The Olympic Games
Trip Start
Nov 07, 2005
1
8
75
Trip End
Nov 04, 2006
The not-so-scenic West coast,
New Zealand
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
*prawn cocktail (served in a chilled glass on a bed of freshly torn lettuce and dusted with a sprinkle of cayenne pepper)
*fillet of chicken (sauteed in butter and drenched with a red wine jus)
We wondered whether they had coffee and after dinner mints too.
Queenstown was great - probably my favourite town so far in NZ - its got a great atmosphere and the weather was great while we were there which helped
About to fall into a big crevace
. But for some bizarre reason, although the garden of the hostel we were camping in was massive, we were confined to a tiny area by the side of the building, along with 3 other tents, so it was a bit cozy.We went to the Kiwi & Birdlife park so Simon could finally see a kiwi after having spent 7 months in the country where the kiwi is a symbol on everything but there aren't actually live ones to be seen. Unlike the sheep.
There was an amazing mini golf course which was like a model village, and if I remember rightly offered some kind of guarantee that it was amazing. The free drink also attracted us. Sadly Simon turned out to be a mini golf genius and thrashed me. But the last hole was a candy shop and gave you a free chupa chup which soothed my pain slightly.
We also started a dangerous game of scrabble which would soon lead to a war.
Wanaka was the next stop, a place which very unoriginally had a backpackers called 'Wanaka Bakpaka' - do you see what they did there? Wanaka is the home of Puzzle World, or was it Puzzling World...? But which we affectionately referred to as Puzzle Puzzle Puzzle Puzzle. Which I think maybe be only funny to us.
There was an Amaze-ing Maze which was great, and we finished the whole thing in record time and didn't take one of the emergency exits cos we were bored.
It was a crap maze.
Fox Glacier was interesting - but not as impressive as I'd thought it would be. It was actually kind of dirty
Bungy bridge - pretty but puky
. I'd expected it to look more shiny and gleaming I think, but there was brown dust over most of it. I wouldn't have dared tell our guide, ginger Malcolm that though. Along with the rule that you must own a cat to run a hostel there is also an unspoken rule that you must be overtly enthusiastic if you're a tour guide. He seemed relatively cool at first, and not just because of the ice, but he soon turned into a glacier maniac. We did a full days hike which was around 5/6 hours walking around looking at ice. He just kept looking at it in amazement and saying how it was so exciting if he had a couple of days off cos when he came back it had totally changed and the colours were so amazing. It was great - the huge crevasses and caves were cool - though crossing a crevasse behind a guy who likes to poke everything with his walking stick to see if it breaks is not great for the nerves. When we sat down to lunch we thought Malcolm might have some interesting facts about glaciers, but he proceeded to ask the all important question - what was everyone's favourite hiking lunch.And Simon left a trail of destruction in the form of cheese at our lunch spot. The glacier's probably even weirder colours now. I bet Malcolm's thrilled.
