Hamilton March 12th

Every time I said I was going to Hamilton, people looked at me like I was crazy. Admittedlyin Blenheim I had read a column in the Sunday paper that mentioned the age-old question of whether going to Hamilton was like being dead (or something) but I had to go – it was all part of the Richie-stalking... I mean rugby-watching schedule. Chiefs vs. Crusaders in the Waikato Stadium at 1935 – my stay in Hamiltron (lol @ morgue) would last a mere 19 hours.

The bus journey was uneventful, for a change we had a nice cheerful driver (props to Stan) on the 'real' bus (as opposed to Stray). This one was Intercity, as the times suited better than the cheaper nakedbus. I think it was $22 vs. $12 but nakedbus would have trapped me there longer. I went YHA again – ten minutes from the transport centre my ass. On a bicycle maybe. It was closer to 25, and with all my stuff that's a painful walk. Anyway, got there, dude was the most Irish looking Kiwi I have ever seen and, well, there was something I couldn't put my finger on but I thought he was a bit lairy I guess. Meh. For those of you who have cast a scornful eye over the bedroom in my flat, let me now inform you that for NZ$55 (or 45 if you are me) you can stay in a smaller bedroom, with a sink outside the door. The whole place is a strange set-up, it feels a bit like someone took their mother's house and subdivided the rooms until they got a motel. There was a washing machine/dryer IN the lounge. The kitchen was a mess and I wouldn't trust the cleaning. But it was less than 5 minutes walk to the stadium so score on that front – no scary long dark trek back unlike Christchurch.

I left just before 630 with the intention of going to Subway, but that was on the opposite side of an enormous intersection and I just got frustrated with the lights. Foolish – I ended up paying stadium prices for crap food. As I was walking into the ground, the Chiefs were doing a haka to the Gallagher stand – pity I missed that. It may have had something to do with a player called Liam Messenga, but I don't know. Poor kid was up against Richie (playing in the unfamiliar number 6 jersey) and was all hyped up and his supporters were in that stand so obviously he got trashed in the first five minutes and had to go off.

As in Christchurch, the world cup money is flowing so there was also a brand new stand here (the Brian Perry, I think) but behind one goal is the Embankment. This is an embankment. Grass with those things for leaning on. I haven't seen the like in years. I can't imagine the chaos if we or say the Scots end up down there for a big WC game – it was enough of a party with the high school kids and students, I really wanted to be in there! But my seat was good, so close I could smell the turf – 7 rows from the pitch and only 2 behind the Crusaders bench. Good position for checking out Richie during the warm-up (man he has a long routine) but not so good for photos (could you not just stop moving) and not a great view of Carter. Seriously, Carter isn't in Richie's league in terms of superstardom over here, perhaps the trip to France has tainted him or something but they all – opposition fans included – go crazy for Richie but don't seem that pushed about pretty boy Daniel.

The game itself was once again riddled with errors, I thought by this stage things would have improved by the Super 14s isn't Heineken cup standard by any stretch of the imagination. It does show that the international teams are far greater than the sum of their parts though. The Crusaders scrum half walked in two tries – I can only assume it was because he was so short he was below their eyeline – but the game was just kicking kicking kicking. I've never seen so many garryowens in my life. It was a bit dire, though Donald did get an amazing kick to touch almost the length of the field. There was a load of penalties for offside, and the scrum couldn't stand up for all the tea in China (the screen seemed to have offside or incorrect binging on it for the whole game) but Carter missed a couple so Chiefs were back in with a shot, but ultimately didn't pull it off. Sivivatu was complete shite by the way. I'm sure by June they'll all be kick-ass monsters again though.

There were a couple of funny incidents – Richie got a telling off for dangerous play that anyone else would have got binned for (I'm not sure how he got the leverage but he managed to dump someone on their head by tackling them below their knees) – it must be great being the king of New Zealand really. Sean 'hands like feet' Maitland (seriously these two wingers cannot keep the ball in hand with any consistency, it is very annoying, but at least Maitland is less of a glory hound than Zac wotsit) was taken off, and someone behind me shouted 'tough love pretty boy' or some such, and he popped his head up and gave them a big grin – I can indeed confirm he is a pretty, pretty boy. And apparently has a sense of humour! Lots of the Crusaders players did autographs but of course Richie and Dan Carter sped off the pitch, saving themselves for Christchurch I guess. They must be sick of it really, they get mobbed (I said Carter's star wasn't as bright these days, but he is obviously still really popular, I just wasn't expecting Richie to be so much more popular) and the rest of the lads can wander around and have a bit of a laugh. Chiefs were off down the pub for a meet and greet, which seemed mad to me, but I guess they were in a VIP area or whatever.

