Howdy,

Well as usual I’ve managed to find plenty of other things to do than sit and stare at a computer screen for a week – I tell you, I don’t know how Pat used to do it back at work. I guess he must just love computers.

Ahem.

Anyway, I’ve dragged Pat along to a net cafe here in Melbourne and have chained him to his seat so he can typ-er… watch me type without being able to leave to do something more interesting.

This is the blog for what happened in the last week of New Zealand. Are you ready? Then I’ll begin:

Saturday 9th December: Queenstown

• After a mammoth blogging session, Pat and I met up with the gang (Kate, Jen, Jersey and Mette) to go and play Mini Golf – as the weather was still pretty nice
• Mini Golf was great fun – and at a lovely location, at the base of the gondola:

  

• After a good first three holes, Pat and Jen were in the lead so spent the rest of the first 10 holes trying to beat eachother…

  

  …sadly, Pat then decided to bugger it all up in true Pat Scullion style, getting a 7, 5, and 4 to match Jen’s 3, 4 and 3.

• Pat ended up coming 4th out of 5. Jersey won, one point in front of Jen, followed by Mette. Kate asked not to be mentioned here so we won’t say which position she came in (Er, Squage… – Pat) What? Oh, oops.
• Needless to say, all had fun!
• That evening we ventured to a pub Pat and Kate had stumbled across earlier in the week, called The Cow. It was rather reminiscent of a lovely English country pub, complete with wooden roof timbers and an open log fire.
• For a change, Pat allowed me out to sample some alcoholic delights…

  

  …and Mette and I realised we had a strange love between us… so went on an impromptue date:

  

  After a few bottles of wine, everyone was pretty Squage-faced:

  

  (As you can see, there were a few bottles consumed between us… ;-) – Pat)

• Pat later on phoned Orange and all was sorted regarding the 200 quid… although for some reason Pat can’t remember the *exact* details. How very odd. (Yeah, shut it you boozy hypocrite – Pat) (Looks like Pat’s still a bit hungover and tetchy…)
• Finally, some sleep was had… and Pat wished he’d gone to bed at about 10pm, rather than gone 12am… as he had a bus to catch at 8:15am.

Sunday 10th December: Queenstown -> Dunedin

• After a FAR too early rise, Pat and the gang checked out of the hostel in a half-zombie-like state and trudged down the road to pick up the Bottom Bus* – saying goodbye to Flea (who was just about to take a Kiwi Experience group up to Christchurch) before falling onto the smaller of the two Bottom Buses that were there to pick us up.

  * Pat informs me that Stu Clark may be interested to know that the independant Bottom Bus company (affiliated to but not owned by Tourism Holdings) has recently bought out East As…

• We had a good bus driver called Bloke, who was in his 50s and had the sort of good sense of humour you expect from someone who’s seen a fair bit of stuff in his time.
• After a few stops off at little towns (nothing particuarly exciting – wide roads, small little shops and not a person in sight) we made our way into Dunedin.
• First stop was Baldwin Street – officially the Steepest Street In The World:

  

  At its steepest it’s a 35% gradient. Pat managed to walk from the base right to the top at a reasonable pace, without stopping, but was *exhausted* at the top:

  

  Kate and Jersey attempted to run it. They got 1/3 of the way and gave up. Insane? Nope. What’s insane is that every year there’s a big race to the top and people do it in frighteningly fast times. Nutjobs.

• After a trundling back down the street, the Bottom Bus picked us up and took us to a viewpoint of Mount Cargill for a panoramic view of Dunedin:

  

• Dunedin is Gaelic for Edinburgh – no coincidence as Dunedin was set up by Scottish settlers and is twinned with it’s English-language namesake. It’s a really nice city, quite studenty, with loads of places to eat and drink and quite a chilled vibe about it. Sadly we only had one night there so didn’t get to check it all out…
• …but Pat did manage to get on a brewery tour. What are the chances?
• Pat really enjoyed the Speights Brewery Tour, as:
  1. The tour guide was very amusing (knowing everyone on the tour’s nationality and being able to relate various parts of the tour to each person’s home country (apart from the Aussie family’s, whose country was joking slagged off at every opportunity))
  2. Pat got to see the brewing vats in action
  3. There was a good bit of interesting history
  4. There was free beer tasting.

