery we'd heard so much about. No joke, this country is by far the most beautiful one we have seen. Of all the countries we have visited, we have seen places which are as or more beautiful, but if you took an average of what the entire country looked like, New Zealand is out in front. Everywhere you drive just seems to produce picture postcard scenery, it's endless. You get to the point where you stop appreciating it, then in a blinking moment, usually caused by turning another corner or coming over the horizon, something else just catches your attention and your sat in awe once more of this amazing country. The other thing we'd expected of NZ was fun and crazy adrenalin junky adventures, boy did it deliver!
We left Christchurch the following day heading north to a place called Kaikoura. This was a sleepy little town on the coast famous for its wildlife. A large seal colony lives along its coastline and you can take walks down the coast to go see them and in our case try and annoy them into doing something cool for the camera. Seals are bloody lazy, all they do is lie around sleeping. So when me and Charlie walked down to the colony we started seeing who would get closer to one for a photo. We have got some funny videos of us trying to sit next to or touch one. All they do when you piss them off is turn their head and bark at you, but it's safe to say that was enough for me and Charlie to s*** our pants like big girls! The other thing we wanted to do in Kaikoura is go whale watching. You could also go out to sea and swim with a pod of dolphins. The only problem with that was the weather. Its New Zealand's autumn now so it is pretty cold here, cold enough to put you off swimming out to sea. We booked up whale watching but when we went to the port to catch our boat we'd screwed up the times and missed it. We booked ourselves on for the following day but to no avail as the weather changed and our boat got cancelled. Chamoo was devastated, he was so longing to swim free with his brothers and sisters once more. He just sat in the bay cooing out to sea all night, it was so sad. So the whales will have to wait for another holiday, the dolphins to.
So after our two nights in Kaikoura we headed up further north to a place called Nelson. We were staying in this really cool hostel called 'The Prince Albert'. It was really nice with a really good bar that served a lovely roast dinner. You can imagine that was pretty amazing for us. So the first day we arrived, we checked in and went for a walk to build up an appetite for the nights feast. There is a hill in Nelson that's summit is the most central point of New Zealand. So we walked up to check out the views and stand like kings in the centre of our new kingdom. After running back down at the prospect of a good feed, we tucked into a really good roast, yummy! The next day we'd booked to go sea kayaking around the neighbouring national park, Abel Tasman. We left early and drove down in the bus to where we'd pick up our kayaks. After a mammoth safety breathing, we went down to the waters edge to get going. We were all in double kayaks, so that meant me and Chami were strapped together for the day. This produced several 'married couple' arguments, mainly because Chami's driving was terrible, he crashed us within a minute of setting out to sea. He said he did it on purpose, I ask you, why would anyone crash on purpose? Anyhow, we started working our way across the bay to a nearby island where there was some new seal pups. We made it across to the island and ended up getting really close and personal with these little show-offs. They were just swimming around fighting each other (bit like me and Dave at uni). Then we headed off around the headland. We stopped off for lunch in a secluded bay. This is where we encountered the one thing everyone hated in NZ, sand flies. Basically sand flies look like normal flies but they land on you and bite. They really get on your t*** after a while so you just try and avoid places where they are really bad. We continued our journey along the coast until we got to the bay we were due to finish in. Unfortunately I didnt have my Bat and Ball for a but of Extreme Pit-Pat so we made do with frizzbie. After we were picked up in the water taxi, we went back to meet the bus that drove us back into Nelson. We went out on it the couple of nights we were there, but in all honesty the town didn't exactly inspire you to get messy, there was hardly anyone out.
