Milford Sound Kinda Makes Me Wanna Party

Rain. Sandflies. Cheesy Chips. Boats. More rain. Our first shower in five days. In a waterfall. It was so cold that it burned. 


Did get a free soup and a couple of beers out of it. Helen, for the second time of the trip, got mistaken for a twelve-year-old girl that had braved it outside too. Not in her pants though.

Plus some Japanese tourists got some fantastic shots. Including the obligatory Titanic shot below.

In reality, this was one of the most interesting and beautiful places that we have yet been. At first we were highly disappointed that the weather had come in so much, but I actually think that it added to the mystique of the place.

There were also these crazy parrot like birds called 'Kea'. 

They were absolutely fearless and had a proper go at Dan's car.


After two days here, it was time to move onwards and upwards, to Te Anau.

Queenstown, The First Time Around

The very next day we were back on the road and hitting it hard, like it was some kind of big wasp holding a nursery to ransom.

Our next port of call was Queenstown ('Well, they're all the Queen's towns mate', as I tried to say multiple times, not once appropriately or amusingly). Queenstown was pretty pleasant, if slightly stringent on where you can park.

We found a nice spot a good fifteen minutes drive outside of town. It was a government-maintained camping spot, or DOC site, which we should have put money inside an envelope for as a 'donation' but there weren´t any envelopes, so they lost out. Simple admin. In 1929 it was exactly this kind of lacklustre envelope distribution that led to the Wall Street Crash.

Here we got more adventurous with our culinary exploits. Dan and I, and notably not Helen, got rather chilly when we swam and washed in the glacial lake that was next to our camp spot, and the next day I went on an explore and got a bit wanky with my camera. (Wanky in a ´trying to be arty´ way, rather than using my camera as a masturbatory aid. What would have been more impressive is up to you to decide.)




'Twas in Queenstown that we met Dan's previous travelling buddy Jimbo. At this point he was also bouncing around with a mate called Rick. That evening we had our most adventurous dinner yet - it even had meat in it - and a German lady made an all-too-literal direct translation and wished us a 'Good appetite'. Which was nice.

After dindins we went to a bar and had a few 2for1 beers and a boogie to a band that did reasonable covers of really good bands' songs. I got started on by a Goth that wore a leather collar and sunglasses at night, we spotted an absolutely hooned thirty-year-old woman walking around mine-sweeping, and I nearly bought a burger for the equivalent of about £11. Fun times.

The next day we went to see the little cove which sort of serves as a beach, I nicked some Brazilians's ball (they had three, which is just greedy) and tried unsuccessfully to show off in front of them, at which point I went back and shaved my head the closest that it's been since I had crabs.

Nits.

Lake Tekapoo

After a quick panic that we would never be able to find our way out of Christchurch, we found ourselves on the long and winding road to Lake Tekapo.


We had seen pictures on the internet and in guidebooks of the lake and its surroundings, but nothing that small could adequately sum up the breathtaking tranquillity of the place as you tipped over the hill down into the valley. At that point, it was the most beautiful landscape that I had ever seen. And I´ve been to Ironbridge.


We pulled up by the church that was perched at the top of a small hill, Dan had said that he had stayed there the previous night. We couldn´t see him, but took the time to soak up the view and the serenity of the lake.







We got back in the van and went up into the 'town' area, which consisted of a petrol station, a post office and a public loo. We grabbed some quick-cook noodles from the garage and as we were returning to the church area we noticed a horrifically garish van was parked down by the lake. As we approached we read the message on the back of it, 'POLICE... PLEASE STOP FOLLOWING ME. I´M EVER SO NERVOUS...'

If our van was a bit bigoted, Dan's was at best ill-conceived. Apart from the fact that it obviously attracted the wrong sort of attention, it was written as though they thought they had a much bigger van to draw on. The last sentence was crammed into about a square foot whilst the 'PLEASE' and 'STOP' were huge. This was the first time of at least a thousand that we read it and winced.

