Ok, so the promised update a few days ago didn’t happen, not because I am a lazy so and so that can’t keep up a good thing (although that might have a teensy bit do to with it) but more with the fact that I have been in areas of little to no wifi, and most places asked for far too much money just for the “privilege” of doing what you get for free in hostels in Asia ($5 for 20mb of data, that is truly insulting!) So I am going to have to squeeze all my adventures into this one long lost before I board my plane back to Auckland, hopefully not missing out on anything crucial.

Picking up from where I left off, on the day before heading down to South Island I went to Te Hana, about and hour and a half away from Auckland to get a little of Maori culture and history. When I arrived by coach, I realised that the cultural centre was probably the only notable thing about this very very small town. The staff seemed a little bit surprised when I arrived, and advised me to wait until after lunch when the sixty or so schoolkids who had come here on a tour had done their thing and moved on. It was a wise decision, and I was able to do a small purchase before getting what turned out to be a private tour of a recreation of a Maori fortified village. It was all very fascinating and that fact that it was only me meant that I was able to get all my burning questions answered. I thoroughly recommend visiting this place if you are ever in the area. Then, after waiting around in a fuel station for an hour and a bit for the bus back to Auckland I went to stay briefly at the University, meeting up with my friend and future travel buddies. I won’t say much about the evening, only that we got far too excited about a game of Pictionary and some people finished off the night slightly the worse for wear (not me, I’m a good boy!). After the most negligible amount of sleep I’ve had in a long time we got the airport via a very friendly taxi and our South Island journey began.

Now, the main selling point given upon arrival in Christchurch is that there is more land and less people, which In my head was a little bit on the forboding side. It seemed to be proved true when we had to walk a good twenty minutes to get to the hire car facility, but I stopped worrying about that when I saw our car. It was a large people carrier that was bright green and purple, think the mystery van but less cute. Not much really happened that day apart from driving, although we saw the hill on which the set of Edoras was built (Lord of the Rings) and played in a park after having a picnic. Oh, and one of us managed to get a speeding ticket. We would have protested, but I don’t think the excuse of not getting a great deal of sleep would have helped the situation much. We had a commiseration feast in an Indian restaurant afterward. What about the hostel you might ask? Well it had very expensive internet, no heater and was extremely pretentious, with “art” everywhere and a kind of Bohemian snobbishness.

The next day we made more of an effort to go around visiting stuff, one of which being the steepest street in the world on a 1 in 3.2 incline that was 1 in 2.86 at its steepest point. There were also a couple of scenic places along the way that don’t stick in my memory all too well, but the definite highlight was in the evening when we watched some Blue Penguins come up from their evening hunt. They are the smallest known species of Penguin, and as you guessed they were Blue. I wish i could be more sensible in how I write about them, but the only thing that comes to mind is “OMG THAT IS SOOO CUTE I WANT ONE RIGHT NOW I’M SQUEALING LIKE A TODDLER IN A SWEET SHOP!!!” So yes, worth the $20 and rather interesting mountain road that we had to take to get there, and the very late arrival to a very homely hostel in Invercargill, the most Southern New Zealand city.

The next morning we drove into the Fjordlands in the western half of South Island, where the scenery was absolutely breathtaking (Once I have a bit more time I will start adding photos to this piece to illustrate my point). Mountain vistas, lakes and forests stretched out on both sides of the road, and so we decided to go for a walk round a lake before heading to our next hostel. Unfortunately, while driving down a gravel road I endeavoured to bust one of the tires on a very stubborn rock, and had to learn as quickly as possible how to change a tire. but it was still worth it, and nothing a quick visit to a garage the next day wouldn’t fix. This hostel was probably the best of all, with little cabins for rooms and a cabin with a roaring fire. We celebrated this find (well any reason would have done really) by going to a hunting restaurant in town (no really, there was  a sign warning to secure all weapons before entering the premises).

In the morning, after fixing the tire we visited Milford sound, a gorgeous piece of scenery which was unfortunately far too expensive to warrant a cruise, so instead we had a quick walk up a small mountain called Key Summit, a mere 919m above sea level and only took just over an hour for all of us. Oh, and did I mention that this all happened on my birthday? It was a very nice way to spend my birthday. We also cooked dinner for the first time and ate a lot of sweets and Pavalova throughout the day so the required eating far too much on your birthday was followed religiously.

What turned out to be my last day did not start well, with a lot of rain and eventually snow making packing up the car very unpleasant. The snow was a wonderful thing for the Singaporean and Mexican members of the group, but all the Europeans (me included) just shrugged it off as a nuisance and carried on to Queenstown, where I was expected to have my first ever bungee jump. Naturally I was feeling incredibly nervous, as it wasn’t something sensible people would do, but it was (thankfully maybe) cancelled due to the appalling weather conditions, so instead I ate a massive burger and drank some beer. Hey its something right? I also bought a guidebook to lord of the Rings and strongly considered buying some more stuff but was limited by funds. The evening? More beer, Mexican food and finishing up with some lovely lovely rum and a very enlightening game of truth or truth (dares are never very good). It was a very nice way to spend my last evening with the group, especially since I didn’t really know most of them until a few days ago.

And now I am in the airport about to go back to catch my long series of flights back to where I came from. I am already tired and not in the most lucid state of mind from only three hours of sleep, a long bus ride and a very uncomfortable nap in the airport lounge on two beanbags (such a privilege to have TWO beanbags) so this is promising to be an interesting trip. This is probably the penultimate post in this blog about New Zealand, I’ll finish off with a bit about my favourite bits when I am back in Europe and I have time to reflect. Until then, stay safe and apologies for this extremely long post.