We're approaching the one week countdown for take off. For me at least, it's not quite sinking in. There's just a few little things left to get sorted, cash currently being the most pressing one. And travel insurance, which I thought might have been fixed by now...
We also have the issue of packing. Well, I say we. Claire and Amy seem to have more concerns about this. I was just going to sling everything I need into a bag and be done with it. Y'know, clothes, toiletries, my old bear Marmalade who goes on every holiday even though I'm almost (oh god) in my mid-twenties... Apparently it's not that simple, because there's an assortment of other things that we might need and we need to work out who's taking what.
First aid kit and various medications would be one. Anyone would think New Zealand didn't have plasters and paracetamol. I am told we should take these with us. Plasters, fair enough - I always take them with me because I'm an idiot and I injure myself on stupid things like dead trees (see this post from Australia). But apparently we also need to take paracetamol and imodium and all sorts of other little things. Seriously, we might as well just take the pharmacists with us.
Anyways, that rant aside... what else is happening? Much route mapping. I don't trust sat-navs, so I've let Google work out all the possible directions we could need and printed them off so I can laugh when the sat-nav goes wrong. Which it probably won't but after that time a friend's tried to send us through a very deep ford... yeah.
I need to start making a New Zealand playlist in preparation for the flight. Well, I need something to keep me sane. It will involve lots of Lord of the Rings soundtrack and probably some Crowded House because we discovered they're pretty much the only New Zealand band we've heard of.
Travel ramblings of Zoe (and friends) following a trip to Middle-earth (aka New Zealand).
The main aim is not to crash and die (when going self-drive).
The secondary aim is not to get caught by the Kiwi Fruit Police or wind up on Nothing To Declare.
Thursday, 17 July 2014
Friday, 4 July 2014
"Can you take your really warm face off my knee, please?"
Last few bits of booking completed yesterday evening. Last hostel, buses for the last few days, the last couple of trips. Oh my.
Sooo... only... just over 3 weeks left until we fly out. Hurray! Pretty much everything booked apart from a couple of things we're going to look at doing when we get there. Dependent on weather and such like.
Speaking of weather, I was overly amused to discover that the New Zealand Met Service tells you how many layers of clothing you should be wearing depending on the temperature. Yay. Currently it says 4 layers for Queenstown, so I need to stock up on more t-shirts.
The itinerary now includes the following:
3 weeks to go.
Sooo... only... just over 3 weeks left until we fly out. Hurray! Pretty much everything booked apart from a couple of things we're going to look at doing when we get there. Dependent on weather and such like.
Speaking of weather, I was overly amused to discover that the New Zealand Met Service tells you how many layers of clothing you should be wearing depending on the temperature. Yay. Currently it says 4 layers for Queenstown, so I need to stock up on more t-shirts.
The itinerary now includes the following:
- Planes, trains and automobiles. And a ferry. And some other boats. And a few buses.
- Whales, dolphins and glowworms
- A variety of oddly named hostels, including The Lazy Shag.
- Kayaking
- Glaciers, mountains, stupidly long beaches
- All the geology
- All the Middle-earth references
- Jetlag
- Loud, out of tune singing in the car
- Navigation errors
- Claire and Amy threatening to leave me by the side of the road
- Sore feet
- Sore arms
- Not enough sleep
- Long days
- Late nights
- Seasickness
- Random injuries
- Snow chains
- Cider
- Taking photos of ALL THE THINGS
- Cheesy MySpace photos
- Not wanting to come home
3 weeks to go.
Friday, 6 June 2014
"Are we going the right way?"
We went to Whitby today. Look how happy Amy was:
As you can see, it was gorgeously sunny and nicely warm. Managed to find our way there OK - didn't really need the sat-nav until we got into Whitby proper, so we're figuring it's going to be at its most useful when we have to drive in places like Wellington and Auckland.
We had fish and chips for lunch. Extortionately expensive fish and chips - think we get a bit complacent living in Grimsby where it's relatively cheap. Claire almost lost hers to a seagull which divebombed her head and then clobbered her with its wing when it flew away. It had the same sort of evil look as this one:
Had a nice little walk down the harbour wall. Snapped a picture of Beak the Kiwi:
It was supposed to be attacking the abbey on the clifftop, but I kinda failed with taking the photo. Ah well. Look how happy Amy is still. Then we did what we'd actually planned to do and found a Whitby sign to take a photo of. We're so myspace.
Selfie fail. Went a bit wrong on the way home, but managed to find our way - damn sat-nav got me confused. Note to self: trying to pay attention to the map and the sat-nav at the same time is not a good idea. Also almost got stuck going up a massively steep hill and we could just tell the guy in the van behind us was going "bloody women drivers".
