Auckland

Oh well, 2 months and I've scuba dived with stingrays, boarded down giant sand dunes, ridden a mountain luge, jumped out of a plane, swum with dolphins, hiked for 3 days, climbed up a glacier, mountain biked in the snow, bungeed, drunk in the most southerly pub in the world and witnessed England get beaten twice in succession.

New Zealand is truly heaven.

Off to Chile in a couple of hours... Hasta luego amigos.

Tekapo - Mt. Cook - Christchurch

After Oamaru I wanted to head up to Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand at 3700 meters. It was a tricky hitch as the road leading from the coast is not exactly busy. While standing at the intersection a fellow hitcher pulls up and is also heading towards Mt. Cook. We join forces and start to hitch together. Minutes later a lorry pulls up and Matt and myself jump in.

During the ride we get to know each other, similar age, similar background and I am telling him about my hitch with an English punk from Taupo to Wellington. Matt says, "Peter the Punk, with a blue Mohawk?". Yep, turns out we both knew the same guy from completely different places.

5 hours later we are still quite a distance from Mt. Cook, but it is getting dark and it is f**king freezing. We are thinking of giving up for the night when a friendly old chap in a truck (From now on I name Matt "Lorry Whisperer" because of his uncanny knack at getting rides in trucks.) stops and says he is not going to Mt. Cook, but he can drop us off at Lake Tekapo, which was also on our list of places we wanted to see. So we hop in and drive through the darkness to Lake Tekapo. We stay in the local YHA where the receptionist is a snotty homosexual who frowns on us when we ask if there is a TV and only hands us one key to the room. A couple of beers later and the world is in order again.

The next day we hitch to Mt. Cook and this time make it before lunch. Mt. Cook is stunning, amazing, beautiful, yes the whole plethora of superlatives again. It looks like what a child would draw when told to paint a mountain - triangular with the top bit covered in fresh snow. I go for a long walk up to Hooker lake but got excited too early as I found out it was named after the discoverer and not the plenitude of prostitutes.

After Mt. Cook it was off to Christchurch, a quintessentially English town, replete with rivers to punt on, botanical gardens, private boys schools and lots of chaps playing rugby. Did sweet FA and enjoyed myself immensely. I broke my record hitching to Christchurch. 4 drivers each one with a different nationality - Singapore, Germany, New Zealand and Samoa. The Samoan was actually the minister of the church in Tekapo which is one of New Zealand's most photographed icons. He said that the Japanese come in thousands to get married there, but if I wanted to I could give him a call and he would fit me anytime I wanted.

Oamaru

After a hazy night on Stewart island and an afternoon spent in vain looking for some Kiwis (the bird not the humans) it was time to hightail it back to civilization. I wanted to see Dunedin (Scottish for Edinburgh), but as the England vs. New Zealand match was on two days later there was not a chance in hell of getting a room. So instead I headed for Oamaru, 100km north of Dunedin and the self proclaimed "Penguin capital" of NZ.

This is patently obvious as you arrive in Oamaru as there is a whopping great big statue of a Penguin at the town's entrance. I check in to a hostel and leg it to the penguin colony as it is getting dark and the little shaggers go to bed early. The colony is close to town so I walk there and plonk myself down beside the ocean waiting for some excitement. 30 minutes later and nothing is happening other than icicles are forming on my nose, when suddenly out of the ocean hop 30 miniature penguins one after the other. The species that live in Oamaru are called Fairy penguins and I had visions of the little fellas mincing out of the waves, heads aloof, carrying a handbag and flapping their wings. But these guys were serious. They were penguin commandos on a vicious assault course: Out of the freezing water, up a steep rock ramp towards the cliffs, under a fence and a final dash into their holes. The whole time they would stop, confer with each other (seemingly wondering if they were still going in the right direction) and then sprint off again like they had sticks up their bums. Every so often one penguin would just go for it and race away from his buddies. He would stop a couple of meters later, look around and then wait for the pack. It was hilarious. I think the locals should start some penguin racing competitions as it is really a thrill to guess which one will get to his hole first. 2 minutes after they jumped out of the water the penguins were all tucked up in their holes quacking away contentedly, telling their partners on the nest how their day had been.

