Dunedin (Dunnerz) - student city and catching up with Becci!

So onwards to Dunedin. Dunedin would you know, is actually one of the first places settled in the South Island. It was also where the Scots landed, hence it's name Dunedin (the old name for Edinburgh). Dun = hill, so Edin-on-the-hill. Pretty good eh? It's still got alot of Scottish heritage, seen in the buildings and even the people and their accents. Everyone refers to people in Dunedin as crazy, with very rough accents (they roll their r's apparently), obviously descending from the Scottish accent. You can even see the Scottish genes in the locals (lots of ginger freckly people, and dark curly hair with freckles and pale skin colour).

Dunedin is a unique city and I would actually say it's my favourite 'city' in New Zealand so far. At only roughly 120,000 people, it's a small city on European terms but big for New Zealand, however it still had that 'South Island small-town-city' feel, nice and quiet! It felt like Bangor with it's hilly roads, old buildings and university lifestyle and it really took me back to the good old student days! There's even two beaches, St Kilda and Brighton beach and it has a really cool arty-scene, lots of street art - a bit like Melbourne in Australia. It's also home to New Zealands first and biggest University, The University of Otago, and the first and oldest Church, plus a super cute Train station!

We were staying at a super nice hostel, Geeky Gecko, which became our home for the 5 days we were there. The first thing we did when we arrived, went shopping as A. there was the 1st PAK'N'SAVE supermarket we'd seen on the South Island, and B. with the start of Autumn hitting pretty suddenly in temperature, we needed to buy some actual winter clothes and a coat! So I went long-sleeve top, leggings, gloves, coat and boots mad at Warehouse (I bought a bargain winter coat for only $12 at a 2nd hand clothing store - yay for being a student town!). We also decided to treat ourselves to Moules Frites Thai Curry as we had found a pak'n'save which is the cheapest place for Mussels.

Over our time there we decided to do some sight-seeing. We went and checked-out and walked up the Worlds Steepest Street, Baldwin Street, we walked through the beautiful Botanical Gardens and then walked back to town via the University. Which is very much like Bangor/Cambridge in it's architecture. We also walked via the student area which brought back so many memories seeing all the trashy houses with sofas outside and music blaring from inside, rubbish strewn around and alcohol bottles overflowing the bins. It was freshers week here that week so it was pumping with students!

We also checked out the Octagon; the centre of town, went on our own street art tour, checked out the oldest church, and just enjoyed spending our time chilling around town in parks. We also checked out the free museum there which was actually very interesting. They also have a Cadbury's factory but we decided not to pay $25 each for a tour. Our last day we met with Becci, our friend from Oz, and had a wonderful few hours catching up, especially as she had recently married her Nepalese fiance, and enjoyed hearing about her life living in Nepal. She was back for a while to escape life over there for a bit as it had become intense having to live with his parents with the culture and caste difference, and plus her sister was due to make her an auntie again so a good excuse for family time. We actually also met her again while we were touring the Catlins during our current WWOOFing placement, just randomly at Curio Bay...hang-on I know that girl, ah it's Becci! So weird but so cool!

Then it was time to venture off to another great HelpX/WWOOFing experience in Surat Bay,  the Catlins, with Jack and Ester, where we are currently managing a Hostel...pretty cool experience and great for future job prospects! More about that soon in my next blog!

Majestic Milford Sound and catching up with friends in Te Anau!

So we left Queenstown on the Stray Bus at the crack of dawn...it was still dark at 7am! The good thing was that as we were leaving Queenstown we got to see a magnificent sunrise over The Remarkables (a quite remarkable mountain range surrounding Queenstown).

It took us roughly 3 hours to reach Milford sound. We stopped on the way in Te Anau, (pronounced Tay-Arnew) where we tried to figure out how we were going to get to our boat cruise the next day. Basically, Stray only spend one night in Milford Sound at the off-the-beaten track location of Gunn's Camp. Today's weather forecast was rain, and so we decided to extend our stay to two nights, so that we could do our boat cruise the next day in the sunshine. However, we didn't realise Gunn's Camp is actually a good half hours drive from Milford sound, with no public buses on route, and only hitchhiking available to use (with a good hours walk to the main road) we realised we'd screwed up!

So. What we had decided after being told all this by the company of the boat cruise, was that maybe we could see when we get there, if there was availability to change to today with our Stray bus group at 3pm. The weather wasn't looking great but it was basically almost our only option, other than paying $120 for a round trip with a local pickup service. So we hoped and prayed on the hours journey from Te Anau to Milford sound that A. there would be space and B. the weather would clear up a little!