Sneaking up behind Dan's car, the best we could in a nine foot monstrosity of an Espace vehicle, we jumped out and bashed on his window. Cue much hugging and rejoicing at finally making it. The next thought on our minds was, of course, where on earth are we going to poo?

We jumped into our travel-wagons and cruised down right next to the lake. This was slightly naughty, but Dan insisted that he had slept there the night before and no one had forcibly evicted him, like the gypsy scum that he pretends not to be. We can all see through that moustache Daniel. The upper lip is not the window to your blackened soul, and the hair band makes you look rather silly. Where was I? Erm...

We set up camp (or parked, as it´s known) under a big tree and surveyed the area once more. It truly was inconceivably stunning. The lake was a blue that you see on adverts for big TVs that talk about outstanding colour (which, incidentally, I've never understood, as if I can see that the colour is good on that tele from my own tele, why would I need the other tele?), the snow tipped mountains in the distance shimmered under the heat of the sun and the clouds were beginning to form in the crevice between the hills like a giant cotton finger scratching a magnificent green arse.




We got our camping stoves out and made our first of very many batches of the Kiwi equivalent of Super Noodles. Then it dawned on me, I´m going to shit myself in the most beautiful place I've ever been.


The public toilets were too far away and there was no way that I could lengthen my stride to a jog without a disaster. Then I spotted a small hostel off up the small hill. This was it, all of the practice doing McPoo's was going to have to come to fruition here.

Scrambling like a three legged giraffe with its head stuck in the passenger window of a mini metro up the small but seemingly ever increasing hill, I reached the front door of the hostel. Fuck. Fucking receptionist bastard. Right, think Chris, think. Use the McPoo with Lies technique. I couldn´t think clearly though, as the massive sign on the door saying 'This hostel and all of its amenities are for paying guests only' was clouding my brain.

'Hi, I'm looking for John, has he checked in yet?' I murmured with all the confidence of a eunuch at a porn shoot.

'Erm, let me just have a look... We've got three Johns here at the moment actually, which one are you looking for?' Said the hostel man, he could smell the fear on my breath. Fear and Mega Noodles.

'I don't actually know his surname, we only met in Auckland a couple of days ago. He's quite a big guy, with hair.' With hair? Jesus Crispies.

'Ah, that John! He's just gone to the post office, do you want to wait for him?'

'If that's all right, yeah. Cheers.'

I went to walk into the common room where I could see someone playing pool, but the bloke pulled me back with an 'Erm...' Fuck. He gestured to the chair behind me. There was no way I could poo on that. Not with him there looking right at me anyway.

I had no choice. I made a quick dash to the bog and locked the toilet behind me. Luckily, as I'm not great under pressure, I didn't have much choice in the matter of whether I would be able to go to the toilet or not. I was expecting a bang on the door any minute. Or for the whole toilet to collapse and a T-Rex to pick me up in its gnashers and swing me round breaking every bone in my body. But nothing came.

'Do you want to leave a message for John?' the Receptionist asked, almost as though I hadn't just broken rule 1a of the hostel code.

'Yes please. Can you tell him that I haven't forgotten about what he did for me.'
'Sorry?'
'No, I´m not sorry.'

Sprinting full pelt back to the van I realised that I no longer knew how to lie.

Postman Pat's Black Hating Van

We got back to Auckland in a jiffy and, as we fear change, stayed in the nice Indian lady's hostel again. Opening the door to us, instead of a 'hello' or a welcome back, I was greeted with 'Good God you have a red face.' 

My constant struggle with this sort of racist abuse has not improved in South America.

The next morning we were up bright and early to fly to Christchurch, the one in the south island, rather than the one in Dorset where I had the pleasure of sitting next to the late great Buster Merrifield in a cafe. He dribbled on me when he said hello. It was glorious.

