Netball

After a late night out on the town, Joe and I spent this morning, absolutely captivated, by this mysterious sport they play down here.

Pre Bungee

Joe has been practicing his swan dive all morning, jumping off of the ledge out front, mastering every last arm swing so that when he takes that fateful leap, that magnificent jump, with nothing but 450 feet of doubt and sorrow between him and the menacing ground, he will be prepared.

Joe is ready. He is pumped. He is a warrior who expertly displays such a magnificent calm before the storm that those around him questions whether the storm is coming at all.

Alas, the storm is coming, we already paid our $260 or so, so the storm is definitely coming. The bungee company is smart, they make you pay before your jump, with no refunds, so if you whimp out while looking down at your impending mortality, it’s your financial loss.

But Joe is not a whimp, Joe is ready to conquer this bungee three times over.

I, on the other hand, am scared shitless.

Queenstown

Thusfar, Queenstown has proven to be nothing short of strikingly beautiful. When Joe and I pull into town, first thing we do is check into a bargain backpacker spot, and then immediately head up Bob’s Peak (or something like that), which, as promised, is ridiculously tiring. The views from the top are incredible, nothing but dark blue water, light blue sky, and golden mountains all around. On top, we meet a Kiwi fellow that pretty much makes fun of Austrailians the entire time, hilariously so.

Pretty tired from the night we settle in with some free soup provided by the hostel, and watch a few movies with some new friends we have made. Watching “Lord of the Rings” was awesome, as many of the locations are spots that we actually hiked to and can recall exactly.

Today, I wake up and decide to take a kayak out on the water, as the clouds had cleared up and the wind had yet to pick up. The wind never really clears up, there is not a cloud in the sky, the water is some of the clearest I’ve seen (I could easily see huge trout swimming all around me), and I absolutely fall in love with this little town.

To gain back some calories we head over to the famous burger joint in town, Fur, I mean Fergburger. Hands down the best burger I’ve ever had. Joe is even raving about his veggie burger, which is called the “Holier-than-thou-burger”. After the feast I walk around the gardens (only after picking up a cone from McDonald’s, obviously), and spend the afternoon reading in the sun. Very relaxing here, and it is easy to see why so many people say Queenstown is their favorite spot on the South Island.

Tomorrow, Joe and I have made reservations to “embrace the fear” at the 140 m (450ft) bungee jump. That’s a long way down and I’m pretty intimidated, but expect a solid set of pictures/video tomorrow.

Day With The Canadians

Bad news everybody: I think God wants me to marry a Canadian. Worse news: I think I do too.

It all starts this morning, when, after having breakfast with the Canadian girls from last night, we say goodbye and go our separate ways. They’re headed South, we’re headed West. I have their phone number and hope to see them again; they’re fun girls.

So, Joe and I go check out a surf spot but says he doesn’t want to go, as the waves are pretty weak. Next, we check out Baldwin St, otherwise known at the steepest residential hill in the world. It is, and at the top I talk with a Scottish man about it. Or at least I think I’m talking with him. The Scottish are so hard to understand that I never quite know if their talking or just making noise.

In a plot all too remeniscent of “White Christmas,” Joe and I decide last minute to head South to check out the Catlin islands instead of just heading due West for Queenstown. 

We’re driving for about an hour, seeing lots of pretty hills and sheep, until all of the sudden we see two hitchhikers off in the distance. I say to Joe, “Wouldn’t that be funny if it was the Canadians?”

Then as they come into view he says “Holy shit it is.”

We stop, and tell the girls that we don’t have much space, but if they want to hitch with us they’re more than welcome.

So, we spend the day with the Canadian girls, checking out some cool beaches (no good waves for Joe), a sweet waterfall, and then a Petrified Tree forest.

Lindsey steals my heart away when she tells me she flashed a big group of people while peeing in public. I think I’m in love, bros.

Next, we decide on a whim to make the trek further South to Slope Point, the Southernmost point on the South Island. It’s actually really pretty, green hills and sheep as far as the eye can see. After Joe and I make a few sheep sodomy jokes we head West to Invercargill, the city of dreams.

Once in Invercargill, fate strikes again, as we run into a hitching group we had said hi to just leaving Dunedin. They say they are French but they looked like gypsies to me. Either way they were friendly for the most part, although I didn’t appreciate the gentleman degrading the quality of my boxed wine.

We sit and have dinner with them in the middle of some city park. The girls, who are awesomely scrappy, make some sort of macaroni and cheese and beans concoction, and Joe and I stick to our sandwiches. We all share a bit of candy and give the ol wine bag a slap and call it a night.

The girls are stay in Invercargill, hoping to find their way to Milford Sound in the next few days. We leave them in a McDonald’s, which was advertised as being open all day. I believe they are going to test that and see if they can sleep in the slide in the indoor playground. Like I said, I think I’m in love with these girls.

I was sad to let the loves of my life leave on the eve of Valentine’s Day, but, alas, these girls would not be impressed with flowers and chocolates. They seem much more into knives and beans.

