1) I got sick as soon as I arrived in the country and spent a week in bed
2) I tried to get up one day, blacked out in the bathroom and nearly broke my nose
3) I missed out on a lot of good tours because there were either too many people or not enough people to do them
4) Due to a dodgy driver a couple of us got left behind at one place while the bus left
5) My backpack was on board and I never got it back until three days later
6) Which meant I had to wear the same clothes for three days
7) Nearly missed another bus when I overslept (obviously my fault) and my roomates on the same bus as me left without waking me
8) Virgin completely ripped off one of the shoulder bags on my backpack meaning I had to carry it on one shoulder for the rest of the trip
So that's the crap stuff, but the rest of it was cool. So where do I begin? New Zealand is stunning. Actually it's STUNNING. It's so beautiful that you get complacent after a while. Oh look, another beautiful mountain view, another amazing waterfall, another massive tranquil lake mirroring whatever fantastic view is in the background. You really can have too much of a good thing. I'm a big fan of checking out the local culture and a bit of life, but New Zealand is full of quiet little towns and villages. Most of the people travelling are there to do some kind of natural activity and everywhere you go you see people hiking and climbing and riding and stuff. After a while all that quietness began to freak me out, but if you like nature I've not been to anywhere better yet.
Of course, New Zealand is also where the Lord of the Rings was filmed, and they won't let you forget it. Everywhere in the country there are movie locations and every other tour tries to link in the film somehow. Safari of the Rings, the Trilogy Trail, Discover the Rings, Paradise Found - LOTR, it goes on. And every other person in NZ seems to have been in the films as an extra. I guess if you're going to have a movie claim to fame it's not a bad movie to have, although the Last Samurai was also filmed here, and now King Kong is too. Unfortunately, all the actual movie sets are long gone, and even Hobbitown which is still there looks a bit crap after all the doors and windows were removed, so looking for specific stuff is really hard. What you do get though, is an overall feel for the film. From the mountains, to the plains, to the marshes, to the rivers, you really feel like you could be in Middle Earth. Like I said, it's stunning.So apart from being sick I actually done some cool stuff. In a stupid little place called Barrytown I made a knife from scratch. It sounds boring but it took a full day, started off with a big long bit of metal, and ended up with a cool big hunting-type knife which will probably cause me to be stopped at the airport and questioned for a long time. I also went to the most Southerly point in NZ, which let's face it, will probably be the most south I ever go in my life. I was thinking of going to Antarctica but I heard that the hostels are expensive and the nightlife is a bit dead. In typical Jamie style I also had my photo taken out side the world's most southerly McDonalds. Hey, I thought it was important! And then I got to Queenstown. What a cool place. It's like a mixture of Cairns and a ski resort, and is probably the activity capital of the world. As well as being the home of the bungy jump (and hosts the world's highest bungy), you can also do skydiving, jetboating, rafting, cruises, scenic flights, paragliding, river surfing, hang gliding, mountain biking, horse riding, quad biking, dirt biking, and even monster truck driving, to name a few. Personally I did the Shotover Jet Boat ride which was short but a huge adrenaline rush, and white water rafting which was a lot of fun. Interestingly though, the thing that absolutely terrified me was the drive between the two in a mini bus. The road is 40 minutes along a mountain road with a constant sheer drop to the valley floor inches from the tyres. At one point one of the wheels needs to go off the edge to get round the corner. And I was sitting by the window on the side of the drop. It wasn't fun. Look at these pictures:
And then imagine a 20 seater bus towing a load of rafts hurtling along it. I don't think I've been that scared for that long a time. Oh, and I also played some mini golf. It was extreme mini golf though. No, not really.
NZ is a really random place, with a lot of random people. I perfect example of this is a place we stopped in called Hokitika. 100,000 people showed up for the wildfoods festival. This sounds nice, but once I got in I realised that 'wildfoods' means things like cow's udders, fried seagull, bull's penis, and possum pies. If you think I'm kidding have a look at http://www.wildfoods.co.nz/ and go to the food list page and the photo gallery page. If you still thing they're kidding, have a look at this photo of goat testicles frying in a pan with some onions. I spent the afternoon trying not to gag, and made do with an emu burger which tasted pretty normal. Interesting place.
So that was New Zealand and now I'm back in Sydney. The thing is, that's pretty much Australia too as I'm just about to come home. A year had flown by already and I'll be off the plane and back home by this weekend ready to spend Easter at home. It's pouring with rain here which makes things a bit easier, but there's no getting away from the fact that I'm leaving and I'm going home. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but I think I'm taking it a lot better than most people. Probably because they don't get to go back to the splendour of Essex. Just like in the Lord of the Rings, everyone I know is leaving or has left, and it's time to go away to the West. I don't think that the elves flew on British Airways to Essex, but they would have done if they had spent a night down Time and Envy in Romford, or an afternoon in Lakeside.
Anyway, that's about it. I'm off now. See you later.
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