Back to the hostel where my neighbour played random music very loudly and in a very strange manner. The sound quality was crap, and he'd only play about half a song before taking a break and then repeating. It was very odd. And he charged in and out of the room a few times. There was loud music from elsewhere, sounded like a band or something, and the traffic noise was bad so things did not bode well for a good sleep. I watched some show about spies? that work in a hardware store? i don't know. Jayne from Firefly was in it. Oh and Simon as well. It was WEIRD and had a distinct Ugly Betty vibe. Anyone know what it is? Also saw an ad for Grey's – what has Heigl done to her head? That's some mean revenge by the producers for her antics, giving her world's worst haircut.

Next morning was uneventful other than the crisis where the BNZ machine seemed to have crashed with my card in, but it eventually copped itself on after giving me a good solid panic attack. I had a look around the shops as I don't think my skanky clothes are going to cut the mustard in BA (I've been living in my Cantos this week since it's been a bit colder) but couldn't make a decision. I guess I'll find stuff in BA itself – hence why I have decided to leave a day earlier than planned, before I buy too much! I have another couple of days there at the end.

Next stop, Auckland.

Stray Day 4 & 5 – Queenstown

After a lunch stop in Wanaka and dropping some people off, we headed onto Queenstown. Home of the bungy. Basically in Queenstown you spend all day throwing yourself out of/off of things and all night partying in backpacker bars. Hmm. Wanaka was pretty, and after a wander trying to find some place in the book (the books, no matter how new they are, are out-of-date – places close, people move on) we settled on a nice cafe facing the water. You know how you all want fat and grease and carbs when you're hungover? I crave fruit. Fruit fruit fruit. Pineapple is a particularly good cure. So I had a divine fruit plate – yoghurt, plum, apple, blueberries, pineapple and the piece de resistance, some grilled banana. YUM. Wanaka (not just for the fruit plate) is somewhere I think I'd like to visit properly. They apparently have an awesome cinema, with sofas and beer and cake. Sounds cool.

We stopped on the way into Queenstown at the world's first commercial bungy site, where we watched a bungy video. This made me actually think I was going to throw up. Whatever extremely remote chance people had of convincing me to give it a go disappeared here – though the bungy from the centre of the Eiffel Tower was kind of funny. (I'm sure it's on Youtube). Lisa and Olivia took on the might of the bridge, fair play to them but Not. For. Me.

On into town (Lisa sopping wet, god bless her) and into Nomads, our hostel for the next couple of days. It's brand new, it's really nice but it is a party hostel. Maybe most of the Queenstown hostels are like that, I heard Base is an absolute kip, with push button showers like a public swimming pool – grim. Cougar had arranged ten dollar pizza in the Thirsty Ram but since I don't really like pizza and wanted something nice I went to Wai instead. It was maybe a touch too posh for me on my own in my pseudobackpacker persona, but hey, let's give it a go. I had monkfish wrapped in parma ham, with some pork belly and scallops, and a beautful view across the lake. Ok, it was expensive, but it was really really nice (though again like Christchurch the monkfish was perhaps a tad overcooked – the pork belly was divine though, just a small piece as pork belly can be overwhelming). I went up to the Ram to meet the others but it was loud and techno and I wasn't in the mood so off to bed early.

Good thing too as Nomads is one of those crappy music playing hostels – the speaker was right outside our door and started at 930. WTF? I assume it is in part to encourage folk to make their 10am checkout but OMG annoying. Since the bar next door had been going til uite late I was less than pleased by this turn of events. Oh well, up and out – we had en-suite facilities (the sinks are ridiculously small in these, with a glass shelf overhead making washing your face an adventure sport in itself) so a leisurely shower and out to explore the town.

Which took about ten minutes, Queenstown is a tourist town. It has tourist activities, tourist restaurants and many shops. So, shopping then. I ended up dropping a fortune in Canterbury, they had some nice ¾ lengths trackies, as I went to pay I spotted a zippy non-hooded hoodie (sweatshirt sounds so 80s) and I tried on an Ugly shirt (I believe they make these out of the scraps of the actual team colours) which didn't fit. The man in the shop them opened up his new delivery to find my size so of course I had to get one then... I love it but oh my god the total expenditure was way too much. I then went for a lake cruise, which was nice but well, a lake cruise is a lake cruise. Queenstown views are beautiful but the whole place is so artificial, so touristy, that it detracts from the Remarkable views (the main range here is called the Remarkables) for me.

We had arranged to meet up for Fergburger dinner. Fergburger is a Queenstown legend but I have to say it's no Jo'Burger. Nice, but I have had better/cooler/bigger burgers back home. Still it is cheap and good and filling. Sitting outside in the blazing sun didn't help I guess. Back to the hostel to get changed and have a few drinks before hitting the night life. I am sure there are many many bars here but everyone ends up in World Bar. if you want to party hard and drink cocktails from teapots and dance to crappy house music in a meatmarket, great. It's not really for me.