They say they eventually would like to make it to Queenstown, which is where we will be for a while. If Fate so desires, we may cross paths again, sharing good humor and exotic ways to eat cheap beans...

Tonight we are sleeping on the side of the road, Joe’s feet are stinking the hell out the car, it’s raining outside, I haven’t brushed my teeth in lord knows how long, and Joe is keeping me awake with his snoring. I’m beginning to fall in love with this country.

Dunedin II

Yesterday, still a bit in recovery mode, I decide to have a nice relaxing day. Joe goes out to catch some “gnar” (I guess it’s been pretty good here), and I head down to the Cadbury factory for a tour.

The tour is great, as they continually give me free chocolate bars because they really like my purple shirt. Next, I hit the town and check out the street fair going on. It reminds me a lot of the strawberry festival thrown in my hometown every year, except it isn’t as touristy or crowded.

The food is sweet. I munch on a very phallic brat and wash it down with hazelnut ice cream (it was good, like Ici good). I run into Joe and some girls from our hostel and we decide to all hit the town together.

The clubs are absolutely packed. For the first time, I really experience the NZ club scene (rather than the bar scene). The Canadian girls we are with are awesome. They’re flirty as all hell with everyone they meet, but seem to really like us. For most of the night they amaze us with their incredible knack for getting guys to buy them drinks. Then, once the drink is procured, they just give them to us. Free drinks and free girls! Gotta love those Canadians.

The streets are packed when I finally walk the girls home around 3am and show them to bed. I then, as has become a bit of a nightly ritual, take a stroll around the late night town to McDonald’s for an ice cream.

The McDonald’s is absolutely packed, it is like a party in there with low lights, loud music, and frisky girls. On my way back home I am stopped by two drunkards. The first is a group of Kiwi girls that repeatedly ask me to tell them “You’re sassy” in my California accent. The second is a Scottish guy that strikes up a conversation and then abruptly asks “Aye muh boyah! Whe’ruh be’uh the nearbeest strippeer cluuuub??”

I tell him I don’t know, but if he finds it to let me know in the morn. I also get to thinking: strip clubs must be prohibitively expensive here, as the lowest paper currency is $5, and I feel like throwing $1 and $2 coins at the girls is frowned upon.

This morning, I have some toast and tea with our Canadian friends, and they kindly bequeath upon me a magnificent Canadian pin so that I will never forget them. If not for this, I probably would have. 

The Morning After

I wake up this morning with a raging wine hangover. Wine is a great drunk. It’s cheap, it’s fun, and you look classy when you drink it. Especially when it’s boxed wine, or “goon” as they call it down under.

Joe wakes up with this written in ink on his shirt.

Apparently it was from this girl.

Joe tells me he made sure to “write his email address all over her” as well.

In our morning haze, we begin to look back at photos from the night before to piece things together. It was all too similar to The Hangover. Still not quite sure how the events transpired, but it sounds like we had a great time.

Walking around the farmer’s market downtown today some girl comes up to us and starts talking. Our brains, still a little slow, take a bit to register exactly who she is. Suddenly I remember - she’s headlamp girl. This Canadian dame was wearing a headlamp out to the bars last night, and apparently we took quite fondly to it. She wants to go out with us tonight, hopefully I wake up with that headlamp on.

Also, there was a cat in my bed this morning. No idea where that came from.

Dunedin

So, we survive our night last night, I actually get some sleep (I’m getting pretty good at this whole sleeping in a hatchback car thing) and we head straight for Dunedin.

First thing we do when we get here is go directly to the beach. Joe chooses this place called St Claire’s, which is a groovy little beach town just outside of Dunedin.

Looking like a kid in a toystore, he jumps in the water right away and gets shredding. 

I, on the other hand, was like a hipster in a coffee shop, and got myself a latte, read a bit, and went for a jog along the beach.

This place was awesome, there was maybe two other people on the stretch of the whole area. It felt a bit like Avila Beach back when Avila Beach was still cool. It’s nice to be in a place that feels like home when you’re so damn far away from home.

The way the offshore wind was hitting, a very cool little phenomena occurred on my jog. As I ran along, every once in a while the wind would pick up behind me, perfectly picking up the white sand from further inshore, covering the darker sand nearer shore like little threads of sand.

We then check into our hostel which is right in the middle of town. The town center in Dunedin is called “The Octagon”, which, to our disappointment, featured no ultimate fighters.

We walk around for a while, heading to the famed railway station. It is supposedly the most photographed building in New Zealand. I’m not really sure why, and frankly I was underwhelmed.

On the other hand, this old town has awesome churches sprinkled throughout that were all open and bustling with workers as they prepare for the Flower Festival this weekend (We had no idea this was going on. Good timing I suppose.) The churches are massive, stone, hundreds of years old, and had some of the best stained glass windows I’ve seen.

Tonight, we’re going to hit the town. Joe has his pants on and his shirt is, for once, not inside-out. You know that that means! Its party time in Dunedin. Hopefully some good stories from the bars tonight...