Blog 23 - end of New Zealand

Right now I'm somewhere between New Zealand and Australia: in a couple of hours I'll be in Brisbane and I have no idea where to go when I'm there ;-) So far, everything is turning out fine, so I think I'll find my way…

Back to where I stopped writing: Queenstown. Thank you all for your great comments on my bungee jump: It's really nice to hear from you all.

After the bungee jump in the bus back I announced that I was going to visit Milford sound the next day and that I had 3 places left in the car. One guy took my number, but another guy rang me later that day: Ed, an English guy, on a budget (aren't we all). That night I met 3 Dutch guy's and two of them were going to go to Doubtful Sound the next day and number three, Niels, wanted to visit Milford sounds as well, so in the end we picked him up as well.

It was raining that morning and I had to get up at 5.40 am, because it was going to be a long drive (8 hrs return). I picked up Ed in Queenstown and Niels in Te Anau. Just before you're in Milford Sounds, there are a couple of nice walks you can do, and so we did (The Chasm was a really nice one). That morning I booked a boat trip for 3.30 pm and later on that day. Niels and Ed decided to come with me, which was a very good decision, because the only way to really see Milford Sound in by boat. We were a bit early, so we played some pool before catching our boat. The trip was awesome. We saw the fjords, hypes of waterfalls (normally there is not a lot of water moving, but since it had been raining for a bit there were lots of waterfalls) and seals. We even went on the Tasman see for a bit, so we had some big waves going on there. We were on a small boat, which was really nice, because we could get very close to the seals and our captain even steered the boat under the waterfall (with Ed outside getting soaking wet).

After that I had some driving to do… we had to stop after about 30 minutes. A lady in a tourist bus had had an asthma attack and since there was a helicopter on the road, we had to wait for a bit. They did CPR on the lady for over an hour and she (75 yrs)didn't survive.. really sad… When we finally got back on the road again it was getting quite late, so in the end I was driving in the dark. The bad thing about driving in the dark in Australia and New Zealand is that there are hypes of animals and yes, they just like to check out the highway. Dead possums everywhere and in Australia the kangaroo of course (that seem to really make a mess of your car). So I really try to avoid driving in the dark.. And, since it had to happen at some point, I killed a rabbit :-( I love rabbits! I felt really bad about it, but as a kiwi lady said to me later that evening: you did a good job: all these rabbits are destroying the land of the farmers, so 'good on ya'….

That evening, I stayed over at Shane's. Shane works now for the bungee thing and I met him on the bus. We had quite a chat before sleeping and the next morning he let me do my laundry and he made me some breakfast and an awesome lunch to take with me. That was so nice! How many great people I meet during my travels is kind of amazing…

That day I drove to Catlins Forest, down south, where I saw some sea lions fighting over a sea lioness (going to try to upload that on youtube), some dolphins and some yellow eyed penguins, so that was pretty cool. The next day I drove to Dunedin, where I met Phill at the information centre. He invited me to stay at his place that night. He lives in a house with 5 other people, all vegetarian or vegan. Their back garden is filled with bikes and they let me borrow one, so I checked out Dunedin by bike. Went to the museum and bought a ticket for the theatre that evening: hot pink bits: kind of one woman show about sex. Funny, entertaining, but well, the standard wasn't as high..

After the theatre, Hannah (Phill's girlfriend) picked us up to go into town to see some live music, which was interesting. We had a fun night and I had a comfy sleep at Phill's couch. The next day, driving again, to Christchurch, where I was going to get the plane on Monday. Hannah asked if I had a place to stay in Christchurch and, as I answered no, called her cousin Mike to ask if I could crash at his place. And so it happened. Mike's place is awesome! There were some friends of him over and in the evening we crashed on the (very big and comfy red) couch and watched a movie ( showed on the wall with a beamer) (Cold Mountain). I had a very good sleep afterwards and today I organized my stuff again, send some things home and brought my car back to the car company. They didn't even check the car! Anyway, a shuttle brought me to the airport and again I could take all my stuff on the plane for free, but now I know why! My board bag is sports luggage, which means they consider it being 5 kilo's in weight, even if it's more (19 kilo's today). So that was lucky!

Right now still flying, going to close my eyes for a bit and when I'll wake up: back in Oz!!