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hello everyone, long time no see. hope everyone is ok!
im not sure how the location for this entry will show up cuz the site is not acceptin what i put in, so... welcome to the blog for RIVER VALLEY, WELLINGTON, NELSON, WESTPORT, LAKE MANINAPUA, FRANZ JOSEF! its a biggy! hope i can remember something!
so... RIVER VALLEY... we arrived in the middle of nowhere and were told to load our bags onto a trailer, which then disappearred to our 'hostel'... with no phone signal, in the middle of nowhere and too dodgy for the bus to get to we were a little creeped, bit too much like the start of a sppoky film! but... after a ten/fifteen minute trek down a dirt track we arrived at river valley, a cute little seup of chalets, a river, picnic area, volley ball area, a couple of hammocks, and a little pully bridge to get accross the river, it was all very idyllic... except those pesky nibbling flies!!!!
for tea we were getting a roast dinner,... all very excited by this! we went for tea and it was kind of buffet stule, with the meat served to us... this is important. lol. after all tuckin into our meals like piggies, this is about 20-30 of us, one of the guys at our table, Joe, discovered a few nasties in his food! moere than a few actually! we all gathered round to look at his tasty plate and were all totally gobsmacked! a piece of meet was CRAWLING! CRAWWLLLLING! all over it were the tiniest little crawly things (which we all refer to as maggots but i dont kno wot they were) and we were all nearly sick! lol. especially since we had all wolfed it down! eugh! a loong story short we told the staff there, and after some debate the following morning aswell we were refunded the money for our meals,. but were still all convinced we would be really ill. a few upset stomachs later, but that was probably coincidence, and we are all fine ever since!
there wasnt really anything else to do at river valley as it was completely in the middle of nowhere, the first night Relle our driver got out a book called "can i ask you a personal question" so a group of us sat round and flicked through pages in the book askin ten questions at a time. mine and sams were pretty boring but a few of the others had some cheeky questions, it was all good fun though and we all got to know each other a bit more which was nice!
the next day we had to wait for the boys to come back from white water rafting, so hung around a bit longer in the middle of nowhere. me and nicole played on the pully bridge, i did a bit of washing, we all read a bit and then me n sam had a little rest on the hammocks, but the flies got a bit much. when the boys came back it was back up the dirt track to the bus, and off to WELLINGTON, no great disasters and everyone alive! not quite the horror story it started off as (unless you count the maggots).
WELLINGTON...
we stayed at BASE hostel again and shared a sanctuary (all girls) room with hannah, nicole and the two swedish girls with cool accessories, the room was okay and there was a bit to do there so it made a change, we stayed 2 nights. i cant really remember everything we did, but i kno we walked around town and i saw an earring i reallywanted but didnt buy it :( me and sam both boght a pair of shorts that we NEEDED for australia and had a wander around the harbour, watched a bit of rowing and wandered some more. earlier (coming back to me now) we headed to the park with the others in tow to go to some kind of concert/market thing, we were quite excited!...and it was rubbish! lol. basically some Maori guy who we didnt kno was singing random old crooner songs on stage with long funny hair a tight black vest and trousers and a bit of a belly whilst being rather camp, it was intersting! the stalls were basically just food or nasty expensive jewellery, and there was a group of 4 probably drama students who were walking around in ultra slow motion dressed in little sheets and were painted white... we didnt understand this little demonstration, but did take photos and do a few impressions later. bizzare! i think thats when we left for a wander.
i think we probably did a supermarket trip again and went out for a couple of drinks each nite. the first night we just went to a live band bar but ended up sittin upstairs away from the music (boo) and went home at about 11 or something i think. then the following night, ready to say goodbye to rich, kev, joe, nic, tim and han, we met them in the basement bar at the hostel for a few drinks, i think we only had one or two beers though. the club was pretty cool, a bit like sugarmill at home (woo) and had some very funny dancers that kept us both entertained. we both took our journals down with us and everyone wrote little goodbye messages for us which was nice! after a boogie and all the writing we said goodbye and did our hugs in the street as the others left for another bar and me and sam went to bed, ready for an early morning and a ferry crossing. but we were sad to leave our friends behind.
the FERRY CROSSING to PICTON was only about 3 hours long i think, i read a bit, wrote in my journal and ate some food. lol. sam did a bit of the same and tried to get some sleep. the ferry was taking us to Picton, where our next driver, DIESEL picked us up and took us to NELSON where me and sam were staying for 3 nights, though the bus only normall stops for one.
