A Snippet of Life

I've realised that it's not until you go back into civilisation for more than three nights that you notice quite how awful backpackers can be. We stayed at Base throughout New Zealand without any problems, but Sydney showed them all. The bathroom was gross, so much so that I didn't want to shower for fear that it'd make me dirtier. Trust me, it was that bad. The place was like a maze, making you feel trapped and it lacked any atmosphere too. This is before I mention the bar attached and my experience there.  We'd had a lovely afternoon walking around Sydney and the weather was great making this even more pleasant. Another of our Kiwi Experience friends was heading home so after a chill with him and the farewells, we continued more of a mooch before coming back to get ready for my friends birthday night out. While purchasing 'goon' at the local bottlo, the guy working told us a great shop to get cheap cups. We entered and were in our element as it was ...

The first bit of entertainment on my next adventure came during the flight from New Zealand to Brisbane with the hilariously dramatic Air New Zealand flight safety video. If you haven't seen it, watch it. It is something else. They discuss "the greatest place ever created" in their "little corner of the world" - so theatrical. My inflight happiness continued as I sat with two lovely ladies and we discussed and compared our time in New Zealand along with them informing me that there was a tremor which was 3.5 on the richter scale in Christchurch at 5:36am that morning. So, as you can imagine and judging by my exaggeration skills, I was pretty happy to leave that place, as lovely as it had been. I arrived in Brisbane and was met by my first lovely hosts headed back to the house and got stuck into a bottle of white. Lovely. Surprisingly, I wasn't feeling tired despite having gone back in time three hours so I should have begun flagging. Luckily I didn't ...

Before I'd left the UK I had high hopes for Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. I was doing none of the adrenaline fuelling activities though; partly for financial reasons, partly because I didn't fancy jumping off a 134 metre platform and getting thrown about whilst dangling upside down. Especially not after I'd seen a girl who'd done it and her bruised eyes - how's that even possible? Everybody had told me how great the place was though, including a random bloke as I entered LAX airport and told him that I was off to New Zealand. These expectations were definitely met when we arrived.  Surrounded by mountains and the bluest of lakes, Queenstown is a small but buzzing place with the addition of a jazz festival  in the centre adding to the atmosphere (we timed that well). The scenery cannot be fully captured on a camera, nor can it be sufficiently described in words so I'm afraid to say that if you wish to witness it, you'll have to make a v...

Everything about our hostel at Franz Josef was great at a first glance. Another hostel dog greeted us (as did the friendly owner bearing alcoholic beverages), the wifi was free, the hot tub was the biggest in the country and the showers were something else complete with hair straighteners in front of each mirror! We were all sleep deprived and mildly hanging from our night before so were looking forward to chilling and having a fairly early night ready for our Helihike the following morning.  My friend and I thought we'd test the hot tub before we tried out the luscious looking showers. However, this hot tub was far from hot and the jets weren't working. This, added to the fact that an inappropriate couple decided to start getting it on beside us, led to a swift exit out of the tub and into the showers. These also didn't live up to our high expectations. They were luke warm at the highest temperature and quite frankly a bit of a let down.  Despite this, we did manage to ...

Our ferry ride to the south island summed up our time in the north weather-wise - so much rain. Thankfully, when we arrived in the south the clouds lifted and we were welcomed by clear blue skies along our journey to Kaiteriteri. This meant that we instantly HAD to get changed into shorts and vest tops to make the most of this rarity and head to the beautiful beach just outside of our hostel. Despite shivering the entire time, it was nice to look at a sunny view but after half an hour we began moaning to the boys so they'd end their ball game and we could all go in for tea. I already liked this part of New Zealand and I'm not ashamed to say that this initial love was solely because of the amount of vineyards I saw on the journey. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand is one of my favourites so being surrounded by it made me very happy. Vineyard after vineyard. Lush. While we're on the topic of alcohol I'll discuss a problem we've been having during th...