Stray Day 8 – Dunedin (22nd February)

After a lie in until 10am or so (not that it was required after a hardcore night of watching Road to Perdition in bustling Invercargill) and a delay due to some issue with the pickup from the Stewart Island ferry, we headed off to the Catlins and Dunedin.

First stop was Waipapa Point, to hopefully see some sea lions. There was a terrible shipwreck here in the 1880s, so they built a wooden lighthouse which is still standing. I didn't see any sea lions and most of us gave up and headed back to the bus, but one tenacious type stuck it out and found one much to the jealousy of the rest of the bus. Ah well. Then we went to Porpoise Bay to look for Hector dolphins, I didn't see any but we did find a seal on the beach. He was a bit lazy and fat, but hey, it's proper wildlife and stuff.

Off onwards with a drop-off in Waikawa, a random backwater town, I'd love to know why she got out there since the minimum time she had to stay was 5 days and a stop at Purakaunui Falls, a very pretty tiered waterfall. By this point our driver had started a forfeits game, so everyone who was late back to the bus, or said the word 'mine' had to do pushups or starjumps. Bizarrely this was the spot where a bunch of people were late back and had to do forfeits – no fun with a whole bus watching you and jeering. If you ever go here, do not use the loos – I forget the name but basically they've stuck a bowl over a very deep hole in the ground, and the person before me must have had a feed of pints the night before. Grim.

We got to Dunedin about 515, and were booked to go on a tour of Speights Brewery at 7. This led to fairly frantic showering and getting ready while Angela and Keith proceeded to complain a lot about how long I was taking! It was about 25 minutes in total, jeez. Anyway, after all that we ended up having dinner in Subway and going to the brewery where we were of course first there. I could have straightened my hair and everything (ok, probably not). The tour was very good, the guide was funny and kept us moving through the brewery quickly. All the workers had gone home so there wasn't much happening but it is interesting how they have the tour in the working brewery, with exhibition machines right next to the real deal. Then we went for a scientific beer tasting of the 6 brews currently on offer. I only sipped someone else's porter, did not like it. The light beer and the regular are nice, and they have a very interesting summer brew which tastes of apricots – would be great to have instead of cider on a summer beer garden afternoon. Then crazily we were allowed pour our own – letting 22 backpackers loose on taps seems like a bad idea, but it worked out fine. Speights have a pub on a barge in London, I'm so going there next time I'm over. It's a pub. On a boat. What's not to like (especially if they sent Kiwi barstaff as well...)

Also the guide told us it was o-week in Dunedin, i.e. first week of college (seems to be everyone not just freshers?) so we were up for a good night – to get an idea we should look up Dunedin riots on youtube. (try find the one with about 50 drunk students doing the haka for the riot police... he said it was class. Yes, students here are so wild they need the riot police. Makes freshers week back home look like a toddler's tea party). Riots eh? The perfect antidote to invercargill I guess.

Next stop (via multiple shops and atms and standing around and asking where's x, as you can imagine when trying to move 22 tiddly folk from one place to another) was a bar called the stadium, formerly the stock exchange, where it had been indicated we would get free shots and there would be jelly wrestling. Um... well I'll go with the group I guess, we had been promised discounted drinks as well. Turns out to get free shots you had to actually participate in the jelly wrestling (or... well we won't go into that now ;)) which was really unappealing. The students went for it hardcore though, some of the girls were really intense. It was almost frightening. What was frightening was how happy they all were to strip down to bra and undies in the bar to put back on their real clothes. They were about 2 feet from the ladies room... must be part of the show. We hung out there for a while, talking to various random people, including a very important farmer (his friend made sure i knew he managed 1400 cows, and most farms have only 500) but I could only focus on mocking his mullet. Seriously, I'm not sure what it is in NZ but loads of the boys have mullets, I blame Dan Carter et al and their fancy rugby boy haircuts. However since they are not underfed scrawny spotty pale chavtastic kids like the mullet wearers back home, they all almost get away with it. Almost. It's still a mullet. Dunedin was the first place I talked to actual Kiwis that weren't serving me something, which is why I especially liked it.

