Signing off on this adventure

The rainbow that greeted us when we arrived in Rotorua.

Felt like this blog needed one last chapter, so I'm signing off on this New Zealand adventure - and am ready for the next one, albeit a less exciting Canberra adventure!

Halloween 2010

We expected so much from our New Zealand adventure, and got a very different experience, but one that far exceeding anything we imagined. There is no chance we thought we'd be in a yacht race, or fly across the country to play connect four in bunny costumes! I never thought I'd brave a backpackers hostel, but I think the funnest moments have been coz of the people we have met in places like Cactus Jacks.



Cactus Jacks



We are both coming back different girls, or slightly different: I don't think either me or Chrissy will hear the word 'cotton bud' or sealegs' again without laughing like idiots, and getting distracted will forever be affectionately known as a 'Justin moment'.
I think we will always shudder if we see a fat guy in a cardboard hat and be outraged at anyone using the word debaucherous!

But no regrets, (well, I regret the three days of cold showers before I learnt that backpackers have warm showers too), this has been the happiest 29 days of my life...

So - if i had a champagne, a vodka or a kiwi fruit cocktail  I would cheers (and look everyone in the eye) to an amazing holiday and the most amazing people in the world. To all our new friends, keep in touch, and if you are ever in Canberra (or Sydney, no one comes to Canberra!) look us up coz we probably owe you a drink!

And Chrissy - thank you for everything and sorry about the energetic early mornings that followed every late night. I don't think I have ever laughed as hard as I did in the last month or had as much fun. Glad that when I booked this trip it was with you, coz it wouldn't have been the same with anyone else. Also don't think anyone else would have made it back in one piece, so congratulations!



Katie, Llior, Some Girl, Chrissy, The band guy

www.chrissyandkatieonenightonly.bl ogspot.com

Christchurch

So the flight from Auckland to Christchurch was really not that bad. Actually quite a good flight, got to see a beautiful sunset and i think the alcohol had pretty much worn off. We did find out that Christchurch had had another big aftershock thing while we were in the air - luckily missed it!

Got back to Christchurch and we were absolutely buggered - although our luggage came out straight away which was good. So we headed to the hotel, watched a little bit of Letterman and then crashed out in prepaaration for a big Tuesday. Also figured out how to work the water temperature in thsi hotel. Just couldn't figure out how to keep the water in the shower and not spread it throughout the bathroom.

Tuesday started pretty late, but with bagels. and not just any bagels - the best bagels in New Zealand. We headed to Cafe Decadence (opposite Christchurch Casino) for the second time because there bagels are just a maz ing! and they remembered us - which was lovely and embarrassing! After breakfast we headed back for some last minute souvenier  shopping - both spent a small fortune - and then went to find Fudge Cottage. There was supposed to be a tour - but as usual we were running late and missed it, so we bought some fudge and then headed to the botanic gardens.

We were feeling quite lazy (something new and different for us) so we jumped on this caterpillar thing which drove you round the gardens, while we ate our fudge. it was not, unfortunately, a giant caterpillar that drove you round, it was a bus thing called Caterpillar. Haha - Christchurch must be NZ's city of  love coz it was almost third date for me and Chrissy - they gave us a big fluffy blanket for the Caterpillar ride.  We though it was a blanket for snuggling but the winds just got really cold at the gardens. Um other than the romantic caterpillar ride, it was just gardens, saw a fountain and some more cool trees and the lady was super duper  smart about knowing her foliage.

After thet we hurried back to the hotel to dump our stuff and head to a melbourne cup celebration. Now the nation of NZ does not stop for Melbourne cup -  it was bizarre. We went to His Lordships Bar and there was like 9 people there. Crazy. But sipping champagne in Sol Square is not a terrible way to spend the race... We hung out there for a bit, drinking our champagne and watching the NZ races they showed after  - discussed owning a racehorse together (named superglue - which i think is mean but Chrissy bagsed naming rights). After that we headed down to find a taxi to get us to Lone Star for dinner. Was wierd coz we were the only drunk people walking down the street on Melbourne Cup day! Which would never happen back home. and the champagne had gone straight to my head, so it was looking and laughing when I thought a pigeon was attacking me and screamed and ran, arms flailing!!!

Lone Star was not as amazing as Rotorua or Wellington, (one good thing about Wellington, which got voted 4th best city in the world to visit or something - unbelievable coz Wellington was both out least favourite places ) but still good. Pretty sad coz the first LoneStar ever got ruined in the earthquake. The taxi driver on the way did try and sret us up with his son ... ew. Taxi driver on the way back was even funnier. He was talking and chatting  and then told us he was famous in Australia. we were like Right -o then.... and thought he was a total cuckoo but then I asked what he was famous for and he showed su a photo album - him and his wife are Terri and Steve Irwin look a likes. For real  too! His wife actually looked like what Terri Irwin wished she looked like , like a pretty, not butch Terri, and the taxi driver was a bit old but still looked like him. Absolutely crazy! Anyways after that came like a mammoth packing effort - after like 2 hours we got fed up and went for cocktails - they ran out of Wow's after our first so we just drank a few different stuff and shots and then headed back for our last Christchurch sleep.

This morning came another packing session and then I went to move the car close. Took me half an hour to get trhe car to the next street coz i got  so lost and confused. oops ... um eventually got our stuff ion the car and went back to Cafe Decadence for bag4els round 3. Seriously, if anyone is in Christchurch - go get bagels. Amazing!

Oh ands sad news - I am heading home minus an aussie sim card and my cowboy boots. How i lost both cowboy boots I have no idea! They were my favourite shoes ever too.

After our breakfast we headed to New Brighton to check out Scribes circle things and thenhad to leave for the airport. Got incredibly lost trying to get back and then, kinda luckily, got pulled over by a police car. She asked how much I though the speed limit was, unfortunately I guessed 80 and it was 50. I felt really bad but there was like paddocks on the side and they don't have a lot of signpost. Not that I bored the copper with excuses, i just apologised and luckily the copper was so nice, got off with a warning and some excellent directions which got us to the airport in no time - At a very respectable 50 km an hour. Lesson learned!

And now we are at the airport, came in over luggage limit, but minusing Chrissys unused luggage was only 3kgs over. Normally that would cost 60 bucks, but the lady was so nice and just gave it to me for free! and now we are just waiting to depart. I am so so so sad to leave. I have a tear and will probably shed more.

Halloween...

So after a nap - we got ready for Halloween - little dresses at the ready!

Went to Skycity for dinner first and got a message from Better Looking Tom saying that the carpark staff were not drinking and at AA playing connect four. We were like "wtf? omg this food is amazing" and that was it... but as we headed past carpark after dinner on the way to our hotel... the carpark was closed! Damn!

Anyways we went back to the hotel to add our bunny ears and tailand got ready to head out.... ran into the hotel porter who said he'd come party with us and then got into the street and realised we had no idea where to go to find a party! We decidedto just head to Andrew Andrew coz we had been there before and it was close, and we turn up and there is the carpark guys playing Connect Four.... felt a bit silly for thinking that the entire staff of a bar were attending an alcoholics anonymous meeting.

Anyways, it was a tiny bit awkward - Chrissy and Katie, dressed in tiny little dresses, playboy bunny ears and a big fluffy tail (left the cuffs and bowties at the hotel - luckily or unluckily - depends how you wanna look at it! ) crashing a staff party where almost everyone is in jeans and a tee. Felt overdressed (and underclothed). Anyways so we warmed up with a few games of Connect 4 - which neither Chrissy and I are very excellent at - which turned into extreme connect 4 - only 3 seconds to make a move. After that we went for a walk through the harbour and ended up at a dingy pub, but the disgusting old man stares got to much so we headed back to AA for like, one more drink, before going back to the hotel.

One more drink turned into a lot more drinks and the most interesting game of 21 I have played ... Very random way to spend Halloween... but it was crazy fun and quiet and loud all at the same time .. and we had a blast.

This morning I tried my hardest to be super quiet and not wake Chrissy! Which would have been super great if the stupid hotel had not tried to do housekeeping at 9 in the morning... and they kept coming back - we had the safety chain and the privacy please tag all up and everything! Grrr.... Anyway after late checkout we finally headed to skytower to do the typical tourist stuff.

Skytower = awesome! Auckland is absolutely beautiful - i am sad to say goodbye tonight! We went up and did both viewing decks - the highest one was 220 metres - we lost our stomachs on the way up! Saw a guy bungy off and am having second thoughts about my desire to skydive! Might stick with the original plan of being a chicken! After that we did a bit more tacky tourist shopping - both getting a tomato shaped tomato sauce bottle - which are all the rage in NZ. Everywhere has themand they are super cute!

We also headed up for a game of roulette so we could get a souveneir poker chip. Did not get very lucky on the roulette table but it was fun and we didnt gamble much money - felt poor placing single bets and cashing in $20 notes when everyone else had hundreds!

After our gambling we headed off for more shopping - stopped by Timezone and took some pretty awesome photos in a photo booth with adlib wind!

And now - we are just killing time before our flight back to Christchurch. I have a terrible feeling this flight is going to be even worse than yesterdays -

only 2 more sleeps ion New Zealand :(

oh and for the record:

de·bauch·er·y
. pl. de·bauch·er·ies
1.
a. Extreme indulgence in sensual pleasures; dissipation.