We set off from Rotorua for a short drive to Te Puia, a geothermal valley home to the southern hemisphere's largest geyser. Apart from the eggy smell which got right into your nostrils and nobody knowing how to pronounce the word 'geyser', it was so cool to see all the mud pools, hot springs and water explosions erupting up to 30 ft above ground. Here, we should also have seen Kiwi birds which I'm desperate to see but they were too busy sleeping so I'm still waiting for that. We then drove about an hour to Taupo and due to the rubbish weather, everything we intended on doing here (including the crossing) was cancelled so we spent the afternoon playing mini golf. Though you can play this at any tacky coastal resort in England, I had lots of fun and got a hole in one too which was a bonus.  Next stop was Pac'n'save to load up on beverages for the evening, then back to the hostel for dinner and a few pre drinks before heading out. Another fun, boozy nigh...

Hungover. Yes, leg two of the kiwi experience began with the world's biggest hangover. I never usually include my poorly states in posts as they're pretty frequent and dull to write about, but this one was something else so I couldn't leave it out. We intended on going for the classic 'couple of drinks' during our night in Auckland knowing full well that we had another early start the next day heading south to hot water beach. However, as always, this escalated rapidly and eleven jugs later, we were smashed and having a very fun time. When my alarm went off at half 7 the following morning, I hoped and prayed that I was dreaming as I was in no state to be starting my day. Still feeling a little drunk, I had a shower and attempted to get myself together before waking my friend who may or may not have got concussion from her drunken fall. Luckily she woke and, though bruised and cut, was ok and thankfully feeling as awful as me so we could suffer together. In fact, ...

Frozen. I shivered my way from the airport to the city to find my hostel. I was, as predicted, entirely delirious due to skipping a day and on-off sleeping roughly 2 hours on the flight. I always plan it to work perfectly. To sleep when it's night time in my destination country, hoping to arrive slotting nicely into the next time zone. However, this never works which is mostly the airplanes fault. I was sound asleep and then the tannoy blasted out and the lights switched on announcing breakfast. It was 2am New Zealand time. I wasn't best impressed. My incoherence was instantly noticeable when I thought I'd successfully completed customs; a self serve machine where I answered two questions, scanned my passport and was granted a visa. I grabbed my bag then noticed the long lines and realised that even in New Zealand, they don't let you in that easily. If any of you remember my Australian experience of customs three years ago, you'll know that I declared everything....

Sadly my flight to LA wasn't a connecting flight and when I asked the lady at information where I can store my luggage, she looked at me as if I'd asked her to solve the world's problems. I took the massive hint along with my life for two months and tried to explore LA in the seven hours that I had.  The complete saviour that is Google Maps got me to Griffiths observatory from which I could see the Hollywood sign and a lovely view of downtown LA in the distance. It was surrounded by rocky mountains so it was very peaceful sitting and watching the world go by in the thirty degree heat (I'm not even going to attempt to convert that to Fahrenheit). It was even nicer to take my luggage off before my back broke. As always, I chatted to some lovely people along the way which gave me a great impression of California despite being somewhat terrified on the Metro initially. A guy kicked off big time as everybody looked at the ground, attempting not to make eye contact...

The line at security in JFK airport, was huge and when I saw the first sniffer dog in my life walking up and down, I almost wanted someone to have something on them, just for a bit of entertainment. The dog was so cute though and the urge to pet it was high, but I didn't want to mess with the serious cop on the other end of the lead, so I avoided that. The drama didn't end there as we boarded the plane and waited to depart to find the first traffic jam of planes I'd ever seen. There must have been around ten waiting in line before us so we knew that we'd be delayed. Eventually, we began to move...for around thirty seconds before coming to a sudden halt with a thump. "That didn't sound good, that didn't sound good at all", said the lady sitting next to me as we mildly panicked. I was freaked out until we touched down in Orlando. The turbulence didn't help and in my tired and ever so slightly dramatic state, I was convinced that was the last fli...

Edging out of my hotel at half past five in the morning then edging straight back in as soon as I saw people, presuming they were going to kill me because it was dark, I took m y extremely country bumpkin self to the subway. Thankfully, I survived and made it to central New York to catch my bus to Niagara.  I've gathered on this trip so far that I have an approachable face and instantly made friends in the line with an American man. Fifteen minutes into our journey, I realised that when he said 'do you have that over there' he actually meant Europe rather than England. He aligned my roots in the U.K to brilliant coffee (that would be Italy), stunning mountains full of snow (that's the alps) and delicious chocolate (that's in Belgium). He sat swearing the whole time, bitching about being on a coach and claiming all the guide was telling us about American history  was wrong, while constantly pining for his next cigar. He also decided that the guide was stalking...