Next was monkey bar, which was a converted church with the dj box in the organ. AMAZING venue. The sunken dancefloor was surrounded by walls, upon which toga clad freshers danced without care for the precariousness of their position. The place was jammed, the atmosphere was electric, the choons were great – I just hit the floor and gave it loads. So. Much. Fun. Headed off coming up to 3 in a desperate search for a kebab which failed – instead the rest got chips from Night & Day. We walked up to the shop where there were two young fellas hanging around outside who I thought might know where to go leading to a question something like 'hey, do you know if there's any food places oh my god you have your hands down your pants I can't talk to you anymore'. Well he did, for no reason. Young fellas are weird. There was also a problem which had the children threatening one of our guys with getting his head kicked in for telling them to shut up, my logical response to this was that you can't possibly get into fights on a Monday (it made sense at the time) and anyway we managed to escape unscathed. i was inconsolable later to discover that what had actually happened was when asked about food, they said there was a burger place to which our guy responded that 'it's just shut up' which means closed in Northern (see what I have learned from soaps) and it all got confused from there. Literally I ended up doubled over unable to breathe with laughter in the kitchen when this was explained later.

So brewery tour, great nightclub, random hilarious incidents with locals, demented students, talking to actual Kiwis – Dunedin rocked. It may not do so when college is out, but I had a great time. Next morning we stopped on our way out at the steepest street in the world, Baldwin St. Having walked many of the streets of San Francisco, I decided to skip this one. It was hot, I am lazy, I'd probably have fallen down it in some kind of amusing (for others) fashion.

Pretty much direct back to Queenstown from here. I wasn't looking forward to it after last time, but who knows what could happen?

Stray Day 7 - Invercargill

Today started early with a 6am departure from Gunn's Camp (hope I never see that place again) and a rush to Bluff to get the guys on the 1030 ferry to Stewart Island. i would have liked to have gone over but it was too expensive and to get value you need to stay a few nights, which I do not have. We took a 'nice walk' up to Stirling Point. It was very pretty but unexpectedly steep so quite the work out. Then on to our hostel in Invercargill, Tuatura Lodge. First time on the top bunk, it feels quite precarious up here. Every tap of the keyboard makes the whole thing wobble!

I'm pretty sure the zombie apocalypse has already happened in Invercargill, but the zombies are boy racer shaped (the soundtrack to this post is roaring modified exhausts). There is nothing to do here. There is nobody here. The pub recommended in Lonely Planet doesn't open on Sundays. The streets are deserted. The girl in the supermarket was completely incompetent, I think her brain was already eaten.

There is a lovely park – so man of the towns have nice parks with flower gardens and fountains and so on – with an aviary and a little animal enclosure. There are some giant guinea pigs and even more giant wild pigs, and a stag with huge antlers, but they all looked a bit depressed and didn't do much. I had Hell pizza for dinner, had to be done at least once in the home country of Hell (more brain eaten staff though – I hope we get out in one piece).

Stray Day 2 & 3 – Franz Josef Glacier Hike (16 February) & Makarora (17 Feb)

Up early for what is most likely the most active part of the whole trip – a full day hike on the Franz Josef Glacier. This is the second largest glacier in New Zealand (I don't know if there are guided hikes on the largest, the Tasman Glacier, perhaps it's not as pretty as Franz Josef or Fox). Some of the group were doing what became known as “ze 'eli 'ike” (must be said in the Frenchest French accent you can possibly manage) which allowed them to skip the boring part and get straight on the ice – for the extra $160 it didn't seem worth it to me, not least because I am convinced that one day the universe is going to wake up and realise that helicopters simply should not work and will reboot that particular law of physics, and all the 'elis will fall out of the sky. Best to avoid being on one in case today is that day.

We walked up to the Franz Josef Glacier Guides office to get briefed and kitted out with boots, crampons and optional rain gear. I decided to take it all – overtrousers, jacket, gloves (unexpectedly, mittens) and woolly hat. The boots weigh about 17 tons, how y'all wander about on a day to day basis strapped into New Rocks is beyond me. I ended up wearing two two pairs of proper wool socks on the suggestion of one of the guides as I fell between sizes in the boots, I was so glad I discussed this predicament when people started complaining of blisters from loose boots before we even got on the ice.

A quick bus ride to the car park and we mooched out onto the valley floor where we were split up into groups between the various hot instructors. This is a common theme in New Zealand,the percentage of hot fit blokes working in pretty much everything you encounter from pubs to tours is very high. Yay is a mild expression of my feelings on that (is it any wonder I want to move here?*) I immediately chose the loser group i.e. the slowest, having negative confidence in my fitness and bravery levels. (As it turned out, group one (the fastest) went so fast they didn't have time to stop and look and take photos, so that was disappointing for some people.) Then it was a good half hour trek across the leavings of the glacier towards the terminal moraine (see, fancy words what I remember from geography, despite the best efforts of my demented teacher to ensure I knew nothing at all of the subject – she was equally successful with my French). This was made less than pleasant by the weight of the boots and jacket etc was shed as it became very warm. We stopped to put on crampons and wait our turn to go up on the ice. Standing there I commented to Lisa that there were mental people hanging off the rocks hacking at them. Turns out they were making steps for us to go up the INCREDIBLY STEEP AND FRIGHTENING face of the glacier. I felt ill.