In Christchurch we stayed at a hostel that has been converted from an old jail and that still tries to hang on to this dubious claim to fame. It was pleasant enough apart from a German girl laughed in my face as I first walked into our room. I can only surmise that this was due to how red it was. (On an actual Finnegan Red-Face Scale it was probably only a twelve out of 20, but this seemed enough to warrant mirth from this stupid fat lesbian bastard bitch.) That evening, probably unrelated, I had the biggest portion of chips I have ever eaten.

The next day we went out on a small explore of Christchurch, and dropped into the dubiously-named 'Wicked' camper van depot to collect our vehicle, home and lover for the next few weeks. We arrived at the prearranged time of nine in the morning. Five hours and nine different contracts later, we were able to drive our van away.

Now, Wicked vans, as you may or may not know, have the gimmick of spray-painting 'crazy' designs over what are essentially conventional people carriers with the back seats ripped out and a bed smashed in. 

At some point, a bright spark thought it would be a good idea to get rid of the, albeit slightly shoddy, at least tame graffiti on the boot of the car and replace it with a 'witty' phrase such as 'BEER: THE REASON WE GET UP EVERY AFTERNOON'. 

This would be fine if all of the vans had a similar level of 'quality' in their humorous taglines. Unfortunately, they don't.

After a very long time indeed spent gawping in bewilderment at the almost incomprehensible stupidity of the depot staff, and also at a strange almost-albino American girl who had turned up to the depot naked to get one day's rental for free, we were told that we would need a credit card to place down the $500 bond. 

Once again, the fact that we had saved up for this trip rather than put it on credit cards had bitten us on the arse, like a rabid credit monkey with sharpened 50 pence pieces for teeth.

We thus had to go to the local supermarket and use all three of our cards, two of which charge us like cheap two-bit whores on the make, to get out enough cash to pay for the rental time and the bond. The bond, still to this day, is short $100. Wicked have blamed this on 'bank fees'. They are wankers.

Anyway.

There were three vans left. We were getting increasingly fed up as we were meant to have left to meet our mate Dan (of Hoi An beating-evading fame) in Lake Tekapo by ten in the morning. 

I surveyed the artwork on the vans. One had 'Metallica' written on the back and a caricature of the band. One had something sexist about men not being able to perform sexually, and the other, well the other one was a different kettle of fish entirely.

It soon became apparent that we were to receive, 'the other one'.

'IT IS BETTER TO BE BLACK THAN GAY, COZ YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL YOUR PARENTS'

Apparently this is neither racist nor homophobic, it is the 'Kiwi sense of humour' and the company own vans with 'much worse than that' written on them. 

What exactly that might be can only be guessed at. 'ALL OF YOU BLACKS CAN FUCK OFF AND BUM EACH OTHER AND THEN YOU WON'T BE SYSTEMATICALLY OSTRACISED FROM OUR SOCIETY, YOU BUMMERS' or something.

Either way, we were stuck with the Homophobic Racist Van for the next 19 days. As we awkwardly reversed out of the depot and got to our first set of traffic lights, I turned to Helen and asked what seemed like a very pertinent question. 'Do Maori people count themselves as black?' I had visions of the All Black's pulling up behind us and not seeing the 'wit' evident on our van.

We had to go to a petrol station to fill up, and took the chance to try and make a 'COOK PASS BABTRIDGE' style 'quick fixey' on it. 

We changed the word GAY to MUTE, and the word BLACK to DEAF.

This was perhaps no better, but I'd rather have a fight with fifteen angry mutes than the First XV. At least they wouldn't call me red. Bloody racist mutes. Idiots. Can´t even speak.

Molly, Dollies and a Great Deal of Folly

The only noteworthy occurrence to report on the build up and actual flight to Auckland was that we got ripped off by a seemingly sweet old lady whilst buying the biggest Toblerone I have ever clapped hands on. Plus we had a few more of those interesting Chai Lattes.

Mind you they are (now writing this in Bolivia after a hundred gutfuls of mate and the sweet waft of real chai still tingling my ridiculously long nasal hairs) nothing special.