  Personally, I think Pat might’ve been adding the first three points in just to seem like less of an alchy… (Honest, guv, it was interesting! – Pat) Yeah, yeah.

• Most of the evening was spent chilling at the lovely hostel (complete with free Internet access and a nice warm, cosy lounge area), but later on Pat went for some food at an Indian Restaurant (nothing like sampling a bit of local cuisine, eh?) with Caroline (who we’d met in Queenstown) before they met up with Kate for some watching of Old School at Caroline’s hostel (Pat, Jersey, Jen and Kate’s place didn’t actually have TV)
• FACT: Old School is still hilarious.
• After watching that Pat and Kate made their way back to the hostel and Pat had a well needed sleep.

Monday 11th December: Dunedin -> Invercargill

• This morning was a bit sad as despite meeting up again with Chris and Welshy, Jersey and Pat had to say toodles to Kate and Jen who were staying in Dunedin for another couple of nights. Still, they were all gonna catch up again in Christchurch, so that was good.
• After saying tarrah and getting on an even smaller Bottom Bus than the day before (this time only with 7 people on it – Pat, Jersey, Welshy, Chris, Caroline, Molly and another lady who we’ll call Jane for the purposes of the blog – not that I’ve forgotten or anything), we made our way out of Dunedin:

  
  The awesomely huge Bottom Bus.

• Lots of stops today, to see lots of wildlife and cool scenery – and the weather was perfect! Pat hoped that the same weather would follow him into Milford Sound on Wednesday. Would he be happy? Find out… Next. (n.b. below, in the entry for Wednesday)
• The first stop was at Nugget Point: a lighthouse with plenty of cool looking rocks around it in the sea:

  

  

• After that we made our way to a beach called “Cannibal Bay” (named by Captain Cook or someone similar on docking at the beach and finding human skeletons on the sand. Turns out it was a burial ground, rather than a dustbin for eaten stuff)… and saw a real life Sea Lion! Wooh:

  

  He’s a male, apparently. You can tell because he’s a darker colour and… some other things. Pat can’t quite remember the details other than “Wow, it was a Sea Lion!”. He should really narrate Planet Earth…

• After that the Bottom Bus stopped off at a nice beach for a beach walk… which Pat enjoyed, including the “through the jungle” trek back to where the bus was moved to – a very Jurassic Park feel to it, Pat said. Apart from all the violent dinosaur related death, I assume.
• Penultimate stop was a walk through the woods to the lovely McLean Falls, which is owned by GlaxoSmithKline and is made of toothpaste:

  

• Last stop of the day was at Curio Bay, where we went on a guided tour to the Petrified Forest, which looks like this:

  

  From what Pat could gather, it’s called Petrified Forest in honour of what was thought by the trees at the time:

  “Oh shit, there’s hundreds of tonnes of lava about to smash into us, drown us and turn us into a fossilised rocky mass on the coast. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-“*splat* *burn* *fossilify*

  Anyway, we waited there for a while and finally got the pay-off – seeing a cute little pengiun waddle in from the sea! I would show you the picture but, well, you can hardly see it so here’s an “artist’s” impression instead:

  

  After the tour Pat and Caroline went for a walk along the main beach of Curio bay:

  

  And saw ANOTHER sea lion – this one was female. You can tell because she’s lighter than a male and, er, some other telling signs. Probably:

  

• In the evening we stayed in Invercargill. Not much going on there, but the hostel was quite nice (even if the dorm had no windows so waking up in the morning was a little difficult) and directly next to a Speights Ale House… where our driver managed to get us a deal where we got 20% off drink AND food… ALL NIGHT!
• Lots of beer later, Pat fell into bed…

There we go! That was New Zealand.

What? There’s another 6 DAYS to cover? Oh, jeez… Pat, you could’ve told me before I wasted 3.5 minutes on that stupid penguin picture! (Hey, I didn’t want to stop an artist at work – Pat) You call that art? (No, but you do – Pat) Damn, he’s got me there.

