SomewhereSouth.net

Murf: Christchurch to Franz Josef

Well, I'm on the Kiwi Experience bus now. Or more, WAS on the Kiwi-Xperience bus as I left the bus and group for 2 days and decided to spend a little time here in Franz Josef where the main feature of the town a big ice-slide known as the "Franz Josef Glacier" is. To start at the end, I indeed did walk on it, yesterday. It's an uncomfortable bus-ride of 10 minutes to the carpark and then a full hour walk before you're actually on the ice but then really the fun starts. Putting some Ice Talonz under your sturdy boots (you do get everything from socks to coats to boots from your guide) and here we go, taking our first steps onto the ice. With those Talons it was not THAT slippery but you have to walk in a but funny way to assure your grip, pretending you're a giant and really whack your feet into the ice as you traverse. A little up the hill where it gets nasty you even get an ice-axe/walking-stick to help you over the ice. We've spend around 7 hours on the ice and in one word it was STUNNING! Really amazing to be there. Unfortunately just 1 small little cave where we could go through but we had 2 very crampy crevices where we had to traverse through. Bit nasty for the one girl who was a bit claustrofobic and the exposure was not too pleasant for those who are afraid of heights but we all managed to make it all the way up and down. I decided to go in the slowest group of 'm all (there where 4 groups) so that I would have a little more time to take some pictures. That was a good choice and I ended up mainly at the end off the group as there where the ppl who had some trouble finding their grips on the ice. Always nice to help eachother out isn't it? :-) Back at the hostel I was pretty much dead but still managed to get some food at the local bar with the end-group of the day and as I couldn't get my sleep afterwards I spend some time looking to the local music-channel and finally finding my bedroom at 0:15 or so to be woken up at 7:15am because my roommies had to catch the 8:00am bus.

This time I shared my room with 3 girls though looking at the list the day before I thought it would be a bloke-only room. So as well as I they where kinda surprised to find a guy organizing his stuff in the room when they entered. Today it turned out what went wrong... I was on the list for room 308 which was indeed a blokes room but they gave me the key of 306! I was only about to find that out this morning when I booked myself in for 2 more nights in this hostel (Rainforest Retreat, Franz Josef, NZ). It's really close to town (3 minutes walk), it's cheap ($18,- a night), has good and HOT showers, has good overall facilities (internet, kitchen, big tv, etc) and is quite modern and everything.

But, how did I end up here? (And can I dump that here in a mere 35 minutes as 2 of my 5 recharche-internet-cards are not working and I have to fix that at the reception of the hostel.) Well, the last night in ChristChurch was a remarkable one and a very good start for my trip... It started helping some stuntmen with a high-bike act (where the guy sadly mistook my both rings as being with someone or so, haven't they heard of "jewelry"!?), then did some killer-pool where I almost won. (Thanx to the fact that I seemed to have 3 instead of 2 lives, well, it wasn't me who was cheating...) A couple of drinks later I got approached by a guy who would get $10,- if he'd kiss a guy on the cheeck. (No worries 'bout that and when he retrieved the $10,- from his friends he gave it to me straight away so I got some free beer that night ;-P) As I really got the vibes that evening and the band was suddenly with 4 ppl and playing quite well I ended up dancing centre-court. Really freaked out that night, unfortunately temporarily lost my glasses on the dance-floor (followed by me on it's knees and to be retrieved by a guy sitting on the couch who saw me crawling around...) in makin a bit of a fool out of myself but hey, I didn't really care THAT much and had a great time freakin' out completely there. For some odd reason some old guy (could've been my dad) offered me a free beer which I happily took from him as I was in the mood of getting moderately pisseed. Funny was that inside a girl asked me where the f*ck I did get that energy from and outside some blokes told me that they where pretty impressed by me dancing. Ah well, I had a great time and even if I DID make a complete fool out of myself, I wouln't care less. I'll go home within a month and will never see them again and when I'm back in Christchurch it's a month later and they've forgotten me anyway.

