Okay, so my last big post about Queenstown did not do it justice and Kate called it 'lame' I believe. Can't have any of that.
Let's see... well that night when I said I was going to bed I didn't. We ended up going to the liquor store (actually what they're called, the Kiwi's have their heads on straight when it comes to booze) for beerz and then playing some juvenile drinking games with the Brits and one fellow Canadian in our room. The Britons told us they were 23 but we later learned they were here on there gap year and were only 18!!! 1990 on the one kid's license! That's younger than Greg! I nearly shat my pants in the bar over that one, haha. Anyway, it was a fun night but does not even to compare to what we got up to the next 3 nights in Queenstown.
The next morning everyone left our room and Kate and I left to find internet and book some shit and figure out when we were going to Milford Sound and doing our extreme activities a la Queenstown. When we returned to the room later in the day we found a group of 5 Irishmen were our new roomies and that they were in our age range, finally, as after Surfers and the previous night (The one kid asked Kate to tuck him in and tell him a bedtime story. He also had his hand on her leg in the bar, so who really knows what his intentions were there, haha) we'd had enough 18 year old interaction to last like forever. Although, the one good thing about the 18 year old Britons were that they left a bunch of shit behind, shit being alchol. About 1/5 of a bottle of vodka and 1/3 of a box of goon, so Kate and I drank for free that night! We also told the Irish lads about goon and they went and got their own and we all had a goon and vodka good time with no lame drinking games! haha We went back to the same bar from the night before but it was about 100 times better, with live music and a ton of people. We also headed back over the World Bar, it was again kind of lame though, although I got to dance to my heart's content.
When we got back to the room only two of the guys were there, Gary and Gordo, and some general drunken banter took place, including the asking as to whether Gordo could be 'Big Spoon' to one of us. Pretty hilarious.
So the next morning we woke up at 6:20am for our day trip to Milford Sound. We were both still so drunk but we some how made the bus at 7:05 and headed off for our 5hour bus ride to Milford Sound. I slept a little but tired as hard as I could to take in the scenary because it was absolutely stunning. We were truely in Middle Earth now and the drunkness and ensuing hangover high made the whole landscape feel just so surreal. Incredible. Incredible. Incredible. Again our bus driver was great with educational and entertaining commentary and we stopped at all the sights on the way- Te Anau, Mirror Lakes, The Chasm, Homer Tunnel, just to name a few. Once we got to the sound, which is actually a fjord (we were in Fiordland National Park, spelt wrong on purpose), we boarded the Milford Sound Encounter Nature Cruise for a 2hour boat ride in the sound/fjord. More natural beauty. More hangover high. haha. It was really beautiful. My pictures won't do it justice.
Back on the bus for another 5 hours, mostly sleeping this time, and we were back in Queenstown. I had vowed that I would not be drinking or going out, but my arm was quickly twisted at the offer of goon and after a couple glasses was back at the Buffalo Bar! And just in time for the Wet Junk Contest! (There was supposedly a Wet T-Shirt Contest happening, and the guys were all excited, but it either never happened or we missed it by hours). Yeah so that was great and since we had our extreme activities the next pretty early we set a 1am curfew and were asleep by 1:30am... or so we thought... at 3:30am the lads got home and they were mangled and hilarity slash "trouble" followed and I didn't sleep much that night for a variety of reasons, mostly cuz of snoring and elbows in my face, hahaha.
Oh, so I forgot to mention that we had to change rooms for our last night because we'd decided to stay an extra night after our first night and Base is pretty lame like that, the Irishmen were leaving too but to another hostel. That morning we checked out, put our stuff in storage, and headed off for adventure! Kate went canyoning and I went River Surfing. River Surfing was lame, I was expecting way more from it, but the river conditions weren't very good and I did get a free T-shirt out of it, and witnessed a funny interaction between the Russian photographer and these British travelers on the bus back to town from the river. The travelers were talking about their plans to go to Christchurch and all of the sudden the Russian, Pavel, asks or I guess says "I ride with you to Christchurch?" And the Brits were just kind of like "eerrrr, okay. Now how much is the DVD?" (Pavel was burning them a potentially $45 DVD of the River surfing on the bus at the time). Pavel told them free, and then Brits joked amongst themselves about how they ask to stay at Pavel's and use his shower etc (they'd been trying to save money by sleeping in their car). I think you may have had to have been there? haha
So back in town I had time to check back in the hostel (our new room was with 18 year old Danish kids! 6 of them! yay!) and have lunch, before heading off for my bungy! With that all taken care of I walked up the street to the Bungy Shop to wait for the bus out to the Kawarau Bridge and who walked in but 2 of our former Irish roomies. Turned out they'd booked the same bungy as I had, so yay for friends!
The bungy was awesome, as I mentioned in the previous post, despite the rain and freezing wind. When I got back to town I had a long hot shower to thaw out, had dinner and then headed out for the best ice cream ever- Dark chocolate with macadamia nuts from the Patagonia Chocolate Company. It was so rich I almost couldn't finish it. After that it was back to the bottle (after trying to have an unsuccessful nap b/c the Danish were so bloody loud) and then back to the Buffalo Bar and our Irish lads and more insanity and a good end to a great couple of days in Queenstown!
Another early morning and we were on a bus with all our shit and off to Dunedin and Chelsie! She met us at the bus depot and gave us a key to her place (she had to go work on her thesis) and instructions to make ourselves at home. It was so rainy and cold here that I cuddled up in a big fleece blanket and read and napped all day. Chelsie came home around dinner time and cooked us an amazing meal, then we watched Stardust and caught up on internet BS.
Then I slept for over 12hours.
Today we went into town in the rain and cold and checked out a few things, including the Dunedin Public Art Gallery where we were just in time for an exhibition talk by the curator on "The Alumni" exhibition by Peter Stichbury. It was quite inspirational, might be getting the sketchbook out in the next few days. We also checked out the old Train Station (very ornate) and then met Chelsie in town and headed to the grocery store for dinner fixings. We came home and made a magical salad complete with pumpkin squash buttercup. Then I made cookies :)
Tomorrow we'll head out to the Otago Peninsula to try to see some wildlife and hit up the Speight Brewery!
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