Stewart Island

After a hard day's hitching I arrive in Invercargill at the southern tip of New Zealand, My objective: To drink a pint in the most southerly [English speaking] pub in the world. To do this I had to board a ferry to Stewart Island, the little known third island of New Zealand, although if you were to believe the Kiwis, they actually have 4 islands - The North Island, The South Island, Stewart Island and The West Island... The West Island being??? Yeah, Australia.

So it's 4pm, I'm in the ferry and the sun is setting away to the west. U2 - "The end of the world" is playing on my iPod and it is the perfect tune as the south island disappears in the wake of the boat and a rainy Stewart island looms up slowly in front of us. I could swear we were about to drop off the planet at any stage.

We arrive and Albatrosses glide down and waterski on our wake, hoping for a free fish supper. Their wingspan is truly amazing - more than two meters and these were of the smaller species. The pub / cafe / hotel / shop / restaurant is right in the middle of the only town on the island (Oban, Pop: 376). So in I pop to fulfil my mission. 3 beers later and I know everybody by name and have an offer to go fishing the next day. It was like something out of a fishy / farming wild west, instead of cowboy boots, everyone was wearing Wellington boots and it looked like most people's clothes had not seen a washing machine in a week or two. Faces were ruddy, the drinking heavy and the manners non existent. In fact there was a general competition to see who could burp the loudest. Jack the fisherman was well in the lead when suddenly a new barmaid started her shift. She was a rather beautiful young lass and I had the impression that all the lads there fancied her and were going to start behaving themselves. This impression was shattered seconds later when Innes (the barmaid) took a swig of coke and let out a belch that had the windows vibrating and the birds outside running for cover. Everyone clapped. Included myself.

Queenstown - Te Anau - Milford Sound

Knees still knocking, it was time to get back to nature, so off I set on a day trip to Milford Sound.

The day didn't start too well, primarily due to the fact that I had to get up at 6am. Then things got worse as I got on the bus to be greeted by a wave of "Konichi Was" & a couple of "Howdys". Yes I was stranded on a bus comprising of 32 Japanese tourists & 5 Gringos. Only one thing to do, stick on the iPod and hope that there are no group games involved in the trip.

The drive to Te Anau was uneventful. The driver gave us a couple of interesting facts about NZ - for example did you know that the only indigenous "land" mammal to NZ is a rare type of bat?? All the other species i.e. rabbits, sheep, possums, deer, alpacas etc. were brought in by the first European settlers.

After Te Anau things got spectacular rather quickly. The day was bright and sunny (one of the few days in the year) and there had been a fresh snowfall the night before so that the mountains had an icing sugar coating. We stopped for a gander at the so called "Mirror lakes" and for the first time since I saw a girl naked (two years ago), my jaw literally dropped open. They were incredible - in the background you have lofty 2000 meter mountains, in the middle you have a beautiful golden coloured grass landscape and beside the lakes you have palms and ferns. The lakes then mirror this so perfectly that I considered bottling the stuff and using it to shave. If you stood on your head you would not have known what was real and what was reflection.

Onwards towards Milford we stopped at a place called "The Chasm" (Christian brother educated people will not know how to pronounce this correctly). This is basically a river which has cut its way through limestone like a chainsaw through butter. The water bashes against the rocks with a force that would break a man in two. More open mouth antics and I had to take another 20 photos. This was in stark contrast to the Japanese who shuffled quickly (Japanese don't actually run, it's a myth) to the best Photo op, got each other to take pictures of themselves waving and waddled back to the bus. I don't think they actually looked at the landscape without the aid of a viewfinder.

We arrived in Milford about 5 hours later and if at all possible, things got even better. 500 meter waterfalls, seals, dolphins, mountains that reared up out of the ocean to tower 2000 meters above us. Superlatives fail me, it was that amazing. The boat trip only lasted an hour and a half but my brain had already beauty overload.

Back at the harbour at 3pm and we had a long bus ride back to Queenstown ahead of us. Then a nice young lady asks me if I would perhaps be interested in a scenic flight back. Out came the credit card and thirty minutes later I was sitting in a tiny Cessna with all 5 Americans as it careened down the bumpy runway and hurtled skywards, the engine sounding like a souped up lawnmower. The flight was ??? (please click to find a nice adjective), we could see for hundreds of kilometres and it was like something from the cover of a Swiss chocolate box.