So now we just need to get to Whitby, NZ and grab a photo of their Whitby sign. Because obviously.
As you can see, it was gorgeously sunny and nicely warm. Managed to find our way there OK - didn't really need the sat-nav until we got into Whitby proper, so we're figuring it's going to be at its most useful when we have to drive in places like Wellington and Auckland.
We had fish and chips for lunch. Extortionately expensive fish and chips - think we get a bit complacent living in Grimsby where it's relatively cheap. Claire almost lost hers to a seagull which divebombed her head and then clobbered her with its wing when it flew away. It had the same sort of evil look as this one:
Had a nice little walk down the harbour wall. Snapped a picture of Beak the Kiwi:
It was supposed to be attacking the abbey on the clifftop, but I kinda failed with taking the photo. Ah well. Look how happy Amy is still. Then we did what we'd actually planned to do and found a Whitby sign to take a photo of. We're so myspace.
Selfie fail. Went a bit wrong on the way home, but managed to find our way - damn sat-nav got me confused. Note to self: trying to pay attention to the map and the sat-nav at the same time is not a good idea. Also almost got stuck going up a massively steep hill and we could just tell the guy in the van behind us was going "bloody women drivers".
So now we just need to get to Whitby, NZ and grab a photo of their Whitby sign. Because obviously.
Thursday, 5 June 2014
"Unless one of you particularly wants to get into bed with me..."
Two part booking/planning session today. Looks like we've got the car hire booked, which also covers the ferry crossing between North and South Island. Hurray! Claire decided we need a sat-nav. Anyone would think she didn't trust my navigation skills...
On the subject of navigation, my New Zealand road atlas has also arrived, so obviously instead of helping Claire and Amy to find suitable hostels, I spent the first part of the booking session sticking tabs in the atlas at all the pages we could possibly need. I like maps - it had to be done.
In the later booking session, we got a few more hostels booked, plus "The Trilogy Experience" - which basically means we get to go to Hobbiton, the Maori experience of Te Puia and Te Po and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. So now we've got most of the major expensive things booked. All the fun.
We seem to have mastered the art of finding hostels with 3 bed rooms so we can get a room to ourselves. Hurray. Of course, this might still mean bunk beds, sofa beds and possible sharing of double beds, but who cares? Extra privacy!
Tomorrow, we're heading up to Whitby to test our navigating skills. Or rather, how well I can explain to Claire which way she needs to go. Should be interesting. We also want to find a "Welcome to Whitby" type sign so we can grab a photo of it. There's a Whitby just outside Wellington in New Zealand and well, it kind of has to be done.
And of course, I only remember as I'm about to post this that Beak the mascot failed to make an appearance. Oh dear. She'll just have to come to Whitby with us tomorrow.
On the subject of navigation, my New Zealand road atlas has also arrived, so obviously instead of helping Claire and Amy to find suitable hostels, I spent the first part of the booking session sticking tabs in the atlas at all the pages we could possibly need. I like maps - it had to be done.
In the later booking session, we got a few more hostels booked, plus "The Trilogy Experience" - which basically means we get to go to Hobbiton, the Maori experience of Te Puia and Te Po and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. So now we've got most of the major expensive things booked. All the fun.
We seem to have mastered the art of finding hostels with 3 bed rooms so we can get a room to ourselves. Hurray. Of course, this might still mean bunk beds, sofa beds and possible sharing of double beds, but who cares? Extra privacy!
Tomorrow, we're heading up to Whitby to test our navigating skills. Or rather, how well I can explain to Claire which way she needs to go. Should be interesting. We also want to find a "Welcome to Whitby" type sign so we can grab a photo of it. There's a Whitby just outside Wellington in New Zealand and well, it kind of has to be done.
And of course, I only remember as I'm about to post this that Beak the mascot failed to make an appearance. Oh dear. She'll just have to come to Whitby with us tomorrow.
Thursday, 29 May 2014
"What's the NATO for U?"
First major mishap of the adventure.
Claire and I were having a booking session. We'd got a trip to
Milford Sound booked and then a whale-watching trip at Kaikoura.
Aside from a few issues telling each other booking references over
Skype, including a failed attempt to remember the NATO phonetic
alphabet, everything was going well. Just as I move on to get a
hostel booked for our second night on the North Island, we have a run
through of what's been booked on what dates so we know who owes each
other money.
Idiocy has struck. I've managed to book
the whale-watching for the wrong day. Indeed, I've booked it for a
day when we're just driving from one place to another. All day.
Horror.
A frantic email is pinged off to the
whale-watching company, begging (but not begging, because I'm English
and it all came out very polite) for them to please change our
booking to the day after the
one I've booked. Please?
