SomewhereSouth.net

Murf: Fox - Wanaka - Queenstown

Aaaah, another short story again. Internet is tempting, specially when all your roommates are still asleep and you're bored like hell because you don't want to go shopping or bungee jumping and it's too early to hop in to the pub yet. And as there is not much to do otherwise in Queenstown, I ended up in this internet cafe.

So after my skydive, what happened next? Well, I got into this kinda allright hostel in Fox and did basically nothing the rest of the day. I met some dutch girl (Rosalie) who was travelling around with a swedish and a austrian girl who she'd met on the road. Actually the first dutchie who I run into and I actually kinda liked. So we had a chat and decided to meet up next day in Wanaka again. They going by car, me going by Kiwi. That is, that was the planning. It turned out little different though I DID make it to Wanaka that day. Sitting in front of the hostel I suddenly heard the big hummm of the Kiwibus but while I expected it to turn into the street where the hostel is, it stayed safely on the mainroad running straight to Wanaka. The driver aparently totally had forgotten that he had someone to pick up in Fox. So I rang the Kiwi office and after a long while and some phonecalls they managed to get me onto the Atomic Shuttle at 10:40 who was due to depart at 10:50. And that worked out. I got crammed into the backbench of a 10-person minivan and made my way to the Purple Cow hostel in Wanaka that way. Took us a couple of hours but the American girl and Kiwi guy next to me where good company and I arrived safely in Wanaka. Got my photo's to the photoshop, did some groceries and after a while Rosalie and co. turned up in the hostel but it was too expensive to their taste so they left again. Had a great conversation and some wine that night with a ozzie couple who wanted to visit Europe next year and I invited them to my humble home to show them around. (See you next spring girls!) Had to share my room with 3 girls again (this time Irish girls travelling around on the Magic bus) but that was just for one night. The next day I spend doing basically nothing. To my surprise I met Rosalie and co. early in the morning, 2 of 'm couldn't find any other place so they DID sleep in that hostel. Anyway, they wanted to go to Puzzleworld as did I but we messed up and I ended up walking to PW allone, just a 2Km strawld. Puzzleworld was kinda ok, just worth the $10,- but not extraordinairy to my taste though. Spend the rest of the day in the hostel and shopping around a bit and found an empty room. It turned out to be that my roommates showed up the NEXT MORNING at 7:00 as they where playing in town and had a heavy night afterwards. Anyway, my Kiwibus was due to depart round 9 so I hopped out of bed, did my thing and waited for the Kiwibus to take me to Queenstown. But first Puzzleworld again, as that was on the route to Qeenstown. As I had already been there I spend 1,5 hours doing some free puzzles and... MISSING MY BUS! I was looking at some puzzles and totally missed out that the group left, I ran outside just in time to see the busses butt turning onto the mainroad. I ran back inside, they rang Kiwi and after 5 minutes the bus was back again to pick me up. They hadn't missed me... That is, at the hostel I plunged next to a girl and she thought I found myself another place in the bus so she didn't report me as missing. After a while she realized I was really not on the bus and before the Kiwi call came in they already had turned around. Lucky me, it's no fun seeing the bus with all your stuff in it dissapearing in the distance while you're in the middle of nowhere...

Anyway, we had a nice chat and the bus took us to AJ Hackett's bungee bridge where some brave lads jumped off. After an hour or so we went off to Queenstown to book the Bottom-Bus and hop into our hostel. We more or less spend the rest of the night together in the bars in Queenstown where I met a lot of people from my previous bus who where already for a couple of days in Queenstown. Here is the place where everybody seems to stay for a LONG while. Very good to see those peeps again and have some fun together. The night ended for me at 2:30 when I was kinda pissed and tired and decided that it was time to go home, letting her having her fun in the Worldbar. And that's where this story ends. I'll spend 'till monday in Queenstown and get my bus to Dunedin on tuesdaymorning. Still 21 days to go so taking and spreading it. I'll be back in Queenstown within a week or to to spend another couple of days and then go to Christchurch...

BTW ID Checks are STRICT! Here in Queenstown every bar you enter asks for your ID and really checks it. If you're going outside for a smoke (in NO bar in NZ it's allowed to smoke) and you try to get in while you're kinda pissed they won't let you as I found out yesterday. Well, no hard feelings, I just waited outside for a while and after 5 minutes or so the doorman let me in again, back to the party. And indeed I wasn't entirely sober anymore by that time ;-P