Anyway, yes, let’s stop making this enormous blog entry even longer and just get on with it (Yes, please – Pat) Oi, just because you ca-(JUST GET ON WITH IT! – Pat)

Ok:

Tuesday 12th December: Invercargill -> Te Anau

• After a difficult wake up (and some moaning to/from various people about other’s snoring ) everyone managed to check out and get on the bus, just in time to see a rather ominous looking black cloud heading towards Invercargill
• The small bus was a bit emptier today as Caroline and Mollie had gone to Stewart Island… meaning Pat had two seats to himself – a luxury. Jersey almost did but an extra person got on (a rather odd, mid 50s, skinhead German lady) and sat next to him. D’oh!
• First stop was… a… place, which had a cool shop that allowed you to make your own designs for pendants made out of… some… blue… stuff. Pat made a rather unexpected design:

  

  What are the chances? Pat was quite pleased as to do bone carving in the north island cost $40, whereas carving your own one of these cost $4. Sweet As!

• After the carving, it started fully weeing it down so Pat and the gang ran back to the bus for the next leg of the journey
• We made it to the far south coast of New Zealand, to a place called McCrackens Rest. It was a *tad* rainy, as you might be able to gather:

  

• After that we trundled to a farm to watch/participate in Sheep Shearing. On the way, we past some trees that were, ahem, rather windswept:

  

• Watching sheep shearing was an interesting experience for Pat.
• After putting on a big anorak and boots, Pat and the Bottom Bus gang watched the farmer’s sheep dogs do some awesome work herding sheep around and about… and into the sheering shed:

  
  Seems a bit cramped…

  
  Umm…

  
  Now, I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t look like the face of someone having a good time.

  There’s no point me banging on about animal rights and such like because, well, you’ll either agree with me already or be deeply offended by my saying anything (that seems to be the experience Pat’s had)… either way, your opinion isn’t likely to be changed by a blue blob on a soap box, so I’ll leave it there.

  But regardless, Pat didn’t really enjoy the experience and thought it all seemed a bit cruel. And no, he didn’t take part in the sheering, in case you’re wondering :-)

• After that we had a quick lunch and made our way to Te Anau, our stop for the night
• Te Anau’s a lovely little lakeside town – quite quiet, but the view across the lake to the mountains definitely makes it somewhere Pat and myself could stay for a good few days.
• Only one evening was had of course, so Pat and Jersey took the opportunity to get some ace sunset photos by the lake, prior to heading to the pub (called The Ranch):

  

  

• After the pub closed at 10pm (!!!) Pat and Jersey stopped off by the lake again for some cool long-exposure night shots (to be unveiled at some point)
• Finally, Pat fell asleep on his non-bunk bed dorm bed at about 11pm and had a lovely sleep (following a frustrating experience on the hostel’s SHITE internet (1bps or thereabouts))…

Wednesday 13th December: Te Anau -> Milford Sound -> Queenstown

• Pat awoke refreshed and ready for the long drive to and from Milford Sound, checking out of the hostel and hulking all his bags down the road to the Milford Explorer pick up point, by a cafe
• Once on the coach, the coach driver kept us all entertained with his amusing anecdotes and mucking about on the mic, such that the 2 hour journey didn’t seem too long.
• It was helped by the cool scenery on the way:

  
  Earl Mountains – as seen in The Two Towers in one of the flyover shots (not sure which one)

  
  Pat about to fill his water bottle up in a mountain stream, complete with huuuuge mountains behind him

• On the way into Milford Sound, we passed through the Homer Tunnel, which takes us under a mountain and down from 920m to a “mere” 850m above sea level – and into the huuuuuuge valley towards Milford Sound:

  
  It’s so hard to feel the sheer scale of these mountains with a photo… but trust me, you feel like you’re the tiniest little speck of dust looking up at giants when you’re in the valley. Just amazing.