Our next stop around the south island was a place called Westport. The whole purpose of this destination is just a legendary piss-up in a pub called 'The Pooh Pub'. Its not really a pub at all because its closed to the public. Basically every day the 'Kiwi Bus' roles in and everyone gets off their head in their own private pub. I forgot to mention that, we travelled around New Zealand on the 'Kiwi Bus', which is basically an organised tour bus. That means you don't ever have to worry about transport and sorting s*** out, you just go with the flow and party with a load of youngsters! So our night in the Pooh Pub was fancy dress. There was actually two bus loads that night, our buses theme was 'pimps and w****s', the others was 'no clothes'. We didn't think that this theme was very original so all the guys decided to dress up as w****s, with Charlie as the one and only pimp! We went to a local Superstore and picked up some cheap clothes and s*** for our costumes. I went for a racy little number, a white dress that barely covered my arse and some 3 inch platform shoes. I couldn't believe I actually found a pair of shoes that would fit. Charlie pimped himself out with a couple of dog chains as bling for his neck. A gun for protection, a muscle top and a bad boy cap (worn backwards of course) to finish the look. You will have to look at the photos to completely appreciate how ridiculous we looked. I got some of the girls to give me and the other guys full make up, so by the time we walked into the pub we looked like a bunch of HOT b****es. I almost forgot to mention, I also thought to be completely in character that it would be a good idea to wear no underwear.....I was a filthy slut!
When me and Charlie walked into the pub, needless to say I felt a bit stupid. So I figured the only way to pull it off was to just have a laugh at myself and get completely in character. So it was no longer Charlie and Pete walking through that door, it was Whizzy the pimp and his number one prostitute Crystal Balls. Everyone f***ing creased up when we walked in, but true to form I strutted around like a diva saying s*** like "What's you problem you f***ing b****ES....you never seen a beautiful woman before". Charlie was busy trying to tote my ass around, it was hysterical. We got absolutely smashed and by the time the night was over I think everyone in the pub had a photo of my d*** hanging out from my dress, or me in compromising positions with lots of guys! What can I say, I think the chance of me being Prime minister has just disappeared. There's just too much dirt on me already. It was an awesome night though, everyone went crazy and had a great time.
After the Pooh Pub we went to a place called Franz Josef. This was to be the setting to for one of the most action packed days of our trips...and our lives! Franz Josef town is set at the foot of a mountain range that has a beautiful glacier stretching down into valley. Loads of people go there to climb the glacier, which is what we booked up to do to. However we also booked up to do a sky-dive at Sunrise over the glacier the same day. We only had one full day there, so it was really action packed. We were both s***ting our pants about the sky-dive, before we'd come to New Zealand we'd kind of said we weren't gonna go to crazy with all the adrenaline stuff, and I'd pretty much ruled out a sky-dive as I'm terrified of heights! However we got caught up in the craziness that is NZ, everyone does extreme s*** here. I swear if there is a way to make something extreme the Kiwi's will do it, I'm sure that in the near future you won't be able to even get a coffee and sandwich without jumping through a ring of fire, abseiling down a mountain and firing yourself out of a cannon to get to the counter! Anyhow, we went to sleep the night we arrived knowing that we'd be up at 5am and throwing ourselves out of a plane not long after! AAAAAAAAHHHHHhhhh
We woke to the alarm and chucked on some clothes then headed down to meet our driver who took us to the airstrip. At first there was a bit of nervous laughter banter, you know, like "hope they remember to pack the chute instead of a picnic set....hahahah". But pretty soon that turned into nervous silence, as mine and Chami's mind wandered over what exactly hitting the ground at terminal velocity would feel like??? Before we could change our mind we found ourselves in jump suits stood outside a little Cesna plane, to which we were to entrust our lives. s***. We really started getting nervous then. We met our tandem partners who just gave us s*** about how they were gonna f*** with us up there! When the planes pilot walked out we got even more nervous....I'm not joking, this kiddy looked like he would be more at home sat behind the wheel of a Vauxhall Nova with L-plates on it, and some irrate driving instructor sat next to him shouting "KEEP BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL YOU MUPPET....AND I SAID LEFT NOT RIGHT..........have you still got the hand brake on....AHHHHHH". The kid looked about 12, but it was too late to back out now. So off we went down the runaway and started the accent to 12000ft, our jump height. The flight in itself was something pretty special. The sun was just coming up over the horizon as we sored up the mountains, circling to gain height. We then flew up the mountain face and over the Glacier. This was amazing and good enough to distract us for a few seconds about what we were about to do. However then I spotted the altimeter on the planes control panel, that was a terrible mistake. I then found myself transfixed on it, watching the dial slowly spin round, climbing, 8,000ft.....9,000ft.....11,000ft! It was like watching a countdown to your death. My tactic to remaining calm was complete denial of what I was doing. Although I was in a plane, wearing a jump suit with a parachute strapped to my back. I was pretending in my head I was just having a ride in a plane, checking out the views, but definitely not doing anything silly like jumping out of a plane. I only nearly lost it once, when in my head I just went 'FFFFFUUUUCCCKKKKK.....what am I doing.....s***!'. I quickly reeled that in though as it would have ruined the entire experience. I then just thought how lucky we both were to be doing this crazy s*** on such a cool trip! One other thing I should mention. Before we got into the plane our tandem partners clipped us to their parachute. All these clips are attached from the back. Now Charlie got clipped on at the ground and had a practice run at hanging out the planes door just before you jump. When you do this all your weight is hanging off the other guy as you just hang out of the door. Now this must have been the essential confirmation he needed that he was safely strapped to his partner, and more importantly the parachute. For some strange reason my guy had just got into the plane followed by me. So I hadn't actually seen him, or felt him clip me onto him. So for the last 30 secs before the door opened I kept on trying to lean forward and feel that I was attached to the parachute. My mind was just imagining him shouting 'Right move to the edge and lean over.....then me falling off and rapidly dropping to my death....and him going....oh I knew I forgot something this morning'. But I'd ran out of time to come up with excuses now, this was the dreaded moment. The altimeter hit 12,000ft, our jump height. The child sat at the controls signaled for us to get ready, and then he opened the door. Freezing cold air rushed in at 100mph and my guy shouted in my ear 'Put your legs out the door and lean out of the plane'. FFFFUUUUUCCCKKKKK!!! See now this is were I felt bad for Charlie, I was glad I was going first because I'd figured if I'd actually been sat where he was watching this bit, I'd of just said f*** this and told them I wasn't gonna do it! Watching someone a foot away from you fall out of a open plane door is horrible. The next thing I heard was 3....2.....1 and then the guy let go and rolled us out of the plane door. Now I don't know what the acceleration is when you jump out of a plane, but let me just say it takes your breath away. And my a****** was busy dancing the Rumba as I feel through the sky. But after about 10 secs when your brain realizes you haven't hit anything yet, you kind of get a chance to take in the scenery. Let me tell you looking out of a pokey plane window has nothing on the real thing. When you are at that height looking out at the sun rising over a mountain range and beautiful countryside, its something you will never forget. The guy was filming all this, so he messes about with you for a few second, the whole freefall part of our jump was 45secs total. Then without you even realizing the chute has been pulled and you abruptly get pulled to a slow decent, with your technicoloured godsend opened out above your head, like you never thought it would. Now this was my favourite part of the experience. They tell you to adjust your strap so you are in a seated position, and thats it. You sit there like a bird checking out the amazing view, still buzzing from the last 45secs of your life. The guy even let us have a go at the controls so you do a few sharp turns and then you suddenly notice the ground approaching. We landed by stretching out our legs, our suits had skid pants on the bottom. So you come in for one final swoop over the grass and then slide across it on your ass!!! WOOOOOOHHHOOOOooooo.......I am ALIVE.....and what an experience. We both touched down within a few seconds of each other and we were just in shock off the whole experience. It was amazing, something neither of us will ever forget. I can I can honestly recommend it to all of you, if you ever get the chance do it!
