My last 3 days in Queenstown were VERY rainy and consequently I didn't end up doing very much. When I got on the bus this morning the driver - Nancy Boy, the name pretty much sums him up! - told us that all the roads into Christchurch were closed because of snow so we were going to drive for 45 minutes where he would make some phone calls to see if we could carry on and if not we would be back in Queenstown tonight! - NOT cool accomodation already paid for in Christchurch and with a flight to catch on Sunday I cannot afford to be on a bus waiting list to get out of Queenstown!!!!! When we arrived in Cromwell Nancy made phonecalls to find out what our options were. We were going to Christchurch today however the only road that was open is via Dunedin! Quite ironic really as Dunedin was one of 2 places (the other being Kaikora) that I had thought I would have liked to have visited but didn't have the time or the money. 644km of driving took 11 hours it felt like so so so long on the bus especially as the drive wasn't even broken up by the usual walks and funny commentary because we were pushed for time and Nancy blatently didn't want to be driving us!!!!! We stopped at a super market - OPPOSITE the Cadbury Factory - for 30 minutes in Dunedin, once at a petrol station with ONE toilet and then once again for a toilet stop and because Nancy was "getting tired" in reality he needed a fag break! Apart from these little breaks it was solid driving all the way! Legally the driver had to stop at 7.10pm we arrived at Base hostel at 6.55pm most people were getting off here they had to bundle off very fast and at 7.05pm I got dropped off at the YHA SO glad I didn't fancy trying to navigate Christchurch in the dark and rain!!!!!
After all the diverting I havn't seen any signs of snow in Christchurch we had a little blizzard as we left Dunedin but apart from that it is just more rain! Such a long day on a pretty boring bus!
Did you know I have now slept in 28 differnt beds in the last 2 months!!!!!