We are in deep mourning (okay mostly Tuz). Tuz just closed her BNZ bank account, and the lady took her card away!!! She lies awake at night just remembering the good times she had with that card, and sometimes she even cries a little (chock! Tuz has feelings)… Okay so the card is not the reason she lies awake at night, the people who sing really ugly and loud after 12 o'clock at night are to blame for that, but she still misses her lovely card!!! Card, oh card where art thou now?? Someone clears their throat. Oh right moving on from the card issue.
We spent most of our luxury trip in Christchurch either riding the tram, or visiting art galleries, and buying heaps of pretty pictures! But after our two days, we decided that we had seen all that the town had to offer, and Trine had had her fill of Starbucks, so we hit the road once more. This time we even managed to get out of the city centre without all the cussing and yelling and steering wheel biting, that we had come to associate with navigating through Christchurch!!! And here we thought the age of miracles was over.
We decided to cross the Misty Mountains (otherwise known as the Southern Alps) and explore the West coast. We came through the most beautiful pass, called Arthur's Pass. The scenery was absolutely stunning, and we half expected to be kidnapped by elves or accidentally run into the Fellowship! Halfway through we made a little stop, and Tuz disappeared into the mountains for abut half an hour to "walk the driver", the wakeup call for all non-coffee drinking drivers, because if "You Sleep, You Die". Or so the large billboards all along the road told us! That and Drink, drive, die, uh and then the one that told us how high the risk of Facial Eczema was… That one took us a while to figure out (insert appropriate blond joke here), apparently its for the dairy farmers, so they know when to slop some sunscreen on their cows.
We ended up spending the night in Greymouth, before heading to Westport. On the way we stopped at Punaki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. We never saw or heard the holes, but the rocks turned out to be dirt compressed through thousands of years, into thin layers… It felt very… Geological, and gave us painful flashbacks of drawing layers of dirt at the educational dig!! But the area was very pretty!!!
Once we arrived at the campground in Westport, a weird, pheasant like bird (We decided it was a duck) came and stole our entire, and very large collection of dirty dishes. It was especially fond of our cheese cutter, so we named it Ostehaps, short for osteskærerhapseren (Eh not sure how well this translates to English, but something along the lines of Chesebite). We tried very hard to chase the dumb thing away, but it was possed, man! It just kept coming back for more, we think cheese may have an euphoric influence on the poor thing, so when we finally managed to collect our dishes, the cheese cutter was filled with bird saliva. Yes, apparently ducks can drool!! Who knew?!?
The next day we quickly got ready and left, so that the cheese junkie duck wouldn't follow us in its hunt for a next cheese high!!! Our headless run from the birds took us to Nelson, where we spent two nights at a insects from hell infested campground. They were so loud you could barley hear yourself think, and the trees were filled with empty insect husks, Eeeiw!! But it was really, really cheap, so in the end all was well, except maybe Tuzes ankels. They had become Feeding ground nr 1 for all the sandflies in the area!
We started our Nelson adventure in Founders Park, a reconstructed pioneer village, that was very small and shoved us just how much NZ lacks history. But the lady was very nice… And we had the whole place to ourselves, which was nice.
Our next stop was Nelson Down Town, where we saw a pottery and some historics streets, before we took our car on an epic quest for a new parking spot (2 hour park limits SUCK, like big Bills) we found ourselves outside Jens Jensens Goldsmith, which coincidentally (or not) is the birthplace of the 16 One Rings from LotR. The actual Sauron was not a Mea left in Middelearth after the first age, no he was a Dane with the insanely boring and common name Jens Jensen (although we don't think he owned a farm), which again proves that Denmark spawns evil, like Lars Von Trier, Dogme films, Butter Cookies and Mogens Kamre. But hey at least we don't have to take responsibility for Basshunter.
The next day we saw World of Wearable arts, a museum filled with wearable artwork (don't we just love people who state the obvious) and vintage cars (yes Carl we took lots of pictures). It was an awesome museum, and they even had one of the One Rings on display!!!
After that Tuz forced Trine to go kayaking with her the next day, in Able Tasman Nat. park. We were of course the only people on the trip, and we had absolutely nothing, NOTHING in common with our guide. He was one of those free spirit, outdoorsy people with rastafari hair, and well were not!! He thought we were some of the most boring people he had ever met, but once we had established that fact, we either paddled in silence or only talked about safe topics, like educational systems and the weather back home. But our poor guide probably experienced the most boring 3 hours of his life… We kinda thought it was funny. We Kayaked to something called Split Apple Rock, yes that would be a gigantic boulder with a crack down the middle, and we saw some sleeping sealions. Whether they were sleeping because they were tired, or because we are such utterly boring people, we do not know. But all in all it was a nice litle trip, a little hard on Tuzes arms maybe, as she was the Trinetaxi yet again…Ah well, Selber schuld!!!
After that we went toward back toward Picton and took the ferry back across the Sound on the 11th of February.
Once we were back in Wellington we decided to stay for another 4 night, we were quite taken by the city. Although Tuz completely denied to go back to the campground we had used before, because she did not want to go all ninja every time she had to pie!! Luckily for her there was another one a bit closer to town. This of course robbed us of our train ride every morning and afternoon, but since men are utterly uncomprehending, what is a girl to do?
We went to the Weta Cave again, and never have we felt so compelled to shoplift as we did that day. Not because we could not afford the stuff, but because the stuff we wanted wasn't for sale!! Damn you, you amazingly creative people at Weta!!! When we become villans, we will invent a beam that moves the entire Weta Cave to Århus!!! The Cave and Burgerfuel… mmm Burgerfuel aaahh!
This time around we actually made it to Te Puke (national museum) as well. We were very proud!!! However, we never got the chance to stalk Peter Jackson, because it pretty much rained the entire time we were there, and well… Were just not that dedicated, not even when it comes to brilliant movie directors.
Proof of this can be found throughout our childhood, example: our skateboard we never learned to skate on, Gymnastics, Tuzes Ukulele, Trines guitar and so on and so forth.
I think we will finish on this less than perfect note, because my eyes have turned square and DickChainey is hot, so have fun peoples!!!