After all this excitement the day had still barely started. We made our way back to the foot of the mountains to meet our group and start an all day hike up the glacier. When you do this they kit you out with all the heavy duty gear so you dont freeze up there, or fall off the ice to your death. So we strapped on big boots, crampons, thermals etc. Then we made our way to the foot of the mountain. It looked stunning, we were separated into groups of around 12, each with its own guide. Then off we went climbing up the face of the ice. Now this whole hike varied in difficulty from area to area. Sometimes we were walking up steps that had been cut by pick-axe into the ice. Other times we were climbing up steeper faces with a rope and pick-axe in our hands. There was even one section where our guide cut off chunks of ice at the top of a cravass. They fell and got jammed into the crack below, which we then tentatively walked across. Imagine that, you have a crack in the ice, stretching however deep, and then you're there walking across glorified ice cubes wedged in the gap. Charlie had to face his claustrophobia a few times when we squeezed through holes in the ice, but he did well. As we got higher and higher the views got more spectacular looking back down the glacier into the valley below. We stopped and had lunch up there, we were literally up there all day. We ended up getting back just before sunset. So you can imagine after such a crazy day we were pretty wacked when we got back down to our room. I think we ended up just having a few beers and collapsing.
We had one more stop before we reached the adrenalin junkie's mecca that is QUEENSTOWN. We stopped off in a place called Wannaka for the night en-route. The one thing worth mentioning about this place was that we all went out to a pub that promised free booze for nudity. I don't know if I really need to tell you what happened, but we ended up getting smashed in this pub. Charlie and a group of our mates won a drinking competition. I think they drank an 8 pint cyclinder in a minute between four of them. They basically had to suck the beer out of this thing. As you can imagine that got them smashed, and the prize was another free one. I won a pool competition and got a bar tab. So after we drank ourselves silly on free beer we were all trolleyed. Then a few of the guys came up to me and told me we were all gonna get naked in the toilets and walk to the bar butt naked, for a load of free beer. Not needing too much encouragement I went and got naked but soon realised I was the only one doing it. But still ended up walking out through a pub full of people butt naked. The only problem was the bar had stopped serving, so I'm stood there starkers shouting at the barman to give me my free booze. It was a strange sight.
The next morning we drove on down to Queenstown. Now this place is beautiful and the capital of all extreme sports in the world. You can do anything here, bungee's, hang-gliding, skydiving, jet-boating, downhill mountain-biking, luging.....anything!!! We spent about 5 days here getting absolutely smashed every night, then doing crazy stuff during the day. The pinnacle of the extremeness was Charlie doing the 5th tallest bungee in the world. IT LOOKED f***ING RIDICULOUS.... there was no way on gods Earth you would of got me up there, I'd pushed my fear of heights far enough. When he booked it, he did it on the spare of the moment after days of saying no! I'm not joking, he thought about it constantly right from the moment he'd paid, to the moment he jumped. I'd give him some sick banter about him jumping, and he could only take it so long before he'd crack. He did really well though, jumped like a pro. You will all get a chance to see it when we get back as he has his moment of glory on video. To give you a rough idea of what it was like though, the bungee platform is suspended on steel cable out between two mountain peaks. The bungee cabin has a glass floor so you can be constantly reminded just how high you are. It looks terrifying, just watching the video's makes me feel funny.
One of the other things we did was hang-gliding. I'd won a voucher to do something from my big effort in the fancy dress at the pooh pub. So I cashed it in on Hang-Gliding, Charlie fancied a go as well, so we headed up the mountains overlooking Queenstown. This turned out to be an amazing experience, as close as you'd ever get to flying like a bird. You just fly through the air, no noise, no engine, riding the thermals and air currents. Charlie went first, running off down the side of the mountain and swooping into the valley below. I ended up getting a bit more air time because by the time they came back up the mountain with the glider the winds had picked up. It could also have something to do with the fact that Charlie wasn't exactly designed for gliding (you know what I'm saying), in fact its surprising I needed a glider at all, a stiff breeze could of probably carried me off the mountain! When I took off instead of descending into the valley below, we actually ascended so we were looking down over Charlie and where we'd just taken-off. This enabled my pilot to dive bomb Charlie which proved to be hysterical. He didn't tell me he was going to do it, I thought we were just gonna swoop over him for the camera, but at the last minute he dropped the nose and flew right down over him. Charlie was so into filming he ended up falling on his ass!