Helen and I crash-landed (not literally, God, could you imagine?) into Auckland, we hopped into a carriage to take us to our overpriced hostel that was run by a nice Indian lady who probably earned more in a week from the place than India's entire GDP. Once settled, we had a walk around the downtown area of Auckland that we had landed in, and, as is customary whilst in a capital city, went and had a pizza. It were alreet.

When we got home we realised just how tired we were and tucked ourselves into our nice double bed, the luxury! Revenge of the Nerds was on too. Bonus.

The next day we lugged our gear to the slightly-further-than-imagined bus station to get our sweet asses up north to the Bay of Islands. I made the mistake of buying a two litre bottle of strawberry milkshake that I then had to down before getting on the somewhat confectionerily-militant bus.

This was just the start of a General Bastard of a journey including snoring old people, screaming babies and annoying teenagers listening to pop through the tinny speakers of their mobile cellular phone piece systems.

But, we got to the Bay of Islands in a few annoying hours. The small holiday resort for old people, nature lovers and pie eaters. Seriously; ten-on-ten pies.

After a walk around trying to find the maritime-themed hostel we had chosen, we got in touch with none other than Simon 'Brother of Jon' White.

Si had moved out there some months previously, after having travelled around Australia and New Zealand. He had also landed the rather enviable job of being a photographer on one of the many dolphin watching tour boats. 

He also had a mad cat called Molly with whom Helen was most impressed with. Here she is looking utterly disgusted. 'You'd play Barry over Gerrard? Tosser.'


After a short conversation on the blower, Hel and I went around to his house to meet his buddies and have a bit of a barbecue. This was a great laugh, up until Simon introduced me to his new favourite drinking 'game'. 

'THE GAUNTLET.'

The rules are not complicated, you have to get from one end of the set of cards to the other without pulling a picture card or an ace. If you fail to do so, you drink and return to the beginning. Pictures will probably be a better testament to just how horrible this game can be if you´re unlucky.


In the beginning God made beer...


Beginning to feel the pain...


Nothing like a bit of non-productive retching...


That's a lot beer...


Simon relishes it.


At last! Forty five minutes later, and look at how happy I am to finish! Pure ecstasy.


However, I did then have to do my dares.


I personally think I could make it as a stripper.


One dare that I didn't have to do was to pull down my trousers and sing 'I found Osama! I found Osama!'. Except when Simon's housemate explained the dare to me she told me I had to say that I had found 'Obama'. Interesting, and reasonably worrying, stuff.

So, nine or so tins of beer down (drink responsibly kids) and Helen suitably unimpressed, we made our way out. The plan was to go to the bar that Si's housemate - who, incidentally, had missed the first hour of work to watch me die out of my arse - managed and to have a boogie. 

This we did. We also got an invite to boat-sit the following day whilst Simon and his buddy went diving, which gave us a chance to see some of the scenery from the sea.

The real excitement began when Hel and I got a space on Simon's boat to go out and watch the dolphins piss around. Apart from the fact our camera ran out of battery three minutes into the ride.

Luckily we were with the band. 

The photographer. 

Simon.

Simon got some great shots of the dolphins (which I hope he doesn´t mind me reproducing here), and some good ones of us whilst a young Maori lad explained a brief outline of the Maori culture and belief structure, a short foray into its history and then finishing by swinging some lethal-looking weapons around and poking his tongue out. Massive.

After a couple of days here it was time to move on, and so after an embarrassingly drawn out goodbye to the good lad Simon (hate it when you say bye to someone and then realise you're going to be in the same place for the next twenty minutes), we got back on the bus to Auckland.

Melbourne: 4 Tyres, 8 Fires, 1 Dire & No Pliers.

The next few days were spent trying not to spend any money whatsoever, as we had about one hundred dollars to our name because the money had not been transferred properly from one account to the other.

This couldn't have happened at a worse time.

The deposit we had to put down on Tropic Thunder (as we weren't members of the video club) was, count 'em, $100.