Air New Zealand - Crazy About Rugby - Safety Video

Best Aeroplane safety message ever...
Me and Chrissy laughed so hard and actually listened to it!!!


Actually even funnier is the Rico Air New Zealand videos - best airline ever!

Christchurch City aka The Garden City aka The City that Shines

Aaah Scribe... Christchurch is so much fun! I love Christchurch.
Ok so last time I posted I was like - just going to jump out of an aeroplane tomorrow! and then I absolutely could not sleep I was so excited and nervous and excited and having dreams about being planted and becoming a cool tree and then waking up in excitement. Terrible sleep! But then I woke for real, called the Skydive lady - and she said I couldn't skydive coz of the rain. and when I bothered to look out the window - RAIN! I was so bummed..... What an anticlimax! Kaikoura is beautiful - but not exciting and there is not much to do in the rain so we decided to jump straight in the car and head for Christchurch!  We had Scribe on the CD player and we were pretty excited - although it got very old very quickly when I accidently went around Christchurch, we had to take some tunnel thing to Lyttleton and then go backwards into Christchurch - but didn't matter coz eventually we got to Christchurch! Was not as damaged as i feared it would be - a lot of scaffolding around and stuff -  but the actual city was okay. And by okay i mean absolutely beautiful! We just kinda parked the car and walked for a bit, saw the Cathedral and the old architecture and the city was amazing - except for the shopping - which was not so amazing!

We decided to book our dinner on a tram for Friday night - so I called and booked and hten we looked for a hostel to stay - tried like 4 and finally got in to one callled Dorset House - which is like this massive old house with gardens and everything. So we turn up and guess who is just checking in herself? Llior! Which is this absolutely fantastic Welsh girl that we met in Rotorua when we went rafting and she braved the sledging! It was such a surprise coz we had loved her but then couldn't find her on facebook, so to randomly meet up in Christchurch was fantastic.

So we lug our bags up this old stiarcase and get to the room to change for dinner. Another hostel, and yet another shower I couldn't use... and then I couldn't find anything to wear, so i ripped everything outta my suitcase, cursing and chucking stuff around, in a sick of living outta a suitcase kinda way. Felt much better but then got angry again coz I had to clean my mess! haha oops

Dinner on a tram - or, as I prefer to call it, "Date Night" - the tram was couples, celebrating anniversaries and weddings. The fake candle  on our table was a nice touch - super romantic!. Was bizarre and hilarious - the host congratulated everyone individually as he did the rounds - me and Chrissy got a heartfelt "More drinks girls?" Was a great meal though, and a beautiful way to see the city as the tram did the whole loop track like 8 or 9 times.

Anyways after the tram we thought we would head to Sol Square for one drink.... so we got changed and found a taxi and get to Sol Square and it is amazing. I feel in love with Christchurch the minute I saw Sol Square - we headed to some little bar at first and then off to Minx for cocktails.  - oh and turns out our hotel for the last couple of days we are in New Zealand is directly above Minx! Best hotel ever!

Ok so at Minx we ordered these cocktails called "Wow" apparently they are so amazing they cannot tell you whats in them... so the guy makes them for us and WOW - it actually makes you say wow coz it is so amazing! It was like strawberrys and amazing and vanilla maybe all mixed together.... so our one drink turned into three cocktails - but they were amazing cocktails and we did meet this guy who said he would take us to party on Monday in Christchurch - so was an evening well spent - coz its hard to find people to party with on a Monday night!

So saturday was the day me and Chrissy were going to get an early start and devote the whole day to exploring Christchurch (aka. finding shops in Christchurch). We walked down the street off Dorset and stopped for breakfast, at 11.30. So plan A failed, but it was the most amazing breakfast ever.

After that we headed for a tattoo shop to get inked! Well Chrissy anyway, totally bummed coz I really want a second tattoo, but I coudn't decide what I wanted so I refrained from getting one and just sat and watched Chrissy in pain! The artist was really nice, and an amazing artist, but kinda slow, so two hours later, Chrissy left the shop in pain but with a beautiful new tattoo, and I left the shop not in pain and wishing I was...

After that we did some shopping, so we got in a taxi and asked him to drive us to the biggest mall in Christchurch. HE got the wrong one coz we ended up at a mall with only one level! Chrissy and I thought that we only had half a map for a bit, must of made people laugh coz we were very confused. Anyways after that failure we got another taxi to a slightly bigger mall and did a fair bit of shopping before heading back to Dorset House. Where we meet up with Llior and arranged to go see a NZ band who were playing a free gig at Dux de Lux!

Anyways, we were so excited, because aside from Maddy and Llior (both fantastic girls we met in Rotorua), we have not really made friends with any girls in NZ! Girls just don't seem to like us! And, as successful as the date in the tram was, it was great to have another girl for our girls night out! So, us three girls start walking to this gig, in hopes of finding a taxi (didn't happen), and just partied on - the bands were not really my usual thing, but the support act, Bellusira, and the main act, These Four Walls, were both really really good! Us three girls danced and swayed and shook it like maniacs - probably looked funny considering the type of music they were playing but we had a ball!

After that I was like, Sol Square!!! Llior had never been so we swapped numbers with the band coz they wanted to meet us there and headed to Sol Sq, which was even more amazing than the night before. We shouted Llior a Wow cocktail - she described it perfectly as "Its like the pink panther is dancing and F***ing in my mouth at the same time" <--- it really was that good! Anyways a lot more dancing followed, some guys from Bellusira and These Four Walls joined us at the Fish and Chip shop, (oh and turns out Bellusira are doing a show in Canberra in November! They are from Melbourne btw, so we will go to that! Yay) and we danced like absolute idiots, only stopping every couple of minutes to shout out our love of Christchurch! Sensibly, we called it a night at about 2:30 (sensibly is not usually a saturday night word, but we did have a 10 o'clock flight). SaId good bye to the fantastic Llior (who will be in Sydney when we are so partying in one week! Woot!) and slept for a couple of hours before we had to wake up and get to the airport. The last minute packing was a nightmare - coz we only bought carry on with us to Auckland and left the rest in the car.

Flight was the worst flight of my life! I usually don't get hung over, but the combination of a big night out, no sleep and the stupid aeroplane did not agree with me! and then, when we went to collect our luggage, we waited half an hour at the carousel, the same bags doing  the loop in front of us until no bags were left... and I was like, OMG, my hair straightener is in my bag - and my bag might be in Wellington! so i was like freaking out about the potential loss of my hair straightener, when finally we asked the grumpy airport man and our bags came out! What a relief!

Then just headed to Auckland, had some lunch, last minute essential costume shopping and about to go get ready for Halloween! Woot! We might have missed the actual party, but Christchurch was amazing and tonight should be even better!

Seal Pups -

Today we left Nelson for Kaikoura - home of Scribes Seafood Place (actual name = Continental Seafood, but perhaps a name change would improve business)

We loved Nelson, it was so beautiful - exactly what we thought Paihia would be. This morning though was spent looking at our travel plans. This whole Halloween thing did not work out well for us!

So we spent $200 each on flights to get to Auckland for this Halloween party, which we thought was on 31st October - Halloween! Turns out when we got told about it our brains were full of excitement and vodka and probably distracted by one of the very hot boys In NZ and we didn't listen to the actual date, 30th October - Not Halloween! So we went to change our flights today - was going to cost an additional $560 plus an extra nights accomodation. I'm usually all for paying ridiculous amounts of money for a crazy adventure - but somehow we made a sensible decision and decided to skip the actual halloween party and celebrate twice. On saturday in Christchurch and then in Auckland on sunday! Should still be amazing fun and that means two halloween costumes. We are excited to see the North Island again - I just love it up there!

Anyways - after sorting out flights and running some other errands in town we jumped in the car and headed to Happy Valley Adventures for Skywire - the worlds longest flying fox. We headed up and its like over km long I think. Anyways it was not too scary - we still screamed and I got a bit scared at the part where we were just dangling over a massive drop. But we did it! and when we got back the guy gave us a free ride so we did it again - was even funner the second time round!

After that we just drove through Blenheim to Kaikoura. The drive was really beautiful and, out of the same eye I could see beach and snow capped mountains. Not often that something makes me speechless, and I wasn't speechless seeing that, but I think a lesser person may have been! 

The most incredible amazing thing happened though, the guy at the Flying Fox place, Dazza, told us about a place where the adult seals drop the seal pups off during winter. Like a seal creche! So we stop off at a place that starts with O, trek 10 minutes (thats 560 metres), I almost got like killed by swooping birds and then realise that we are at the wrong 10 minute walk! Least we got some exercise! Drove a bit further down the highway and found the correct place starting with O. We do our 10 minute walk (was shorter for me, I did leap and run in excitement at some points) and arrive at a beautiful pool under a waterfall, which has like 6 or 7 seal pups playing around in it. It was like amazing, still not a speechless moment, but I LOVE seals and they were so cute and funny. We watched for a bit, they were twirling and splashing and jumping, more active than the playful dolphins! After a bit I sat on a rock really close to the water and they came up and smelled me and touched me with their nose. They were very curious and had gross milky eyes, but they were jsut so amazing! It was like the coolest thing ever. We stayed about half an hour watching, but on our way out this poor seal started seal jumping through the forest bit. I was a bit worried he was lost, but apparently the mum seals come back and check on them every now and again.