One of the other cool things we ended up doing was luging. Luging basically involves sitting in a little go-kart (with no engine) and driving down a track that is cut into the side of the mountain with gravity as your source of speed. Now if you consider that our group consisted of about 10 guys, who were all baying for blood and crashes, you can imagine the type of carnage that ensued. All of us were determined not to brake the entire way down, and for some unknown reason everyone decided it would be a good idea to try and take me out. However they didn't realise they were dealing with the Michael Schumacher of Luging. I actually ended up taking out Joe (one of our mates from here), he'd been trying to cut across me and push my front end onto the gravel. What actually happened was as he cut across me I fish-tailed him sending him off the track. I turned my head to see him lying flat on his face on the concrete with his Kart flipped on its side. I couldn't believe that we actually managed to flip one. I've never laughed so hard, I'm so evil, but they were all gunning for my blood! As you can imagine Chami was a force to be reckoned with, thats a lot of mass for gravity to start propelling at high speed down a mountain. He smashed me up a couple of times along with everyone else. The worst thing was if you span or came off, there was 9 other lads behind you who'd all aim straight for you sat helplessly in the middle of the track. Boys are so mean!!!!
A few final things worth mentioning from Queenstown..... We learn't the Haka. You know the All Blacks pre-match ceremony. One of our drivers was maori and he taught us it over a week or so on the evenings. When we arrived in Queenstown all the guys got up on stage and performed it in front of a club full of about 200 people. I'm not Maori but it really gets your blood pumping....it was really cool. We pretty much lived in a place called 'Fergburger', this is basically the burger-lovers dream! Not exactly healthy though. I'm gonna transfer a few of their tricks to pisces I think! We pretty much got off our heads every night, one of which I feel asleep in a club toilet after puking my guts up. I think I was gone for about three hours before coming round, Charlie probably came in and pissed on me! All in all Queenstown was better than we could have hoped, its a must visit if anyone makes it to NZ.
We then headed up to the North Island and Wellington. This is NZ's capital. We didn't really hang around there for long as it was just another city. Had the usual night out and wandered about but thats about it. Nothing crazy happened until we got to our next stop, Taupo. Ironically this was to be the setting of the most dangerous thing we did. We'd organised to do this famous walk called the Tongarario Crossing. It is where they filmed Mt.Doom in Lord of the Rings. Its an all day hike along mountain ridges and you get to see some cool volcanic lakes. However the weather wasn't great when we set off at 5am. It was quite over-cast and you are only allowed to do the climb if the weather is ok. However when we arrived they decided that it was safe to climb so off we went, BIG MISTAKE!! It was fine whilst we trekked through the lower part of the mountains. However as we got higher fog closed in so you couldn't see b***** all. Even though we were rigourously trying to stick to the track, we ended up getting lost. Once you get to a certain plateau the route splits, with one track leading up Mt.Doom (which you are only allowed to do on clear days), the other track goes the way we wanted to go. We ended up going up and down the side of Mt Doom completely lost and dis-orientated. We knew it was bad because our group suddenly got bigger as other people bumped into us, who were also lost. The weather closed in and freezing cold rain started lashing down. Everyone was getting a bit worried now. I mean this is how you remember 999 series starting....'then the weather took a turn for the worst etc..etc... they died of exposure!' We'd decided to just go back the way we'd came and retrace our steps. Somehow me and this American guy got separated from everyone, so we'd just gone from say 10 to 2. I could see the frontpage writting itself. We thought 's***" and desparately tried to find our way back. We ended up stumbling onto the sign we'd somehow missed directing people where we should have gone. So after a moment to let the relief set in, we set off up the mountain. As soon as we started ascending the weather just got worse. The winds picked up to 75mph and it started sleeting. Now you've got to understand some people had started this thing in shorts. Some people were quite old, and some of the girls up there weren't exactly enthusiastic hiker's. Everyone was way out of their depth. No one should have been up there let alone a load of tourists. It was a miracle that no-one got into some serious trouble. I was concerned for Charlie as I'd last seen him walking off into the fog with some of the other's, I just hoped he'd gone back down instead of continuing like we did. As it happened he had, but he still had to retrace about 3-4hrs of hiking he'd already done. When they got down, they were all numb with the cold and soaked. They ended up flagging someone down to use their phone and get picked up. I was up the summit at this point getting blasted by the elements and freezing my t*** off! At one point I slipped on the loose volcanic rock and cracked my knee open. That was obviously great....now not only was I stuck up a mountain freezing my t*** off. I had a leg bleeding all over the place and cold air pissing into my freshly ripped trouser's. Long story short after about 5 hours we got down, thank god, but this definately wasn't a pleasant experience! We've got some video footage of how bad it was which is a good reminder of HIKING GONE WRONG!