One Hundred Dollars. I did ask if the lady thought this was slightly over the top, and that for that amount I could go out and buy nine copies of the film, but the response I received was a stew of emotions, ranging from mild derision to sincere hatred, with a healthy dollop of malevolence gravy.

She was of course working in a shitty little video shop at nine o´clock on new year’s day, I shouldn't have been so forward.

After a tearful farewell with Dan, and arranging to meet him in New Zealand at some point, we eventually flew to Melbourne. Once there we checked into super mega huge hostel 'Urban Central' and did next to nothing apart from eat lots of free pasta and drink lots of free tea. That pretty much counts as nothing, I think.

Oh yeah. How could I forget. We went to see Australia. This was, to my mind, as close as I ever want to get to absolute nothingness.

We also hung around a lot to watch the pillars along the walkway blow up. That was pretty cool. If nothing else, Melbourne could definitely waste fire.




On our second day there we went down to one of the harbours and watched leather-skinned men feed swans and shout at seagulls.


Unfortunately only the birds are pictured here, but believe me when I say that these blokes’ hides were stab proof.

The next day we rented a car and drove down the Great Ocean Road. This was really good fun, and good practice for renting a minivan thing in New Zealand. I think it's probably easiest to let the pictures do the talking.

Apart from to say that I received two of five wasp stings I would endure in the next four weeks. I fucking hate wasps. Complete cunts.





Speaking of cunts (actually really harsh on the bloke but I needed a link), we also had a brief friendship with a guy from the States that played online poker for a living. He was pretty interesting - until he got a couple of beers down him.

He was 'studying' (read: had read a couple of books on) Taoism. Every other sentence he'd segue it into a conversation... 'But are you really... [here, alive, thinking, existing etc etc]...'.

No matter how much I tried to argue with him that it didn't matter if we were really here, drawing on all of my AS-Level Philosophy, he wouldn't budge an inch. There would be more chance of having a beer with the Pope and him admitting that condoms are handy and that Jews write good sitcoms.

Yes, I really was getting annoyed. I could not convince him that despite what he believes about whether or not he's really here, his brain would sense pain if I stabbed him up the nose with some free pasta. Action, reaction. Oh well.

There was also the fact, that I didn't bring up at the time, how ´Taoist´ is it to make a living taking other people's money? Ah, but is he really taking other people´s money...? Yes, I saw him do it.

This wasn't to be the last infuriating discussion about beliefs that we would have with some Randomer.

After getting a taste of the road down the coast, (well, Helen did, I got a taste for map reading and Cornettos - yep, back on the hard shit) we were looking forward to getting to New Zealand to clock up some serious miles.

Or rather, kilometres.

That we did, after a brief stop off to see an old friend with a new job, and Helen finally got to fucking see her favourite thing in the sea up close...

The Lost Week

It has come to my attention that when I previously wrote that Mary and Emma departed, it appeared that they did so from Brisbane. This is ein hundert perzent absolute baldershit. There were in fact almost five full days in between us being in Noosa and when they left. These days were spent in 'The Big Apple', Sydney.

Time for another small recap. When we first met up with Lisa back in early December we also had the pleasure of meeting another Coventrian going by the name of Jonny Owen. He proved to be a thoroughly nice lad indeed, and after just one evening in the boozer with him he had offered us his house during the Christmas period, when he would be back in Blighty.

Helen would like me to highlight at this point, that: '...this is the Coventry way. The experience of the Blitz has led to a sense of togetherness and sharing which no other city in the UK could ever even hope to aspire to. Especially not Bournemouth.'

That may be so, but half the people that survived the Blitz now live in Bournemouth, so there are holes in your argument, Mouth.

Therefore, we flew in an aeroplane down the coast to Sydney where we disembarked, mounted a taxi and got dropped off outside Jonny's house. The plan had been that Jonny was to give the key to his mate Max (my heart skipped a beat at first - could it be Gogarty? Stranger things have happened at sea with a bird in your hand whilst the Pope is shitting in the woods...) who lived but across the road.

