New Zealand: Phase Five - Queenstown to Arrowtown to Cardrona to Arrowtown to Cardrona to the Middle of Nowhere

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.

New Zealand: Phase Four - Milford Sound and Queenstown

We enjoyed a nice little breakfast of marmalade, toast and coffee with the speccy view over Lake Te Anau. There were a number of pretty birds around singing and flashing their colours at us - some little black wrens, some silver eyes and some others that we couldn't see but had a funny song. The sky was clearing and we could just tell we were going to have a magical day.

The drive to Milford sound was truly spectacular, breathtaking and dangerous. Not dangerous in terms of conditions but dangerous because I was always craning my neck into stupid positions to see the huge mountains. I don't know if sometimes we are the luckiest people in the world sometimes, but the cloud clinging to the mountain tops, coupled with the incredibly clear and rich blue skies made me all weird. I don't want to be a Mr. Clever Pants, but the photo to the right is an excellent example of why it was so friggin dangerous for me to drive. Every corner we turned had a new view like this, a view that was capable of convincing you that the world was being born in front of you.

Coincidentally this stop was where we first spotted a Kea, although only a fleeting glimpse we could still tell it was naughty. It was flying away from a frazzled looking tourist.

The terrain we passed through was what we came to New Zealand to see, actually it was more than I could have expected. The sheer size and raw beauty was more incredible than anything I had seen, and the power of it reminded me of when we stood on the edge of the Yasur volcano in Vanuatu.

We eventually arrived at the Homer tunnel, which is to me the epitome of New Zealand in its entirety - man and nature. Here was a tunnel, literally dug through the toughest rock by the toughest men available. The tunnel inside is still as rough as it ever was, jagged protrusions skimming past in the headlights drips of water hitting the windscreen, and a darkness more black than words can describe. The headlights didn't seem to light anything up at all. We were consumed by the earth. We didn't matter a tiny bit.

Fortunately we made it through to the other end, our souls still intact. The scenery on the other side was just as spectacular and we pressed on to Milford Sound down wet, green, windy roads and across clear, blue rivers spanned by wet, narrow bridges.

The tourist area at the Sound was to be expected, so nothing to write about here. Damn, I wrote something. We had made good time so we hopped on to an earlier cruise than planned which I think was good and bad. The cruise had less people on it because it was early, but it also had three of the rudest most obnoxious families I had ever seen. I am not surprised they hung out together; they were like cancer cells on a brain. The stupid, useless and ugly mothers had claimed the entire side of the boat (some of the only window seats available). They hadn't claimed it for themselves, but for their kids by using piles of bags. The kids never sat down because they were too busy ruining every one else's time by running around screaming like dickheads. The fathers had lost their man bits to the succubi, sorry, wives long ago. What happened to the time when 'adults' were more important than 'children'? Anyway I was glad to see that some kid's bag got a good view.

Fortunately Stacey and I weren't as egocentric as those repulsive people and we, and it seemed the rest of the passengers, went on to the top of the boat to get away and appreciate the view. I understand why people travel from all over the world to visit this place. Like the drive it was spectacular, but this time the driving was left up to someone else, and I could just sit back, relax and enjoy the view. Apparently James Cook missed the entrance to this sound on his journeys. He mustn't have yelled enough.

I must write a quick aside on the vegetation in New Zealand. It is very growy. Like the New Zealanders themselves it seems to cling onto every precipice on every cliff and hold on for dear life. Even some of the sheer, rock walls in the sound seemed to mimic the densest rainforest. I therefore dedicate my new word to New Zealand as a whole. GROWY.

We left the sound and headed back to where we came from, on the way we stopped for lunch. This is where we first encountered 'biteys'. These little sand flies were to test our patience at almost every stop we made from here in. We parked the van at a beautiful lake (Lake Gunn) and I wandered off to take some quick snaps of the area. I returned to a vision of Stacey trying gallantly to make lunch all the while swatting these little shitty sand flies. The air was thick with them. We ate our lunch quickly, although the sand fly sandwiches were mighty nutritious, and drove off rather quickly. With the windows open. We stopped quickly at the Reflecting Lakes, but that was a non-event ecause they weren't very reflecty at the time.

We pushed on through to Queenstown, named after Sydney. Sorry, bad joke. We stopped briefly in a town called Garviston, I needed to get some beers and stuff. Garviston is the 'most furthest away from the ocean of all of the New Zealand towns'. It also felt the most furthest away from anything else. Nice pub though.
The drive to Queenstown became more spectacular as we went along, and eventually we started to hit snow country. Except there was no snow. Lake Wakatipu greeted us with its funny snake like shape, apparently the water level fluctuates a couple of inches every 5 minutes. Weird. I felt a strange connection to this lake because my mood fluctuates every 5 minutes. Up, down, up, down, up, down, spaz.

We drove around this lake and underneath the Remarkables (would have been called Pointy Mountain in Australia). Funny enough the Remarkables were quite remarkable. I made a few remarks as we passed, like 'wow, they're quite pointy' and 'I have a driving wedgie'. Stacey remarked on how much of a tool I am. She will probably make a remark about that remark as well.

Queenstown was pretty enough. Pretty much full of adrenaline, hormone and alcohol fuelled boys and girls in loud cars. It is situated on Lake Wakatipu and is a 'real snow town' as opposed to Jindabyne and Thredbo which are 'fake snow towns'. Jindabyne is on a fake lake and Thredbo's snow gets a 'no' from the 'Bureau of Real Snow'. Yo. However all three are filled to the brim with fake people that don't live there. Having said this the town is nice enough to look at, although a tad expensive.

We bought some groceries, got to the van park, ate some dinner and then washed some clothes in the laundromat while I drank beer and intimidated people. In the laundromat.

I showed them all who was the most grown up...