Claire
takes the piss out of the situation and refuses to take any
responsibility for my idiocy, which is perfectly understandable. I,
on the other hand, am glued to my inbox after remembering that it
must be sometime in the morning in New Zealand and therefore it's
perfectly feasible that they'll get back to me before I go to bed. I
am overly concerned about the whole thing.
A
little while later, a very short email appears in my inbox. It simply
says that my booking has been amended as requested. It gives me the
impression that they're not all that impressed with my stupid error,
but I think a thank you for the speedy response of the nice lady at
Whale Watch Kaikoura is needed.
On a
side note, here's the sightings blog from said whale-watch company –
so excited! Sperm whales and orca and dolphins and SQUEE!
Note
to self – in future, triple check all dates before booking
anything.
Monday, 26 May 2014
Shawn the Prawn and his delicious little friends...
Our first planning session in months is underway. Well, I say underway. This is Amy and Claire doing useful stuff:
They're looking up useful things like hostels and things to do at the many, many places we're going to visit. This is what I was doing:
Because all of our planning sessions need to be soundtracked by the brilliance that is Howard Shore. And then it all just degenerated into silliness. Beak the Kiwi got a mind of her own (or rather, Claire gave up doing serious bits):
And then I found the most excellent thing ever when trying to find things to do in Taupo while Claire's throwing herself out of a plane. (Have I mentioned about Claire throwing herself out of a plane? I'm going to wait at the bottom and take pictures of her screaming). It is called the Huka Prawn Park. We are amused:
"If learning about a day in the life of Shawn the Prawn doesn't fire your imagination, dine on some of Shawn's delicious little friends in the adjacent riverside restaurant." Gotta love this Rough Guide.
And then we adjourned for lunch. Which lasted about 3 hours. Then the fun of booking began. So far we've managed to get the hostels and most of the activity/additional things booked for the first week. So the first few days look like this:
They're looking up useful things like hostels and things to do at the many, many places we're going to visit. This is what I was doing:
Because all of our planning sessions need to be soundtracked by the brilliance that is Howard Shore. And then it all just degenerated into silliness. Beak the Kiwi got a mind of her own (or rather, Claire gave up doing serious bits):
And then I found the most excellent thing ever when trying to find things to do in Taupo while Claire's throwing herself out of a plane. (Have I mentioned about Claire throwing herself out of a plane? I'm going to wait at the bottom and take pictures of her screaming). It is called the Huka Prawn Park. We are amused:
"If learning about a day in the life of Shawn the Prawn doesn't fire your imagination, dine on some of Shawn's delicious little friends in the adjacent riverside restaurant." Gotta love this Rough Guide.
And then we adjourned for lunch. Which lasted about 3 hours. Then the fun of booking began. So far we've managed to get the hostels and most of the activity/additional things booked for the first week. So the first few days look like this:
- 28th July - Arrive at Christchurch. Be jet-lag zombies.
- 29th July - Slob around Christchurch. Continue to be jet-lag zombies.
- 30th July - Catch the TranzAlpine Scenic train from Christchurch across the Southern Alps to Greymouth. Pick up the car, then do some sightseeing - up north to the Pancake Rocks and then south to spend the night at Franz Josef.
- 31st July - Trip to Fox Glacier. It will be epic. And cold, probably. Very, very cold.
- 1st August - Drive down to Queenstown. Spend the afternoon wandering around the town and admiring the cold, cold views.
- 2nd August - Take a day trip down to Milford Sound (not booked yet). Try not to squee at all the pretties.
- 3rd August - Drive east over to Dunedin. There's not a lot there, so it'll be a nice relaxed day.
- 4th August - Drive north up to Kaikoura. Various stops on the way, including the Moeraki Boulders, which are awesome. It's a 6.5 hour drive, so Amy and Claire will no doubt collapse when we get there.
Sunday, 25 May 2014
The (Un)official Mascot
Did anyone else have Beanie Babies as a kid? Stupid question - loads of people did. I was just one of those people who kept them all in a box in the hope that one day I'd have a use for them. So when we decided to go to New Zealand, I decided we had to have this little guy as our mascot.
Its name is Beak, it's a Kiwi and regardless of what Claire and Amy might think, it's coming to New Zealand with us. I intend to take photos of him everywhere we go, because I'm just that sad.
In other news, planning resumes tomorrow, so maybe we'll actually get round to updating this blog more often. Woo! Let the countdown to July 26th commence.
Its name is Beak, it's a Kiwi and regardless of what Claire and Amy might think, it's coming to New Zealand with us. I intend to take photos of him everywhere we go, because I'm just that sad.
In other news, planning resumes tomorrow, so maybe we'll actually get round to updating this blog more often. Woo! Let the countdown to July 26th commence.
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