Crampons on and triple checked, advance to the steps gingerly, both from fear and the awkwardness of walking in the crampons (unlike the guides, who were running around like mountain goats in theirs). Despite looking like rocks in the photos, these are actually ice, it just happens to be rock-covered ice. Heart in mouth I hauled myself up there watching only where the next step was and trying not to catch my hand between the rope and the wall of dirty ice it was attached to. Once up top and I recommenced breathing, there was a longish period of walking across the rocky part to get to the good ice.

And it is good. It is spectacular. I can't even describe it really, these huge waves of ice that look like they froze mid-crash to surf, the various holes and tunnels and pools looking even prettier as the sun glints off them, the views... it's really amazing. Definitely worth the money, though trying to convince people of that later in the trip was hard (bloody backpackers, come all the way here and then don't do anything cause they have no money, or spent it all on beer) because it is just something you need to experience. Maybe not for a full day, as towards the end I got a bit tired of glaciers but that was just cause I was worn out.

We walked through multiple narrow crevasses, handily helped in some places by our very nice guide setting handropes for us (most guides didn't) to help with steep bits. one of the last of which I just slid through on my ass on the wall because it was just faster (and exciting, i'm easily pleased) and also went though a very wet tunnel as a a special surprise. That was way cool. Best to just look at the photos but it won't convey the experience. You should all just go do it.

What was just MENTAL was the random man who ran past us wearing naught but tiny running shorts and crampons on his runners. There we were, sitting down taking in the view when a nearly naked insane person appeared moving at speed. Bizarre. He had a brief (since he didn't stop) conversation with our guide about times and training and so on, it seems people will run up anything these days.

Approaching the aforementioned INCREDIBLY STEEP AND FRIGHTENING steps to get back down from the ice was even more terrifying from the top. Especially as I had already nearly fallen off something by tangling my crampons due to tiredness, which is scary. I actually felt nauseous. But I got down, and we struggled through the long, long walk back to the car park. Luckily we had pre-rewarded ourselves with a trip to the hot pools near the hostel.

The hot pools were beautiful, out in the rainforest (though there is a canopy above to keep out leaves and so on. Three pools of 36, 38 and 40 degrees soothed our aches and pains. There was a strange Frenchman (aka Jesus) who wandered around declaiming from whatever book he was reading, and a (German?) couple who got a little more excited about things than they really should have (well, he got excited and she... dealt with it) which was gross, but other than that it was very relaxing and very lovely. Back to town for a nice dinner in The Landing (I had ribs, and made a mess) then to the hostel bar for laundry, drinks and chat (at the same time – multitasking, you know0 - unsurprisingly though, not a late night for many.

Next day was a long one on the bus, the only stop I recall being at Knight's Point. As became a feature of this trip, whatever animal was supposed to be there, wasn't. We overnighted in Makarora (pop. 40) in these lovely little triangular cabins. They'd be even more lovely for the voyeurs amongst you as the shower is very viewable from the back, due to unfortunate window placement. I thought this was the end of civilisation – little did I know. There was karaoke. Less said about that the better. A good night was had by all though apparently (I might not 100% remember every last bit of it, to be honest, in part due to only having a toasted sandwich for dinner – when Cougar said there was no shop i didn't really think that that meant there wasn't much food of any kind to be had. Oops).

Next stop, Queenstown.

* But I don't want to be forced into it!

Stray Day 1 - Christchurch to Franz Josef

Up at 6ish for the bus to Greymouth to join up with the Stray bus, who I am touring the South Island with. I didn't sleep fantastically well, in part because I was so terrified of missing the 7am bus!

The journey was pretty, nice views along the way as we crossed the alps via Arthur's Pass. There was some rain though, and the bus windows were very dirty so no good photos unfortunately. Landed in Greymouth just over an hour before the bus was due, so had a wander around. Greymouth is rubbish.

I felt a bit intimidated getting on the Stray bus, as it looked quite busy so they'd all know each other already. Turns out they'd partied hard the night before also, so were well bonded by this point. I sat myself next to Angela and we mooched on to Hokitika. This mainly involved going to the supermarket. As it turned out, supermarket stops would become a big feature of the bus. Since I had no intention of cooking at any point, this was less than interesting. We had a couple of photo stops to check first views of the glacier and soon we reached Franz Josef.

I'd been advised to do the full day glacier hike, and despite my trepidation I signed up and forked out 160 bucks (that was with the discount!) for the hike and a trip to the hot pools afterwards. There was some ogling of the guides who were wandering around the building, then onto the Rainforest Retreat hostel. It's fine, really doesn't have enough showers/toilets but other than that seems okay. I went for the backpacker meal in the bar and got talking to some people, 2 girls from the North who had also joined the bus that day and some of the others as the night went on. Early to bed though to be up for the glacier!

