My birthday in New Zealand!!
Trip Start
Nov 11, 2007
1
25
26
Trip End
Feb 11, 2007
Queenstown,
New Zealand
Monday, March 10, 2008
In my last entry it was my birthday eve and we'd just got to Queenstown for the second time to celebrate my birthday in that amazing place. It was at that point that Lilly, our Finnish friend we met on our stray tour, rocked up to the internet place we were in. She had been in touch with melly and had arranged to see us all which was great! There was muchos screaming and hugging from us which earned us a few funny looks from the other internet users but what the hell. It was really nice to see her as I didn't say goodbye properly when we left Queenstown before.
She told us that Nick and Andy, 2 more of our stray friends, were staying in a hostel just up the road so we wasted no time in going to surprise them! I invited them all out to my birthday meal that night and in turn they managed to convince us to stay in Queenstown an extra night and not drive to Tekapo/Mount Cook the next day. Meaning a mammoth drive to Christchurch on the 6th but we thought it would be worth it to spend some time with the guys. We made plans for them to come to our campsite that evening for pre dinner drinks and then we headed back to our camper to get ready.
We all got a bit dressed up for the occasion - I had bought a new dress in Dunedin - and waited for our lovely friends to come round. We had a great time catching up with them and finding out all about the southern loop they had just done with Stray.
In the Ice bar!
After a few drinks we wandered into town and went to Fatz Cat, a lovely little Italian and I had a very nice stone baked pizza. I even got a free ice cream with a candle in for my birthday which meant a bit of happy birthday singing lol! We decided to head back to the camper and drink there and then have a good night of drinking the following night - on my actual birthday, which suited me fine! The girls had got me a gorgeous chocolate cake from a bakery and so we had more candles and singing before waiting till it was official at midnight to have a little toast. We know how to celebrate hehe!The next day I was officially 23! Yay! We woke up to a gorgeously sunny day and the girls gave me my presents:
Some billabong pants
A wooden calendar for when I'm a proper teacher
Some special chocolate
I had a lovely lazy morning and then we called the paragliding place to come and pick us up! Forgot to mention we sorted that out when we got to Queenstown because I still had my free voucher. Melly and Jolly were gonna do it too so we all went off at 12 and left Jen sunbathing. The drive up to our take off point on coronet peak was a little scary, a bit like the Nevis drive! Coronet Peak is one of the main skiing areas in Queenstown is 13km out of town and about 2 and a half thousand feet up. The views were fantastic! We met our para pilots - mine was Jean from France - and got harnessed up with a big backpack. I was briefed and what I would have to do and then I watched Jolly take off.
Me 'chillin' in the Ice bar!
It's so funny because you have to run to make the parachute that is laid out behind you inflate. This then stops you from running and pulls you back and your arms and legs keep going but you don't go anywhere. All this makes for quite a hilarious take off and me and mel nearly wet ourselves laughing at catherine! Obviously the same thing happened to me too but I was slightly prepared after seeing catherine jump off. Jean clipped me to him and we began our jog towards the edge which was a little unnerving. The instructions are keep running till he says sit down. The backpack he attached to me basically is my seat and it was very comfy! It was a weird feeling running off the edge and the ground disappearing from under you. You end up running in the air cartoon style! But we took off and I enjoyed a lovely, gentle and very chilled out and scenic ride down to our landing point. I love the feeling of flying!! We landed safely after taking some photos and even a short video of us spinning around which was fun! After waiting for melly to land we thanked our guys, paid for our videos and photos and were then driven back to our campsite to get ready for my birthday night out.
The plan was to go to the minus 5 degrees Ice bar which is a bar that is totally made out of ice. It has sculptures and the glasses are made out of ice and everything. We even get big coats, ugg boots and even snuggly hats to wear because it's so cold in there. I got a free shot pass as it was my birthday and we went into the bar.
A scary sculpture!
It was so cold, obviously, but an amazing place. Smaller than I thought, but the sculptures and the bar plus all the lighting totally made up for that. Included in the entry price was a free vodka cocktail and I got loads of free shots including one really nasty one called absolut peppar! It was gross! I also had the peach and pear flavours plus some others too. The cocktail was gorgeous, called a polar blair and it had fresh passion fruit in it! Yum! We spent lots of time in there and they even sang me happy birthday too. We stayed in for an hour (tickets only for half an hour) and we had another cocktail which was equally yummy called a flu remedy made with vanilla vodka. We met two guys who started to chat melly up - she wanted a kiwi and they were from Christchurch - and basically stayed in until we got chucked out. Good job though as I couldn't really feel my fingers and my nose anymore. Well it was -7.3 degrees in there!We got untogged and went to the bar across the way from the minus 5 bar to warm up with some wine and wait for lilly, nick and andy to come and meet us. We were told that because we had been so cold, the reason we didn't feel drunk in the ice bar was because your blood thickens in those temperatures. So when you come out and start warming up again, the alcohol starts to be absorbed into your bloodstream and you feel pretty drunk! Which we all did. We all ended up in World Bar where I drank a million more shots from teapots that everyone kept buying and we had a good old dance.
Blowing out my candles!
I love birthdays cos everyone gets you free drinks lol! I had an awesome time except for when 2 local lads decided to start banging into us and broke our circle and jumped around like idiots. I have never been so close to hitting someone!! Luckily they moved away when they didn't get a reaction from us and we carried on having a great night. At the end of the night it was time to say goodbye to lilly, nick and andy for the last time (after a figurer - amazingly nice burger place). It was really hard cos we've had some great times with them but hopefully will see them in the future. We left melly with her kiwi and wandered back to the camper and crashed out. Needless to say we woke up with extremely bad hangovers the next day and had to do the mammoth 7-8 hour drive back to Christchurch - Oooops! Melly had had no sleep after getting back at 6am, but she managed to drive out of queenstown before catherine took over and drove for quite a while. I sat in the front and kept her company whilst the girls napped in the back. We stopped off for food and jen took over the driving, at which point it was my turn for a nap. Melly then did the last leg of the driving and drove us into C'church. We made it all the way there and then managed to make a wrong turning on the way into the city and did a massive detour to the camper rental place lol! We were doing so well! We dropped Jim off - very upset to lose him as he served us well - and got the free shuttle bus to the airport where we could get a taxi back into the city and to our hostel, which is what we did.
After a slight hiccup in terms of the booking by Base/Hostel Bookers, (only had a booking down for one person not 4, when it had in fact been booked for 4), we checked into our room and then went for some fast food. We spent the evening sorting out our bags and throwing things away. It was good to have a clear out! Then we got an early night and spent our final day in New Zealand checking out of Base, calling Jack and trying to sort out my mobile, which after 3 months decided to block itself! Typical! After sitting at the airport for a few hours we flew to Sydney to wait for our connecting flight to Tokyo which I was really looking forward to although by this point it was so close to going home time I was really excited about that!!
Ok next blog TOKYO!!!!
xxxx