After we left the seals we headed straight into Kaikoura, checked into the Albatross backpackers (really sute, but rooms are tinier than anywhere else we have stayed - Chrissy and I cannot both have open suitcases at the same time!) We got some dinner, I ordered flounder, which was absolutely beautiful once I got over the 'im eating a fish named after a character from the Little Mermaid' Luckily it wasn't yellow and blue. While I sat and ate my fresh fish I looked out onto the ocean and snow capped mountains <---- just cannot get over being able to see the snow capped mountains overlooking the ocean.

Tomorrow I am hoping to be brave enough to Skydive - then we are headed to CHIRSTCHURCH! Yay! Cannot wait - we are going to eat in a tram!

Nelson, Beetles, Frisbee - One week left :(

Well today we arrived in Nelson and it sure is beautiful!

We are getting a bit lazy, so again it was a mad dash to get out of the Villa. I'm begining to think I should of gone on more sleepovers as a kid, coz I couldn't use the showers there either! Today we were headed to the World of Wearable Art, so we wore our cutest dresses and hairpieces.

Now everyone had warned me about driving on the South Island, and I kinda thought they meant the south of the South Island. Turns out South Island means South Island. The road to Nelson was up and down mountains and so windy, and there are not a lot of barriers between the road and the long drop right next to it! So carefully and slowly (two words no one has ever used to describe my driving) I drove the mountains to Nelson. Good news - I will be an expert at driving the Clyde Moutnain to the Coast when I get back  - might organise a trip just to show off my mountain driving skills.Also stopped off at a chocolate factory, and I took a free sample coz I felt rude if I didn't. Confirmed that I definetely do not like milk chocolate!




Nelson is beautiful, parked just outside Starbucks! (but the town was so beautiful I skipped it til after lunch)We just walked around a bit, enjoying the sites until our stomachs started thinking for us and we headed off in search of food. Found this little place called When In Rome and ate the best lasagne of my life. No jokes, even better than the Labor Club.

After lunch we headed to the information place to find the World of Wearable Art and Classic Cars - I, being the most considerate travel buddy ever, took Chrissy the scenic way, through a carpark and past a car dealer, to check out some future classics. Just in case we couldn't find the museum. Turns out that was an unneccessary precaution, my map reading abilities have gotten so improved that I directed us there no worries.

The museum was smaller than expected but still cute, the Wearable Arts was amazing. I got some inspiration for my Katy Perry outfit and was in awe of the clothes. Some where amazing, and some were just a little wierd, made of things like straws and noodles! No raw meat dress a la Lady Gaga but still incredible. They had some outifts on a carousel and some seats in front, coz me and Chrissy got so dressed up and were so into it, I totally felt like I was front row at a fashion show. How very Nicole Richie of us! We also watched a DVD of the award show and really wished we had gone. Next up was the classic cars, which, Bro Montana - if you are reading this - you would have loved! Not that me and Chrissy were not impressed. They had a Deloreon - so that made Chrissy happy - and even though I cannot name most cars, I do appreciate the beauty of a Cadillac! Honestly - if anyone wants to buy me a Cadillac I would not say no!

After WOW, we headed into town for shopping (surpirse), we went to Fashion Island (which was not in fact an Island) and filled up on Starbucks before heading to teh Backpackers. We are staying at The Bug, which has heaps of VW Beetle paraphanelia (coz there is no way I would be staying anywhere with insect paraphanelia) OMG - Chrissy was totally brave today, there was a spider on the outside windscreen of our car at the chocolate factory, and i like jumped out of the car and stood back in fear. She just, cool as a cucumber, flicked it off and stomped on it! Pretty heroic deed in my books. and so much for no spiders in NZ.

So, back to the backpackers - oh and me and Chrissy discovered we are actually Flashpackers, not backpackers, so that makes us feel far superior to the horrid backpackers who laughed at our suitcases in Paihia. - um off track again. This backpackers is so lovely. If Cactus Jacks wasn't even better, this one woudl totally be our favourite. Although, (and I'm pretty sure Dan laughed at this when we suggested it for Cactus Jacks in the Thermal Pool) they did give us chocolates on our pillows! So that sways in their favour. Even if I don't actually like chocolate! This place is the second best back packers ever!

Um after bring our bags in, and this time the guy who laughed at us for having so much stuff only chuckled and then lead me through the house opening the doors for me. How lovely. We decided to pretend to be real backpackers and head to the supermarket - if only for tissues and a Frisbee.We decided to walk,  so we headed down the street, got distracted by a cool tree at the park, played on the swing for a bit and walked a little further up the street before we woke up to ourselves and realised that walking really was not our thing. We then headed back to the car and drove to the supermarket. Which was fun! Everything in New Zealand is fun. When we were at the movies the other day we saw a toothpaste ad that we both liked, promised that if you brush your teeth before bed you would wake up with fresh morning breath. So we got us some new toothpaste, and chips and dip and (coz we couldn't find a frisbee) some plastic plates!

Back at the Bug we took our Frisbee to the park across the road (very convenient) and played a rather short lived game of frisbee before our chips and dip picnic!

So that's all from Nelson so far, going to go on the Skywire tomorrow and  get some Hells Pizza for dinner. Won't be the same without Jay, but we are being super saver backpackers and getting two pizzas for dinner. Which will be for dinner and breakfast and lunch tomorrow!

Bad News - me and Chrissy just realised we booked our flights and accomodation in Auckland  for the wrong night. Holy crap!

I'm the King of the World on a boat like Leo!

So... this morning we just skippered a boat! No biggie! and then tonight participated in a yacht race - got a Top 3 finish too!

Today was so much fun! OMG - ok beginning is a good place to start....

Chapter 1: Running Late: 

um we woke up, we were running kinda late coz for once I was the one that needed sleep, but running late is no excuse for missing ones morning coffee, so we headed to the bakery next door and, alas! No coffee! Somehow, with no morning coffee, and in a bit of a too early in the morning mood, I drove round the corner and got us some coffees. Now, the backpacker lady told us it would take us 45 minutes coz the roads were windy, but the pamphlet said 30 minutes, and I don't nomrally let anything slow me down, so we thought we still had plenty of time. Turns our the backpacker was right! The drive was absolutely beautiful, it was along the Queen Charlotte pass or something sounding similar (I have sealegs) but so windy, felt like we just went in a circle (the pamphlet was totally deceiving coz in the pamphlet the line was straight) but eventually i got us there in one piece thing too - it's been like almost a week since I have done Chrissy and physical harm by the way! I'm impressed, but when I pointed it out to her she said i had caused her pyschological harm. Bollocks, I say! Nothing therapy can't fix!

Chapter 2: Being a Skipper

So anyway, we arrive at the boat place a little late, but the man was nice about it and there was no one else waiting so it was sweet. um the boats were these cute little aluminium things with motors... ours was only 9.9 so couldnt do too much damage. Chrissy drove first while i just got driven around on the front of the boat through Malborough Sounds. It's not too hard either, just kind gotta keep it on and turn the steering thing and change the speed. but the steering is a little confusing coz it is backwards, like turn right, boat goes left!

Anyways then it was my turn to be skipper... at first I did not understand about the steerng at all, so we did a nice big circle, and then another nice big circle, but eventually my brain clicked and we were off. There was a boat in front of us (like a big boat) so we rode the waves from that boat - Chrissy said I should design rollercoasters coz I am so unpredictable! Which would be handy seeing as we never got to Rainbow Springs (!) she also said that I was better at driving a boat than a car (not sure if that was a compliment about my boat driving skills, or a dig at my driving ability, but I was pleased nonetheless). Omg anyway, driving a boat was the most awesome fun, and aside from accidently breaking boat law coz I got within 50 metre of the big boat, I was actually not terrible at it! We stopped for a bit while the guy gave us a bit of a history lesson about trees and we looked at them from our boat and stuff (and i know i said i like cool trees,but i actually don't care too much about them other than to take a photo and climb and make friends with them) and then we went and looked at some mussel farms. OMG - they use a boat to get mussels, much better than jumping into the freezing ocean, twisting them off rocks and cutting your feet! I accidently got the boat engine caught on the rope at the mussel farm so i had to lift it and stuff, but, being the skipper, that was no biggie for me to fix! OMg we also saw Jellyfish! and i picked one up, except it was gross and slimy and then i got super worreid that I killed it, but i turned it right side up and pushed it down a bit and it was as good as new! After the being on the open water bit we started heading back to dry land and we saw a penguin, i slowed the boat down and got up super close and we watched him be a penguin for a bit! It was amazing, they were fairy penguins, but they call them Little Blues over here!

Got some cool video and photos, 'cept this place blocks you from uploading stuff so I will try get it up soon coz its prety cute!

