A hard days work

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  Sumner, New Zealand
Thursday, March 20, 2008

So we got to Queenstown, a rather touristy hub filled with endorphin raging backpackers eager to jump, dive, white water raft - in fact any adrenaline pumping activity thats fit to make your eyeballs explode. There was the question of course, as to whether we would do a bungee jump so we headed to Kawarau Bridge - the birthplace of the modern bungee.  Even if you would rather chew your own toenails than do a bungee, this a great place to visit and watch foolish people throwing themselves off a platform in a rather foolhardy fashion, attached to a giant elastic cord over a bridge, with the added extra of having your head submerged in the river below if you're hard, or not, if you don't do the wet look. There is a great video as you enter showing how AJ Hackett the inventor of the bungee discovered it decades ago amongst a tribe of people in Vanuatu, who would throw themselves head first off a 50ft platform using just a jungle vine to support them - and many of whom crash land into the ground head butting the terra firma with an almighty heave ho

Alien eggs

. After watching that any bungee looks very very safe...

Anyhoo we spent about 20 mins watching these crazy peeps and then Stan feeling rather gung ho decides that his life will be far more enriched if he walks the gangplank and throws himself off the edge of the bridge. Never one to back down I agree that yes we should do this as who needs eyeballs, clean thunderpants, or stuff like that. We head to the counter to pay our fee both hoping the other one will break first, neither one of us flinching or breaking into a sweat. The thought of bungee-ing makes me want to chunder but I mustn't reveal this to the enemy (that would be Stan at that pt in time). Thankfully the last 2 tickets for the day have been sold and we breathe a huge sigh of relief! Bungee crisis over we drive off and out of Queenstown knowing we will never grace this activity again and thank fate along the way.

As we head to Dunedin the uni capitol of NZ we wonder if our South American homees will wanna link up and catch up on the goss. So we text the Dent School Crew of whom we partied hard with in Bolivia's south over the salt lakes and through Chile. As any backpacker will know - you end up exchanging emails with the whole world and its dog - never to know if you'll ever really keep in touch or see that person again

Cocoon

. So we waited with anticipation to see if the gang would reunite, or if we'd be cast off like an old holiday romance. Well we had nothing to worry about. It turns out that burping, farting, snoring, eating, being sick and playing cards with them really did endear us to being friends forever. (altogether now - Awwww!!!). The lovely Kate (AKA K-dog) hosted us in her rather posh student digs and we were taken round the uni, given free meals and felt like we really had gone through a time warp and were back at uni once again. Oh to be young again!!

After 3 days of great company, telly, food & hot showers we waved them goodbye and onto Christchurch stopping only at the Moeraki Boulders - a fascinating site on the beach at Koekahe, where these giant sized rocks which look like alien eggs from the film Cocoon, slowly plopped on to the beach over many years, as the wind and elements eroded the cliffs leaving them bare and exposed. No one really knows how they were formed, and keen to see if they really did posses alien powers we touched them, hugged them, sat on them, stood on them, hopped skipped and jumped along them and even licked them (not that tasty) but alas the shopping bags were still under my eyes and Stan's hair was still grayer than a bunnies bottom.

By this point 6 weeks of camping in the car had taking its toll

not getting any younger

. Homocide was on the cards and to avoid a deadly clash of the Titans we decided to break our budget and stay in a backpackers joint in Sumner. I can only describe sleeping in a bed as heavenly. No car seat digging into your back, no having to get up in the middle of the night fumbling for the door and going to water the bushes, no waking up with your face stuck to the wet condensation soaked window dribbling like a rabid dog while innocent passers by stare and point at you. Just a comfy mattress and an air raid siren waking us at 4am - it was bliss!

Well in order to afford this splurge in Sumner we spent the next 2 days doing odd jobs for the hostel to get free board and fish & chip money. As we slogged away for the 1st time in 5 months it felt great to be doing something as banal as stacking wooden logs and moving furniture. Ah the joys of work - eh?

New Zealand over we were surprised at how quickly our 6 weeks had passed. We had enjoyed every minute of it and no matter what anyone says we preferred the North Island to the South. The Maori's & Kiwi's are truly friendly people - random strangers will invite you to stay in their house and they don't treat you with suspicion or fear as we often tend to do in the West. We were awed by the beauty of the landscape and could see why its important to the people of NZ. Our trip as always defined by our love affair with food was marked by the huge jam sandwich & chocolate ice cream milkshake consumption (thanks Debi!!) and road tripping had taken its toll on our ever increasing fat guts. Indeed all that road munchie-ing had left our money belts and thus passports with a curvature greater than that of the earths.

We thought we were ready to move on, we thought we were ready for anything, we thought we could handle Oz, we thought wrong...

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