Chasing the sun, and to kick off my summer adventures I was off to Pamplona, Spain to celebrate the Festival of San Fermin or more commonly known as Running with the Bulls. A week-long festival attended by more than 1 million people - one word - madness!

My friend Jess, from sunny Nelson (who I discovered on this trip can beer bong 2 cans of beer in a spectacular time, only thinking it was 1) and I set off on this whirlwind trip, starting off with a bus ride from London to the white cliffs of Dover, caught the ferry to Calais in France then bused to Spain, which took a duration of around 20 looooong hours.

Once we reached Spain we settled in at our campsite which was located in Estella, southwest of Pamplona and was equipped with a bar, supermarket and swimming pool. We had a quick kip to refresh the batteries, then hopped on the bus and travelled to the heart of Pamplona for a walking tour around the city. Went to the markets and bought some white clothes as this is the traditional choice of clothing complete with a red belt, and red silk scarf.

That night we made our way to a different camping ground where the (already famous as they featured in my Cork - St Patricks Day blog) boys were staying. Pid, Kitch & Wee Man had some new additions to their crew including 2 of the best shearers that Masterton can offer - not so good on the drinking, and the one and only Grunta from the mighty Te Anau. Fair to say it was a pretty messy night, there were even exotic dancers (a male and female) at the club at the camping ground.

The next morning we were up the crack of (an unwell persons) dawn to head to into Pamps to get a good spot for the Opening Ceremony of the San Fermin festivities. At midday a rocket is fired from the balcony of the Town Hall, which signals the start of this week long party. Was insane being packed in the town square with thousands of people, you could not even move your arms, or breathe for that matter, and got soaked in sangria from head to toe.

Day 2 was the highly anticipated Running of the Bulls, we met an awesome group of fellow Kiwi's on our tour and the boys decided to run that morning - I decided against it - definitely was not because I was too much of a scaredy cat or anything, it was a numerous amount of other highly legitimate excuses to which I will now list in no particular order: (1). I wanted to respect their culture as it is frowned upon for woman to compete (2). The first day is traditionally locals (3). I did not want to be an Ethiopian and run in bear feet as I conveniently forgot my gym shoes (4). I had a broken left fibula-tibular-phalanges-femur bone (5). My foot also had gangrene. Yeah so you see obviously couldn't do it... Instead we went to a huge arena where they were screening the running on huge big screens. The arena was full with locals and tourists all dressed in white, the atmosphere was truely amazing, alive with anticipation and laced with fear. Some passionate Spanish singing kept us entertained while we waited, once the bulls starting running the crowd went crazy, was an adrenaline filled experience just to be part of this. Once the bulls & runners all made it into the arena they let out more bulls who madly chased the people around, some spectacular clashes occurred with their horns and people behinds.

That afternoon we had a Sangria BBQ, which included all you can drink sangria from 1pm - 4pm. Now in my defence it was so hot around 30 degrees, and they were coming around filling up our glasses Oktoberfest styles, was a great day drinking in the sun with the Kiwis and regretfully ended up with me in bed VERY early, evidentially wasting the delicious BBQ food that I had consumed earlier that day.

Was a very fast-paced, fun-filled week and I am glad I got to partake in such an amazing festival. Loved the Spanish sun and cannot wait for my next Summer adventure sailing around the islands of Croatia in August. Ciao xx