Burning the candle at both ends.......

What a busy week it has been, it has flown by!  So, the last time I posted I was in Wellington at the south of the North Island, and since then I have crossed the water to the South Island, the larger of the two islands, yet it is the lesser populated.  In order to make the crossing it was a case of getting up at 5.30am to catch the slow ferry with all the lorries,cars and goods containers etc, boarding this a foot passenger was cheapest way to make the crossing, rather than flying etc.  This was about a 4 hour journey, and it was sooo pretty, especially going through the sounds as we approached the Picton terminal.  I wasn't really looking forward to this journey expecting to be crammed in with all the cargo and not much to look at, but it turned out to one of the most scenic parts of my trip, I even got to see some dolphins swimming along side the ship.   And it was the most funny part of my trip to date I think.  When I wanted a break from standing outside on the observation deck taking in the sights (it was freezing cold), I went into the onboard cafe which was a bit like a road side truck stop, but the Kiwi working behind the counter was so funny he provided me with a good couple of hours of entertainment.  It was a kind of 'you had to be there moment, so I won't waffle on about it, but it was better than any onboard film those flying to the South Island would have had!  As I've mentioned several times, the locals really are so friendly, you'd be hard pushed to find a Kiwi with a bad attitude, I haven't found one yet.  In fact, an example of this, before I left Wellington, I spent an afternoon walking around the city and chilling out on the harbour, soaking up the atmosphere etc, and to have a break on from this busy schedule of mine, I thought I'll have a little lay down on the quay wall for a quick power nap before continuing on.  A couple of minutes after I had shut my eyes, the boatman from the shed behind me, came over and offered me a yellow pages to use as a pillow to make me more comfortable!  How kind is that?!  But he was then superseded by his colleague who brought me over an upgrade from the yellow pages, he gave a soft and squidy life jacket to lay on!  This was very sweet of them, but I only planned to stay there 10 minutes, but after the trouble they went to, I felt obliged to stay a bit longer to use the life jacket pillow!

Anyway, back to the South Island.  So once I had made the ferry crossing, I hopped onto the bus to make my way to the Abel Tasman National Park, where I stayed for a couple of days in a barn.  It was here that myself and 5 other girls met and this night set the president for the next week!  Some people on the bus have our coming together like a solar eclispe......its quite rare, it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, you don't want to look at it!  After completing a tough day of sea kayaking, sailing, hiking and seal spotting, we heard a rumour from the guide about an Open Mic night at the local bar, which sounded like fun so we thought we would give it a try.  The 'town' we were staying at had just this one bar open after 8pm, so all the locals hang out there, and apparently 'open mic Thursday' is the new Friday, and having attended I would probably agree.....it beats most Friday nights I have had out in Southampton!  If you place 3 Brits, 2 Germans and 1 Canadian in an open mic night in a real small town, playing a game of 'fives' to help the evening along, a few rounds of jeager bombs, you end up several hours only the kind of dancing you would never dream of seeing in the UK, one awesome night and multiple hangovers the next day.  I have to say though, the pain the next day was totally worth it, we had a great time through the Kiwis hospitality.

From the National Park we headed down the 'wild west' coast town to the legendary Barrytown, or more affectionately known as 'Baz Vegas'.  There is only one thing in Baz Vegas, and that is the hotel that we stayed at, so it is a case of making your own entertainment!  So the bus collectively decided on a 'pimps and ho's' themed evening with a difference, the guys were the ho's and the girls were the pimps.  On arrival we were presented with a box of old clothes that smelt like wet dog to create our outfits with.  I'm not sure that any of us actually ended up looking like Pimps or Hos.  I would say we more looked like a group of people that had picked a load of mismatched clothes from an old box that smelt like wet dog.  I'm not going to say much else about what happened in Baz Vegas, because there is code of honour that you agree to when you enter Barrytown, "what happens in Barrytown, stays in Barrytown".  All I will say is this..........when you wake up in the morning with eyeliner drawing and writing all over your face, having slept on the floor, still in the smelly fancy dress outfit from the night before with your pajamas over the top of the smelly fancy dress outfit, and only a travel towel covering you as blanket, as this was the only thing you could manage to find in the dorm of destruction when you went to sleep at 4.30am.......you've probably had a good time!  I'll add some pictures to FB for your entertainment.

The bus journey leaving Baz Vegas was very quiet needless to say, and I'm not sure we'll all look at each other in quite the same way again.........ha ha ha.  So putting that behind us, it was on to the Franz Josef Glacier where we had an early night to prepare for our glacier hike the next day.  We wrapped ourselves up in several layers in preparation for this Arctic trek, where we climbed about 10km over the glacier.  Unfortunately I was a little underwhelmed by the glacier and the hike.  Yes, it is amazing to see such a vast scale of ice nestled between 2 mountains in a temperate climate, but it wasn't the crystal sparkling structure I had expected, and once you have walked 1 km on ice, it started to get a bit boring for the next 9 looking at the same thing.  I plodded along thinking, my walk to work back in December when the roads iced over in Southampton was a bit more exciting than this, and I didn't have to pay someone $100 for the privilege.  After the ice hike, we went to the local bar to warm up by the fire and have a chilled out evening, which you can probably guess, didn't turn out to be quite as chilled as intended, and once again ended up being another 4am-er.

The following day we headed to Makarora, which the Lonely Planet guide quotes as having a population of 50 people......so when our bus of 43 turned up, there was pretty much a ratio of 1:1 for local to foreigner.  Again, it was a case of making your own entertainment, just like in Baz Vegas.  And it was here in Makarora, that I broke my karaoke virginity.  I can't count the number of times I have said, "no matter how drunk I get I will never do karaoke".  Well here in Makarora, I lost all remaining dignity and self respect (there wasn't much left after the last few days) and let the world hear my special voice for the first time.  Several times.  Yes, people, I did it more than once, about 7 times all in all I believe.  However, there were no solo numbers involved, I'm not sure the world is ready for that so it was always in a group.  However, I am encouraged that me and the girls won the prize for the free bar crawl in Queenstown, so I am encouraged by my ability!!!  Although in reality I think that it was awarded to us, to just get us off the stage and give everyones ears a break.

New Zealand has a population of just 4 million people, and majority of those live on the North Island, despite it being the smaller island.  There are just 1m people living on the South Island.  Because the towns are so much smaller and remote, we really have mixed more with the locals here which has been great, that is what travelling is all about, so it was good to enjoy the company of some non-europeans.  Although this blog sounds a bit like an extract from a new student at Freshers week, I've had an amazing time with girls that I was fortunate to meet on this leg of the trip and the best moments have been hanging out with the local people.  Having managed to fit in glacier walking, hikes, kayaking and sailing along the way, we really have been able to burn the candle at both ends to see and experience the best parts of New Zealand.  However I think for the benefit of all other travellers on the bus, my bank balance and the locals in New Zealand, as I head on to Queenstown, myself and girls have now gone our separate ways, so it will be back to business as usual of me being the boring oldie, having her 'I'm almost 30 crisis' who is the first to bed every night.  It was nice to have a week off though.  :o)

I hope everything is good with all of you love.  Think about you all everyday.

Lots of love

Katrina x x x x x