I'm a luger, baby...

6/1/2007 - 11/1/2007

After a day of slapping on moisturiser, after sun, aloe vera creams and yoghurt (it works, trust me!), we ventured back into the complete-lack-of-sun again with our noses peeling, in order to go glacier walking. It was a cold, unrelentingly rainy day. Our clothes were quickly soaked through, despite waterproofs, we had water in our waterproof boots - our socks were squelching with every step, water got into our waterproof bags and soaked everything - miraculously our cameras survived (though sadly Maz's phone didn't), we only had 10 minutes for lunch in order to avoid hypothermia, and there was just no way in hell I could roll a cigarette. We were walking round terrifyingly vertiginous crevaces and over morraine that slid under-foot. Despite this we absolutely loved it! Most of the walk was between (or sometimes going over) sheer ridges of ice that were a foot or two apart, and we'd have to choose between walking straight through pools of freezing glacial water at the bottom or digging the spikes on our feet into the walls of ice on either side and walking along looking like a bizarre cross between Spiderman and John Wayne. I usually chose the latter as it felt more adventurous and didn't make my feet any more likely to have to be amputated. Maz was far better at glacier walking than me - much more sure footed and less wary (I kept stopping at the edge of deep pools of glacial water looking at the next place I'd have to put my foot 3 feet away and saying "eeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrmmmm, I'm not sure my legs are long enough for this"). Sadly we didn't get many photos as we were worried about our cameras in the rain. Six hours later, when we came off the ice, Maz and I practically crawled the 3km back to the bus, smiling happily, while shivering and talking about hot chocolate and spa pools through gritted teeth.

When we got to the youth hostel we queued for the shower in our underwear, as we couldn't bear to wear our sopping wet clothes anymore. When we were warm and dry again, we ventured out into the rain, to find a restaurant (the main criteria being that they served good quality milky hot chocolate with marshmallows on top - none of that instant shit). As it turned out, the food was spot on at the restaurant too - Maz had some sort of fish thing (Ed: the yummy local fish was called Hoki) that she raved about in the enthusiastic tone of voice she reserves solely for food and Johnny Depp, my soup was just the most delicious, warming thing ever, and they let me taste a couple of wines before I chose a wonderful pinot noir from the Stoneleigh winery in Marlboro. Bloody marvellous.

Once again we got up at the crack of dawn to catch the bus (to Queenstown) and once again the bus was late and we could have stayed in bed for longer. Bus journeys are getting a bit boring here as my brand new mp3 player seems to have stopped working (it doesn't want to charge), and I get travel sick if I read. I mostly slept or stared at the scenery rolling past while listening to the bus radio. I was horrified to discover that Maz knows all of the words to "As long as you love me" when she sang along, despite my begging her to stop. I've been trying to disown and desert her ever since, but she keeps following me.

We arrived at the black sheep lodge in Queenstown and were greeted by an energetic lady at the desk, who managed to say "Awesome", "Sweet" (surweeeeeeeeeet) and "Cool" repeatedly in the 2 minutes we were talking to her. She gave us the key to our room and directions. In our search we walked past dorms named after various aspects of the sheep rearing industry (the lambing shed, the woolly jumper, the shears). We found our dorm (the sheep shagger), dumped our stuff, got changed and went to lie in the spa. When we felt adequately relaxed, we wandered off to the supermarket, came back and smugly cooked our fancy risotto while people around us made beans on toast, or pasta with salad cream and mountains of salt (why?).

The next day Maz got up early again to go white water rafting while I stayed in bed, hugging my pillow and smiling infuriatingly at Maz while she got ready. I've already been white water rafting several times in various countries around the world, so I decided to stem the tide of money pouring out of my bank account, have a long overdue lie in, and then go to the kiwi and bird park.