We stopped on the way once we got to Fiordland National Park for picture spots. Such as the mirror lake, and just before the tunnel heading through the mountain. Fiordland National Park is amazing, just huge towering peaks, some snow-capped, and loads of waterfalls (at least the rain was good for something). The thing is is that the west coast of New Zealand on the South Island and Fiordland National Park, is the wettest area ever, it's actually been dubbed the wettest place on earth (move over UK). Rainfall can reach 250 mm (10 in) during a span of 24 hours. On the forecasts all you ever see is maybe one or two days of sunshine, the rest is rain, so you have to be very lucky to see the sun! However, everyone we'd heard who'd done it in the rain, said that it was even more beautiful, because of the HUGE waterfalls it created through the sound.

Well, we definitely saw those, both driving through the National park and in Milford Sound itself. There were waterfalls everywhere! However, we were suuuuuuuper lucky...as when we arrived at the boat check-in, A. there was space and we only had to pay $10 for the price difference and B. the sun decided to burn through some of that cloud, and the rain had stopped - so we ended up having the best of both worlds; the joys of the waterfalls and a little blue sky! Woop! We unfortunately weren't able to see the top of Mitre Peak (the tall famous mountain at the entrance to Milford Sound), but I guess you can't be greedy when luck strikes. So we boarded our boat and went on our hour and a half cruise around the huuuuuge Milford Sound.

Milford Sound (also called Piopiotahi) is a Fiord (wrongly labelled a Sound), within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. Carved by glaciers during the ice age, it has been judged the world's top travel destination and labelled the '8th wonder of the world'. There are peaks up to 1200metres, some snowcapped, and there are many waterfalls. Seals and Dolphins (even Whales) can often be spotted - and we were lucky enough to spot a pod of Dolphins and some Seals lounging on the rocks in the sun. There is one waterfall, Lady Bowen Falls, which is actually 3 times higher than Niagara Falls, but due to the optical illusion presented by the huge peaks surrounding it, actually looks way smaller than it is. But boy is it powerful - we got very wet underneath it on our boat deck! The tour took us all around the Fiord on both sides and also out to the opening of the ocean where we saw the Dolphins. And thankfully the sun stayed out for the full hour and a half. We got some stunning pictures and even a little burnt.

Then we headed back on the Stray bus and towards Gunn's Camp, where we would stay for two nights, but there was no phone signal and no wifi, and limited electricity (from 6pm-10pm). So it was going to be a secluded couple of nights. But I was looking forward to it, time to catch up on some reading. We did a river walk the next day, had good Pasta, tried a bush walk but it got too slippery so we turned back, and then played some games, like battleship, trivial persuit etc, talked to people (yes we actually talked rather than everyone sitting on their phones) to bide away our day of rest. It was like going back to the old days when internet and phones didn't rule your life and it was great, so refreshing. The couple who owned the camp were also very lovely and had made the place very unique.

On the Monday we hopped off the Stray Bus in Te Anau for two nights where we did a few walks around the lake and ate amazing Pies at Miles Better Pies (the best pie I have ever tasted!) we had one a day while we were there. They had Thai curry, Satay Chicken, Venison, steak and bacon, steak and cheese, lamb and mint, you name it they had it; all freshly baked! We also met our friend from Sweden, Ivana, and her boyfriend Adrian while we were there, as they were working in a hotel there for the next couple of months. So we had a great catch up which was lovely and vowed we'd see each other again when they finished work. And in fact they are coming to stay with us at our hostel in the Catlin's next week!

Our next stop was Dunedin which we couldn't wait for! It was a whim decision as we'd been contacted on HelpX for a WWOOFing spot in the Catlins and had wanted to go to Steward Island before but the ferry was too expensive. So instead we decided to head to Dunedin as it was only an hour from the Catlins. So we booked our 4 nights there, and took the Intercity from Te Anau (we were going to use Stray but it meant spending a night in Invercargill and there was nothing to do there so we thought we'd save money). We'd heard lots about Dunedin and couldn't wait to go there...plus we'd contacted an old Kiwi friend from Australia (currently living in Nepal, but was from Dunedin) and found out she was actually HOME, so we were going to get to see her while we were there - amazing! Dunedin was awesome...more about that in the next blog.

Queenstown; we came, we conquered - it destroyed!

So I’ve not blogged in a while which is bad I know, but we’ve been super busy managing a hostel! So I’ll allow myself this one glitch!