Chapter 3: The chapter in between being a skipper and the Yacht Race

After the boat thing we took a nice scenic drive back, stopping at a lot of places to take photos coz the Malborough Sounds looks kinda like Neverland, but real! and then we went into town (ie. the road with shops on it) and looked around, spent some money, had some lunch and icecream. Tomorrow we head to Nelson for the World of Wearable Art museum, so i bought a cool hairpiece to match my green dress. (I wanted to wear my Bardot dress but I couldn't find anything to match) Um after that just ended up at The Villa, where I cleaned out my handbag (found so much money) and then got bored and dawdled around! Next Chapter!

Chapter 4: the Yacht Race

The people at the backpackers said that if we go down to the yacht club and just ask, someone will take us sailing. Sounds a bit wierd to us, but we really wanted to sail so we headed down to the yacht club. We meet this guy, but his boat was full, so he introduced us to Mark and we got onboard his Yacht. Turns out that on Tuesday night there is a locals yacht race. So we got to get in on that. Ended up being Mark and his wife Sue, and there friedn Bill and us. Mark wasn't sure if there woudl be too much jobs for us, but we were a pretty keen crew, so I put the flag up, unboarded the lifeboat and then, when we got out into the water, I put up the big sail. It was very exciting, but really hard, they had Sue on standby coz they thought I would not be strong enough, but I guess all those years of hanging out iwth my brothers and trying to beat Bro Montana at stuff paid off, coz I got the sail almost to the top and then Sue took over! (I totally could of got it all the way, but I think she wanted a turn!) Mark was a bit of a negative nancy and said we couldn't win but I told him I had a good feeling about a Top 3 finish!

The course was pretty fun, just had to go around some buoys and stuff, me and Chrissy just kinda watched during the actual race, coz racing is serious business! We made it to the finish line pretty good, and came THIRD! TOP 3! I'm practically a psychic! Ont eh way back it was fun, I got to be useful and put away teh sail, and me and Chrissy helped with the ropes and we both got a go at steering it! After we parked it, the team hung out in the boat and had some Shandys (one bloody Shandy + sealegs = the worst ) and talked and stuff. Me and Chrissy have met the most amazing people this trip and it continued. They were so lovely. Turned out they lived in Canberra for a year when they were much younger and tehy also spent two years sailing around the Islands (Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia etc.) If ever I was to pick an impossible dream it would be to learn to sail, buy a boat and just sail around the islands... I'd make it back to Samoa and visit the rest of the islands and get the most kick ass tan!

We went to the Yacht Club after to shout them a drink and get some dinner. I finally got my Fish Pie. Which was on my NZ to do list coz of Outrageous Fortune. It was okay - 'cept for the peas! the yacht club was cute, everyone was so friendly and funny!

Anyways, hopefully this blog makes sense, I still have sealegs and really cannot be bothered reading over it!

Land ahoy.... South Island - here we come.

This morning Chrissy and me did a mad ass packing job, coz we had to cram everything from our car and room into our bags to get across the ferry to the South island.

We tried to get the man at the hotel to book the ferry for us - but he was even lazier than the girl thought we were! So we just packed up the car, spent like 5 minutes trying to close the boot, coz the car doesn't lock if the boot isn't closed and my hair straightener was in there! After that we adventured down to the information place to get them to book the ferry but it was closed until 11, so we figured destiny was telling us to waste more money, so we went shopping! Visited the Christmas shop, but i figured one ridiculous glitter flower that i cannot pack is enough, so didn't spend too much money! Bought my mum a present! (Surprise Mum) and then booked the ferry. was so expensive to get an arvo one, but we were pretty keen to leave Wellington and the info lady found us a discount so we just headed out about 2.00!

I was super excited about being a fairy on the ferry, but I actually felt a little, kinda wobbly and like i had non alcohol induced sealegs. I did head outside to take a few photos though, but due to my inability to dress for the occasion properly, my skirt kept blowing up and i flashed the deck my bright pink undies! This really nice lady offered to hold my skirt down for me though, so I finished taking photos while she held my skirt to my legs!

So after the ferry stopped we took more photos of us on the boat while some people laughed and then we went and did the boring, collect our luggage, get a hire car, find a hostel. I requested a car with a the most boot space so we got our toyota back but its the kinda car with a butt that is not like my subaru and our suitcases have plenty of space now!

Backpackers! Well we tried to book into a place called the tombstone, but it was full (and remembering Spookers, thats probably a good thing) so we are staying at the Villa - which is super cute and has a dog! We are in a four bed room, so we may have to share, but hopefully not! We had to make our own beds though - Will post photos of our attempts, Chrissy's is nice and neat (actually, there are a few wrinkles and no hospital corners, but we aren't at the Hyatt) - I got a bit confused with the bed above my bed thing. Good news is that my bed making made Chrissy laugh, bad news is i have to sleep in it! This place has free apple crumble too, so we are about to get fattened up! Yum yum!

Picton, which is where we are, is quite cute, tomorrow we are driving a boat in the morning and then learning to sail at night! Since Seth Cohen sailed his boat in The OC when Ryan left I have always wished I knew how to sail. and tomorrow, me and Chrissy will practically be ship captains.

And dinner was at the Flying Haggis - OMG - this schnitzel thing is getting ridiculous - went to Mr Buns for lunch and they had a schnitzel burger and on first look I thought it was an actual chicken schnitzel, but then i noticed the only crumber the top of the chicken and the bottom was just grilled! So for dinner we tried teh schnitzel at the Flying Haggis - and it was like out of a box and just a giant nugget - and I hate chicken nuggets... so the quest for chicken schnitzel continues!

oh and also, New Zealand has huge furry bees! wierd!

Arohanui!

No luck with the tattoo museums

So after the Lord of the Rings tour and our not schnitty schnitzel, we headed out to find a cool t shirt shop (which we missed in our hunger) and stopped by this funny street performer.... He spent like 30 minutes getting these two guys to put a straight jacket on him, then put a burning hat on his head (funny - but not too impressive after kicking it up a bunch of times and being unable to catch, he just got it ont he ground upset down, smooshed his head inside and then stood up - bet even I could do that!) um after that he just got outta the straight jacket and swallowed a sword!

Next me and Chrissy went off in search of the Tattoo Museum! We were super keen on that because in Auckland we saw a road sign for MOTAT and thought it was a museum of Mo's and tat's. It was not. Museum of Transport and Technology - not even close! Anyways we finally get to the location of the tattoo museum and it is actually a building site! Tiring walk too! Anyways I find a man to ask and then we head to the new tattoo museum ... got really excited coz we were headed towards Brooklyn and I was like, Dammit, wish i had red Nike hightops and was listening to hip hop - but i wasn't! Anyways after walking past it and back we finally get to the Tattoo Museum. A more descriptive name would be "A dusty room with folders of information about tattoos' Although people would still be disappointed when they found a tiny dusty room, and the folders were the kind you put your school assingments in and had information printed off the net and pictures ripped out of OK magazine. The lady was like, um, sorry its disappointing and gave us a free 2010 calendar... which will be really useful for the next two months!

After that we just got ready for - the FOOTBALL! Four Nations - Nz vs England. We got a taxi - even though the hotel lady thinks I am super lazy! Um football was good - was excited to wear my jersey. It was a bit of an experience where I was torn there. I got there and it was Jnr Kiwis vs. Jnr Aussies and I just couldn't cheer against the green and gold so I put my NZ flag down (which I had to buy a new one coz of the sitting on the old one thing) and was the lone person clapping when the Aussies scored and won!

After that I was all set to cheer on the Kiwis (after the amazing Haka) but then I saw Slammin' Sam Burgess in his jersey and I couldn't cheer against him (maybe things would of been different if Kearney had started Isaac Luke) so I put my flag down again (which I had also managed to break) and cheered on England. They hadn't even scored in the first half so I went and bought an England flag (sorry NZ) and cheer like a fool when Enlgand scored in the second.... And OMG i found someone more dangerous with a flag than i am.It took forever for my brother to buy me a flag and he still confiscates it at certain points of the game where I get a bit too over excited but this woman hit me and i was two rows back... me and chrissy were in fear for our lives. Anyways now I'm torn for who to go for in the Four Nations! Anyways - the Kiwis won, of course, which I was still happy about!!!

OMG and on the way back I found a Bunny St... can't not love a place with a bunny street.

We were going to go out after but weren't really feeling it so much so we just headed back for a quiet one at the hotel.... The wonderful marvelous hotel with couches and comfy beds and a massive bathroom and all the luxuries we had been missing!

oh and i phoned home to make sure the footy was being recorded for me and to say hi and all of that. It was nice to talk to home and be insulted by my little brother! Miss the family! and my brother put the phone on loud speaker so i could talk to Miley! Miss my dogs!
um this morning we had the biggest sleep in ever and then headed off to do the Cable Car and also the botanical gardens and some more shopping.

