NZ, country number 8

Christchurch is rather nondescript. It's another town. The sun was shining as we landed and left the airport, and for this reason we were in good spirits. Maybe somewhat confusing to others however, we were also happy because we were going to Jail.

This is in fact the Jailhouse Hostel in Christchurch, an actual jailhouse built in the late 1800s, converted into a hostel. It's amazing. Imagine a film you've seen set in jail. Shawshank will do. Apart from being heaps smaller, it looked so similar. You sleep in the cells. You cook in the original kitchen, pee in the original (though maybe slightly improved) bathrooms, eat in the original common area. A few creature comforts have been added such as a small cinema, a TV room, and you get a key to get in and out of the building. Somewhat confusing as well, the next morning when I went for my shower the men's was being painted and we were directed to use the girls showers. As well as them. A very liberal jailhouse indeed.

We only stayed in Christchurch one night having booked a camper van for the coming month in NZ. It's great. About 6.9m long, it has two beds, its own shower and toilet, fridge, sink, stove and grill, plus microwave. It also has an inbuilt heater and plug sockets but annoyingly they only work when we're plugged into a 240v power-point at a campsite. As Matt had his licence stolen in Thailand, I'm the only driver, and so setting out at 10am I drove to Lake Tekapo, arriving around 4pm. Not really wanting to do much, we cooked our dinner in the campsite facilites then went to watch TV. In the TV room we met two Aussie girls from Sydney and Newcastle, chatted a bit, watched the American Apprentice and something called Packed to the Rafters (the girls said it was a great, funny Aussie show. In it the characters had marital, financial and ex-related porn net video problems. Funny on the face of it maybe but the show was depressing as hell, leading me to wonder what passes as humour in Sydney and Newcastle) before calling it a night and spending the first night in our camper. Surprisingly warm and comfy even in the -3 degree NZ nights.

The next day we drove to Wanaka, an incredibly scenic and beautiful drive. The sun was out the whole time, lighting up the snowy mountain peaks and valleys. I had fun driving the van around twisty turny roads, and even overtaking some cars. We arrived around midday in Wanaka, a small town with a lake on one side (named Lake Wanaka funnily enough) and surrounded by mountains. We had our lunch (Campbell's Chunky Irish Stew, very hearty) and found our campsite, about a 5 minute walk from the main road. We drove back to the main street to get our ski and snowboard gear, returning a bit later to the campsite. Who should we see there but the two girls from the previous night (we think they may be stalking us, one of them admits to not really having friends). After dinner the four of us went out for some drinks,and stumbled across some karaoke. I was rather pants and didn't do any (much against my nature I know) but












Cardrona from the top... Zoe exposing her granny pants

Nat and Zoe took to the floor for a rousing rendition of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, introduced in fine fashion by Nat saying 'We want to see all you girls down the front, all the guys can go f*** off!' An extremely funny, drunken night was had by all, not least when there was a slight tremor, leading me to think I was drunker than I actually was due to blurry vision and a lack of balance. Turns out it wasn't just me. Getting up the next morning at 7am to go to the ski fields was not easy, but I felt a lot better on passing the girls camper and spying a sick bucket outside their door. Good on ya girls.

The skiing at Cardrona, a 30 minute drive away from Wanaka, is immense. The drive up the mountain through switch-backs and ice/grit was hairy only a few times, and I took to it like a duck to orange (or possibly pancakes). We picked up some hitchikers on the way, two of whom turned out to be some Irish guys we'd met back in April in Laos. Small world or what?

The actual slopes themselves apparently had the best powder in 10 years according to one local, and they did not disappoint. A good variety of easy, medium and hard runs, the blacks were nothing near as difficult as what I've found in Europe and USA/Canada, but were superb all the same. Unfortunately my knee was playing up after only a few hours, and so the two days we were on the slopes I was restricted to a morning session, then packing ice onto it. Stupid knee...

We ran into the girls the next evening, learning that Zoe had stayed in bed all day suffering from the mother of all hangovers. Nat had gone and had a facial and hair cut/blow dry as reward for being thrown up on the previous night. We went and found another bar that evening but only for one, and had an early night.

We've since driven to Queenstown, apparently the adrenalin centre of NZ. We're staying in a campsite very close to the main town itself. Today we booked our bungy and sky arc (the highest sky swing in the world apparently) and tomorrow we will take a jump from 134m high. God help us. Check it out by clicking the title of this post.