Day 14- Queenstown-Dunedin- We woke up at 7am after getting a fairly good nights sleep for a change! We had a chinese couple move into our room which we were quite happy about as they tend not to be party animals and were in bed before us! Score! After munching quickly, we powerwalked to our pick up point. 300m down the road. Scott once again did his world strongest man impression carryin a backpack on each arm-good boy! Scott decided he didn't like the bus driver after we got on and kept referring to him as a p****the entire journey! Our first stop was Clive for morning tea! We had Queen's Bohemian rapsidy on the coach so I got off with the song stuck in my head-we walked through the park and I bellowed out mumma ooooooooooh, not realising someone was peacefully sitting there-ooooops! And I probably wasn't in tune either! Haha! After that embarassing moment we stopped at the cafe for a brownie and an apple muffin before hopping back on the coach! We didn't have long breaks as we had to get to Dunedin by 1pm as we were booked onto a wildlife tour to see birds, aletrosse's, seals, sea lions and yellow eyed penguins! I was rather excited! We arrived at 1pm which gave us time to change into warm clothes, eat lunch and pack a bag! We also had to dash to a cafe to get Scott two sausage rolls as sandwiches alone just wern't filling enough for him! An hour down the road and along the peninnsula to see albatross. Its the only onland place in the whole wide world that you get to see them close up and personal! Trying to see them whilst trying not to get blown off the cliff from the 100km/h winds proved a little problematic however! Oh goody I'm going to get blown away, look like I've been through a hedge backwards, and aquire a sexy wind tan! Apparently the birds like it windy however and this was in fact a calm day! After a long 10minutes of trying to stay with our feet firmly on the floor and not doing a Mary Poppins we saw the Albetross's circling in the sky-oh my dad would love this! We even had binoculars tooo to get a closer look! (well mine were rented, scott had brought his own because he is cool!) Knowing that you are all excited about this I took a photo for you to see...you can just about make them out in the sky! haha! Unfortunatly they didn't come any closer (you can normally get within touching distance but not today!) so we got back on the mini bus and went to our next destination...well after we stopped 5times to do a wee bit of birdwatching with our borrowed binoculars so we could get up close and personal! For those of you excited o hear what we saw, we saw a black swan, mallard, paradise shelduck, pukeko, pied stilt, royal spoonbill, spur-winged plover and a white faced heron! (well so we were told!) After just 4 bird spots, me and Scott were wondering what on earth we had let ourselves in for- a day of birdwatching with Bill Oddie it seemed so far! Things could onlt get better ! Our third stop seemed more promising- we split into 2 groups and walked down a huge hill with the hurricanes blowing behind us, I was dreading the uphill walk into the headwind! A 15minute walk at the bottom of the cliffs later and all of a sudden a million seals came into view playing on the rocks, in rockpools and in the sea! It was so much fun watching these seals being cheeky and having a good time. If it wasn't so cold I could have watched them all day! 15minutes was long enough there though, and we had to walk back up the hill avoiding treading in sheep poo and down the other side of the hill to where the sealions and penguins were- I was soooo excited to a penguin! Scott wasn't quite excited as much as apparently see penguins at Drusillas are like seeing them in the wold...not! The sealions were sprawled out all over the beach asleep and making hte place look untidy! Apparently they can run up to 20km/h when chasing you...looking ta them I couldn't quite see it! As we were watching them we saw the first penguin wa;lomg pr should I say woddling out of the sea in the distance, so we hurried alongto a hut to see them (I wanted to run but your not allowed dammit!) Apparently penguins are really shy so you can't go too close to them-dammit! I wanted to take one home so that plan has just gone out the window! We learnt that penguins aren't too sociable with each other and hunt alone! We soon saw that in practice with two of them having a rather loud disagreement! To give you an idea of what yellow eyed penguins looked like they are the middle size of penguins you get, and are the rarest in the world only found in New Zealand! We watched them coming out of the sea and walking up the cliff almost in slow motion! Have I mentioned I like penguins?! At 6pm we left the private farmland and headed back to Dunedin in the rain and wind-the weather really is like Scotland! We dashed to the supermarket to get milk and we made a dinner of macaroni cheese from a packet-yum yum! A 20minute shower and a hot cup of tea later I was finally thawing out and feeling much better!