We touched down shortly after and the courtesy taxi took me back to my hostel. Not the cheapest of days, but without much doubt I have never seen so much natural beauty in one day. Book a flight and go and see it!

Queenstown #2 (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)

It had been Saturday night at some stage. There had been people from Australia who I had been surfing with and they were in town. There had been a very long happy hour. There had been great music. There had been lots of fun and revelry. It had been a great night.

But now it was 11am Sunday morning and I was standing in a gondola suspended 140m above the river below with a giant latex cord attached to my feet.

2 hours before I had been lying comatose in a lovely warm bed, dreaming of pleasant things when my travel buddy shakes me into reality and says "Wanna do the Nevis Bungy?". My hangover was large and my brain cells were at an all time low in calculating capacity, so I just looked at him cross eyed and said "Sure, why not". He said "Cool, we're leaving now". So without as much as a shower or a piece of toast I was sitting in a cold bus 20 minutes later, destination Nevis Highwire Bungy (until recently the highest fixed bungy jump in the world, now only second highest).

I had always wanted to do a bungy jump, but my excuse had always been that I wanted to do it in New Zealand. 31 years later and here I was. Somehow I had also imagined the decision to jump was going to be long and painful one, psyching myself up for days on end. Moralising about it all. But in the end all it took was about 0.4 seconds blurry thought.

The 4wd drive up to the gondola station was about as much adrenaline as most people need in a year. 100m drops on both sides of the very narrow dirt track. Inside the station we were weighed (86kg folks, hasn't changed in the last 7 months) and a ball hugging harness was welded on to my buttocks. Then we were escorted outside to look across to the gondola and see the actual drop for the first time. Scariness factor: Moist pants. 134m is high, I mean the highest mountain in Ireland is only 8 times higher than this drop! The largest fricking building in Italy isn't even as high. The gondola gently swayed in the wind and we all grinned weakly at each other and the nervous chatter started in earnest.

We were then ferried across to the gondola in a little cart like contraption. Some people were already looking decidedly pale. Safely inside the gondola we were arranged in order of weight. I was going to be number 5. So I had plenty of time to realise what I had let myself in for. The fact that part of the gondola's floor was made out of perspex didn't help matters greatly. Rodrigo from Brazil (117kg) was first off. He was sat down in a nice comfy armchair with his feet in the air (amazing similarities with gynaecology) whilst the bungy was attached. A couple of seconds later he was helped up and was led to the very very very very narrow jump ledge (think enough space for two size 9 feet). He shuffled up and stood there looking very brave, it all had a very piratesque feeling. 5.4.3.2.1 and Rodrigo was gone, hurtling toward the ground at 120kmh with only a 3cm wide length of latex to keep him from being salmon food. We all rushed over to the perspex floor to watch him and this was when my brain started to realise the enormity of the action I was scheduled to do. Rodrigo fell and fell and fell and fell. We all thought he wasn't going to stop. Then suddenly about 8 seconds after Rodrigo has left the comfort of the gondola, the bungy goes twang and Rodrigo is saved from the river and is hurtling back towards the gondola at high speed. 10 bounces later and he is being winched back up. Inside the gondola the nervous laughter gets even more skitty. My knees start to shake vaguely. Tongue: Dry. Thoughts: I wish I had taken a crap this morning.

