asta la vista pictures

Unfortunately Marc didn't get my message telling him to post my memory card. He gave it to the bus driver to drop off. Which they didn't. I knew this would happen. Now thats 4GB of photos down the drain. kaput. vamoshed.
I was thoroughly miserable about this yesterday, but you know cest la vie! between Em, Facebook and the others I should be able to piece to gather most of the ones I lost..it's just my special ones really. gutted.
Still me and Em are back in town having a giggle and preparing for the next steps out of here. Its very good to see her again! Christchurch is lovely and sunny, with gorgeous parks and a really nice hostel. The traveling will continue on.

Kia ora Kiakoura

After a couple of days in Kiakoura i'm back to Christchurch to meet Em in approx 1 hour 25 mins (by train -how novel!). Kiakoura is beautiful- it has this sprawling bay, blue sky thing going on- we have some stunning views of the sunset and of the full moon ( unfortunately I wasn't able to take pictures) . I've tried a disappointing whitebaite pattie- it was basically just a slightly fishy tasting omlette. Total rip off for 8 dollars, although it was a lovley walk to get there ( I can't say the same for the way back- I think I suffered from mild sunstroke, it was very very hot) and that basically sums up my time here- At first I was pretty lonley traveling by myself but met some nice people yesterday eve and today which was better than my original bus! I cant believe my time with Kiwi has finished. No more travel on the bright green bus. I may be slightly sad but im also excited , been reading up on all my South East Asia destinations! BRING IT ON!

Things I lost in Queenstown

Twenty five bangles,
A comb,
My camera case,
A hoop earring - found again after I threw away the other,
Some of my memory,
The last of my white English skin,
The key to my room,
My shampoo,
Emily,
my sight (blindfold, nothing sinister)
My sunglasses,
the skin from my taste buds.

and now I have just realised Marc didnt give me my memory card back..its still in his computer. Poo.

Going it Alone

On Wednesday I cast my self out of Invercargill ready to make the trek up north dons solo, well I say that but its not really be alone- from Invercargill to Queenstown I got chatting to a local kiwi guy, which was actually alot of fun and different as for once it wasnt the reoccuring conversation about travel - where you from , where you going, how long blah blah blah, From there I then met Maja a girl I did the east as with, well I say met but that is an overstatment as although Queenstown is still smaller than Cockermouth it took me a good hour to actually locate where she was waiting for me next to the lake!! I also met some of the nomads crew from the last time we were staying and hit the town with them. Today has been insanely long- 3 hours sleep getting up at half seven for the bus which we were on until we arrived here in christchurch at 6.00 pm . ouch. and I was seated next to a very unchatty Dutch girl . Finally managed to get off the bus and locate my bags and I immediately bump into Marc- who I had been travelling with earlier but had gone ahead! It's a funny thing this travelling lark. I'm not looking forward to the next two days before I meet up with Em on the 31st as they could potentially be very long if I only have me to keep me company! Hopefully i'll be a bit more energetic in the friends making department tomorrow! Received text from Sarah earlier- apparently today's job was herding sheep and one managed to head butt Anna! Frolicks on the farm huh! zzzzzz

Day 5 in the Merry South

Yesterday we took a road trip back up north to a place called Alexander..it was extremely hot (30c hot) to hot to even explore the town properly so we crashed in a park, explored a market, climbed a brief hill to a random and massive hillside clock and gorged our selves on freshly picked cherries: Under influence of which we gradually meta-morphed into large blue/black monsters.
This was exactly what we needed as the day before we had done 2 hours of back wrenching labour digging a large trench followed by a bike ride..and today we continued this task, transporting rubble - the highlight of which was getting to drive Annas four wheel truck -and by drive I mean have very near misses with gate posts, as not only was it the first time I had driven an automatic but it also had a large trailer attached to the back. In no way did I knock over the gate *ahem*.
So to recap..since i've been here I have broken the tv, crashed the computer..had an accident with a gate and fallen through a rotten step..OOPS! hehe. This place is still awsome though- This morning Foster took us over to Riverton..there was nothing at Riverton but it was nice of him to take us all the same! (His son drove us to bluff..his son who hadn't actually passed his test yet - to say he hadn't quite mastered the gear stick would be an understatement..not so good on a near vertical hill!)
Unfortunately for me Foster ruined my dream, clarifying the fact that there is no such thing as shilammas or shiraffs and that I had been duped for a whole month into believeing that there was by my ex bus driver. pah!

Southland:Home of the Brave, Free and Mulleted

This is now my third day down in Invercargil, the southern tip of New Zealand ( and place the rest of NZ takes the piss out of for various haircuts). Me and Sarah took a detour down here for a week to do some woofing, leaving the others back in Queenstown. We are staying in a bungalow with our host Anna about 10 minutes from the centre- its pretty sweet! we basically can help ourselves to anything, get our own rooms in return for helping out here and there- so far we did some research for her, then dug a trench. It great to be out in the countryside again and this place is alot like England, Only downfall is I can't handle being alone anymore!! For the past two nights i've had to hug a pillow as the room has just been far to empty..i'll resent being back in a dorm soon enough though! We have only got about 10 days left here before we move on to South East Asia, these weeks have literally flown by but I feel like i've know the people I have been travelling with all my life! I guess we are essentially living with people 24/7! People here are lovely though..Anna's friends have volunteered to take us on some day trips so we are jetting about all over the place. It's very refreshing to be off the tourist track and just be well- normal again!