• Despite the slightly crappy weather, Pat was very glad to not be there in winter… whereupon you have to tackle roads with flowing water streaming down them, watch out for icy roads… oh and occasionally have to avoid enormous, house crushing avalanches coming from the mountains high above.
• Once at Milford Sound we all made our way onto the cruise ship and were taken along the length of Milford Sound, right to the edge of the Tazman Sea. Here are a couple of photos of it, but again they just don’t do justice to the sheer size of the place:

  

  
  (There’s more in the usual photos area…)

  To be honest, even when there we were looking at waterfalls thinking “yeah, it’s about 50m” only to find that they were 200m high… as with Franz Josef glacier, you get a real warped perspective with such huge places.

• We saw some Dolphins too:
  

• After the cruise and a visit to the Underwater Observatory (a somewhat lame little underwater viewing platform with murky windows and next-to-no visability) we all got back on the coach (Jersey and Pat informed that the helicopter ride to a mountain peak they’d asked to go on was cancelled due to bad weather… Pat was partly glad as despite jumping from planes and bridges, he’s still scared of heights…) and started towards Queenstown
• The journey back was 4 hours long, made less dull by a showing of Jackass 1 on the coach… which was much less consistently funny than the sequel. They really did improve things for Jackass 2. Can’t wait to see what happens with 3…
• Eventually we made it into Queenstown, checking into Downtown Backpackers hostel (where we’d stayed previously) and Jersey and Pat wandered to a net cafe, which ACTUALLY FUNCTIONED for photo uploading and credit card bill sorting… then going for a Fergburger, a quick pint and sleep.
• Twas another early rise for Pat tomorrow…

Thursday 14th December: Queenstown -> Christchurch

• Pat woke up at 7am and checked out of the hostel, saying tarrah to Welshy, Jersey and Chris on the way (as they weren’t going to be going to Christchurch until Sunday)… and made his way to the coach pick up point for 8:15.
• Once on the coach, Pat managed to blag two seats to himself, allowing some serious dozing for the first part of the 6.5 hour trip – well, inbetween laughing at the coach driver, Amon, who was easily the most amusing Kiwi Experience driver he’d encountered. Silly little things such as whispering over the mic (knowing most people were knackered/hungover/asleep) “You are all feeling sleepy… you will by your lovely coach driver a coffee at the next stop… white with two sugars…” oh and listing about 100 different words to describe going to the toilet at our first stop.
• Anyway, at the second stop (the rather fairytale sounding Twizel) we picked up one extra person – who happened to be Mette!
• Soon after Twizel we stopped off at The Bluest Lake In The World ™:

  
  ^^ VERY BLUE

• The rest of the journey was spent catching up on the past few days – oh and watching Top Gun, which Amon decided should be enjoyed by all. Awesome, cheesy, awesome, badly acted, awesome, terrible, awesome stuff.
• Once at Christchurch, Pat and Mette checked into a place called Oasis Backpackers, dumped their stuff off and went to search for cheaper accomodation for the next few nights.
• Two hours of walking around from hostel to hostel experiencing a large “no room at the inn” issue, they stumbled across a hostel not listed in the Lonely Bible called Drifters. This was a good place as:
  1. It was cheap
  2. It was really nice
  3. They had twin rooms available
  4. The couple who ran it were lovely
  5. The couple who ran it were from Bicknacre (5 minutes down the road from Pat’s home town)

  Needless to say, this was the place chosen for the next few nights, despite being a bit out of town.

• In the evening, Pat and Mette grabbed the free shuttle bus to go to the supermarket (complete with a bus driver who was playing christmas music at full volume and causing most of the passengers (you probably don’t have to ask if it included Pat) to sing along… awesome).
• Following spending far too much money, they trundled back to Oasis, had a quick meal (mmm noodles) and fell fast asleep, knackered.

Friday 15th December: Christchurch

• Pat had a long sleep but felt knackered (must be all the early mornings (and beer) catching up on him).
• Pete (from Drifters) kindly picked Mette and Pat up from Oasis and drove them to Drifters, where they checked in and wandered along the seemingly neverending straight road into town
• Quite a lazy afternoon followed, just wandering about near the botantical gardens:

  

  Taking the tram:

  

  Climbing the Cathedral tower:

  

  

  …and booking the TransAlpine train to go walking at Arthur’s Pass on Saturday.