Sydney

I've never had the slightest interest in visiting Australia. It's not like I've actively taken against it (unlike Thailand, for example – last place on earth I want to go, disease torn/war zones obviously excluded), it just always elicted a response of 'meh' when mentioned. Yes, there is sun – I love sun, despite how it hates me. There are beaches – I like these in theory more than practise, sand in my birkies being a long-held aggravation. There are surf boys – hmmm, whatever. Other places have sun and sand and surf boys, like Hawaii. Hawaii might be cool. It'd probably have shopping as well. I only came to Sydney because I knew some people there and my travel agent said it didn't cost anything extra to stop off, and it broke up the flight.

{Aside – wtf is a wobegong? oh, they haven't actually called an animal a woebegone, have they? I find it hard to believe something that silly tried to eat a surfer. It is quite woeful.}

First day in Sydney involved an early dim sum breakfast with some very excitable children, followed by general mooching around being shown some key sights by the now local Sadhbh, my very gracious hostess for the few days.

The Opera House really is spectacular, I first saw it from The Rocks and the next day from Mrs. Mcqauries chair, so got both sides. I had a nice walk through the Botanic Gardens and went to the art gallery (one good Reubens self-portrait and a pretty Monet, but then all Monets are pretty aren't they? but in general a fairly dull collection other than some of the modern stuff which is interesting, two Gilbert & Georges in particular standing out – whether for the shock factor or the artistic value I'm not sure. Through the wonders of Facebook i met up with Brian for lunch and a trip to Wildlife World, where we saw many insects and an ENORMOUS crocodile. Oh and kangaroo dangly bits – they are super dangly.

In general though while I couldn't say Sydney was a disappointment given my lack of interest in it before going, I had hoped it would change my mind and impress me, but it really didn't.

The most obvious failing of Sydney is that the shopping is pathetic. Not a big deal for many, I know, but fairly critical for me; it is my major hobby after all. I didn't actually look at shoes, since I definitely do not have space for more shoes. There seems to be two types of clothes other than the usual top-end designer stuff: firstly, stuff similar to Swamp (and its ilk, you know the crappy shop in the local shopping centre, full of synthetic fabrics and poor stitching) where a top costs between 20 and 40 dollars and then Australian brands where a top costs 200 dollars. That's the guts of one hundred and fifty euro for something that sits somewhere between Oasis and Monsoon. I have been informed that the first Zara store just opened – it will clean up. Big time – Zara is an astonishing brand as it is* but it has not so much as a button of competition in Sydney. I wanted three things (as previously mentioned) none of which were difficult in a sunny summer city, or so you would think; ¾ length shorts, a t-shirt or two and a summer dress. I thought the shorts would be simple, in the actual home of Billabong and possibly Quiksilver and Rip Curl (fact check required). But no. Sigh.

* Reminds me, I saw a fascinating book in the Christchurch library about fashion branding I really must hunt down when I get home

Singapore to Sydney

After the difficulty of figuring out what terminal I was departing from, which didn't help my irrational conviction that I was in the airport on the wrong day (I've not been sure all week what day it actually is, such confusion caused in part by time zone changes and in part by heading up from Cork on Monday rather than Sunday, an event that always throws my mental positioning in the calendar out of balance), and failing to find food, the flight itself was dull. We were delayed as two passengers failed to board, so their luggage had to be removed. I fear it was the unfortunate lady ahead of me at check-in and her husband, she left her handbag in the taxi. Hopefully she got it back, Singaporean honesty and morals would suggest she did, or will.

I watched District 9 – what a galactically upsetting movie. Seriously. I was traumatised. There was no way I was touching The Hurt Locker after that. Food was worse than the LHR-SIN leg, service was equally disinterested. Qantas – not my favourite airline. I should have known, I've seen the crew on off-days in Singapore, it's not surprising that they're not in the best of moods on the plane. My travel agent has somehow managed to stick me near the crying babies twice so far – I need to do seat checks for the flights in and out of South America to make sure I am not near any bulkheads. 20 hours of screaming infants is the opposite of fun. If this trip turns out to be exceptionally successful and I marry a Kiwi, my theoretical husband can take any theoretical kids to visit their theoretical grandparents by himself if he so wishes. I won't be holding my breath on the realisation of such a theoretical scenario however.

