Totally by chance, this year is the 21st birthday of the tour bus we were on in New Zealand, The Kiwi Experience. To celebrate, Hoki (Operations Manager) decided to bring some friends and customers along for a bit of a party. The roll call was as follows:
- John - Manager of New Zealands best chain of bars and one of New Zealand's most famous DJ's
- Claire - Marketing manager of the Canyon Swing
- Katie - Manager of the Nevis bungy
- Phil who had just been deported from the UK and needed to be re-orientated to his home country
- Steve - Adidas salesman
- Smiley - another Kiwi Experience driver
We set out from Wellington on an early morning ship to Nelson. The breakfast the served on board at 8am has a distinctly liquid feel to it, which continued on through our first day of the south island. We landed to Nelson and got to know our new crew and locals, including one man who proudly boasted that he once drank 27 pints of Guinness on St.Patricks Day.
After Nelson we ehaded onto Westport, where we did Jet Boating. Basically this is a very fast speedboat driven by a guy who thought he was a stand up comedian. Got absolutely soaked pulling 360 degree turns like this one but it was good fun.
Westport was a quiet town, the night consisted of a few quiet drinks and dancing in a restaurant with a heavily pregnant Japanese lady. Very weird! The following day we went to a brewery to sample some NZ beers. We were told it was $7 to sample a mouthful of their 7 beers. We agreed, and once we got there, the Kiwi driver explained that we wasn´t allowed to sell it as such, but that it was basically all you can drink for 30 minutes. They even gave us free reign at the taps. We got back on the bus in a merry mood.
If the previous night was weird well the following night was a farce. We
stopped for the night at Lake Mahinapua, which has a population of 1. It basically a pub in the middle of nowhere owned by a 80 year old man, who has somehow convinced the Kiwi Experience to stop off there for a night of each trip. In fairness it´s a lovely spot, sandwiched between the beach and a lake. The tradition is for a fancy dress party here, but as it was Sunday, all the fancy dress stores were closed so we had to improvise with costumes made out of refuse bags. In fairness we did pretty well. Myself and Conor made Tuxedos, Mick made a Edward Scissorshands costume, Darragh went as Disco Stu and Ed, well we´re not too sure about what his first effort was supposed to be (see right). Basically another excuse to wear the lovely Vietnam shirts ensued! The night was great fun and ended up with some 2am swimming in the freezing lake. 
We then took a few days to detox at the Franz Josef Glacier. We spent a day hiking on the glacier. The speed at which it´s retreating is frightening, about 19km in the last 200 years. Global Warming and all that. It´s actually named after an Austrian emperor. Not too sure how the emperor of a landlocked European country got his name on a glacier on an island on the other side of the planet. Anyway it gave us a nice day out. Got wrapped up with all the usual hiking gear and headed out early to spend the day climbing up, down, over and under some very narrow creeks. Nightlife in Franz Josef was very quiet. Ended up playing Bingo one night!Westport was a quiet town, the night consisted of a few quiet drinks and dancing in a restaurant with a heavily pregnant Japanese lady. Very weird! The following day we went to a brewery to sample some NZ beers. We were told it was $7 to sample a mouthful of their 7 beers. We agreed, and once we got there, the Kiwi driver explained that we wasn´t allowed to sell it as such, but that it was basically all you can drink for 30 minutes. They even gave us free reign at the taps. We got back on the bus in a merry mood.
If the previous night was weird well the following night was a farce. We
stopped for the night at Lake Mahinapua, which has a population of 1. It basically a pub in the middle of nowhere owned by a 80 year old man, who has somehow convinced the Kiwi Experience to stop off there for a night of each trip. In fairness it´s a lovely spot, sandwiched between the beach and a lake. The tradition is for a fancy dress party here, but as it was Sunday, all the fancy dress stores were closed so we had to improvise with costumes made out of refuse bags. In fairness we did pretty well. Myself and Conor made Tuxedos, Mick made a Edward Scissorshands costume, Darragh went as Disco Stu and Ed, well we´re not too sure about what his first effort was supposed to be (see right). Basically another excuse to wear the lovely Vietnam shirts ensued! The night was great fun and ended up with some 2am swimming in the freezing lake. 
After Franz Josef we headed to Wanaka. Lovely little town in the middle of the Southern Alps. We were hoping to do a few days skiing here but the general consensus was that there were better ski slopes in Queenstown so we left that off for that. The highlight of Wanaka was probably puzzle land. This was probably meant for children, but with the state our minds are in right now, we found it quite puzzling. Think most of us made it through the 3D maze (although some cheated - I won´t mention names). I think I was the only one to get any of the puzzles to work, and that was after a good 10 failed attempts. Very frustrating but enjoyable spot. I´ll go back when I grow up for sure!
No comments:
Post a Comment