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Road trip NZ
Our road trip around New Zealand has been fantastic. Far too busy to blog, sorry! I'm only doing this entry for New Zealand, because although we've had a great time there probably isn't too much to report; I don't want it to end up being a load of place names that you've never heard of (we hadn't heard of most of them before). Plus there aren't the cultural / language differences (on the whole) that there have been in other countries. So, we'll give you a short-ish version of our trip.
We picked up our hire car which was a Toyota Camry with a MASSIVE boot. Handy for keeping everything out of sight when we were sightseeing in between digs. They drive on the left here so that wasn't a problem, just needed to get to grips with an automatic car. Driving is generally the same; there are a couple of differences such as the roads are REALLY quiet outside of Christchurch (and even there, there's not too much 'rush' in the rush hour) and there's this funny rule that if you're turning left from a main road into a side road and an oncoming vehicle is turning right into the same road the person turning left has to give way.
If you look at a map of NZ's south island we took an anti-clockwise tour starting in Christchurch staying in Blenheim, Motueka, Takaka, Whataroa, Wanaka, Queenstown, Cromwell, Twizel and Geraldine. In case you're interested.
To keep costs down (but not on an entirely shoestring budget) we stayed at a mix of hostels and motels. The hostels weren't really anything to write home about, so I won't. This was our first experience of motels and we loved them. They were all self-contained units so we cooked and made packed lunch every day. A couple of them were really quite new but most of them were built in the '70s and have stayed pretty much the way they were back then which kind of added to their charm.
We did stay in one hotel and hotels here are different to what we know. They tend to be rooms that a pub will rent out with shared bathrooms. That was an interesting experience. We stayed in a hotel in Whataroa. It was more than a little rough around the edges but was clean enough and Jirrard (Gerrard) the owner was perfectly nice when he was explaining that none of the rooms had locks on the door as, after an altercation with his brother, he had locked all the doors and took all the keys before storming out. We were only there for 1 night luckily. Whataroa is a small country town so not much happening on the night time, it seemed that this hotel was the place to be. We had a drink in the bar and met Jiff (Jeff; the NZ accent seems to swap the majority of vowels around.) Jiff's mam and did own a farm down the road (not sure how old they would be as Jiff was at least 58 although he could've been a 30 year old who had a bit of a lived-in weathered look). Nate, the spiky haired barmaid with a barcode tattooed to the back of her neck was nice. She asked what room we were in 'jast sow I don't chack inione in thir later.' We ate there, although I was limited to chips and salad (it was very nice chips and salad I might add) Matt had steak. Four older English tourists came in asking for a table for four and a wine list ('yeah, rid or woyt mate'). Actually that's not how it went, Nate was really nice with them. I suspect they're used to us tourists passing through by now. Although Brinda the cook / waitress / cleaner delivered one local his dinner to discover he had temporarily disappeared, 'will I ain't fackin' stindin ere all noyt with it…' We had a nice evening and retired to our room where the awaiting 5 dozen flies met a pleasantly scented end with my water melon body spray.
Highlights of our trip included wine tasting in Blenheim, visiting Farewell Spit - the most northerly point of the south island, the seal colony at Westport (just look like brown blobs on grey rocks on the piccies), Pancake Rocks (rock formations that look like pancake stacks), Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, the lovely Milford Sound and spectacular scenery around Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook. Queenstown is the place for adrenalin junkies so of course we fitted in really well. We did, however, opt against the bungy jump, sky dive and fly by wire, the sole reason, you understand, being because of the cost and the cost alone of course. To give you an idea of costs involved we did watch some bungy jumping in action and you would get a 30 second thrill for your $160 (£65). Not sure how the gap year type tourists afford it all…I suspect mum and dad back home may have something to do with it.
All in all, a well recommended trip. Not sure if we'll visit NZ again, it's SUCH a long way; it has made us want to explore similar places closer to home though.
Yesterday we arrived back in Christchurch and Ron had kindly offered to put us up again (Joy was away tramping). We went out for Vietnamese and had a nice evening. The next day Ron had to head off early as he was judging an audio visual competition so we bid our farewells and we headed to the airport to return the car which is where we are as I'm writing this. Our flight isn't until 6.45pm this evening so we have a few hours to pass. As a result we have discovered a new pastime: Sitting in the arrivals hall. It's fascinating seeing the people wait in anticipation for friends, wives, husbands, colleagues, clients and so on. Being a very emotional person (I get tears of empathetic joy when the middle aged lady from Lyme Regis is told her Uncle Albert's snuff box collection is worth £500 on the Antique's Roadshow) it was really quite a tear jerking experience. One particular group of people were waiting for an Indian man (they had his name on paper and can only assume they were hosts / sponsors of some kind). Customs officers were back and forth questioning them and about 50 minutes later he appeared. We felt like applauding.
Anyway, we will board our 3 hour Emirates flight to Sydney where my cousin Sara will meet us. Looking forward to it.
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