On landing, I thought we had taken a wrong turn and I was back home (this might not have been entirely unwelcome) as it is RAINING. In AUSTRALIA. Ok so I'd been warned such a thing was possible but it is summer and did I mention AUSTRALIA? It never rained in Home and Away* except when there was a requirement for a storm of epic, cast clearout proportions. Getting out of the airport and into the rain took about an hour – they do take their immigration seriously here. Which is hard to take seriously when the dude on the counter is called Pascal and is a Nordie. Anyway, queued for a million years, in some kind of random arrangement occasionally disrupted by an angry older lady who only got angrier when people failed to understand the directions she was clearly giving telepathically as she didn't actually speak them. Then they scanned my bags on the way out! OUT! Main target here seems to have been food, as one woman was arguing quite vociferously over a cured ham (iberico? serrano? I couldn't tell from where I was) while the rest of the biological crims looked sheepish about their various sandwiches and other food items. My crème egg survived.

Time to see if I've been horribly wrong about Australia.

* You know H&A is a fundamental part of the fabric of Irish society when you're trying to explain something (obviously crucial) about Emmerdale and you can see the lightbulb ping, “so Hotton is like the Yabbey Creek of Emmerdale!” and clearly it is understood that this relationships bears true in both relative size and location terms but more importantly in 'bad influence' terms.

Singapore part 2 - Shopping, or the lack thereof

Singapore ended up being a total clothes fail scenario. Even Forever 21 let me down. I'm not sure why I am surprised at such a turn of events, I've been to the US 6 times and only crossed it's portal once that I am aware of, considering it not do much beneath me but the kind of cheap trash (the closest parallel I can think of is New Look) I can get at home. Of course such places always have the odd gem, but it's never seemed worth bringing home (as part of my 40+kgs, ah those were the days).

However, one of the make up bloggers I read & watch (lollipop26, who became netfamous on youtube but also has a blog) is a big fan, and i started going in there when I saw it in Singapore. I think I only got one item, it is a gem though. But really this venture is pointless as the blogger is a completely different shape, coloring, everything to me, so what suits her does not suit me. for example, racer back vests. And teal. Sigh. This time I was convinced Forever 21 would be the place to sort me out for a nice semi-cazh top and maybe a vest, but no. Nothing.

So all I have to show for my trip is a refill for my eyebrow-drawer-inner (ah pants, I forgot to get my eyebrows done), a lipgloss, a concealer brush from Sephora (seriously, why do we not have Sephora in the British Isles? No, Boots is not the same) a Kipling bag (I've always hated the bag I brought – a crossbody style purchased for practicality not looks, it's the fallback for when I'm stuck for a gig or match but the strap irritates my neck, and it was a bit too small for this trip as it only fits very small books. And it is fug.) which is quite nice but was a hundred bucks (!!! I need to speak to *someone* about how they fund their Kipling addiction). Oh and apparently about 4kg of books. Scales at Changi came in at 16.9kg, though they did then go to a more reasonable 15.3 when she moved the belt, so possibly I only got 2.4 kilos of books. Ahem. Well, the first shop had buy 2 get 155 off the total, and the second had everything for 6 dollars so it seemed foolish to not buy any. What if I was trapped bookless somewhere? Since I've already read 3 of them, it seems that such a scenario is still possible.

Onwards to Oz.

Stop 1 - Singapore

Apologies in advance for terrible dullness of this post.

I've taken more stuff on a week to the Canaries. My bag was 12.9kg. I was comfortable in the amount of space left in the bag would allow for a little shopping in the first few stops – I want some ¾ length shorts, for example – but on landing in Singapore and stuffing mmy hoodie in I realised this might not be entirely possible. Hmmm. I'd freeze on the flights without it though, and potentially on the Sth American bus trips (people really rack up the aircon on these things).

The flight was pretty uneventful. I bussed to the airport – about 22minutes from O'Connell St to the airport on the Airlink. I picked up a couple of necessary items (moisturiser, protective case for the netbook which was reduced – apparently Peats are taking over the electronics sales area so they're trying to get rid of stock. Given Peats high street pricing, I think this is a bad idea for airport sales figures.

(Aside courtesy of CNN– does the opening bell in Wall St get a big clap every morning? Weird.)

Transfer in Heathrow was fairly straightforward, though it was weird when I went t flight connections and security directed me to go the public route to T3 rather than through connections, as the connections route had 2 security checks instead of 1! Bizarre, since connecting travellers have already been through security. T3 was absolutely jammed, it is not a comfortable space. Food options were limited so picked up a bagel and Heat. I miss Heat already. What I cannot understand about UK airports is the inability to announce your gate until it's almost boarding time, especially since all the gates are miles away from the general holding area.

Anyway, Qantas food is slightly better than Air France, I slept a lot of the time, though did manage to watch some lame movies (good movies require too much concentration).

First night in Singapore was in an airport hotel – it was the only decent place I could afford. Everything else, while technically not being brothels, all seemed to rent rooms by the hour and involve showering over the toilet, If I'd tried that the first night I'd be home already. I've been told there are other options, but since I'm travelling solo it's a little more difficult to find affordable places. It's a perfectly nice hotel and had a lovely bathroom but really it was in the middle of nowhere. As I woke at 5am I mooched out to a local mall in the morning, didn't see anything interesting. I changed to the Stamford this morning and have a lovely room on the 63nd floor. Fabulous view.