Day 15- Dunedin- Tekapo- Another early start, you think we would be used to this by now but I swear it doesn't get any easier! 7am start, up and dressed by 10past then into the kitchen (which you have to go outside to get to and I don't know if you heard me mention the weatehr yesterday) so if we wern't awake before...we are now! On the menu for breakfast today was a bowl on cornflakes followed by two pieces of toast with the ever popular choice of jam, peanut butter, and marmalade...don't tell us which one was which though as the foreigners like to use the same knife for all so they get blended into one-delightful! This even occurred in the butter! With that done it was time for a daily treat of standing outside in the cold waiting for the bus. They tell you to be outside with your stuff ready 10minutes before so they can then arrive 10minutes late each time! Well once the (not so) magic bus had tuned up we had to battle our wayt hrough the large group of foreigners, who by the way I don't know if you have noticed, can not for the life of them queue! So they just charge in front of you in a massive group with no order to them whatsoever. (our english side coming out now) After saying all this I was in fact sitting on the nice warm bus watching Scott sort all of this out because its my job to hop on the bus with the other bags whilst Scott's dealing with the charging foreigners! He is getting better at charging back carrying two backpacks- can't take any passengers now can you! Well as far as coach rides goo it now meant if he fell, I was going too! Oh goody! We arrived after numerous stops of photographing Mt Cook! We also passed a load of dams and were given useless information to go with it about their history, and how amazing they are-blah blah blah. Our hatred for the bus drived became greater when we were dropped off at our hostel and we checked in, only to find that the driver had forgotten to book me in and they were now fully booked! Great! So swearing my head off we then had to walk 15minutes up the road the the second hostel, where we turned up all hot and bothered! Thankfully we didn't have to sleep outside like we thought we would have and we got a 4bed dorm room. I looked out the window to see the bus driver was in a posh room outside so I planned to egg his room later wanting revenge, but Scott wasn't too keen on that idea because he had just bought them and really fancied them for breakfast! We got changed as quick as possible so I wouldn't knock out the driver and started walking up the road. We had a little diversion onto the lovely lake beach for some happy snaps, but lake Tekapo was about to drop even more in Laura's estimations when she dropped the camera on the rocks...ooooops! The air turned blue in Tekapo for the secnd time that day! We walked up to find Becs, Peter and Eoin (the guys origionally part of the irish lot) who's accomodation had been mucked up by the driver , the got a delux double which you had to pay more for and the driver didn't tell them! Scott was also meant to be sharing a room with Eoin too so Eoin was now on his own! The YHA have written a formal complaint about the dirver-well done them! Despite this muck up we hanged out in their delux double-aka a caravan which was parked up next to the hostel-hahahaha! Once sat down for a wee while, Scott and Peter decided they were going to go for a dip in the lake...as you do...especially when its barely in the plus's outside! Having said that I still tagged along to watch these plonkers do their thang! Scott's feet instantly froze off when in the water but he wanted to be manly and hard core and go in anyway! This process took a while as the lake was unbelivably cold! After getting in waist deep, they counted to three, went fully under water, and then ran out! Was it worth it guys?! They ran out and spent the next 15minutes in the showers...save some hot water for us will you! After me and Scott borrowed the YHA's showers, we chilled out in the cool caravan before going to find dinner. As Eoin (renamed Ian as it seemed more logical looking at the spelling of his name) was allergic to wheat and dairy, dinner was limited to his standard breakfast lunch and dinner meal of chips and cider! So the rest of us ordered fish and chips at the pub to take away as teh fish and chip shop didn't look like it was up to the job! We spent the evening playing cards, having a few ciders/beers, whilst Eoin put on millions of youtube videos- which did include a bit of Aqua, Bewitched and Spice Girls! Wahoo! We were meant to be going to a world famous observatory after dinner to do some stargazing, but when we went outside, the clouds appeared to have eaten all the stars! So we stayed in the caravan with the heater on! The worst part of the night was then having to walk 15minutes back down the road in the pitch black, I had bad memories of the Cape Tribulation walk home, but thankfully this time we had our torch, so at least we could see where we were going!
