23rd January 2011

So, last night was our...err...last night in Queenstown. It's a shame to be leaving as I love the place so much. Definitely my favourite place in NZ so far. We went out to the pub but I wasn't really feeling it so we left quite early, which worked out well as we had to be on the bus at 8am.

We had a new guy in our room last night as Nina had checked out to go to Base as Stray had given her a free night there. The new guy works at the hostel a couple of hours a day in exchange for free accommodation and had been there for FIVE WEEKS. I love the place but wouldn't want to stay in a hostel that long!

On a side note - there has been a crazy old lady on the big bus for the last couple of days (I was still on the small bus) and they nicknamed her 'peaches' as she hadn't said a word to anyone but, when they drove past a peach farm, she just screamed "PEACHES!" at the top of her voice! Anyhoo, last night at the hostel we saw her getting escorted out by the police and turns out she hadn't paid to be there and was sneaking into people's rooms and stealing their passports! Wasn't the first thing she'd stolen apparently - from other places she also took a t-shirt, some fruit and didn't pay to get in anywhere!

Anyhoo, we managed to sneak Nina back into the hostel as that's where all her stuff was and we had a spare bed in our room anyway. Naughty naughty! Not that she slept much as she's met a guy on the bus and they were hanging out together for most of the night - bless them!

This morning we were queueing for the bus when Nina's man friend (Mark) showed up and said that he was coming too! He was meant to be leaving on Thursday 27th but had decided to leave his friends and come with us to spend more time with her. Awwww! She's really ill at the moment so I think she appreciated it a lot. Mark was worried there wouldn't be room on the bus but luckily there were 2 spare seats.

After we had left Queenstown, we drove to Te Anau for a brekkie/lunch/cash/supermarket stop. I asked Nina what supermarket was in German and Mark said "super techno market!" which made us laugh a lot. He's a really funny guy.

After we got back on the bus, we stopped to pick someone up but 2 people tried to get on. Turns out that Mark hadn't ticked his name off on the manifest in the morning so it appeared as if there were still two spare seats but there weren't :o/ This guy ended up having to get off the bus and was miffed (to say the least) but I can't blame him really.

I phoned Ben's uncle Dave and he is going to pick me up from the airport on Thursday and I will be staying with them until my North Island tour starts on 3rd :oD

We then headed down to Milford Sound for a cruise around the fiords and it was beautiful - see pictures for more detail (when I upload them...)

After that had finished we headed towards our stop for the night - Gunn's Camp. On the way, we stopped to do a short work at The Chasm which was awesome. Gunn's Camp is...interesting. It consists of cabins built in the 1930's and half a million sandflies. Needless to say, I slept with a sheet over my head and my PJ bottoms tucked into my socks. I still got bitten on my feet when I was making tea in the kitchen though! What's really interesting about the place is that it is powered by a generator that gets switched off a 10pm! Lights out early for us but I suppose that's not a bad thing seeing as we have to be up at 5am for the 6am bus *sigh*

Love and sandfly bites

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