My visit to the park started with a very informative talk about the various rare birds and other creatures in captive breeding programmes in the park, and the reasons behind these conservation efforts. We were shown a tuatara (an endangered species of lizard belonging to a family of its own that has been around for 200 million years, lives for around 200-300 years and has the remnants of a third eye on top of its head), a new zealand pigeon (the second largest species of pigeon in the world) and various other birds that I can't remember the names of. After the conservation talk came a Maori cultural show which was fairly cheesy, but fun. We were taught the names of various body parts in Maori and then sung the hokey kokey, putting our left ringaringas (arms) and waewaes (legs) in and out. They showed us the haka (Maori war dance that the All Blacks do), did some poiing and then there was much sticking out of tongues and widening of eyes while photos were taken, and I had a go on proper Maori pois while one of the women showed me a couple of tricks.

After the show I went round the kiwi houses, trying to spot the elusive and endangered flightless birds. Kiwis are nocturnal and burrow underground during the day, so in order to see them, the staff keep the kiwi houses in the dark during the day, and light at night. It takes a few minutes to adjust to the darkness, then you have to spend several minutes peering round the enclosure until you spot a rotund fluffy thing poking around with its long beak. These birds are often described as hopelessly naive because they evolved without the pressure of predation before humans appeared in New Zealand 1000 years ago, bringing with them mammals such as rats, cats and stoats, and as such they have very little defence against predators. The biggest threat to the kiwi is the stoat, which frequently eats young kiwis, so the department of conservation has started a programme in which they take kiwi chicks into captivity until they're old enough and big enough to defend themselves by kicking the shit out of the stoats.

I dragged myself away to go and meet Maz after her white water rafting, and then we went on a cable car ride to the top of a hill overlooking Queenstown to have a go on the luge. A luge is sort of a three-wheeled sledge with brakes, they look like they're just for children, but if you're not careful, they can pick up speed dramatically, and on a fairly steep track with corners you have to watch it. Maz and I went on the scenic track, then I went on the faster track afterwards. I only came off once on the third consecutive tight turn after a decline when I'd picked up just a bit too much speed. I managed to get back on and get going quickly before anyone hit me and was a bit more sensible watching my speed after that. It's the sort of silly, but thoroughly enjoyable entertainment that, if it doesn't have you collapsing in fits of giggles afterwards, you're completely humourless and there's no hope for you. Maz and I chatted about how much Steve would have loved luging and the glacier walk the day before. I think we both feel that we should be throwing ourselves into things wholeheartedly in the same way that Steve always did, doing things that we know he would have loved and making the most of our travels.

On the way back to the black sheep we saw a bungy trampoline - you get strapped into a harness attached to bungy cords and jump up and down on a bouncy-castle-type-inflatable-thing. You can go about twice the height that you would on a normal trampoline. I couldn't resist, despite the fact that everyone else on it was a child (but it was only about 4 quid!), and spent 10 happy minutes doing aerial sommersaults, screaming "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" and giggling like a maniac.

We went back, slobbed in front of the communal TV for a bit, cooked and then I ran into a charming Canadian acquaintance, Ian, who I'd already made on my first night in Auckland. We chatted and met the young English crowd that he'd spent the last few days with (Maz seemed to get on very well with Ruth - the only person I've ever met who can do a monologue at a great speed and for longer than Maz). They were heading out for a night on the town, so Maz and I were just heading to bed and feeling very old when Ian made a concerted effort to drag us out too. Maz was fairly easily persuaded as we'd been having far too many early nights and mornings and were behaving in a manner unbecoming of twenty-something Londoners. I'm not sure how keen I'd have been if Ian wasn't quite so charming and, well, foxy.

They went off to the pub and Maz and I packed frantically for the next morning, changed, threw some make-up on and dashed off to the pub feeling far less skanky. Our intended one drink somehow became two, and then people were dancing, so Maz and I decided to show them how it's not done and hit the dance floor in a big way. I think the dead giveaway that we were not going to be loving the crack of dawn bus to Christchurch the next morning came at about 3am when I found myself being spun around the dancefloor by Ian (who had taken it upon himself to teach me to salsa properly when Shakira came on) at roughly the same rpm as a spinning top (good God the man could dance), and I caught sight of Maz and Ruth - they had given up trying to battle each other for a word in edgeways and were now dancing on top of the bar with great enthusiasm. Maz still believes that they looked cool (Ed: we did look damn cool. And managed not to fall off!).