The plan hadn't been that Max wouldn't be in. A-knocking and a-ringing we did a-go on his door, but to no avail. I even tried a bit of a-climbing but that only resulted in more time wasted and a sweaty bum cleft.

Eventually, we received a call from Max and the welcome news that he would be back from the beach very shortly. What went wrong in the non-miscommunications that had occurred prior we have no idea, but Helen is almost certain that it was entirely my fault.

Max was another lovely chap, with a strange Oz-Deutsche accent reminiscent of many a bad war movie, and we offered him a brew as we wandered inside and dumped our stuff. A few stiff cups of tea later we braved it out into the big wide and, in the particular area of town that we now resided, almost entirely homosexual world.

The next couple of days were spent doing generic Sydney tourist things. Bridge - check. Harbour - check. Opera House - check. (Mary agreed it's smaller than on tele.)

About two days into our tour we met with Lisa and her boyfriend Ben, and she said that we could also use her flat if we so wished. So, never ones to turn down an invitation, we bloody well did.

Other things that happened of marginal note include the ingestion of the best cake what I have ever eaten, purchased and scoffed on the harbour side with a cup of chai latte. Wanky but stupendous.

We also went for a luscious piscine dinner in a restaurant called Blue Fish (or something of that ilk) which was very appetizing indeed. This was swiftly followed by Mary having her first experience of Shisha in a Turkish bar. She didn´t particularly like it, probably due to the lack of nicotine. Nor hallucinogenic qualities. This was a most enjoyable evening and was probably my favourite that I had in Sydney.

Soon the time came that we did actually have to say goodbye to the two Dagleys. But you already know all about that. Tears and beers. Not necessarily in that order.

Lisa and Ben went up north to spend New Year’s Eve with some of Ben's family, and Lisa very kindly let us use her flat for the whole period. We are FOREVER indebted to her, as it wasn't just an amazing thing to do, but it allowed us to do so much more than if we were hosteling. 

Plus, trying to find accommodation at that time of year would be like trying to find an amusing simile.

On the 28th of December we had the joy of meeting up with the Irish girls, Sarah, Caroline and Martina for the twins' birthday. It was a good night full of horrible Guinness which also gave us the chance to get in touch with none other than Jon Howe, who after the Hoi An debacle had continued his syphilitic quest around South East Asia and eventually landed on Antipodean shores.

That night we made plans to meet for NYE (as it shall unfortunately and lazily be dubbed from now on).

This night was also most amusing for the fact that Gil, the Israeli feller that we had met in Cambodia, was also to be present. Knowing Helen was going to be there, and as the meeting also coincided with Israel's illegal and murderous bombing of Gaza, Gil had spent the week before revising his propaganda. As it happens, Helen deliberately didn't mention it. Just as well really.

NYE was a funny affair that is probably best left forgotten, but here is the outline of our day, from start to finish - massively fucking edited to make me sound slightly less at fault for a ruined evening.

• Meet Jon and Dan (of Hoi An battering fame) around midday
• Buy lots of beer and head down to Rushcutters’s Bay
• Along the way meet Dan's real dad

(If you can't read the chap's T-shirt, it says 'Sorry son, I'm not your dad.')

• Incredibly, bump into both all of the Irish girls and guys who we had been out with a few nights before, and Jay who we had met in Laos
• Play some football and get slightly sunburned
• Jon gets wind that we might be able to get into ´The best spot in town´ to watch the fireworks, namely a proper posh hotel right on the banks of the harbour
• Rush back to Lisa's and grab a shower
• Meet up with Jon and Dan again and go to the hotel
• Turns out unfortunately only Jon can get in
• He goes in
• Dan, Helen and I mooch about Sydney before settling down on the North side of the river, in a nice spot on a slope very near the bridge
• Watch the fireworks
• Walk home in silence

As you can see, some points are suspiciously absent.

New Year's Day was much more fun. We got a pizza and rented Tropic Thunder. I wish I´d seen it before the night before.

Never go full retard man.