• After the cruisy afternoon, some chilling at the hostel was done and a well needed quiet evening (complete with watching the terrible What A Girl Wants – well, Pat spent most of the film berating it with a German guy, to the annoyance of all the girls in the room) and early night was had.

*cracks knuckles* Ok, just two more days to go…

Saturday 16th December: Christchurch -> Arthur’s Pass -> Christchurch

• Woke up faaar too early in order to get on the 6:55am shuttle bus pickup to get to the TransAlpine station in time
• Once on the train ready to leave at about 8am, and with the intial feeling of wanting to die through it being so damned early, Pat started looking forward to the scenic journey and to the nice walk during the day – frankly, he needed it, the big unfit beer loving pl(Hey! Melbourne Possums would be more than happy to “look after” you if I leave you in the park… – Pat)– I mean, it was good for Pat to have a chance to continue building his Beefcake physique.
• Mette and Pat took various photos on the way to Arthur’s Pass as we travelled through the mountains, by gorges and over viaducts:

  

  

• Once at Arthur’s Pass it was a bit cloudy, but Mette, Pat and myself (who was of course along for the ride) were hoping it’d not turn into rain.
• We went on a great walk through the woods and up along a river towards the base of a glacier (not a patch on Franz Josef)… part of the walk was on a proper path, but a reasonable chunk of the latter stages just turned into traversing over wet rocks – which Pat enjoyed, however his rather damp jeans did not.
• Pat managed to get some nice photos of the area:

  

  

  He turned around after this point:

  

• On the way back, it decided to start chucking it down… and did for the 1.5 hour journey back to Arthur’s Pass… both Mette and Pat were SOAKED – fortunately Mette had brought some quick-drying trousers, rather than Pat’s excellent “Stay Wet” jeans, so she warmed up in the coffee shop soon after getting there. Pat was shaking for a fair while, though… amazingly he didn’t get a cold.
• Anyway, the train soon arrived and we made our way back to Christchurch, through the same lovely scenery and noted that the weather had got rather nice again as soon as leaving Arthur’s Pass – by the time we were at Christchurch it was a lovely evening! Typical.
• Another lazy evening was had and Pat went to sleep nice and early…

Almost there… I’ll make this one quick…

Sunday 17th December: Christchurch

• After a nice lazy wake up, Pat and Mette wandered into town to see some cool street entertainment (a mental guy juggling knives whilst standing on the shoulders of two other guys…), check out the town market and for some souvenir buying
• Sadly after Pat bought a shed load of bits and pieces, he found that, actually, Post Offices aren’t open on Sunday in New Zealand. Clearly he would expect them to be, after all they are in England, right? Oh, wait, no… (Shut up and get on with it – Pat)… so he had to take an extra bag of stuff with him to Melbourne. Oops.
• Back in the hostel Pat packed his bags fully in order to make his 4am wakeup-and-get-to-the-airport challenge a little easier
• Later in the afternoon Chris, Jenny, Jersey, Kate and Welshy arrived on the Kiwi Experience bus and so in evening a reunion was had, along with lots of beers and Pat said farewell to everyone (except Chris, who he would be seeing, feeling like death, at the airport in the morning) … twas quite sad, but Pat felt better in that he’d be bumping into everyone at various stages and places within Australia over the coming months.
• Pat got to bed at just after midnight, rather tipsy and wishing that he’d spent a bit more money on flights in order to get a 6:15PM flight…

Monday 18th December: Christchurch -> Melbourne!

• Pat I think has told you about this day already, but if you’ve forgotten it went along the lines of: woke up at 4am, tipsy and tired… went on plane to Melbourne… checked into hostel… went to sleep for 4 hours… did not much… had early night.

That marks the end of the New Zealand leg of the Big Adventure.

It also marks the end of me writing long blogs like this (you’ll be pleased to know). Things are going to be on a much less “Day By Day” basis from now on so expect more comment on particular events etc, rather and an itinery of Pat and my time here in Oz.

Thanks for your patience and well done for getting down to here. Both Pat and myself really appreciate you reading, it makes all this blooming typing seem worth it! :-)

Toodles,

Squage (and Pat)