Plan was to go to bed early as I had a bus to catch at 7:25am but I found my pillow around 2:00am and was kinda wasted the next day in the bus... The bus took me from Christchurch to Kaikoora with a bus full of strangers. Slept in the main hostel, TopSpot which turned out to be pretty allright as it was straight on top of a hill with the Alps and the ocean as a really beautifull backdrop. A part of the group went dolphin-swimming and whale-watching, I decided not to do anything of that as my budget is a bit tight after so much diving in Australia. TopSpot is sweet anyway, they have a cat (who turned out to be 19, she could've been 10), a record player (vinyl!) and a woodfire. Next day the trip went to the top of the south-island and to exchange drivers and a big part of the group @ Picton. A big part went to the north-island, I stayed on the south-island with some of the group members which I didn't knew very well at that time. We ended up with "Smiles" (our first driver was "Nancy", as they always nicknames and Nancy didn't dare to do the Nevis so earned the name Nancy Boy, his real name was Scott.). It was Smiles birthday and he decided to celebrate that that evening in the drivers lodge in Nelson. So after dumping our stuff in our rooms @ Prince Albert Hotel (which had dorm-rooms but was way too expensive for what it got you)) we went up to the sacred area and had a small party there. After a while we went downstairs for a couple of pints and later on downtown to a poolhouse for some more. Was kinda allright, hooked up with a couple of guys and finally went back to the hostel around 1am as I was sick of the party at that time. (A local tried to deal some drugs with us, that's the point where I decided to hook off, they where way too pissed anyway and I was quite sober when I left the party.) 10 minutes later I found the hostel where I expected it and got to bed, just to be woken up an hour later by a roommate who had hit it a little TOO hard and puked for an hour in the in-room bathroom. In-room bathrooms are really nice, no long walks to a big shared one but if one of your roommies gets sick it's pretty nasty as you really have to listen to his nasty sounds. Ah well, we survived the night and in the morgning I fell a bit sick. Think I had too much smoke and air in my stomach as my throat felt like I had swallowed raizorblades and sea-urchins. But luckily I didn't throw up and got to the bus in time, just to wait as I was on standby and had to wait for someone not to show-up that day. Those where a couple of painstaking minutes, the town was dull and unfriendly and I started to like the group so I really wanted to piss off. After 15 minutes Smiles decided that there was indeed a nowshow and gave me an OK sign to get on the bus. I almost jumped into the air and gave a big dubble-thumbs back, tossed my stuff in the bus and jumped on. Next stop was Westport in the rugged westcoast of the island but not after we've visited Lake Rotoiti in the northern-end of the Alps. That was awesome, snow on top and ice-cold water in the lake...

[Murf returns to his story after spending some hours downtown to get some souvies and a towel, which he lost a couple of hostels ago, relying on a small toilet-towel allone. Now suited with a cool All Blacks towel with a silver-fern print on it...]

Good, after Westport we headed to Greymouth to do some shopping for food and for the 80's party in Mahinapua that night. Too bad only the $2,- shop, The Warehouse and the supermarket where open so it was a bit difficult to get some descent stuff. Kinda shitty as in all towns before none of the 2nd hand shops where open. Well, I ran out with some car-sunscreens, a couple of pingpong balls and loads of sticky tape. Back in the buss everyone wondered what the hell I was going to do with those sunscreens and to be honest, I didn't have a clue either. Back in the buss we picked up the guys from the Rocket Buss who came straight from Christchurch and went down to Mahinapua. Along the way we did some walks and at the end of the day ended at the famous Mahinapua Hostel where the only official inhabitant of the settlement was "Lez", a 79 year old bloke who more or less kicked out all other inhabitants and solely lived there for the Kiwi-Experience and their party's and some friends of his.

This is the party where anything can happen and almost everyone gets pissed. And it happened. After a massive dinner (made by Lez and Smiles) some went to watch the Lion's game on tv and I went straight to my room to create my outfit for that night. As 80's was the theme and I only had sunscreens it was a bit tricky but I ended up like some odd combination of Ziggy Stardust and a robotman, my body, legs and arms covered in silverscreen, my yellow pants, my fluo shoe-laces and on my head a red shiny wig. When I finally entered the bar people looked, looked again and started applauding. No-one expected this outfit and most of 'm agreed that I definetely should be the winner of the dressing-contest that evening. I ran of straight to the bar, being still a rather shy personality I was a bit scared and really needed a pint of beer straight away, not used to so much attention. (People approached me the whole evening making compliments about my outfit. Strange as lots of 'm where quite well dressed but aparently I was by far the most original one.) The party was a fairly good one, not as good as the nights I spend in Christchurch but with the whole Kiwi-group together it felt really nice. Too bad our driver got so pissed that the contest was off so no free drinks for me that night but hey, I had my fun. And indeed all night people where fuzzing around eachother. Some girls really drooling around the better-looking guys in the group. With the 3 of 'm, he probably coul've had a threesome that night, if he would. I wouldn't, the girls where cute but not THAT cute... They seemed like 16 or less though I heard one of 'm talking about her drivers-licence the next day and they seemed to be buying alcohol legally so they must've been 18+. But no, not for Murfie, with a couple of way too good lookin' lads around there's no such thing as getting laid with any of the girls for a Murf.

