Give It Some Wellie!

3 March 2009

Took the bus to Wellington, stopping at a couple of towns along the way, one (Ohakune) that contained a statue of a giant carrot and another (Taihape) that boasted a giant gumboot. Taihape is apparently famous for being the gumboot-throwing capital of New Zealand, so we all had a go. As you'd expect it wasn't a sport (if you can call it that) in which I excelled. In fact, I was f-ing rubbish and being the sole representative for England I managed to quietly disgrace my country with the most feeble throw of all time. I mistimed the spin/throw combination and the wellie went West, straight into the side fence.





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The name of the last town we stopped at before getting to Wellington was Bulls. A quaint place, Bulls is notable for its enthusiastic use of puns. All the shops and locals seem to get involved. It really was quite unbelieva-bull. Although some were better than others. For instance...



...is rather cool. But...



...is very silly indeed.

It was mad visiting all these crazy little towns throughout NZ. I often wondered what sort of life you would lead if you lived somewhere like Bulls all year round. Pretty quiet I'd imagine. Although if it were me, I'd probably just end up spending most of my time talking shit on Facebook, drinking, listening to music by over-sensitive American singer/songwriters and eating cheese sandwiches much like I do in London.

When we arrived in Wellington, we checked into a hostel, visited Te Papa museum to see a colossal giant squid, ate some thai food, and then drunk a few shots in the bar with Seagull. For many of us who were heading to the South Island the next day it was our last chance to raise a glass with our much-loved scrawny Dave Gorman lookalike driver/tour guide, who was heading back to auckland to pick up a load more Stray cats.



We all hit it fairly hard, but managed to crash out at around 2am as we had to be up at 6.30am to catch the bus. However, at 4am some joker set off the fire alarm in the hostel, so dozens of us were forced to leave our bunks and stand on the pavement outside. Half asleep, half drunk, and feeling like hell on earth.

Fun fun fun.

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New Zealand, South Island

4 March 2009

Caught the ferry from Wellington to Picton on the South Island.



(Obviously that's not the ferry but it's the only photo I had of New Zealand's capital that was worth using. Nice enough place, mind.)

On the way over H taught me how to sing the theme tune to Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers in Swedish (phonetically and without any regard for the correct spelling it goes "Ee cormai piff and puff, ear pas bron! Ee cormai piff and puff, vadee gonoo!!" Good isn't it? Come and see me in England and I'll sing you the whole thing).

Our South Island bus journey began on a much smaller and orangey coloured bus driven by our new leader Mambo. Another top bloke Mambo, very different vibes to Seagull, but no less of a gent. And yes, they've all got those zany nicknames. It's their thing.

Plenty of new folk on the bus, which was now about 70% Dutch. There was also some characters from England (Brummies Doug and Russell who shared an appreciation for Neil Young), Belgium (Bert who looked like an 18th Century composer) and Irish (Finton from County Clare who snored like a bastard and always had a deck of cards up his sleeve). More of them later.

From Picton we travelled to Nelson for wine tasting, and then from Nelson to Abel Tasman National Park where it was pissing down with rain and I ate mussels off the BBQ for (I think) the very first time. Slippery little suckers, ain't they? Can't say I was over keen...

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