Suzi's Travels

Hmmm so it appears I haven't written for nearly 2 months now and have been getting a bit of jip for not staying in touch.

So what's been happening since we moved in? Well, Kat's joined us so we're a happy family now. There's a couple photos here of inside our house - the woodburner that keeps us toasty plus our kitchen.

Oh, and here's Sam and Kat...

Back in June Sam and I went up to Wellington for a long weekend. I really wanted to see the Lord of the Rings exhibition at Te Papa (the museum in Wellington) and I had the opportunity to take a couple of days off work so we decided to head up. We booked flights from Christchurch up to Wellington - it cost double to fly from Queenstown and would've had to connect in Christchurch anyway.

However, the weekend we picked to go was also the week that the worst storm for about 30 years decided to hit the South Island. Not kidding. It mainly hit the eastern side of the island - with some people left without power for 2 weeks, and rendered the main pass through from Queenstown to the east coast unpassable. So we had to take a wee detour.

So we drove (well, Sam drove) over to Oamaru where we planned to spend the night in the YHA.

The drive was really pretty even though it was dark, and the moon was huge in the sky. (honest - the zoom on my camera is crap so this picture is quite good for me.)

We almost ran out of petrol on the way. We hit Palmerston on the east coast at about 9pm that night and tried to find a petrol station but there was none open whatsoever. At 9pm on a Thursday night, nothing was open, and we were almost out of fuel. But there was no choice, we had to keep going and really hope that we could find something a few miles up the road.

Thankfully we found an unmanned station a few miles out of Palmerston so we were good up to Oamaru. Oamaru turned out to be really nice - we didn't see much of it but there's plenty to do there and they've got penguin colonies which I really want to see. However we had to get moving at 9am the next day up to Christchurch to catch our flight.

We were really glad we decided to stop in Oamaru rather than Timaru - as far as Oamaru the roads had been fine. There was snow on the sides of the roads but the roads themselves were clear. But in Timaru, there was slush everywhere.

So we finally made it up to Christchurch, and checked in. We were booked in on the cheapest flights we could find - which for the outward trip was with Origin Pacific. We'd never heard of it but hey, the flights were cheap which was the main priority. Except when we got to the gate and saw this little prop plane out the window I nearly flipped. I'm a good flyer usually, but I wasn't particularly keen on getting in this one.

Sam wasn't particularly helpful either. We'd brought a pack of cards with us to pass the time and he tried to make me play 52 card pickup.

Thankfully it was only a half hour flight and we soon touched down in Wellington.

Friday

We took the obligatory trip up the cable car in the morning - and wouldn't you know, it was a nicer day and a better view than the other two times I went up there when I was staying in Wellington. Sam hadn't been up before so it was a new adventure for him.

Apart from that, we played tourist for the day... wandering around the city... no shopping allowed... and then in the evening we went to a basketball game - neither of us had ever been to a live one before so we thought we'd take one in and see what it was like. Having been brought up on football and rugby it was strange watching these big six foot plus guys who couldn't seem to run around for any longer than 2 minutes. But it was a good atmosphere and a good night. And the donuts were lovely too.

Saturday

We finally got to Te Papa in the afternoon of Saturday. We went on the guided tour of the Lord of the Rings exhibition. This was really cool... lots of technical stuff on how they got a six foot plus dude to play a 3 foot dwarf etc. And lots of Elf and Ranger photos and gear. I'm still a Ranger girl though. Unfortunately we couldn't take any photos in there, and the souveniers were rather expensive. I was tempted by a few bits but managed to restrain myself ...

In the evening we played a few games of pool (yep, sam kicked my arse again) and then had a really nice Italian dinner... yum.

Sunday

It was an early start on Sunday as had to be at the airport for an 8.30am flight. We decided to take a taxi to the airport cos we were both tired. Thankfully we were on a Qantas flight back down to Christchurch which was much nicer and had more room and was less full.

So we landed safely in Christchurch and claimed our bags. Then headed to the car. Sam checked his bag. The pocket he'd put his car keys in was open and empty. Oh shit. We'd put my nice pink swiss army knife in there too and that was gone as well. Back to baggage services. Sam reported it missing and the nice helpful people went about looking for it, calling the cargo people to check the cargo area of the plane. Then I started checking the other pockets on Sam's bag. "Ooh Sam, what's this... isn't this your yellow torch...?" "Oh, and aren't these your CAR KEYS attached to it?" Cue Sam to go bright red and offer the only possible apology he could make in the circumstances. "I'm a man." Well yes, there really wasn't anything else he could've said to get himself out of that one.