I spent a lot of the day wandering around Orchard, picked up a couple of small items. The weather was wet so I came back to the hotel with the intention of going to vivo city, but i sat down for ten minutes and woke up three hours later. Sigh. What a fail. It is a bit torturous being here though – hundreds of shops and I can't buy the shoes and bags and dresses I've seen as they are a bit too fancy for the whole backpacking trip. Getting back into the heat is amazing. Instantly I felt better. Ok, it's pretty humid, but it's HOT. Yay for hot. A bit of sunshine would be nicer than the rain though.

What I have bought is books. I've already read two and am debating ditching them – I might wait until I get to Christchurch though and see if I can find a book swap or at least dump them in a hostel where someone else might read them.

It was a good idea to start off somewhere familiar though. It's not so daunting at the moment. We'll see when I get to NZ.

Crisis the First

Oh how I laughed at my near-miss on a crisis by almost leaving my ipod in Cork. I had forgotten to take down the connector, so hadn't reworked the contents as planned but was willing to live with the 20% of junk in the face of the 80% of awesome.

Right now, I have 100% of zero. Not realising there was a music manager that would autoplay the ipod, and even if it did that this would wreak havoc, I plugged in the iPod to the eee and watched it destroy all before it. Except that crappy version of bejewelled I'm still bitter aboout paying 5 euro for. Further investigation shows everything is still there, the software just saw fit to reorganise the folders in a way the iPod does not understand. Sadness. Actual tears. A veritable tragedy in my life. My life which for the next 3 months contains multiple 8+ hours flights and many many 5+ hour bus trips, and hostels where I'll need to drown out my dormmates. You can see the quality of my tragedy*, the terror I am facing. I have zero tolerance for other people's noise, and they'll all have crappy ipod headphones leaking at me in a vicious, deliberate fashion.

Obviously I rang Liam and cried 'save me!!'. No seriously. Ok I ranted first and then cried 'save me!!!' let us hope he can, despite the lack of quality pop tunes on his laptop (he has a complete failure to comprehend the artistry behind Girls Aloud). Give me some Arctic Monkeys and the Charlatans Greatest hits, and I'll be happy. Give me a working iPod with anything except dance music, Muse**, comedy music or country and irish (now that is the music of suicide, not the music of pain) and I'll live.

Fingers crossed people. Or there's likely to be blood on the streets.


* Yes, it's not very tragic in the grand scheme of the world.
** Except that one song that I bought, but that was a disappointment too. And a cover. Oh I admit it, I still feel dirty.

Additional learning experience - need to find a photo editor, stat. Camera only takes pictures in size enormous. Photo Manager doesn't do much detailed managing. Where's Paint when you need it?

Current Bookings

I've had a few minor bumps along the way but have booked some stuff to get me through the first couple of weeks.

Singapore - there's s bloody airshow on so my hotel vouchers would not work on the first night. Lame. Due to the generally awful reviews of the cheap hotels in town (including the fact that bunches of them seem to be knocking shops) and that my flight is getting in around 7pm, I just booked an airport hotel for the first night. If I'm up to it, I can MRT into town or else just hang out in the hotel and transfer to the Stamford the next day. The Stamford is where I stayed last time in Singapore, it's grand like. Hopefully I still get my free breakfast. All I really want to do in Singapore is hit up Ion for a few bits and pieces (there's a distinct lack of summer clothes here, even if you can get through all the sale dross) and in theory go to Sentosa but the current weather is all a bit stormy, so best case may be the hotel pool. Presumably here I will meet my air crew from either or both of my flights to/from Singapore.

Sydney - nice friends have offered accom and tours and general niceness. Yay!

NZ - have booked a bus tour for the South Island exploration (Q with Stray) but this is not starting until the 15th and I'm landing on the 10th. There's a Crusaders game on the 13th (time to engage Operation All-Black) so I'm hoping to get a ticket for that. I've booked The Latimer for the first three nights and Base for the remaining two. I need to work up to hostelling! The Latimer is running Super 14 specials so is booked up on the Saturday, but I can't afford to stay there more than the current booking anyway. Tour starts the next day, and it's all hostels from thereon. Eep.

I still have a lot to do, tomorrow is consumed with dentist/bank/hair appointments. I've defrosted the fridge (nightmare, is anything more boring?) and packed up most of my stuff.

Preliminary packing is done - I've identified the maximum amount of stuff I am taking - but this needs culling. I fear once I add in several chargers (phone, ipod, other ipod, computer, ds...) it's going to get heavy, and messy - that's a lot of cables.

Last day in work is almost over. Time to get gone!