Our next destination was Rotorua. We did a few cool things here. The first and tastiest of them all was called a 'Hangi'. This was a Maori cultural tour, which took us to a kind of mock maori village, where they explained some of their history. The highlight of this evening was the feast that completes the evening. This is the bit that is called a 'Hangi'. Basically its a whole load of wholesome food that is cooked in the traditional way under the ground, for hours. By the time we got to this bit we were starving so we absolutely nailed our meal! It was help yourself as well, thank god I was in front of Chami in the queue, thats all I'm saying!
I also went black-water rafting. This is kind of a twist on white-water rafting, as if that wasn't enough. They send you down into a cave and get you to raft along underground rivers in the darkness. As it turned out it wasn't anything like the white-water rafting we did in Oz, it would be more akin to drifting down a river in Laos. However there was some abseiling and zip-wires to go through before you got to the drifting part. You also had to jump off a couple of ledges into the water. Sounds easy right, well its not so easy when you are in pitch darkness in a cave!
The final crazy thing I did was ZORBING. Some of you have probably already heard about this one. I had before I left. Its the one where you get inside a big plastic ball, then roll off down a hill. The whole experience doesn't exactly take forever but it is still quite a unique experience. I thought that you'd just be going head over heels, bouncing down a hill. Infact it is a touch more civilized than this. They put a load of water into the ball with you, and in our case add a ton of fairy liquid as well. The guy who launches you has a big vacuum cleaner that blows instead of sucks. He uses it to keep the Zorbs inflated and in this case turn the 50\50 H2O Fairy Liquid solution into the craziest bubble bath you've ever seen. Then after he had practically filled our bubble.....with BUBBLES! He launched us down the hill. The best way to describe what its like is simple. Next time you wash your clothes look inside the machine..... thats pretty much what I looked like bouncing down the hill!
Our next and final stop with the kiwi bus was Auckland, the country's biggest city (over a million). In all honesty there is not really much to say about it, except it is like any other big uninspiring city. We went for a few walks around and saw a few things, but nothing really worth mentioning. The only event we had in that city was getting up ridiculously early to watch Liverpool in the Champions League final, needless to say Chami was disappointed.
We had one final road trip in NZ, and that was hiring a car to go and see my cousins who live about 3 hours north of Auckland, near a place called Whangarei. They were kind enough to put me and Chami up for the weekend and show us around where they lived. They moved out to NZ about 5 years ago and have established a large (ironic) small-holding for themselves, on their own little farmers paradise. The house they live in looks down over a valley with a river running through it and mountains in the background, needless to say its stunning! They have loads of animals so me and Charlie got to play farmer for a few days. Now I don't want to mislead anyone, if that makes you think we got up at 5 am to milk cows and go feed the chickens, you'd be mistaken. I was thinking more along the lines of, sleep in and be lazy bums, whilst being on a farm, and enjoying the idea of the small-holding lifestyle. We made one road trip from there further north to go see the Bay of Islands. This is a group of hundreds of tiny islands, lying just off the coast, that is inhabited by dolphins. We went on a boat trip around the islands to check them out, and bumped into a couple of pods of bottlenose dolphins along the way. They were amazing, so playfull and inquisitive. We could not believe how big they were in real life, they're massive! You'd feel a bit intimidated if one swam up to you in the water. I'm not too sure who was looking at who more, them or us! We spent our final night at my cousins and we thought we'd go crazy and go out on the town!!! This entailed an unparalled fancy dress pub quiz in the local school hall!!!! GET IN..... Nah in all seriousness I had a great time with them, and it was really nice to see them after so long.
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