So it was back to the car and on with the 6hr drive back to Queenstown. This time the passes were open so we drove a different route, and it was absolutely stunning. I seem to be using that phrase a lot but it perfectly describes the scenery out here. Absolutely stunning.

A few weeks ago it was the winter festival here in Queenstown. It's basically an excuse to go out drinking, and if you're a tourist it's great cos there's lots of free stuff on in the daytime. Unfortunately if you work during the day you generally end up paying to do stuff in the evening. We went to a comedy debate, to an ice hockey game, to the mardi gras and the opening thingy and it was all pretty cool. Unfortunately on the final weekend I got sick with another bad cold and ended up missing some of the stuff I'd wanted to see.

Since then we've pretty much just been hanging out. The ski season opened a week late back in June but since then Sam has been a regular ski bunny and Kat is heading that way on her snowboard too.

I had my first snowboarding lesson a couple weeks ago up at the Remarkables. I sort of started to get the hang of it towards the end and was absolutely exhausted. Sam and Kat plus Kat's friend Simon decided to go night skiing at Coronet Peak. I could already feel my knees and hips were bruised (although strangely my ar$e got a break on this one) so I just went up with them and sat in the brasserie drinking mulled wine and falling asleep while they skiied and boarded.

Then on Friday the weather came in again. It snowed overnight. I looked out the window and went "f*** f*** f***". Kat thought I'd broken the hair dryer. Sam came out of his room looking completely disorientated saying "what's up?" and I told him to look outside. "Do you want a lift in to work" he said and boy did I accept. There was no way I was driving on that!

So Sam drove me in to work, dropped me off, and just as he got back up the hill to our house the police closed the roads. Sam just about got to the bottom of our drive, tried to drive up it and slid back down. Out came the chains, and just as he'd got them fitted on, the neighbours came out to see if he needed a hand - and were surprised that Sam had already got them fitted. So Sam parked his car and he and Kat settled in for the morning, while I sat at work and wondered if I was gonna be able to get home that night. The roads re-opened by lunchtime though, but both Coronet and the Remarks were closed that day and night skiing too.

Never mind, last Saturday was a beautiful day and there was loads of powder on the slopes at Coronet Peak, and Kat and I headed up around lunchtime. We took Sam's car as it's 4WD and has chains. We should've been ok to drive up with just the 4WD but we both thought the car was slipping a bit so stopped to put the chains on. And got half soaked in the process by some ignorant retards who drove by us too fast and too close and sprayed us with crap from the road. Nice. We were glad we'd put the chains on though - felt much more secure.

Anyways, the boarding was good and the powdery snow provided a nice cushion to fall on. I didn't t hurt half as much the next day as I did after the last session.

By 4.30 I was exhausted though so we drove down (and got mucky taking the darn chains off the car - more difficult than putting them on), picked Sam up from work and I took Kat's car home while they went back up for night skiing. Kat is getting on really well and Sam is practically a pro so I've got a lot of ground to make up. But it's rather expensive to ski/board here. Renting skis costs $20 a day and a board costs $30, then an afternoon's lift pass is $50 (a full day is nearer $80), which is really expensive, considering I'm on the same wage in dollars as I was in pounds back home. Take note folks, if you're over here on holiday with $3 to the £1 then you're getting a bargain, but living here is much more expensive than living back home, even by London standards. I thought Lauren was kidding when she said it was expensive out here, but she was dead right. Still, I'm just about managing to save a little and should be able to get at least 1 days' skiing or boarding in a week. I did feel after that session that I was getting the hang of it a bit more, and a bit more control, and was managing to turn from my toe edge onto my heel edge. Can't quite manage from heel to toe but we'll save that for another time.

Last night we went up to Coronet for night skiing again and this time I skiied. It all came back fairly well and I only fell over twice. Sam came down with me and he even skiied backwards to keep an eye on me. Bless.

We should be heading on up again tonight for more punishment...

So that's the story of the last couple of months. I'll try to update more regularly ...

Love to everyone,
Sue xxx