Day 16- Tekapo to Kaikora- I hate hate hate early starts, we woke up at 6.20am...so whilst Scott made breakfast, I attempted to get up! It gets harder and harder I swear! On the bus at 7.20am and off we went for our loooooong day of travelling. Our first stop was for morning tea at a town called Geraldine! We walked to the cafe and bought a coffee and a muffin for Scott before hopping back on the bus-whilstle stop tour there! The bus driver once again showed how much of a plonker he was when he took 20minutes in Christchurch to find the jailhouse hostel to drop people off. Scott and I had only been there once and we still knew where to go. He got rather stressy, and when we told him it was a right turn by the sign that said historic jail, he said he didn't know where that was! Plonker! Then he moaned at us asking us how he was then going to get out of the entrance-not really my job dear (did they not tell you in your contract that you had to be able to reverse a bus?!) Anyways, we eventually got out and we waved off Becs, Peter and Eoin as they had now left us-what sad times! At 2.40pm we had our lunch break at a cafe and saw that Sophie who we had met on our day at Bondi beach was now on our coach-so we sat with her over lunch! We then shared an ice cream, Scott chose a toffee flavour and got me cookies and cream...which tasted more like bubblegum! Not the best flavour I have ever had I must admit! We carried on to Kaikora and arrived at around 4.15pm. Before being dropped off at our hostel, we went along the peninsula and saw some more seals-and I got the impression by now that they are used to posing for photographs for us. We arrived at our hostel soon afterwards...well we were dropped off 200m up the road because he somehow couldn't drop us outside. I think he was just being an arse on purpose now! We then hiked down the road and got checked in by a drunk girl on reception who found it really hard to focus on what she was doing! We then had to go back three times as she kept getting the wrong room for us! Once settled in we went to the bar for our free soup you get every day-anything free is good so we enjoyed the soup! We then set out to explore...took a grand total of not very long! The mountains were directly behind the sea so it made a very pretty setting...well it would have done when the clouds hadn't covered up the view anyway! We then went back via the supermarket opposite our hostel and bought dinner stuff- vegetable stir fry was on the cards...I'm not sure if I can remember what vegetables look like...its been a while! Haha! Scott made the dinner extra yummy by conjuring up some egg fried rice to go with the stir fry...for a first attempt- "the oy done good"! Twas a nice change from just the standard overcooked rice! And he was very proud of himself too-so much so he went on about it alllll evening. Talking of evening, we then went to the bar for our free drink we also got- I had a chardonnay and Scott had a Kaikora lager-no bad for freeee! We sat with Aisling, Daryl (part of the irish gang) and Sophie and Chris-was nice to have travelling friends again! (gives me someone else to talk to :D)
Day 17-Kaikora- We had a little lie in before having porrige and eggy bread. (Scott was feeling adventurous after his egg fried rice success) We then did our annual delicates wash and made a washing line attached to the door and bed for it all to hang on. It just became problematic when we wanted to open the door. (the washing line shrunk and dipped to the floor) We then dashed to the supermarked to buy some tuna for lunch and spent ages searching for the dam key...which we found was left in the door for the second or third time since we arrived. We don't want people wandering in and seeing our washing line and stealing my underwear Scotty! Haha! We decided to eat our lunch early which proved to be the right move as when we arrived at the check in desk they said there was a likelihood of seasickness at sea today as the waves were rough. So we sat down int he cafe with our cup of tea and watched many people around us stuffing their faces with lunch. Are you sure thats a good idea when your about to get on a choppy boat! After Scott watched an interesting video on whales. (the narrator had the worlds most monotone voice ever so I drifted off into daydream) We then watched a delightful safety video- haven't had to watch one for a boat before! We then had a 10minutes bus journey before getting on the boat. We all had to sit down on seats insie for the first 20minutes whilst it went at speed out into the ocean and no one was allowed to get up if they were seasick. Instead they were given a bag. It wasn't long before most people sitting around us were using the bags. The boat was just like being on a rollercoaster at thorpe park. I lost my stomach on every other wave! I ended up putting a scaff over my nose in an attempt to block the smell! Bet all those people were regretting having a big lunch now! After 20minutes we were 11-15miles out to sea, and we stopped so the captain could put a listening device in the water to hear if there were any whales nearby. The engines were turned off and everyone waited. Once they found one in the distance, we all had to go back in and sit down on the seats and we travelled 5minutes on the boat, but unfortunatly didn't get there in time. Whales normally come up to the surface for 10-15minutes before gong back underwater and you can see where abouts in the water they are by looking fo the water coming out of their blowholes. So that was 1 missed so back to the microphone to find out where another one was-after driving to it we once again missed it surfacing but a few people saw its tail go int he air. Unfortunatly I got stuck behind a slow foreign girl on the stairs so I missed it! She was in my bad books! So we could only hope for third time lucky to see the sperm whale. When we did see him (only males come to this area) he had just surfaced- he was hugggeeee and a shade of grey. Every 20seconds he would blow out his blowhole. Sounded just like free willy did on telly if you wanted to know what it looked like and how it sounded. We stalked the whale for 10minutes before he arched his back and went head first into the water- Scott got an awesome shop on the tail in the air-whales are soooo cool! On the way back to shore we stopped the boat and were instantly surrounded by dolphins jumping in and out, backflipping left right and centre- I reckon they would win gold at the olympics if they brought gymnastics in the sea in as a sport! (and also if they were allowed to participate!) We tried to snap their playfulness on the camera for you guys but there is unfortunatly a time delay and by the time the photo took, they were back in the sea so we had a photo of the sea! (also a reaction delay between seeing one and clicking the button-oops sorry!) But as Scott said, its all about carrying the memories so we will just bore you to death with it all when we get home! (Scott's just asked me to tell you that no he isn't gay even though he came out with that comment!) So we went back to shore on the slightly less rocky boat, there were some truly ill looking people! Once back at the hostel we chilled out before our fish and chips dinner, we got from over the road. Apparently Kaikora is a good place to get fish and chips. We were slightly disappointed with our portion sizes-once again we felt like we were on fat camp-but the small amount we had tasted good! The evening was spent watching James Bond and putting the heaters on full blast-not to warm us up but to dry our still soggy clothes!