Miraculously we did make the 7:30am bus to Christchurch. We both felt like we were at death's door, but we made it, and proceeded to miss most of the scenery by sleeping most of the way to Christchurch. We were woken up by the bus driver periodically stopping the bus for toilet and food breaks. We kept going in search of food, and each time Maz declared that this was the miracle food that would sort her out, would then have one bite, turn a shade of green and push it away. Eventually spaghetti on toast did the trick.

We arrived in Christchurch, the nice bus driver man took pity on us and dropped us at the door of our hostel as it was on the way, we dumped our stuff, showered the residual alcohol and stale smoke smells off ourselves and went in search of food and train tickets. In the evening we met up with Hannah, a friend of Maz's who had just returned home after living in England for a year and a half, and tried to summon up the energy to be good company. I think we probably failed, but we did our best and had a nice quiet drink before we went back to the hostel and collapsed.

Unfortunately we had to get up at 5:15 the next morning (why, why, why?) to catch the shuttle bus to the train station for the 7am train to Kaikoura. It was actually dark still when we got up. In summer. Hmmmmph.

The scenic train journey unfortunately consisted mostly of our train going through fog, so we slept some more and read a bit. When we arrived we decided that, despite exhaustion, we should make the most of having most of a day in Kaikoura unplanned. We found a loop walk that involved walking along a clifftop for an hour, then along a long stretch of rugged coastline for a couple of hours. We were told before we left that we should see plenty of fur seals, but to stay at least 10m away from them as they can get territorial, and bite if you get too close. This was fine, up until about half way through the walk when we started coming across so many bloody seals, dotted all over the beach, that the optimum path through them took us 3 or 4 metres away from two seals on either side. They growl. Quite loudly.

We spent the early evening doing boring jobs at a slow, easy pace that our exhausted bodies could handle. In the evening we collapsed in front of the tv and watched Spy Game - I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is feeling the pangs and shakes of 24 withdrawal, or anyone who just wants to ogle Brad Pitt.

After a long lie in (10 hours sleep - I didn't know I could do that) Maz and I went off for badly needed haircuts (I couldn't untangle the massive knot that my hair had become, and Maz looked like she was trying to grow her hair out already), and paid about 8 quid each for our haircuts, including being picked up and dropped off at our hostel - it was a bargain, but often with these things, you get what you pay for. The layers in my hair are now virtually non-existant, and it ends in a great big wedge shaped thing at the bottom. Thankfully it's just long enough to go into a ponytail, where it will remain for several weeks until it grows a bit and looks a bit less daft, or until I can justify the expense of cutting it again.

This afternoon Maz and I went whale-watching (sadly dolphin-swimming was all booked up when we got round to organising ourselves, so I'll have to do that at a later date). Just off the coast from Kaikoura is the edge of the continental shelf, and the sea bed plunges to a depth of 1000m. At this point, warm and cold currents converge here, creating an upwelling zone, where nutrients that have sunk to the sea bed in the form of detritus well up to the surface to be used by photosynthetic algae and other producers that then feed larger organisms, and so on, up the food chain. The result of this is that the coastal waters near Kaikora are home to a huge variety of marine life, including fur seals, dolphins and various different whales. It is apparently the only place in the world where sperm whales feed close to the shore. We were lucky enough to see one, just a few metres from our boat - it came up for air, blew bubbles through its blowhole for a while, then slowly rolled downwards and flashed its tail at us. Very, very, very cool!

Maz and I are now going to slob in front of the TV, or possibly play San Juan (Ed: a bizarre but fun card game) before an early night, and tomorrow we go back to Picton for a spot of wine tasting, and then the 3 day Queen Charlotte Track...