Monday 27 September 2004

Week 84, Day 548

Kia Ora!

For those that are familiar with the term, yes, I am in New Zealand. So much to say in such little time, but I will try.

CAMBRIDGE
Alex and I managed to safely move all our stuff down to his dad's place in Cambridge, and spent some time down there. I bought myself and Alex (Xmas/Bday present) an iPod each so we spent a lot of time getting as many albums as possible on there. I've currently got 2011 songs on mine and only 7MB has been used up. Impressive.

LONDON
The weekend before we left, we headed to London for a quick visit. Went down on the Friday and stayed with my old school friend Faye who is living in Farnham while finishing uni. Now, I expected to have a quiet night - some dinner and a few drinks - but somehow over the years I've forgotten that any night out with Faye is never going to be quiet. We ended up playing pool at her uni's bar and stocked up well on the cheap drinks. That left me worse for wear for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday went to see Alex's friend, Feury at his new place in London. He, his g/f (also a Vanessa) and their future flatmates were at the house preparing it for their move. We hung about and then went out that evening to catch up with Alex's other friend, Danny. Luckily, I also managed to time that well with Mark, who I used to work with at big hit magazine! Was great to see him again and catch up now that he's back in Ol' Blighty. Must do it again Mark!

Sunday caught up with lovely Amanda and did a bit of window shopping, including an extensive time at Hamley's toy store! Got a few silly photos there which I hope to get up on the site soon. Being there with Amanda made me think more and more that it will be a good idea to move there when I get back. We'll see about that. We had a lovely lunch at a department store whose name I don't remember and it was wonderful to be doing the girly thing again (as in Leeds I don't seem to ever do that!). So thanks for that Amanda!

LAMB
That Sunday night in London Alex and I went to see what could possibly be Lamb's final gig. It was at Shepherd's Bush - such a small venue but I love the fact it's an old theatre. The support gig weren't bad, but then they showed this trippy movie about Greymen - these little plaster men, painted grey, that represent the way humans have become so tied up with money and work and all things bad. The weird thing was that Alex and I saw them at Mysteryland festival in Amsterdam and people were painting them. Turns out it was to do with this short film as one of the guys involved had friends involved with Mysteryland. It was kinda freaky but very cool. Anyway, the film was a great idea before the gig. Lamb had done the soundtrack for it so that's why it was getting showed. Everyone was really into it. I think more bands should do that.

Ok, so the gig was the best gig I've ever been to. Up there with all my faves (yes, including Radiohead). Lamb are definitely an awesome live band. And we just wanted more but sadly, there's always an end.

SYDNEY

Wasn't long in Sydney which is why I didn't call anyone. I was only there for three days before flying out to NZ. I did, however, manage to see my family for lunch on the Sunday we arrived. Tuesday was Alex's birthday so we celebrated by getting our hair cut (mine's short again, as is his) and then going out to dinner that night with my parents, sister and Jules to my favourite restaurant, Cafe Sydney. How yummy is that place!

NEW ZEALAND
We've only been here just under a week now but it's been crazy. We've taken a tour with Magic Bus as that was the only bus tour company I could arrange to make it into Queenstown the day we wanted to be there. We spent two nights in Christchurch before starting it. First stop was Kaikoura (which is north of Christchurch). Didn't do any of the activities there as we'll be stopping there again a little later. Instead we wondered about and ended up walking 1 and a half hours to a seal colony. We had a bit of an adventure on the way where we decided to take a shortcut along some rocks by the beach (and just outside some people's backyards). Alex was ahead of me when suddenly he yells, throws his arms crazily and starts running across the rocks. We ran in to this massive swarm of flies that were feasting on the rotting seaweed. Thing was that it continued like that right down the beach and the only way out was to keep going. It was freaky, but if you waved your arms enough they didn't attack so much. We still had flies following us down the road for a few minutes after we escaped. How stupid did we feel?! At least we made it to the seal colony, and there were seals there. I would have been pretty peed off if there hadn't been!

Next day we went up to Nelson via Picton. Didn't make it there in time to do any activities but the hostel we stayed at had was really lovely. We had a BBQ there with the crowd and then retreated early after feeling tired from the long trip.

On to Greymouth via some great scenery including more seals, pancake rocks, and wonderful coastlines. Greymouth is pretty boring but we decided to do the Monteiths's brewery tour which had been highly recommended to us by our tour driver. And rightly so. I felt very enlightended after the tour and impressed by the beer tasting. Alex has some funny pics of him around the place which we will hopefully be able to put up on his site (www.outspaced.co.uk). After, we went to the Riverside hotel for a free BBQ and enjoyed the company of our fellow travellers including Anna, a Swedish pre-school teacher who is also into Kent (woohoo!), two lovely Dutch girls and a crazy Canadian who talked as if she were on speed.

Today we did a quick dash to Franz Josef so everyone could make it there to do one of the activities. We chose the half-day hike up the Franz Josef glacier despite the rainy weather. It's so worth the $60 (and more). Those who have done it know what I'm talking about. And I was even happier to discover it's only one of three glaciers in the world like it - the other two being one not far from here in NZ (Fox Glacier) and one in South America. It's an unusual glacier because of the environment it's in - it's inbetween a huge rainforest and the beach is only 10kms away! So that makes it a warm glacier. At the moment it's advancing (which means it's growing forward a little). We also saw a small avalanche while we were climbing up. I did freak out at times (as I warned Alex that I would) because I'm really bad with heights, but thanks to his help and patience, I made it and we both had an unreal time. It was about four hours long in total and we have some amazing shots. I hope I can put them up soon.

Tomorrow we're off Kayaking which will be nice, and possibly some bushwalking if weather permits. I really do love NZ. It's one of the most beautiful countries I've ever been to, and I don't think I'd ever get sick of travelling around it.

That's it for the moment. I hope everyone is ok and hope to contact those who have emailed me recently, real soon!

x
Vanessa