So after some shopping we got on a Cable Car, had the Over My Head (Cable Car) song all ready to go so I listened to that - and the Cable Car was again different to what i thought it was when i knew it wasnt a rollercoaster, but at least i finally know what it actually is! Life can be made way difficult when your head invents something that doesnt exist. Like my head invented you could eat dinner in a cable car, but everyone i asked was like, um no? but off track! So we got the cable car to and paid the man (and he was just lovely - clearly we were confused so he discreetly pointed so we wouldnt look like idiots - we still did, but he tried) and rode the Cable Car to the botanic gardens... and almost missed our stop. Anyways its like 1 o clock by htis time and we haven't eaten so we are thinking with our stomachs (maybe not so new and different but honestly - we were imaginating food) so we head across to the Cable Car Museum - super quickly! we took some photos but i didnt plan on learning much on this trip so i skipped the reading and the learning about cable cars and bought a stuffed kiwi instead. After the cable car museum we went to the Skyline Restaurant for lunch - which we even investigated online before hand to make sure the food would be amazing. And guess what? Closed! un be lievable!!!

So we headed through the botanic gardens which were actually really beautiful!  i'm a bit surprised because Canberra Botanic Gardens is like a whole bunch of bush and a little bit of rainforest and a cool echindna. In Wellington there are so many cool trees and pretty flowers and, being New zealand, no creepy snakes or spiders so the embarrassing 'scream and jump into someones arms because they are mean and pretend there is a spider in a tree' situation.Hmm - we kinda rushed through the park in desperation to get to the cafe butwent and took plenty of photos and saw the duckpond and smelled some flowers before finally eating. We headed out after that - which you have to do via a cemetary - totally creepy btw.

Anyway I found something super exciting in our Wellington travel guide - an ad for a MALL! OMG, when I saw it, it was like all my christmases had come at once! And Chrissy hardly needs to be convinced when it comes to shopping -  we have been deprived of proper shopping malls and Cooper St. the whole time we have been in New Zealad. so this mall was supposed to be on Bunny St so we tried to find it, but lazy ness prevailed so we got in a taxi, which was totally lucky, coz apparently they are not too creative with street names in Wellington, there is a Bunny St in  the city and one in Lower Hutt! But the taxi driver was a total gem - he showed us all the sites on the way (old church, library, law school, beehive, not beehive for the opposition, place iwth puppets of politicians) and after a $45 taxi ride (lucky we got lazy coz there is no chance we would have survived a walk that long!) we were finally at the Mall! and the taxi driver assured us it was the biggest one in the area!

So after a Starbucks to calm the excitment, we headed inside. Our  eyes lit up! It was a magical moment, although to be honest it was more Tuggeranong Hyperdome and Canberra Cantre, and beggars can't be choosers. We left a lot poorer than we arrived but we were super happy with our haul. Probably not an exciting addition to the blog, but we do love to shop. and the lovely taxi driver showed us where to catch and bus and told us which bus to catch and where to get off, so we had a much cheaper ride home.

So, i am not normally someone who gets excited by buses, but if a bus was a sandwich, Wellington buses would be gourmet! The bus had like tvs, which showed weather forecasts, and news, (about Isaac Luke too!) and security footage of us on the bus, and plane arrivals! It was an amazing bus!

um, after that we went to Oriental Bay for dinner - coz we are trying to watch the sun set over the ocean (Wellington is so not the place). Anyways the hotel lady who thinks we are lazy said it wouldnt be long so we should walk... after an hour of walking we gossively disappointed by the stupid Oriental Bay which was not exciting and had no dinner and just got a cab into Courtenay Place. The taxi driver was also very nice, pointed out some xcellent dinner places like subway and keybabs!
Um other than that we just headed to the movies to watch 'Life as we Know it'  - so cute and funny  but i cried twice....

Tomorrow we are leaving Wellington, saying goodbye to the North Island (until Sunday) and heading off to Picton or probably Nelson for the WOW museum. Cannot wait to be a fairy on the ferry!

Wellington showed me and Chrissy the love today, and we did have some great fun and experiences here, but Wellington and us had more of an awkward friendship than an amazing love affair like the rest of the north island.

And the home countdown is now in single digits....

No Schnitzel

Went out last night for dinner at LoneStar, the guy said it was our lucky night coz we didn't have to wait for a table, and I was wearing my brand new green dress. (Rabbitohs greeen not raiders green) I needed to wear my dress for awhile so I would know if I liked it or not so it seemed like a good occasion... got our favourite kiwi fruit cocktails, Chrissy out ate the old man at the table next to us, and then headed out to find a Wellington drinking place. We first off found Molly Malones but we were the only under 50's there, so we headed off to find a fub and ended up at the establishment for some more cocktails. Met some pretty fun people there, but headed back for an early night at Wellywood... coz we booked a tour to start at 8.30 in the morning and had to check out and everything.... OMG and this stupid  guy came up to us and goes to me, "OMG you have a loud squeaky voice, do you always talk like that?" and i was laughing and Chrissy goes, "She does, she does" (Thanks Chrissy) and then he goes "OMG, and you have a quiet squeaky voice." and then he laughed at us a bit more before he left. I love drunk people! OMG and i had a near tragedy... i got my shoes stuck in the elevator.... I was trying to get in and then my heel got caught in the floor and the door was going to close and I thought I was going to lose it! and we were a bit tipsy so the whole thing seemed really worrying.

Anyways, this morning was a mad dash to get ready and re pack our stuff (more shopping was a bad idea - we can barely fit what we had in our suitcases). The tour guide was out the front as we were lugging our suitcases to the car! So without any coffee in our system, we headed off on a tour that had so much walking sneakers were a requirement! The tour was a Lord of the Rings film location tour so we went and pretended we were hobbits falling and elves and played around with a sword and stuff. The tour was good coz we got to see some of the pretty parts of Wellington and OMG and we went on a swing bridge. The swing bridge is going on the list of "Times when Katie rocked the Fearless tattoo in New Zealand" coz I was pretty like worried about that bridge... but ont he other side were some pretty cool trees... and i like cool trees.

One more thing about New Zealand... they don't like thier chicken Schnitty like we do. I feel embarrassed about how much time we spend thinkg about food, and looking for food and talking about food... but today all i wanted was a proper pub Schnitzel, we spent like an hour walking through Wellington trying to find a pub with chicken schnitzel (Our whole trip, no one has had any schnitty except yukky beef )

Posted late: Written yesterday

Windy Wellington- and missing Rotorua

So we finally left Cactus Jacks ... pretty sure they thought us bloody Aussies were never leaving, so we thought it was time to head down to Wellington.

I'm not much of a planner, coz I like life to jump out and surprise me, and I'm not sure what adventures lay ahead but I loved Rotorua and I hope it hasn't seen the last of Chrissy and Katie. I was actually pretty sad to leave, even almost got a tear in my eye when Cactus Paul gave us a hug good bye (but I still cry everytime I watch The Little Mermaid so?)....

Anyways... um.... after being a lazy butt and sleeping all day and getting pizza, we all just sat around Wednesday night for a movie night and watched Boy (coz i skipped out on Losers)... which is like the funniest movie ever and then (after not too much convincing,) I headed out for one last drink with Jay and some other guys..... lost my shoes (temporarily thank god) so I had to go out in jandles and hope they let me in... which they did!!! But i figured out why you are not allowed out in jandles, coz they are the worst shoes to dance in ever! And i didn't wanna be a hobo and dance barefoot again...anyways Lava Bar closed up pretty quick and there was no "One More Song" chant so I just headed on back to bed (on bunk beds!!!!! When I was little I was sometimes pretty jealous that my brothers got bunk beds, even though I got my own room and they shared)

um so in the morning we said a quick goodbye to the people at Cactus Jacks... (thats when the almost tear happened... how embarrassing) and headed off to do some last minute Rotorua shopping... (which is not really the place to shop! Unless you want a NZ themed gift, which we didn't) We wanted to get a present for Cactus Jack's coz they were pretty great at looking after us and fixing Chrissy's being sick and keeping our days full of activities, so we headed off in search of anything Cactus themed, which was like the hardest thing ever. We contemplated calling them and getting them to change the theme to a nautical one, coz every single shop sold something nautical themed, but we finally ended up at the most crazy random store ever.... it used to be a paint shop, but is now a shop run by two little old ladies who seem on a mission to find the most random collection of items ever and sell them in a paint shop. We ended up with this pretty cute mirror that has a coyote next to a cactus howling at the moon and a massager for Dan (the most appropriate gift ever). So after being gift givers, getting another round of good bye hugs and collecting our cold pizza for breakfast we headed off on the looong drive down to Wellington.

Was a pretty uneventful drive, stopped off for the worst coffee I have ever had (lesson learned - never drink coffee at a place with 'Trout' in the name), were impressed by the size of Lake Taupo, saw snow on the mountains just past Taupo (I was in awe of the snow)... and also saw some cows with super long, skinny legs which made me laugh for ages. New Zealand is very much like Australia coz there are soooo many road works, 'cept you have to do 30 km at roadworks here and can only go 100 km when there are none.

The funniest thing ever happened though, we called a hostel for two nights accomodation, (we are switching to a hotel on Saturday) and we found and booked a really cute one with a grand staircase.... so after looking on the map for ages and getting really frustrated trying to find it, we realised that the staircase place was in Christchurch... and we were in Wellington (looking at a map of Christchurch).... So after some explaining we cancelled and ended up booking Wellywood backpackers in Wellington. The place is no Cactus Jacks, pretty much the only thing the two have in common is that I can't work the showers at Wellywood either! Good news is tht it's no Mousetrap either.... it has hooks on the door and is next to LoneStar so there are pluses. And now we have a place to stay in Christchurch when we get there!

