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Travel Tales!
O.K. So here we are in Queenstown - adrenaline capital of the country -down on the South Island. We ended up getting stuck in Rotorua for a whole week as the bus we intended to catch was full and we had to wait for the next one. Very tempted, obviously, to spend a shed load of cash on adrenaline activities - but we managed to resist most of them after the beginning of the week doing the white water sledging and Zorbing etc. However, did end up spending the whole week in the pub, so probably worked out more expensive in the end!!! Damn those 2 for 1 beer vouchers - they always get us hooked!! Oh well, what's new?
Eventually caught our new bus and continued on down through the North Island. Did our skydives in Taupo - f***ing excellent. We were both converted immediately - so much fun. You can check out Elaine's DVD when we get home - hilarious! And a few cute instructors as well - all good. Jealous or what???
By the time we got to Wellington we had settled into our new gang on the bus (whom we are still hanging with after 9 days) - they are an excellent group and we've had so much fun, we've all got on like a house on fire. Met up with a few old mates as well - including Mr. Doyle - good to see his ugly mug again and catch up. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend as long in Wellington as we had originally planned to - ended up catching the ferry accross to the South Island the next day.
We've been working our way down the West Coast of the South Island and staying in some cool places...
Stayed on 'Old MacDonalds farm' for a night, where Elaine cooked Spaghetti Bolognese for all 21 of us - impressive! With the help of her newley recruited chefs obviously!! On a bit of a downer last week when we all thought we had lost one of the gang on the side of a mountain in the arse end of nowhere. He went for a walk on his own and that night by 8pm he hadn't come back!!! We all feared the worst when the helicopter, the police and the search & rescue team had still come up with nothing after 35hrs of him being missing. However, relieved to report he was eventually found the next evening - a few cracked ribs (he had got lost and had to set up a camp made of furns for the night), but in one piece and well proud of his police 'Wanted' poster they gave him as a keepsake - gave us all quite a scare!!!
The alcohol consumption has been raised up a couple of notches in the past week or so (mainly thanks to the bad influence of our bus driver, Noddy) - but we have not been lying in bed all day nursing our sore heads. No no. Have still managed to squeeze in some sailing, hiking, knife making (yes, knife making), glacial ice hiking, snow boarding, jet boating and bungee jumping somewhere in between all the bars!!!
Anyway - we've made some great friends here - unfortunately have had to say goodbye to a few already, but the majority of us are still together and continuing our crazy journey further south in a few days time. It's funny how at some point, after travelling for so long now, it suddenly stops being about the places you're in and the things that you see and starts being about the people that you meet along the way and the s**t you go through together.
Elaine's travel words of the week: "Absolutely Fantastic"
Tara's travel words of the week: Missing in Action
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