Round about 1:00am I decided to go to bed, my head still fuzzy, my throat sour like hell and livin' on Paracetamol and vitamin pills. On the way out I busted 2 people of our group fuzzing around with eachother, obviously planning to do little more than just holding hands. When I was in my room I thought it might be handy to repack my bags so that I had an easy time next morning and while sitting in just my yellow pants suddenly the door opened. Same bloke, mumbling something like "Oh, this is, erhm, not really what I expected", a second or 2 later a familiar female face peeked around the door. Busted for the 2nd time in a row by the same person. Sorry folks! I apologized to them for being in the place where they wanted to be but there was nothing I could do about it, I was really tired and wanted to go to sleep.

Ah well, they found their quit spot next door regarding the giggling and funny noises coming from there. All walls where cardboard so privacy was a complete no-go anywhere in the building. I hope they had their fun but I had the feeling it was just for one night as the next 2 days they where no-where near eachother.

Next morning everyone seemed pretty dead and most of 'm must 've gotten pissed like hell that evening. One of my roommies tried to jump in his bed and almost fell out, the guy in the bottom-bunk yelling "What!? You've fallen out of your bed!?" "Well, now close the f*cking door and go to sleep!". Funny things.

Next morning we headed to Franz Josef, doing a big uphill walk of around 1,5 hours as a sort of warming up for the glacier walk next day. Me walking not close to anyone decided to put on his discman with Puddle of Mudd (Come Clean) loud on my headphones and rushed up and down the mountain in record-time. Took some nice pictures on the top and went down. I HATE going down, it's less tyring but just nasty and your toes hurt like hell. But it was a very nice little walk and definetely a good warming-up for the next day. After yet another couple of hours (and surviving the Can-Opener-bridge, so called because if you don't take the bridge right it'll tear your bus open like a can, luckily Smiles didn't make any mistakes and got a warm applause from the bus when we where at the other end) we where in Franz Josef, Rainforest Retreat to have a relaxed night. Wend to bed not too late as the next day was a busy one, doing the full-day glacier walk as I already told on the top of this entry.

And now I'm here in Franz Josef. This morning I booked for 2 extra days but that was a mistake. Tomorrow morning I'll go skydiving (12.000 feet!) which is in Fox Glacier so I deciced to let 'm pick me up here in Franz and after the dive drop me off in Fox so I can spend a night there in a hostel. Booked the skydive (pickup @ 8:45), bought a phonecard and called the hostel to book myself a bed. Went back to Rainforest and asked 'm to cancel 1 night so that I can stay in Fox tomorrow. And so it's done. I'll have to book my Kiwi Bus for thursday right now, pickup in Fox and then go down to Wanaka on thursday. I'll check my Lonely Planet to see if I'll stay an extra day in Wanaka or if I just head off to Queenstown.

Queenstown must be the adrenaline-capital of the southern hemisphere and is liturally surrounded by bungee-ropes but I probably skip the bungee as it's a little too expensive to my taste and I simply don't feel like it. But I do have 2 chances, in Queenstown I'll take the Bottom Bus to go all the way to Dunedin, Stuart Island and Milford Sound and after that I'll be back in Queenstown. When I'm back I'll spend a couple of days there before I take the bus which heads straight to Christchurch again. But we're talking about the far future right now, I'll have to be back in Christchurch by the 30th or the 29th and as it is just the 7th right now I still have plenty days to burn along the route. Maybe do some ski-ing in Queenstown, what I heard is that it's probably the first ski-field opening in New-Zealand... I haven't done any skiing ever but it must be pretty allright to at least try it for a day or 2.

Well, that's it for now. I'm curious how the next group will be and if I have little more connections with them than with this group. Don't get me wrong, it was a great group and after a while I really felt cool with 'm but I certainly lacked some connection with 'm.

My head is still fuzzy BTW, bit flue-ey, sniffing and coughing all over the place and not feeling too well. So I just might stick somewhere to recover a bit. Ah well, I have my daily pack of tea. I'm getting used to the backpacker life, today having my lunch (sandwiches and liverwurst) downtown Franz on a bench and tonight having instant-noodles as dinner. I like it :-)

Murf | 07 Jun 2005 (Tue), 00:24 @ story