Anyways... WELLINGTON...

So far we are somewhat confused by Wellington. Everyone told us that we would hate Auckland and Rotorua (which we loved) and love Wellington.... but last night, maybe it was the tiredness and the rain, we were quite unimpressed. We found this cute place called Coyote for dinner (it was like Mexican/Kiwi food, so we celebrated with Margaritas... thought we should take a break from vodka) and then went and saw Dinner for Schmucks, which was hilarious. and then just went back to Wellywood.

I woke up this morning and the sun was shining, and I am determined to love Wellinton so i put on my favourite dress and cowboy boots and headed off for some shopping and Starbucks.

PS. Even the Starbucks ladies in Rotorua are the nicest Starbucks people ever... even better than the guy who took photos of me and him with sad faces the day the Canberra one closed.

First off I was disappointed coz I was really excited about the cable cars in Wellington.. im going to listen to The Fray song, Over my Head (Cable Car) while in a cable car, but i think coz of the song title  i assumed a cable car went over your head so i expected a cross between a monorail and a rollercoaster. and a cable car is not anything like a rollercoaster/monorail hybrid like i thought...it is like a bus, which drives on the road, attached to cables!!! Sadly my head let me down... but once I recovered from the disappointment I got excited again so we are going to try eat dinner in a cable car tonight (while I listen to the song).

Hmm, well shopping went well, had a caramel white hot chocolate at some really cool coffee place and then kinda went a bit crazy with the whole havent shopped in ages thing... all stuff I need kinda, like shoes, lingerie, dress, movie, pink glitter covered flower, mask, maori santa christmas decoration... found a massive Christmas shop (and i LOVE christmas) so i got super excited, we got really cute little chocolates, (white chocolate with vodka and feijoa... ) bought a book called A - Z of Hellraisers, had an afternoon vodka... and then got a taxi. Stupid taxi driver was even worst than the taxi driver who got us lost in Sydney and charged us ten bucks. This one lectured us on drinking at 4 ("too early, too early") and then refused to drop us at the back packers ("too hard, get out here")... worst $11 dollars I spent!

We booked a Lord of the Rings tour for tomorrow and we have the four nations game too... which was #1 on my New Zealand to do list... and are staying in an actual hotel, which we are really looking forward to, coz Wellywood is not friendly like Cactus.

um and that's kinda it for now...

Last day at Cactus Jacks (probably)

Funny the interesting people you meet at lava bar... Me and Chrissy headed over there last night and met a guy outside. He seemed to think he was a pretty important guy round these parts, so we had a few drinks with him. (Stupid bouncer wouldnt let me in with my drivers license and had to walk all the way home to get my passport....) Anyways this David Andrew guy, like a couple other Kiwis I've met (!) , was a bit on himself, but he reckoned his great great great great great great grandfather chopped a bunch of peoples heads off and then become a Mormon. At first he was pretty impressed coz he reckoned I'd read the bible (which by the way I haven't, but 8 years in the catholic school system and your bound to know David and Goliath ay?) but then he said I didn't have attitude... (See H? No attitude!!!!!)

Anyways was prettty boring so we headed back to Lava Bar and then went out with the Cactus Jacks guys, didn't get to dance too long (what a waste of my lucky red skirt ay?) before they tried kick us all out. Lucky Dan was there (or maybe it was all the lucky red skirt, I dunno?). Part of the service Cactus Jacks offer is to start a chant to get "one mroe song", so at least we got one more dance in before they kicked us out.... (at like 1 oclock btw. Should not have told them the Paihia rules...) So anywho, we headed over to sidepocket... which is like the Civic Pub of Rotarua, for a few cruisers and some games of pool.... I was a total Powerhouse the first game, totally smashing it, until Dan sunk the black ball and made us lose! After that I kinda lost my pool powers so we headed back to Cactus Jacks after only a couple more games.

Anyways my persistence fianlly paid off (or Dan got sick of my asking for it...) and Dan made me a good old fry up for breakfast (only been waiting three days for that breakfast but he totally owed me after the whole sinking the black ball thing...) Anyways, it was a pretty good fry up, filled me up all day, and it'd wanna... Chips, garlic, sausages, bread, onions... yum yum.... (Can anyone believe I actually ate a sausage? These were gourmet though - straight from the farm) Although, breakfast woulda been nothing without my expertly frothed milk so I kinda deserve the credit. Plus I cleaned up after, coz I didn't want him to think us Aussie girls were lazy!

and that's kinda it, pretty much slept the rest of the day, except for dinner at Hells Kitchen (the best pizza ever.... been hanging out for it too... its wierd drinking in a town where there is not a pizza stands every couple of metres up the street)....

oh travel plans have changed as well... before I left Australia I thought we'd have heaps of time, but in my calculations I didn't allow for sleep, or traveling or meals that are anything other than fish and chips and icecream. We were supposed to cross over islands yesterday before heading back to Wellington on saturday, but after we got too drunk to leave we figured there was no time to cross and come back so we'd stay in the North island until Sunday night.

Anywyas we were looking at a map trying to figure out our trip, we had allowed 5 days for Queenstown, Milford Sounds and Dunedin, when we found out it would take us two days to drive there and about that to get back to Christchurch for our Auckland flight.  So I'll just have to come back for the South Island - we will spend the last week getting down from Picton to Christchurch, heading past Scribes seafood place on the way and just hang out in Christchurch until our Auckland flight and then stay until we head home on the 3rd.Should be good coz we had heaps of stuff on our Christchurch to do list. And we have absolutely loved the North Island!

Stuck in the Mud - or happy as a pig in Mud

OMg today was the funnest day ever... (having a lot of those actually) have not laughed that much in..... probably a while?

So yesterday Chrissy and I managed a whole day without drinking  (thought I'd add that for my mum - but it's completely 100% the truth though)

Ok anyways this morning Chrissy and I had Quad biking - so, with no concept of time I headed off in search of a banana (no joy) and Starbucks... I ran into someone who let me know my bus was a Cactus Jacks so I ran down the street in my jandles (! - so Kiwi ay bro? - trying to get the lingo down for when I move here) spilling coffee everywhere... slowed down to laugh at myself with the old man who clearly thought I looked pretty stupid and kept running - luckily (for more reasons that will become clear later)  me and Chrissy were the only ones doing it in the morning so the  lady was sweet.

Hmmm - well we geared up for the Quad bikes - in an attractive ensemble of gumboots big jackets and a race helmet - and headed to the practice track. Anyway quad biking is pretty easy ... or looks it.... hang onto the handle bar, push the thing at the front to accelerate or squeeze the thing at the back int to brake. Unfortunately my driving ability is as good as my quad biking ability and it took me a while to get the hang of it...

We had gone a little way from there and right near the cow paddock when my bikes STOPS... like dead... i was so worried that I broke it so I wait for the guy to notice and  he comes us and re starts it - turns out i just accidently pushed the off button.... I swear I am not doing much for the Aussie reputation here in New Zealand - everyone either thinks I am really stupid or on some kick ass drugs (which, to clear things up, I am not - my natural exuberance just gets carried away sometimes - hahaha)

Anyways, we finally get started again and get through to the cow paddock - so cute coz there were baby cows - but the cows got scared and some of the ran - after that it was all over - i still find running farm animals hilarious - so i almost toppled off my bike from laughter... actually I was so distracted that I forgot to break and jumped my bike off the (insert word for "bit thats higher than the place I wanna be" when i know what it is)... which made the guide laugh, coz i got a look of shock, mixed with laughing, mixed with worry, mixed with me normal everyday face - coz again i was worried I broke something.. (they make you sing a piece of paper saying you'll pay the damage if you break the bikes from being reckless or an idiot - both things that happen without me realising)... hmm - um so the rest of the quad biking was just so much fun, took me forever to kinda understand what to do so i kept falling pretty far behind Chrissy and the guide person. Anyways luckily I finally understood what to do by the time we got to the forest part - coz the forest had mud puddles and stuff.

Omg it was so much fun... like I'm writing Santa a letter today, cancelling my Christmas order of footy games on DVD and asking for a quad bike instead!  The guide would go through, then Chrissy pretty safely after while I waited and then I would accelerate right into the mud so it smashed up everywhere, then recover from my fit of giggles and repeat at the next mud puddle.

When we stopped in the middle of the forest the guide clued up pretty quickly about my love of mud so he was doing it too - where I learned how to do it a bit better by copying - unfortunately I didn't learn good enough coz i geared myself up to go thruogh this really big mud puddle, and got stuck right in the middle instead. It was so funny... the three of us just stood there laughing for a bit until he came and had to like tug the bike out of the mud - while i stood there watching and laughing! The guy was like the nicest guy ever though... he even cleaned my seat up with leaves (was kinda a waste coz my whole J Lo booty sized ass was covered in mud - and my face, neck, jacket and legs too....) anyways... aside from almost running into a flower (an ugly thistle looking, live on a tree kinda thing flower) patch the rest was pretty much just the same kind of fun, me laughing like an idiot the whole time. was some nice views from the top of the mountain. Haha - the guy goes later "At least I knew you weren't dead, coz all i could hear the whole time was you giggling - and it must of been loud coz those bikes were noisy. At least the laughter was contagious - coz he kept turning around to laugh at me too. (PS. Katie Fact #82 - I was voted 'Giggliest' in my year 10 year book - im glad i was able to put the title to good use....) I'll add  some photo later so check back.

