Full Loop

Hey everyone, so been a while since the last blog, here goes...

The last couple of days in Queenstown were awesome, we went and played frisbee golf at the park...They have 18 holes set up around a big old park by the water...each hole has a tee, obstacles and this big metal cup with chains on that you aim for.  All you have to do is have a frisbee and you're good to go. We hired them for like 2 pounds so it was cheap as. And absolutely ledge...so much so that we went again the following day, this time taking Sarah along with us. Had a grand craic.

After the golf, we hit the famous Fergburger, a little burger place in Queenstown that apparently do the best burgers ever. And Ive got to say, it was amazing. Ive never eaten a bigger burger in my life (obviously the men all went for the biggest one money could buy, with a big portion of chips on the side) and Sarah (the Queen wolf) had some poncey-woman-chicken-burger. It became a battle towards the end, powering through every last little bit. I think we got through a tree's worth of napkins as well. We all felt ridiculous by the end of it, but it was incredible.

So, the following day we got on the bus (late) to Dunedin...the driver was a bit pissed off, but the wolf-pack just alpha-maled him into letting us off. Dunedin, is one of the most populated places in NZ, with 20% being students. We thought that fact, along with it being a Saturday, was a good excuse to go out. So we did, and it was a pretty good night, good bars and loads of people out...The only problem was that we got to sleep at around 6am, and the bus was coming at 8am to take us to Lake Takepo...We were late again, which annoyed the guy even more (as it was the same bloke) ... This was made worse when we turned up at Sarah's hostel and she wasn't anywhere to be seen. The guy decided to go, and about 10 mins later, Chris gets a call from the Queen-wolf saying she'd just got up. We managed to get the driver to go back and pick her up. I don't think we were his favourites.

Lake Takepo, is a rather good looking place..a tiny little township on the edge of a bright blue lake, with a couple of mountains here and there. We stayed for a few nights, went on some walks around Mt John and relaxed by the fire playing with the kittens. As there is hardly any light pollution there, the view of the stars is unbelievable, so at night, we'd rap up, make a cup of tea and head down to the lake to lay down and look at the night-sky. Sounds super gay, but it was awesome.

After Lake Takepo, we headed to Kaikoura. On the way, is the stop off in Christchurch. They used to do overnight stops there, but due to all the earthquakes, most of the hostels are non-existent. So usually, people only get off if they have flights. Sadly, Sarah did have a flight so we had to say goodbye to the Queen-wolf...emotional times.

Kaikoura is pretty much amazing...its right on the ocean, and is famous for its whale watching and dolphin swimming. The hostel was awesome as well...good film collection (always good), Hot tub, sauna, swimming pool, open fires, 3 kitchens, pool tables etc. and all for just 12 pounds a night..insane. The place was called Dusky lodge (definitely recommend to anyone who is going there). Due to money being incredibly low, I managed to get a little gig there: 3 hours of general cleaning a day which got me free accommodation. Im no Stephen Hawking, but I managed to work out that I would be on 4 pounds an hour.

Luckily, the first day I worked for 2 hours, and the other day I only worked for 1 hour and 20 mins. So it all worked out well in the end. My job was hoovering, which Ive had limited experience doing. But this hoover is one of them where you strap it to your back, like a rucksack and walk about like a Ghost-Buster cleaning shit up. It wants too bad, and I looked flipping awesome.

The main event of Kaikoura, however, was the dolphin swimming. You go out on a boat at silly o'clock in the morning, all wet-suited up (as the water is flippin freezing) and go looking for the Dusky Dolphins. Luckily it wasn't long before we found the first pod. There were around 300 of them, so we quickly got in the water and had a swim. It was absolutely incredible...loads and loads of dolphins came swimming up close to you, swimming round in circles to play. If you made eye contact and made noises, they would keep circling you until you couldn't keep up. The organisers recommended to singing little tunes, as they respond well to it...Im not sure if this is true, or just a wind up. At one point, I came up just to listen to everyone and it was hilarious...loads of idiots making stupid high pitched noises through their snorkels. My tune of choice was The Final Countdown by Europe....so. We had three separate swims with the pod, then enjoyed a nice hot chocolate to defrost, while watching the dolphins show off; doing back-flips, front-flips, back slaps...all sorts. Cocky little things.


Craig's Birthday was on the day we left Kaikoura, so the night before we had a joint party for him and Bobby (Rob the Canadian) as he was leaving the wolf-pack the following day. Went to the shop and bought a few crates of beers and played some drinking games. Now, if you remember back to my Birthday; Craig thought it would be hilarious to get the bus to sing for me. Obviously I couldn't copy this so I needed an original way to get him back. Luckily, a big group of people were sitting in a different common room playing guitar and being generally loud and annoying, butchering classics such as Black Betty by Ram Jam. I took the liberty to ask them all to come in the other room and sing for Craig...they did, about 15/20 of them. The douche-bags with guitars even did a little impromptu gig for him, singing about Cambridge vs Oxford in the boat race, and rye observations such as him sitting on a couch. Pay back.

Ended up climbing the fence into the hot tub at 2am...on the Magic Bus at 7.40am.

Luckily it only takes a 4 hour bus journey, a 3 hour ferry and a taxi transfer to get to the hostel in Wellington. The taxi driver thought he was French, and had decked out his little van in all things Francais. Plus a DVD player and flat screen TV. This would have been awesome, if he hadn't put Michael Jackson's This Is It on. What a load of rubbish.

Watched a load more films and played loads more pool in Wellington, as we'd been there before...Before setting off to Taupo, where we watched loads more films, as we'd been there before also.


Then a night in Rotorua, where we watched a couple more films as guess what, we'd been there before.

And then this morning, we left for Auckland, stopping at another mountain by a beach...called Mt Maunganui. Really nice little area.

And here we are, back in Auckland...Full loop done and with only 4 nights left of the super adventure. We're planning a big night out to cap it all off, so will blog again after that. Then its home time.

Cheers,

Jamie.

P.s Happy Fathers day, and Happy Birthday Dad for tomorrow