The next three all succeed in jumping and suddenly my name is being called. There is now a pronounced shaking of my knees which I vainly try to disguise as muscle pain. Rivulets of sweat make themselves known to my armpits. Up I hop in the Gynie's chair, get the cord strapped on and our "Jumpmaster" is making some idle banter with me as if all I am about to do is take a stroll down to the bloody supermarket. He then advises me to do a nice dive so that it will look good on video. I want to slap him and say that I don't want marks for artistic impression, but rather survive this whole adventure without any fatal injuries or mental neuroses. He winks at me and says "Let's go". I shuffle like a prisoner up to the gangplank and place my size 11s on the edge. Everyone says don't look down, but hey, I'm cool... I look down. At this point my knees start doing a fandango and my brain is screaming "Turn around you stupid Muppet, go back, have some breakfast, read a book, take a nice walk down to the lake, but stop this INSANITY now". Whilst this thought is emerging Mr. nice guy "Jumpmaster" has started the countdown. I consider asking him if he can perhaps start at 10 or maybe even 20 and if I should jump on 1 or on 0. Oh shag it, it's all too late, one last look at the majestic mountains in front of me and I launch myself Johnny Weissmuller like into the abyss. I soar, I fly, I have wings. Then suddenly like in a Roadrunner cartoon, gravity remembers to kick in and I start plummeting groundwards like a boulder. The air gets louder and louder in my ears, my eyes start to water and the experience is as close to sensory overload as you are going to get. Just as soon as the river is getting worryingly close, a feeling runs through your body as if you are a puppet and God has just pulled your string. From 120km downwards, the force is transformed into about 50km upwards and for a couple of tantalising seconds near the top of the first bounce you are completely weightless. The whole blood in my body has decided to party in my head and a huge sense of euphoria sinks in. I scream.

Back in the gondola my knees are still knocking and the people who have jumped all nod and wink at each other. Everyone jumps, no refusals, no tears, no nervous breakdowns. 2 hours later I am sitting on the sofa in the youth hostel with a nice cup of coffee (tm) and the whole experience seems so surreal. Was I REALLY there? Was it all just some alcohol infused trauma? Then I see I have goosebumps while I think about the jump... That doesn't happen after dreams. 10 minutes later and I fall asleep on the sofa as the adrenaline slowly makes its way back home.

Summary: The scariest thing I have ever done in my life.

Queenstown

Now even the most ardent coach potatoes out there will probably have heard of Queenstown. Normally the town is mentioned in a sentence with the words "Adrenaline, Junky, Mecca, Crazy, Wild" or similar. In Queenstown it is possible to:
Jetboat down tiny rivers
Mountain bike
Snowboard
River board
River raft
Helicopter flights
4x4 offroad driving
Sit in an acrobatic plane
Sky dive
Bungy (4 of them!)
Canyon swing
Flying fox
Paraglide
Drink

Queenstown has therefore been one of the places that I have always wanted to visit. Within the first evening I had checked off the "Drink" category on the list. The next morning it was time to rent some mountain bikes and head off for some gnarly single trails. There had been some snow at higher altitudes the night before, but we thought it was only a centimetre or two - nothing serious. When we asked for bikes the assistant looked a bit sceptical and by the time we reached 1000m we realised why and were rapidly re-evaluating our calculations - at least 10cm all around. We climbed up through some 4wd tracks, then a single track through lush forests to finally reach a saddle in the mountains where we got a breathtaking view of Queenstown in the mid afternoon sun, with the snow looking like icing sugar. From there on it was downhill all the way. Single trails are technical and tricky at the best of times, add some serious drop offs to the side and sprinkle a couple of centimetres slippery snow and ice into the mixture and hey presto instant pant wetting. I've never mountain biked in deep snow before and it was crazy, the bike squirms underneath you like a dog about to be thrown into a bath. I fell off just the once and tumbled down a 3m slope to emerge looking like frosty the snowman. My cycling companion must have been all England mountain biking champion because he descended off the mountain at a rate that would have made Newton question the whole gravity thing. 4 hours later we emerged back muddy, snowy and frozen through in Queenstown.

Wanaka

After 3 days of rain in Franz Josef, it was time to move on. So off we headed in the Hiace camper van of the nice chap that had given me a lift in Punakaiki. An hour south of FJ we descended from the Haast pass to find that the weather on the other side was glorious. Sunshine and blue skies. We drove down a long glacier valley with snow capped peaks glistening all around, even a rather large eagle decided to accompany us for a while.

We arrived in Wanaka late afternoon for a spectacular sunset and I instantly fell in love with the place. Surrounded by mountains on all sides with a beautiful turquoise lake to the south.

During the few days there I climbed Mt. Roy - a 1600m mountain which involves sweating, grunting and cursing uphill for 3 hours and careering downhill for an hour. Couldn't move the next day. I also played some golf, went to the world's coolest cinema - Cinema Paradiso, got my mind twisted at Puzzling World and got to know the local drinking institutions very quickly.