Anyways after shopping and lunch we went on some Rafting thing... We had originally wanted to go sledging - but thankfully we were advised to try rafting - think i would of broken something if i went sledging.

Below are some photos of rafting before the story comes... not the most flattering outfit either - them wetsuits are gross - but at least i am saving money on costumes and themed outfits.... PS. email me if you have any better halloween costume ideas than a rabbit (inspired by the Rabbitohs not playboy)

So the rafting guys were great - they were super funnny - although the guy who drove the bus thought the idiot/on drugs thing coz we had the giggles the whole time we wwere there as well. We found everything funny! and then when we laugghed we found laughing funny and laughed again... hahaha

um so - first adventure - putting on a wetsuit - which we managed with great difficulty and a lot of laughter (oh and met this super great girl from Wales) so us girls had the funnest time. Finally we got ready to raft, had a few practice gos at things first (turns out Chrissy is not so great at the "sit in the boat thing - and I am not good at the paddles down thing - I was pretty set on holding the paddle backwards and hitting myself in the face head with the paddle - lucky they provided a helmet)...

Ill post a video at some point so you can see what it is but it is basically paddling a raft and then going thorugh rapids and some small waterfalls (and a big 7m one - that didnt seem like 7m wirth of scary) - the guys also showed us where they take the ladies and taught us some pretty cheesy NZ pick up lines! After we finished we carried the raft up (well me and Chrissy carried the paddles ....) and then jumped off (still need that word for something higher than where you wanna be) into some rapids before heading back to the place for photo viewing (to a Miley Cyrus song - hahah - sorry everyone) and getting changed... which was another adventure.

The guys must of thought they were missing out on something great coz we were in the change rooms for like half an hour laughing like idiots.... but poor Chrissy and Llior got stuck in there wetsuits... i told CHrissy to sit down while I pulled the wetsuit - problem was with one big pull she came flying off the chair and landed flat on her ass on the ground.... Llior had better luck coz she started on the ground but she was dragged along the wooden floor for a bit before the wetsuit came off.....

Anyways - I'm off to get some vodka in my system but ill try put some photos up later...

love you (well some of you), miss you (again some of you ) never wanna come back

xoxoxo

Not earthquaked

So I am in New Zealand and haven't heard about an earthquake think Australia is having a slow news day or something ,,, anyways some Aussie people have emailed me to check... so I am not in Christchurch or near an earthquake.... im approx. 2000 miles away. at Cactus Jacks.... nothing could get past Cactus Security!

Plus if I was going to do some damage to myself in New Zealand it would be like hitting myself in the head with a paddle or flying a kite or something

Vodka

So I am not writing this from Wellington, or any other town between Rotorua and Wellington where I am supposed to be..... I am writing this from my New Zealand home of Cactus Jacks! Tomorrow we will figure out the "we were supposed to return the hire car" thing!

So our quiet alcohol free night lasted until we noticed the menu for Lone Star had a kiwi fruit cocktail. After that it was all over... we had an amazing lone star meal and then headed back to Cactus Jacks before hitting up Lava Bar with Dan. After way too many vodkas, some shots, salsa lessons, a bit of Zumba, some chicken dancing and the regular kind of 'everyone behind  the bar is laughing but its not my fault I have sealegs dancing' they closed Lava Bar (apparently an hour and a half late so we must have been pretty entretaining) we ended up drink Baileys in the thermal pool until 5.30. I woke up at 7 am (unfortunately so did Chrissy when i looked for the toothpaste... sorry Chrissy!!!!...) and thought I better make myself scarce coz I am very noisy so I headed out for Starbucks.... (was waiting for Dan to cook us breakfast but that hasn't happened yet!)... the lady remembered me when i went back two hours later for a triple shot! Anways there was no chance we would have been legally allowed to drive anywhere so we are in Rotorua for an extra night! (Think the people at Cactus Jacks must really like us, plying us with alcohol so we cannot leave!!!)

PS. here is a video of me going through the hole in the rock... please be impressed by amazing cinematography skills

**insert video later**

So today I was up bright and early so after my trip to Starbucks and some lazing around I went and got Lady Jaynes with Justin. Icecream was probably not the greatest thing for my poor vodka fuelled sleep deprived body but it tasted soooo good. Choice of flavours (strawberry cheesecake, caramel toffee crunch with nuts and hot caramel fudge) probably not the greatest experiment either!

Hmm... so after ice cream we tried to book the quad biking but it was full so we drove to a hot spring river twenty minutes from Rotorua..... it took us over an hour to find it! When we got back i tried to pretend that we just had a long swim or that we took the scenic route (which we did,... kinda) anyways thehot spring was nice and warm but full of old beer cans and bottles.... gross!

Hmmm after that we just had a shower to get the smell of Rotorua out of my hair (got laughed at by the Cactus Jacks family coz i had the two days of cold showers and one day of too hot shower coz i am stupid and don't know how to use the shower... lucky i found the idiot friendly showers today!!!

We also had dinner at this beautiful Italian place... although we have noticed the New Zealand are pretty keen for compliments on thier cooking. Every single time we are eating the restaurant staff come ask if the food is okay... and its usually after we have just taken a massive bite....  not the greatest thing ever!!!

Tomorrow Dan is cooking us an amazing breakfast

Me and Chrissy are finally re reading my blog.

I am not great at the english language.

Sorry!

Also: i blogged that I liked two minute noodles... on reflection I don't think I do. Thought that was important to note.

some pics...

well one pic... of the OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE HOUSE

OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE HOUSE and back at Cactus Jacks

So here I am in Rotorua, wanted to drop by and say hello to the cactus jacks guys on our way to Wellington....

Yesterday was a pretty great kinda day... we arrived back in Auckland and grabbed some lunch on the harbour (I don't know that I could ever get sick of Auckland) and then after some boring stuff like checking in and shopping we headed to Mt Smart stadium to watch the footy. Maori NZ vs. England first up. The game was so amazing, ended up and 18 all draw and I was the lone england supporter ina crowd of Maori NZ fans - so bit of a lonely chorus of applause - but everyone was so jolly and friendly and it was great fun.

After that game was Toa Samoa vs. Kiwis - i had to go for the Kiwis, as i just couldn't cheer against Isaac Luke (and the Kiwis have an excellent line up - better than the Kangaroos... Benji, Simon Mannerring, Manu.... etc etc.) although I do love Toa Samoa (oh and Daniel Vidot at fullback for Samoa... like him more and more)... the game was amazing first of all I had no idea where to look - the Samoans were so hot, the Kiwis were so hot, the crowd was full of attractive islanders.... definetely eye candy aplenty!

Anyways game was awesome - Mt Smart is a pretty small stadium and the Kiwis warmed up right in front of us!!! First half was good, as expected the Kiwis smashed it but the Samoans were a good team. At half time, while Chrissy went to get her pie, a Zumba  group did a presentation on the field. They said everyone get up and Zumba - so I zumba'd (and got the lady behind me up for about 2 mins) alone in the stands of Mt Smart stadium... when Chrissy got back I thought she'd join me, but she had the good sense not to embarrass herself.

I have been missing Zumba and wanting to zumba the whole time i had been here so I thought what the hell! But shaking my ass in the middle of the stands at Mt Smart while the crowd watched and laughed was kinda fun and embarrassing. Worse still I sat on my flag and broke it! Which was quickly followed by hysterical laughter and the J Lo booty reference (I am going to tell people it was my awesome flag waving that did it!!!).... I finished the game waving a broken flag but I had so much fun!!!!!

um after that we headed back into the city and visited our friends at the carpark and a few other places and then headed up to the skycity casino (finally). We meet this nice guy there (whose name escapes me right now) and he said he would teach me how to gamble. So we cashed in $20 to get some chips, and then he taught me roulette. Had so much fun and the guy was so nice, anyway placed my first bet... $5 on red AND WON!!!!! coz i was wearing my lucky red skirt. Put hte next $5 on black and lost, which made me pretty sad  so i stuck to red and put $5 on red and $5 on even... and lucky, 36 red was the number so I made like $10.... Casino guy said I could do what I wanted but he suggested I cash in so that I would be ahead so I did and then he got me and Chrissy some water, while I told everyone I met that I won $10 bucks (I had sea legs pretty bad :D )

This morning was good - we got late check out so I went and got coffee at Esquires (NZ loves esquires) - braved a Strawberry white chocolate mocha (not great hangover coffee) and did some investigating and tollpay. Investigating you ask? Yes that's right, being a detective... and a good one too! We had obtained some info about the rough location of the Outrageous Fortune house and using my good friend google and my street smarts I found the address and we headed to South Te Atatu.

