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Oh my god so much has happened since we last wrote on the blog that this entry is going to be epic! And we have only been in New Zealand just over a week! Here is what we have been up to...
Last night in Sydney.
You may remember that our last blog ended with us saying that we were going for farewell drinks in Sydney but it wouldn't be a crazy one... well the night could basically be summed up with the word "oops"!! We met Joe in a bar called Side Bar which was pretty cool and found that champagne was $3.50 on happy hour so got involved straight away. They had a live band which we both agreed was the best pub band we have seen. It was 4 lads and they each had a go at taking the lead vocals, and played a whole range of songs from indie, rock, r&b and even dance music! We have no idea what time we got in but we had to get a taxi as we got lost getting back to our hostel, even though it was no more than 10 minutes away. The good news is though that Lorry didn't throw up on the plane - maybe the 2 Hungry Jacks breakfasts we had in the morning helped!
Christchurch.
Our first stop in New Zealand was Christchurch, just for one night before getting on the Kiwi Experience bus. We didn't really do anything in Christchurch as a) We were really tired from our late night / early morning flight combo, and b) Christchurch is still recovering from the earthquakes they have had over the last couple of years, and a lot of buildings have fallen or are being knocked down, in fact over 80% of buildings in the city centre are being knocked down. They did have an "International Buskers Festival" going on in the botanical gardens which we would have gone to if we had another day there. When we were in town we bumped into the German couple from out Whitsundays boat trip - small world hey?!
Kaikoura.
At lunch time the next day we spent about 6 hours driving past some stunning scenery to reach our next stop - Kaikoura, which is a little township with one street, a shingle beach, and wicked views of the mountains. It is so small that when there is a fire, a huge siren wails from the hill above the fire station, which calls the locals who are volunteer fireman to the station. Old school!! After being on the bus for so long we were itching to do something, so headed to a pub for a cheap steak dinner. Yum yum! As soon as we got in there an old drunk kiwi bloke started talking to us - we always seem to attract nutters - and it took a while to shake him off!
When our steaks were demolished (this took no longer than 10 minutes) we went to the next bar along which had live music (4 old blokes playing the blues), where a young, incomprehensible Kiwi bloke decided to befriend us! We headed to another bar to see if we could make it a hatrick of nutters, but luckily we were left alone. This bar had an Irish bloke singing frantic diddly diddly songs, mainly about Donegal, which obviously inspired Hickey, as at about 1:30 am after we had been asleep for a couple of hours, he started singing really loudly in his sleep, frightening the bejesus out of everyone in the dorm!
The next afternoon we fulfilled one of Hickey's life long ambitions - swimming with dolphins. It was absolutely amazing. When we arrived at the Dolphin Encounter centre we got fitted for our wetsuits and watched the funniest information video we have ever seen. The swimming with dolphins itself was amazing - we were in the boat for about 45 minutes looking for the wild dusky dolphins, and found literally hundreds of them. They are so friendly and interested in you, swimming right up to and alongside you. The seem to look at you as they're swimming past, and jump out of the water checking that you are watching! We just wished we had a bit more time in the water with them.
Kaiteriteri.
We were on the coach for quite a long time on the Sunday, from 10am - 5pm. It was worth it though - Kaiteriteri is beautiful. It is again really small, smaller than Kaikoura, but has beautiful sandy beaches and the water is bright blue. We were given the option of doing some activities but decided we would just take advantage of the sunshine and stunning scenery. We decided to take advantage of the $10 meal which turned out to be the biggest plate of fish and chips we had ever seen! We walked it off on the beach, where Lorry managed to step into some sinking sand right up to her knees! The next day we hit the beach hard, and had the sunburn to prove it for a few days! We were tempted to spend another day in Kaiteriteri as it is so nice, but decided to move on as we will have loads of time to spend on the beach in Asia. It turned out to be a really good decision as the group of people we met on the Kiwi bus have been awesome.
Westport.