NELSON...
we stayed 3 nights in Nelson because we had been told the weather was warmer there (and were in serious need of some sun n warmth), there was a beach, and we really wanted to stop somewhere a little while as the bus had been pretty non/stop for a while. when we arrived there we were pretty pleased as the weather was quite nice and the accommodation was pretty darn nice! lol. little chalet things in the courtyard behind the pub, it was called FERN LODGE/PRINCE ALBERT (two names for some reason) and it was far too posh for backpackers! the meal on offer for us was very cheap as meals go here and included a pudding, but, it was roast dinner, and we werent really very eager, though the chocolate mudcake was pretty tempting! instead we did supermarket trip (i love food shopping so enjoy every trip we do, but sam loathes it, slight conflict of interest there but luckily for me we have no choice but to do it!) and amongst other things bought a cooked chicken, which lasted us for tea, butties the next day and tea again! yum! i dont think we did a lot that night, watched a bit of tv, including a documentart about some cnnibal guy, and pretty much just went to bed i think!
the next morning, 8th February! woo! i got up and opened my birthday cards that id put under my pillow so i remembered it was my birthday! lol. thanks mum n dad, sandra, sarah malcolm and marie (and lee and mel for the one i opened before going) it was really nice to have cards ion my birthday because it was very strange to not be around everyone i would have been if i were at home. but, we got up and headed for the beach! a birthday at the beach, woop woop! the weather was lovely so we sunbathed our socks off, we attempted to go into the water but despite our walking the water was just so shallow that even when we could no longer see our towels we were still only up to our shins. we carried on til about armpit height but then just got bored, submerged ourselves in it bending our knees, attempted to swim for 5 minutes then got back out, and sunbathed some more! lol. dont worry tho! we were wearing our factor 30!!!! we didnt get particularly brown and are starting to think we never ever will, lol, but my freckles cme out so the sun must have gotten us enough.
we got the bus back to fern lodge and after showering etc sam treated me to a piece of chocolate mud-birthday-cake, and later a glass of wine, so we both sat and ate the sickliet hugest piece of cake ever. eugh, but yum! thanks sam!
we decided to go out for just a few drinks later , but it ended up being a little later than planned, we met new people out, played a bit of pool doubles, i leant my hoody to a new mate and we got home rather early in the morning!but a good nte was had by all, it was a very random but very fun nite and was just what we both needed, it was a good birthday, despite a lot of people who shouldve been not being there. i missed you all!
the next day we did very little as we were very tired. lol. we went to the market which was pretty rubbish, but we did both buy our bone carvin necklaces from there, which we had been wanting for ages but always saw them in expensive giftshops but these were only 10 dollars, bargain!!! we did a bit more of nothing, rang home, and packed our bags ready to go home the next day. fun fun fun.
still to come... WESTPORT,
LAKE MAHINAPUA...
Sam Again- this was one of the most random places we have been, in the middle of no where with an 85 year old man named les who was runing it. The rooms were not very goot, my bunk bed made so much noise it sounded like an earthquake when I moved. Not good. But we had a massive meal which was cheap and Les cooked and we all sat in a shed on acfateria seats- but was very nice.
We had a fancy dress night- The theme was 'anything but clothes' - me and Tess went as party Fairies- which meant we wore a Happy Easter plactic table cloth as a dress, a Happy Annervisary banner as a belt and a Happy Birthday gift bag as our handbad, and of course wings- we purchase all of this form the $2 shop (80p)- on after thought not the best outfit as it was very hot when we were in the pub- pastic and hot = not nice.
everyone made alot of effort with their costumes- alot of girls wore black bin bags and made them into dresses. The girl who won had her bikini on with 2 massive birthday cones on her breats as a bra. The boy who won was wearing only a basket and flowers-- interesting. @ boys wore stuffed animals and took some of the stuffing out. And there was many more.
Me and Tess werent taht drunk so just sat back and watched everyone else- which is very amusuing.
might try and keep this bit short because iv bin sat at the computer for ages! lol...over to sam...
back to tess...
today we are in Franz Josef, after having done a 7 hour glacier hike today! o yes, we hiked! in mountainy things with ice and bricks and special boots with spikey bits on, and... RAIN! the walk was pretty good before the rain showed its ugly wet face, after that it was kind of like, ok, we're ready to go down soon, but it was good, we are both glad we did it! (though im sure tomorro morning we wont be, wen we cant even get out of bed cuz our legs have turned to brick!) but it was all good on retrospect!
we saw some really amazing scenery (im aware im not really mentioning scenery of anywhere!) and i took 33 photos! lol. i wore leggings which looked horrendous and we both had to wear several pairs of massive socks so the boots werent too big! lol. we both have blisters which hurt, a lot, whilst walking, and we both felt really proud of ourselves after wards. i'll let sam finish telling this story, i have to go, but hi everyone, lots of love, miss u all, gush gush gush, will try and ring soon, ideally on tuesday at grandads house so i can speak to u all at once, ball, i need ur work hours so i kno wen ur in and il drop u a line hunnybunch! we will upload more photos onto this soon, we are just transferring from the other site, much loves, tess xxx
Back to sam... Well as tess said we were very prod of ouself for doing the walk and we did alot of climbing- dont worry i ahve already backed up my photos so none to lose. The hardes bit of the walk was from the bottom of the glacier back to the bus- as it tooks os long and our legs were willing us to stop- it wasnt a pretty look when we got back as we were hot and soaking- but all good fun.
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