So since I last blogged we visited Queenstown, adventure capital of New Zealand, also home to New Zealand’s best burger joint – FergBerger! We were pretty excited as we had our Canyon Swing booked for the 25^th February. We hopped on the Stray bus from Cromwell, stopping off at the AJ Hackett Bungy, Karawau Bridge jump – which is where the Bungy Jump was first invented by a Kiwi, AJ Hackett, and we watched some people jump. I tell you though, watching people do it was the first time in my life I’ve ever wanted to do a jump. It looked so cool, but I’m still not sure I could do one, unless I did a tandem one and someone forced me to go with them, or perhaps the Queenstown ledge bungy where you can get thrown off so you don’t have to jump yourself!

The night we arrived in Queenstown we met up with Guillaume again, it’s becoming a regular occurrence now! And we had a few drinks, we also got our $25 worth of drinks vouchers from Peter Pans, but we were a bit disappointed as it was promoted as ‘free drinks’  but actually it was just $25 worth of discounts, so like 25% off or half price drinks etc. We went into one bar where the voucher looked like it offered a free meal, idiot backpackers we are, didn’t realise it was actually a burger and drink for $25 rather than a voucher worth $25! It was a bloody good burger though, and huge so it was worth spending £50 for a meal! 

The next day was our Canyon Swing, it was a pretty wet and windy day so we didn’t have high hopes for it going ahead but when we got to the check-in they told us it looked ok. It was scheduled for 1pm. Before, we went for a short walk around Queenstown city centre and went for a $10 curry and rice! On the bus on the way there, we were getting pretty nervous, but we hid it by getting to know a few people going – one girl had won a ticket to do every bungy and every swing in New Zealand – however she did chicken out of the highest one The Nevis Bungy at 134m (I think I would too!).

When we got there we were told to check-in but it was on wind-hold (as its so high, its dangerous to operate in high winds), but we only had to wait half an hour before we got to walk along the wobbly bridge of no return! Once we got to the jump platform this is when we really were bricking it! Watching other people swing was probably one of the scariest things about it, as you see them suspended over the ground at 160m, and then they just drop, full force, free-fall, in all their screaming glory towards the ground! It’s a 70m free-fall, 300m arc swing at speeds of 150kmh! We saw around 7 people swing before us – tandem definitely dropped faster than the singles as you have more weight behind you. We were doing it tandem! 

So it came to our turn and we started freaking out, we told the guy we wanted no surprises, we wanted a countdown lol. Two couples had been surprised before – one had been made to put their arms around each other and as they were moving into position he dropped them, another had been made to smile at their friends camera and then dropped – it looked terrifying! They strapped us in, and then the terrifying part came – taking our feet off the platform and being suspended above the ground, waiting to drop! 

On a count of three, after smiling at the cameras, we dropped, it was awesome but breathtaking – I’m not even sure how I even managed to find the air to scream! Pierrick screamed like a girl too (haha), but only on the swing as he was too breathless on the drop. That feeling where your stomach feels like its in your lungs? Well multiply that by 2 (it’s stomach in the head feeling), for at least 3-4 seconds, and that’s how it felt to drop, it was worse than freefalling in a skydive!

After, we had a huge rush of adrenaline and I honestly could have done it again and again! I think next time we are in Queenstown I will do the other Canyon swing where you can chose how you fall (I really want to go down a slide and fall!) That night we got a FergBurger to celebrate – amazing! They are huge and delicious. Pierrick had the Big Al – basically the biggest you can get, and I had the Steak burger – full of juicy tender sirloin steak and onions! 

Then we decided to have a night on the town, where we met up with the couple we had met at the Canyon Swing, Guillaume and also Katrin (a girl we had met on one of our stray journeys from Germany) as she is working in Queenstown. We also saw Kookie (our previous stray driver). We had waaaaay too much to drink...think 2 vodka orange, desperados, half a bottle of wine each, a litre of beer for $10 in Cowboys (best bar ever, it even has a rodeo you can ride), plus shots and other drinks...needless to say, I don’t remember much of the evening and the next day I woke up with THE WORST HANGOVER EVERRRRRRRRR! 

I kid you not, from the moment I woke up at 11am, to the moment we went to bed, I was throwing up – I couldn’t even keep water down! I blame the litre of beer! Pierrick even went to get another Fergburger thinking the grease and a coke would help – which it normally does – nope, I got 3 bites in and up it came! What a waste of a Hawaiian Fergburger! We had to go shopping that evening too, in the pissing rain, while violently hungover, which was NOT fun. As the next day we were leaving for Milford Sound and the place we were staying for 2 nights was in the middle of nowhere. 

Needless to say, Queenstown destroyed me and my liver, and when we next go back, I want to actually see the place and do the walks, rather than just see the toilet bowl! Damn you Cowboys...