At this point I would like to toot my own horn.... and impress everyone with some bragging.... I LEARNT HOW TO READ A MAP! yep... i even know what the numbers mean and have learnt to hold it the right way (most of the time)

So after a wrong turn was taken today (not blaming anyone but just not my fault okay!) I navigated us back on the right way, got us onto Hwy 16 and then directed Chrissy to exit 14 (which i found on my map and the road sign) and then got us to... THE OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE HOUSE.... Today was the first day I navigated and got us somewhere without chrissy having to make a decision or figure it out coz i was busy figuring out left and right or which way to hold the map. Big day for me.

Anyway.... now I have a photo of me outside the outrageous fortune house!!!!!! which is like the most exciting thing ever!

um - after that we just got on the road to Rotorua stopping at Hamilton for lunch (will not mention the bad navigation through Hamilton but to be far we don't have a Hamilton map so it was instinct and good sense and I have sea legs still.)

Stopped at a great little pub for lunch  but had to go through farmers. Chrissy said, oh i think Farmers is like Myer. At the sound of the word Myer, Chrissy and I barely had time to make the 10 minutes signal to eachother before we tore off in other directions. We miss Myer a lot!

um something something driving then... ARRIVED IN ROTORUA! Stinks even worse coz of the rain but we were so happy to see everyone - it was like returning to see the family. We are so happy to be here! but its just been catching up (missed an engagement, a sad departure and a possible new career!) and doing laundry and blogging so might have a quiet one (but probably not)

RAWR!!!!!!!

Miss everyone but unfortunately I will be home soon! Cross the islands on Tuesday so that means we are almost halfway through!!!!

UPDATE: We have decided that the Casino guys name was Mark, or if not, we shall forever remember him as Mark anyway.

OMG - Seaweed with legs!

I have like 10 minutes to write and i don't wanna froget anything:

So thewhole I took some seasick tablets that make us super drowsy lets not drink thing lasted about 5 minutes after I logged off, and then the information guy told us about a half moon party at the Pippi patch. So after pizza and salad (OMG - never thought i would be sick of chips but i am so sick of hot chips) we headed over to this party, where our face was painted with orange fluoro paint. Turns out the town of Paihia has a LOT of ruiles. No drinking outside after 10 pm... like not in the front area, not in a beer garden. After 10pm you must be surrounded by four walls to consume alcohol. Also, bars close at 1 am. Like ONE AM - i didn't mistype that! Ridiculous - me and chrissy thought we came up with the perfect solution - cram our usual partying into a small period of time - which meant lots of teapots (thanks Queenstown guy for paying)and lots of dancing and then a hilariour trip up the driveway to the mousetrap where we laughed and giglled and tried to not break noise curfew. The next day (yesterday I think - so hard to keep track of days here) we went on a Waka - which is Maori for a canoe. It was hilarious, I mentioned my prior one day experience dragon boat racing and then was the only idiot who held the paddle backwards! It was so much fun and so tiring we went round the bay, stopping to collect Pippis in the freezing cold water. Chrissy saw a bit of seaweed and screamed, which I saw and screamed, and then after the laughter stopped, we both realised it wasn't a spider and boarded the canoe. We travelled round to an island to learn the Hungi (?) which is how to touch noses (not that that requires a lot of teaching but was fun. I felt like an old hat coz a guy at the Pippi patch greeted me with the touching of the noses) and walk up the top to view the look out. Was amaziong we could walk without shoes through trees and not be afraid of spiders and snakes. After the walk we paddled out to collect Mussels 'cept I was being fearless and swam right out to the rock where i couldnt stand and everyone else wimped out (or were smart coz the water was so cold. )and stayed close where they didn't freeze so I was on my own with the mussels.  And after all that ... when we cooked up the mussels they were disgusting.

OK gotta go coz we are going to the footy tonight (Maori vs. England, Samoa vs. NZ) so ill finish this later. ciao

Finishing up (wanna keep Bay of Islands together) so we headed back to the beach and Nick cooked our pippis and mussles and served us wine out of a cask in plastic tumblers (all class in Paihia), pippis were not bad but i could not get the disgusting taste of mussels outta my mouth all day. OMG so embarrassing, we were on the canoe on the way back to dry land and i saw something in the canoe. OMG i screamed and swung my legs off the side of the canoe... the danish girl tried to kill it (first thing she had done all morning - she was a bit lazy) but it was moving and i was scared. The asked me what it was and the girl said "a crab" Chrissy said " maybe a spider" and i said "OMG i thought it was seaweed with legs". At that point, Nick decided I that I had had too much wine for breakfast and the seaweed with legs has become a joke that will probably not get old.


Nothing exciting after that except a visit to the cops to report the stolen wallet and then onto the Dolphin Explorer for another cruise and maybe dolphin swimming. I was undecided on whether I wanted to swim with the dolphins (apparently an ability to swim confidently in deep ocean is a pre requisete? plus you were supposed to have not been drinking beforehand) but the decision got taken out of my hands as the only pods we found had babies and you are not allowed to swim with babies. We got so close though... me and Chrissy hung off the back of the boat for a bit ... we also went through the hole in teh rock again and stopped at the same island for a break. This time we walked up to the look out and saw some lambs and sheep and a cool tree. Chrissy and I have found that we both find farm animals running absolutely hilarious (and police in overalls too) so we were amused for a while. We then went back and hung on the beach... the children (my two new friends from Sydney aged 8 and 10 and me aged 23) swam and collected shells in the ocean while the adults (ie. everyone but me and the two kids) stayed on dry land and laughed. Those two kids were great, so we chatted to them on the way back and they bought a USB stick of photos, so they are going to email me the copies (which was so nice of them)..... hmm....well after that we had Thai for dinner (never had a craving for stir fry so badly, i actually ate all my brocolli and cauliflower) and a bit more partying at pippi patch. Then back to noise curfew at mouse trap. Next day we were pretty happy to leave the mouse trap for Auckland - there are even washing machine curfews there....

(Dancing on tables)

Paihia - dolphins - noise curfew.

So last night was our first night on noise curfew... the lady who owns the hostel would make a really good librarian so we were a bit scared to disobey. First off was dinner at the swordfish club - which is I guess like the Labour Club? Cheap food which was good. In desperate need of coffee we headed to Frank's pizza  - a little cafe that turns into a live music venue on Wednesday nights. People crowd around outside so its an effort to get out - but there I ate birthday cake for Miley (and took a photo for the kennel ) had some coffee and listened to some tunes. Also texted my mum, and was super happy to here my dogs are all good after there steak dinner!

Headed back to commence silent time and basically plugged the i pods in and read some books. It was super hard - as soon as someone tells you not to talk you instantly have heaps to say, so me and Chrissy were like two students on school camp, giggling and making jokes about everything, although most jokes were about quiet time. It's still not a friendly place, and they don't go overboard with the blankets like Cactus but its clean and a bed and quiet at night :(. We have decided to stop by Rotorua on our way to Wellington and see the Cactus Jacks family coz we miss them a lot!

Hmmm - well today was our Day in the Bay cruise - and Paihia is much lovelier in the daylight. Stopped by a cute coffee shop ont eh way to the boat. We followed the Cream Trip - the way ships used to run to the little wharves collecting milk bottles of um, milk? to turn into butter and dropping off empties. These days aside from the tourist-y thing it does mail deliveries so we dropped off mailbags and visited some caretakers and there dogs. Not much to say 'cept that it was stunning - kinda hard to put the beauty into words. We also saw some dolphins - its was like 20 - 25 dolphins including two babies. The man with the microphone said it was probably two pods who got together to eat and mate and stuff (coz they were very active) so kinda like the dolphin version of civic on saturday night. They were amazing, they swam so close and were flipping and jumping and all the other stuff that dolphins do. Also met the loveliest couple from near Byron Bay, so they chatted and pointed stuff out to us and told us stories about there travels. We also saw some seals and birds and fish (surprise surprise). The microphone man told us a sad story about this type of bird that nests on this giant rock, and they love to dive, 'cept they die coz they blind themselves and then can't find food. Quite a depressing story really. The guy from near Byron Bay saw a whale but the rest of us weren't that lucky, despite us waiting around for ages.

By far the highlight of the cruise was the "Hole in the Rock" its this beautiful rock at Cape Brett with a hole in it (as suggested by the name!) the water was really choppy but the Captain was a pretty kick ass captain and he managed to get the boat through so we sailed through the hole in the rock and it was magnificent.

We took a Paihia bomb before the trip, which is the towns home grown seasickness remedy so I'm pretty drowsy today - no drinking tonight! And the weather - we woke up and it was pouring but by 11 o 'clock the sun was shining, stopped at an island for lunch and I layed in the sun, hopefully getting some color for saturday night! Hmm not much else happened today really, besides getting ice cream... I talked to the Captian on the ship and he is not the Captain who was on "What a Life on Disney channel".

Well tomorrow is dolphin swimming and we might try paddle a Maori canoe if we have time, and tonight we are definetely going out for dinner. Basically aiming to spend as little time as possible at Mousetrap.

That's it from me for now. This town is little and we are not able to use the internet when we stumble home (although stumbling is banned after noise curfew I am sure) like in Rotorua so I have to post earlier than usual.

Also - I think i lost my Australian Sim Card : ( ... so no one try message or call! Still ahve the NZ one though!

Oh and Tim! I bought both Outrageous Fortune soundtrack so I have a new CD to listen to non stop whenever we drive somewhere together. Get excited!!!!