Queen of Queenie

In case you havn't already heard Queenstown is pretty Awsome. No. VERY awsome. Yesterday we hit Milford sound, possibly the most beautiful place on earth and we had clear blue skies for it as well- apparently a very rare sight! I'm not even going to try and describe this further because absolutely nothing does it justice!
Today was pretty immense too- totally chillaxed ( so much so that I fell asleep in the sun and now look like someone's been playing a game of slaps with my stomach!) we watched buskers in the market, went for a very very quick dip in an 8c lake then roasted in the sun under the sound of a free music festival in the park and went for a FREE BBQ! If you are ever in Austraila or NewZealand Nomads is the place to stay- everyone is incredibly friendly and there's so much going on! never have I had so little sleep!
A couple of days a go we went to play Frisbee golf..I may have already mentioned this but its so good I will just say it again! it involves getting a Frisbee into a basket , very difficult, very funny!
We only have 16 days left of NZ now! I cant believe it! Next week i'm off down to Invercargill with Sarah to do some WOOFing and generally catching up on my sleep and sanity, Em will continue with Kev and Paul then i'll meet them up in Christchurch! good times!

Cocktails in Queenie

This is now my 3rd day in beautiful Queenie a.k.a Queenstown! It is definitely living up to it's name of party capital. It was Em's birthday on Monday which of course we had to celebrate!! - although I didn't actually see her at that point she spent the day with Kevin and went to a local funky cinema in Wanaka ( which is an awful lot like Cumbria). Meanwhile back in Queenstown we did a blind leading the blind pub crawl with the rest of our hostel which was immensely funny- since then you keep meeting random people and recognising their voice thinking- did I speak to these people whilst blindfolded? On Tuesday Em arrived and we had about half an hour of jumping up and down shrieking everything that happened over the past few days.. we went out to celebrate at World Bar ( they do teapots full of shots) and met up with some people we had met the night before.

Now everyone in the group I was travelling with has dispersed a bit- Sarah's staying at a mates, Luke's gone to Christchurch and the rest of the boys down to Dunedin. We are going to hang about in queeny for about 5 days- we have a lot more time than expected as we did the west coast so quickly! So hopefully we will catch up with the guys on their way back from the south coast!

From Fire to ICE

Today we hiked up the Franz Joseph glacier- I say hiked when it was more of a climb. It was totally amazing and gorgeous and strange to think that this time last year I was studying it from a text book. It was hard work especially as we were in the advanced group and we were the first group of the day so we had to hack out our steps with an axe before we continued. Its astounding how ice can be both so powerful and beautiful- I might even say that this was better than the skydive?! We saw ice caves, huge crevasses and bottomless pools it was excellent weather the sun shined and we generally just had fun trying not to fall over our crampons (which i did frequently) or fall down pot holes ( a few near misses) . Great day but i'm truly knackered now..time to go warm my bones in the jacuzzi ..mmmmm

Poo pub and Pancakes

Let me introduce you to an enemy of mine, they are bigger than midges, stealthier and really like my blood. First name sand, second name fly and they are driving me crazzzzzzy. I now have so many bites it looks like I have a weird disease all over my leg! Oh well, its totally worth being on the west coast despite this! For the last couple of nights we have been travelling between mountains, rainforest and the wild wild sea on my way down the country from Nelson. It's been very different as I have been travelling by myself ( well I left Em for a couple of days in Nelson and she is going to catch me up in a bit). I say by myself but we have an ace crew on the bus so it's more like me and 27 others! Its been soooo much fun, unlike the other trips there are quite a lot of people my age so i'm no longer the baby of the group!
We have jumped in an icecold lake, seen the pancake rocks , done a bit of walking.. last night we had a fancy dress party at lake mahun-something.. a place nicknamed the poo pub with this crazy old 84 year old owner. It was pretty insane, our theme was bin bags so we all looked like we were dressed in knock off pvc! Anyways we ended up walking up to the lake to see the glowworms at insane am in the morning, generally had no sleep but a lot of fun. Was not a pretty sight this morning though! To cap our tired and hungover heads off they took us to this really bizarre hunting museum where they showed us a video about catching and shooting deer- it was disgusting, dirty , smelt like dead animal and very unpleasant! I have no idea why they took us there- but i guess its all about new experiences . Serves me right for trying venison the night before!

Right now i'm in Franz Jospeph - it's quite cold as it's a glacial area- tommorow we are actually going trekking up the glacier to see ice caves and what not! I cant believe all this climatic difference!

Hey this wine bottle has a hole in it....they just dont make them like they used to!

Today was ace..we have moved into a different hostel round the corner then went off for the day to visit Iona- an old school friend in her house outside Nelson . It was great to have a catch up an good old reminisce! After she dropped us off back in town we headed out to the jazz and blues festival which was really good. we had one of those iconic moments while sitting on the grass with newspaper over our heads in the pouring rain and listening to some kick ass jazz when you just end up thinking this is so wonderfully random! Fav moment ever when the guy next to us said the title of this post! it was great people watching, I have never seen anybody dance like that!! For jazz fans ( ie robin) we had some quite famous( or so they said musicians) somebody TK junior? I've lost the programme and ant remember their names sadly.. but I will find out as they were sweet as! best 5 quid spent so far!