We left Kaiteriteri at lunchtime and got on the Kiwi Experience bus that will be taking us all the way through to Queenstown. As we'll be with pretty much the same people for the next 5 days we played a getting to know you speed dating game during the journey. Westport is a tiny redneck town full of toothless yokels (our guide said that, not us!!) with not that much going on, so after dinner we all headed down the beach for a bonfire and a drink. It was really cool - all that was missing was a guitar! After that we went to a pub and played killer pool, which was a really good way of learning peoples names. Our driver Josh told us that our next stop was Lake Mahinapua, where we will be going to the "Poo Pub" for a fancy dress party, which has been a Kiwi bus tradition for the last 20 years!
Lake Mahinapua.
Our night at Lake Mahinapua was amazing. On the way we stopped at a place called Greymouth to buy stuff for fancy dress. It was a "patriot" theme, so everyone had to go dressed as something that represented their country. Lorry went as a double decker bus and Hickey went as a telephone box, complete with an opening door and a telephone on his chest!
When we arrived the bloke who runs the pub - a legend called Old Les (an 87 year old guy that looks like a dishevelled Father Christmas) came on the bus to tell us all of the do's and don'ts, but rather than a lecture he sounded more like a comedian, bantering and making jokes about his audience.
We got a couple of hours costume making in before Old Les served us a yummy dinner of steak, potatoes, corn on the cob, pasta, and loads more! The party started at 9 in the bar which is amazing - Old Les collects hats and there were literally hundreds hung from the ceiling, then all over the walls were photo's of the last 20 years worth of Kiwi Experience fancy dress parties that had taken place there. Everyone made a real effort with their costumes, and we danced the night away with a teapot, a tea bag, Shakespeare, David Beckham, Tom Jones, 2 Lady Gaga's, a pint of guiness, some quality streets and lots more. Unfortunately the promise that the bar would stay open as long as we wanted was not quite true and we got booted out at about 1:30. Good thing really as our bus was at 9am the next day!
Franz Josef.
We were all pretty hanging Thursday morning, so were pleased to have an early breakfast stop. We stopped at a place called The Bushman Centre which was run by Bushman Pete, a big beardy guy who is pro hunting and decorated his "cafe" with dead deer. Nice. On the plus side we found out a couple of days later that we had forgotten to pay for breakfast!
After that we arrived in Franz Josef, which is a small alpine town set into the snow topped mountains. We went straight to bed when we got there to sleep off our hangovers, and woke up in time to head to the pub to find out the results of the fancy dress party... we came 3rd behind Shakespeare and the tea bag. Not bad for a couple of hours work!
On Friday we had a full day hike on the Franz Josef glacier, which we agreed was one of our best days since we have been away. We arrived at the glacier centre quite early and got kitted out in walking boots, coats, hats, gloves and crampons, then headed up to the glacier. We split ourselves into groups suitable for our ability (Hickey was in Group 1 with all the lads from the bus and Lorry went in Group 5 with all the girls) and went for an 8 hour hike on the glacier. It was so surreal at lunch to be eating our cheese sandwiches sat on a glacier! The walk was amazing, the paths change every day as the glacier moves and the steps have to be carved every day. We got to walk through ice tunnels and see the pot holes and caves - amazing!! Unfortunately we do not have many photo's as Hickey completely fluffed it and jumped in the hot tub at the hostel with the ipod touch in his pocket when we got back! Plonker!
That evening we had free entry to the hot pools, where you could relax in pools of either 36, 38 or 40 degrees. It definitely relaxed the muscles in your legs but made us really sleepy! We powered through however and went to the onsite bar, where Hickey entered a competition called "low pull" where you have to pick up a cardboard box with your teeth without anything else touching the floor. He got to round 3, which was a good effort. We called it a night pretty early as we were knackered from our walk and had a 7:30 start the next day.
- comments
Teresa Gill Amazing!sounds like you are having a brilliant time. You look so fit and well. Missing you both. Looking forward to hearing more of your news. Love mum, dad and Stu xx
jan hickey Looks amazing and your obviously having loads of fun. Can't wait for the next instalment. Take care. lots of love to you both. Mum
Laura Brookes/Smith/Smithy/Whatever Wowsers, another action packed blog. The photos are great and you do both look fab. My only complaint being I can't quite compute the out-of-this-world scenery and two best friends appearing in front of it. Almost seems photoshopped. I'm heading to Olan Mills after work to make sure you're not hiding in the cleaning cupboard. Miss you. xx