Drunk people are stupid. They say stupid things really loudly. Next to you while you are asleep. Things like 'I didn't realise you could sleep in those Spaceship things' and 'fuck I'm drunk...' We didn't sleep the best, but we slept none the less.We awoke to a clear and cold morning; the kind of cold that hurts like hell when you stub your toe. We rushed off to the showers for a nice hot shower and the most uncoordinated attempt at getting dressed ever. I will never understand why someone would create a camp shower cubicle with one clothes hook and no bench. WHY DAMMIT?! After struggling like a ritalin kid in a straight jacket for twenty minutes I was ready for brekky and a wander around town.
During the walk I came to really respect the beauty of Queenstown, all the drunk people were in bed hating themselves and all the normal people were happily going about business. We wandered past a pretty church and down to the waterfront where we bought the best damn hot chocolate ever made. It seriously was like melted chocolate. I am drooling again. We sat by the crystal clear water with some ducks and just admired the sheer beauty of the place.
We also admired our hot chocolates and this duck.After this peaceful interlude it was off like an arrow to Arrowtown, an old gold mining settlement near Queenstown.
We wandered the area and an amazing little Chinese mining village, well not a village any more but some abandoned huts. Some of these blokes travelled to New Zealand in the hope of affording the trip for the rest of their family, but never managed to save the money to do so. Many of them spent the rest of their lives in a hermit like existence, never to see their family again.
Arrowtown itself was a little bit touristy, but still quaint with its cute little houses and oldy feel. We stopped in and bought some beanies at a wooly shop. We wandered slowly back to the car and drove the long windy not windy drive over a big fat range to Cardrona. The hills themselves were cool to look at. From a distance they had the appearance of a well loved teddy bear with the tussocky grass looking tussocky, and up close they resembled a hill with grass on it. The view from the top was pretty remarrkable, and considering we could see the Remarkables from up there this was quite unsurprising. We drove down the other side and onto Cardrona.
As we pulled up Stace started to look around frantically, I didn't notice this because I was focussed on getting my hands on my first beer, but when I did it wasn't good. Stacey's wallet was missing, with all of our money and her credit cards. Everything. The panicky feeling was quite sickening and Stacey was understandably really upset. I ran into the pub, not to buy a beer, but to try and contact the Police, or the tourist info area in Arrowtown. No luck.
I, in all my calmness and wisdom, decided that the only option was to postpone the beer (in fact by this stage I wanted a fat Scotch with a shot of Scotch with a Scotch chaser) and to drive back over the big teddy bear like hills and down to Arrowtown to run around looking. I reckon I made it in record time (little GPS fanged and smelt like brake dust when we got there). I dropped Stacey near the tourist centre and I decided to test my fitness by re-walking (running) the Chinese town trail, and everywhere else we had been. I couldn't find anything, and to be honest didn't expect to. Stace wandered the streets trying to retrace our steps in the town centre. Just before she gave up she had an epiphany - check the wooly shop where we bought the beanies! Pure genius! The people there had it in their hands and were beginning to call the credit card people to cancel it. YAY!
When we met up again we had the biggest hug ever. Yes, even bigger than the hills made of teddy bears!
We drove slowly back to Cardrona again where I ordered a beer and some food and sat down in the most beautiful beer garden ever and ate Bambi and roast vegies. Bambi good with cranberry and wine jus.
After a very satisfying and relaxing lunch we drove on to Wanaka bought some groceries and moved on again towards Haast. We intended on pulling up somewhere along the way, but never found anywhere that made us happy or didn't make us think of Deliverance so onto Haast we drove.
We got to Haast and I thought we should drive south to find a spot. We pulled up at a few areas, including a Deliverance caravan park, but again weren't entirely happy with them. Bugger it. Onto Jackson Bay we went, home to the most famous diner in New Zealand, an absolutely fantastic view up the west coast and stuff all else. As we drove into the area we were greeted by rednecks with rifles slung over their shoulders wandering around like apes in fluorescent vests.We finally made it to the diner, I ordered a whitebait sammie and we pulled up a bit north on the side of the road and what felt like the edge of the earth.
Just before we settled in to sleep I, being the man I am, slipped out for a bit of a pee. As I was splashing the boots I heard a few gun shots. 'Hmmm' I thought '.22 rifle, probably those rednecks shooting possums down the road somewhere. Nothing to write home about.' Just as I finished up I heard the report of a shotgun about 200 metres away. Needless to say I hopped straight into the drivers seat, told Stace to hold on tight, uttered the words 'fuck this' and drove very quickly to the first stop we checked out. It was interesting how it fitted our requirements perfectly this time.
I had a stiff ginantonic and crawled into bed.
