Easy Like Monday Morning

Mon 9th March 2009 - NZ South Island

After a big night in the pub (topped off with an hour's worth of drunken Facebook chat in the computer room with friends and casual acquaintances back home), I woke up on the 9th and stumbled onto the little orange bus around 8am. We set off towards Makarora, passing through Fox Glacier and a place called Haast on the way. To be honest, I remember little or nothing about either of these destinations, and my scribbled hungover travel notes do not-a-lot to jog my fading memory. This probably indicates that I slept most of the journey, nursing a hangover with my grey hoodie pulled over my head and Ryan Adams' Cardiology caressing my ear drums and nursing me back to health.

Around lunchtime we stopped at Lake Matheson, famous for its reflected views of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. Unfortunately the slightly drab weather meant the lake wasn't quite doing its best reflecting today, but the scenery was no less stunning and the stroll around was certainly welcome after a few hours on the bus. We also visited a waterfall (the name of which escapes me) that we were told would give us some kind of trippy mind-altering 'magic eye' type experience if we stared at it for 20 minutes. Again, I must confess this didn't really work for me, and in fact I gave up after 10. But it was a nice looking visual burst of watery loveliness nonetheless.

Makarora is a small community running parallel with the Makarora river and surrounded - as are so many places on the South Island - by rolling green hills and dramatic mountainous landscapes. It is, as you would imagine, rather beautiful.

Once arrived I had to opt out of the expensive activities of jetboating and helicoptering (is that a word?), not just because of the potential expense but because I had to spend most of the afternoon attempting to contact my credit card company in England to find out why my card had been declined. It turned out that Qantas had not yet accepted my booking to Brisbane because of this problem, which caused me no end of panic.

To cut a long story short it was a big f**k-up on their part and I managed to get it all sorted out just in time for a fish supper and pint of beer to ease my way into the evening. Over grub I had a nice chat with two old retired Welsh ladies who had joined our stray bus at the last stop. Both were pushing 65 but were terribly sweet and delighted in telling me all about the jetboating they'd just spent the afternoon enjoying. "Ooh, we went ever so fast! It was wonderful!", they said. What a pair of silver-haired adventurers they were.

The night time's fun came courtesy of a decent karaoke jam. I managed to destroy 'Our House' by Madness and at least two Lionel Richie songs, but I'm happy to deviate from my usual blend of self-deprecating modesty to admit that even my poor performances were in a different league to some of the efforts displayed by my Dutch and German friends. When picking a song to sing surely it's necessary to at least know some of the tune, even if you don't know all the words?! One guy Marc just saw the name Robbie Williams in the songbook and then when it came to his turn spent 3 minutes jumping up and down on the spot whilst waving the microphone in the air, occasionally shouting "Woo hoo! Yah!" and getting progressively red-faced like a child after too many Smarties. I think the song was Let Me Entertain You, and he certainly obliged.

After the karaoke we gathered round the pub's 1970s out-of-tune upright piano for a more old fashioned sing-song. A few of us could play so Helena blasted through a bit of Ben E. King's Stand By Me and I delivered the few tunes I can remember off the top of my head when drunk - 'Hit the Road Jack' by Ray Charles, 'The Scientist' by Coldplay and 'Wave' by Antonio Carlos Jobin. Unfortunately, as I soon found out, only the first of those three songs is a crowd pleasing selection for a 2am pub sing-along.

Note to self: must learn a few more Beatles' numbers.

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