Funyakking

Got 2 weeks to cover this time, between recovering from my cold and some fairly ordinary weather haven't been out and about quite as much while I'm in Queenstown so didn't have much to say last week. I've had a fairly quiet time here compared to what most people usually get up to here, I've been exploring some of the trails, wandering along the lakeshore and up to the gondola. There's been a few real stand-out moments, firstly we got a snowfall down in town the other day, probably the last one we can expect for the season so I was glad to see that. I did get caught a bit off-guard by it though, was up in town at the time and didn't have my longjohns or any proper waterproof clothes on. Seeing as it started with a little bit of hail and it's a fair walk back to my hostel I had to wait in town for it to finish, although I spent it in Starbucks with a hot chocolate, reading a book so I somehow managed to endure that. As soon it was over though it was back to the hostel for my longjohns and then back out to enjoy the snow.



The next day was a weird one, pretty much the whole day there were occasional snowfalls, but never enough to stay around for long, and also something which may have been hail but which I thought of more as granular rain as it wasn't big enough to hurt (although it did sting if the wind got behind it). It might have been sleet, I've never been exactly sure what that involves. Apparently this was only about the second snowfall in town in months so I was pretty lucky to catch it.

My luck with the weather got even better after that, as the next day I went on a trip around the lake to the Dart River. It was an incredible day, perfect weather, lots of snow on the mountains - we went on a one hour jetboat trip up the river from Glenorchy, then they dropped us off and we travelled back in these inflatable canoes they call Funyaks (I'm guessing because they're more fun than regular canoes). Being on my own I got to go with one of the guides, which made my day really easy as he could steer with just the current most of the time and I hardly ever had to paddle. So being essentially ballast, I could just sit there and take in the view, taking the occasional picture, and watch everyone else spin and narrowly avoid rocks and so on. On the down side, I didn't actually learn much about how to steer a canoe myself which is a shame as I'd love to do it again sometime. In fact looking at the pictures that night I was ready to go back out there again the next day.



Mind you I did get to man one on my own when I gave one of the guides a hand at lunch to move some of them downstream, but because I hadn't had a chance to actually try it beforehand it wasn't exactly a stunning display on my part. Nothing disastrous, I just ran aground once (well, only slightly, it was really shallow and I could push off again) and didn't go very straight exactly but I laneded it safely in the end. And by landed I mean, got the canoe close enough to the guide for him to grab it and drag it ashore (look, there were more rocks and they spun the canoe just as I was coming in, he was just saving me an extra walk to the lunch spot, I'm perfectly confident I would have landed at some point before I reached the actual ocean).



So there you go, no nudity this time, about the best I can do is a picture of me in my wetsuit, which didn't fit well enough to be even slightly revealing but it will have to do.

Moving Right Along

Time to get moving again after 3 weeks in Wanaka. It was an interesting week, with some really great moments, like our little expedition to Diamond Lake and Rocky Mountain, a visit to the neat little cinema there (you get to sit on proper couches and at intermission they serve these fantastic fresh cookies which everyone races to get. Go for the double chocolate. You will not regret it), as well as a few of the usual walks and some really good dinners with the friends I’ve made here.

However this week has also seen me pick up my second dose of one of the various bugs floating around town, and then have a massive allergic reaction to the free backpackers’ dinner I went to at the local church, which proves there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Or dinner for that matter. It made my last night here a bit of a mixed occasion – on the one hand I did get to enjoy one last drink with my fellow travellers, toasting among other things unexpected cows and decapitated sheep (don’t worry, it was a wood sheep, just in case you were wondering exactly what kind of church it was we went to) and all had a good laugh at a strange man with very misguided enthusiasm for dancing and also showing a sizeable amount of underpant. But I later broke out in hives over pretty much my entire body and spent a the rest of the night feeling itchy, nauseous and wondering if I was having some kind of plague visited on me because I didn’t take the free bible earlier that night. If a whole bunch of frogs and locusts start turning up, I’ll know something’s definitely up.

Anyway, thought I should share that unpleasantness with you just to point out this travelling business isn’t all snowflakes and sunsets. Although there is a fair bit of that too. Like this one.



And this one.



And very occasionally, even some full-frontal nudity.



So as you might have guessed from the bungie jumping (that was a guy off the Magic Bus who got it free for going naked. And I know it wasn’t really full frontal, I’m trying to maintain a PG rating here) I’m now actually in Queenstown. Had meant to post this in Wanaka but couldn’t, so seeing as I’ve had to change everything I’d written to the past tense I might as well bring things completely up to date. It was quite surprising how quickly Wanaka had come to feel like home, and I’d met a lot of really cool people from all over the world, so it was a bit sad to be leaving it behind. But it was good to be seeing new sights as well once I hit the road again, and hopefully I’ll be able to catch up with nearly all of the people I’ve met somewhere in my future travels. Queenstown never fails to catch me by surprise each time I come back here, my memories never really do it justice. Sure, it’s busier than Wanaka but it’s the traffic more than the people which is annoying, and it’s always balanced out by the incredible setting, so I’m definitely looking forward to my next few weeks here.

Another Week in Wanaka

Things have been a bit quieter here this week – no mountain climbing stories of high adventure to report this time but it’s still been great. I’ve got a pretty good routine here, sleep in a bit after all the skiers and snowboarders clomp out in the mornings, have most of the days to myself so I do a bit of work in the mornings, then go for an afternoon walk around the lake or up Mt Iron, before heading back to the hostel to catch up with everyone once they return from the slopes. Yesterday we had absolutely perfect weather again so as I headed down to the Millennium Track, one of my favourite spots, I kept grinning to myself just thinking how lucky I was to be in a place like this. Mind you, I've caught myself doing some other pretty strange things too so it could be that too much time in my own company isn’t entirely healthy.

For instance, I’ve occasionally started singing aloud to my iPod when I’m walking alone, although I’ve justified this as legitimate practice for Canada next year when I’ll have to make sure I announce my presence to any bears in the vicinity. I got a bit of other practice yesterday when I came across some cows on the track unexpectedly, and cows are startling enough when you aren’t expecting them so I imagine bears are even more so. Of course you don’t really expect cows to be particularly savage, but they did significantly outnumber me, it was getting quite late, I don’t know much about cows’ nocturnal behaviour and while I know all about what to do in a bear attack I’ve never really studied up on what to in case of cows so wasn’t sure if I should play dead or not (which again could have been good practice), but decided in the end to just walk past, although we were both watching each other pretty intently as we passed by. On top of this I was already feeling a bit self-conscious around animals as there had been some rabbits (can’t remember the proper collective noun, a herd) watching me try to take pictures of myself with my own camera.

Anyway, this hardly painting a very impressive picture of me – the mountain climbing story was much better – so I think I’ll change the subject with some more pretty scenery.



And here's some of the people I've been staying with.