Reggie's Last Stand

Friday the thirteenth of April 2012 saw the passing of a close companion to many. Most of the people in Kooloobong will be able to tell you a story about how they felt unsafe whilst inside of him. We've had a lot of ups and down - sometimes we hated you, sometimes we loved you, but you were always there, and you will remain in our memories forever. This is the story of Reginald's departure from this world.

We had a great day planned. We would head to the seaside town of Kiama (about half an hour south of Wollongong), have a look around, take touristy pictures of the blowhole, pump up the tunes in the van and then move on to the descriptively named Seven Mile Beach. After a shaky start (we had to jump the battery)  we got to Kiama while singing along to many classics courtesy of Beyonce, Shania, Skaira and S Club. 

We lined up along the railings at the blowhole to take touristy pictures (I'm such a tourist that I took pictures of people taking pictures...).

A quick pit stop in Woolworths to grab some lunch, and we were on our way to seven mile beach. About half way there, I started to hear a rattling sound every time I used the accelerator (which, coincidentally, was a lot since I was driving) and that the temperature had sky rocketed. I pulled over next to some B&B and realised that the van was full of smoke and that we should get out. Luckily the woman who owned the B&B was lovely and let us chill out in the gardens to give the van some time to cool down. It definitely wasn't the worst place to break down in the world - such nice views!

A while later, we went back to Reggie to see how he was doing. After looking in the radiator, we saw that we needed to fill it up as all the coolant seemed to have disappeared, but when we filled it to the top, we could see that the water level was dropping quickly. So something in the coolant system was leaking (great news considering we bought a new radiator only three months ago). This didn't quite explain why the engine wouldn't start, though. We decided that we should get it towed to a mechanic, and see what they thought. When the tow truck arrived, I described the situation, and he said it sounded like a blown head gasket. Replacing one of those is a big job - definitely not worth replacing, and so we just called up a scrap yard.

When we got there, we were welcomed by a pack of men smoking and drinking beer in a shed full of spare parts. We unloaded the van, filled out the paperwork, and I asked about the money situation. The alpha male of the group said that on the phone, I implied that I just wanted to drop off the van and didn't want anything for it. I feel like this was categorically incorrect, but once he had the van, he had the power, and we couldn't afford to tow it to any other scrap yards because there wasn't one for miles. And so, the van was legally stolen from us. It actually was daylight robbery. 

As the sun set over Wollongong, so did it set on our hopes and dreams of freedom, convenient transport and not having to rely on the extremely unreliable free shuttle bus. Reggie managed to get us all the way back from Adelaide, and for me, anything after that was an added bonus. He will be missed by many, and remembered by all as one hell of a great van.

Cultural capital, country's capital and back to The Gong

At around six o'clock in the evening on a Thursday, we arrived at an empty shell of a house with missing floorboards, dust sheets up everywhere and a half complete circuit board.Why were we in this house, you might ask - were we squatting? No. We had, in fact, been invited to stay here.

Cast your mind back to the last time I was in Melbourne. A kind lady called Sara cooked dinner for Charlie and I, and told me to give her a call if I was ever in Melbourne again. Well, I gave her a call, but unfortunately her spare room was full. She tried her sister's house, but that was full as well. As a last resort, she said that we could stay in her son's house, which was being renovated (hence missing floorboards, etc.). So we arrived and settled ourselves in on the sofa beds in the dusty lounge rooms - but it was like heaven compared to sleeping in the van!

The next day, I left the other two to their own business, as I was on a mission to buy some nice clothes (everything I'd taken with me had been practically ruined over the month we'd been on the road). While I did this I took the time to look at some more of the street art, and sample the city's "best coffee" (it wasn't all that). That evening, we took the tram down to St Kilda, which had been advertised to us as one of Melbourne's trendy streets with some nice bars, but in reality it was actually the place where all the prostitutes hang out (I didn't actually notice any, I was too busy trying $5 mystery cocktails and shisha pipes).

On Saturday, we went to visit Sara (it was the least we could do since she did find us somewhere to stay). She told me that she'd be with a client in her home office (she's a big-shot lawyer) so we could just walk in, make ourselves at home and help ourselves to anything in the kitchen. Her house was big and full of leather bound books - Matt and I were very jealous. After guiltily gobbling down some cereal, we didn't really know what to do apart from sit there playing with the dog in hushed tones until Sara was finished with her client, after which she almost force fed us and drowned us in cups of tea. After we'd been speaking for a while, Sara popped out of the room and returned with a key dangling from her finger and said "by the way, we have a beach house about an hour south from here if you want to stay there for a few days?!" We were all taken aback and didn't really know what to say. Being the polite, British idiots that we are, all we could do was repeatedly say thank you over and over again. Not only did she give us access to her beach house, but she then went out and bought bags and bags of food for us to eat while we were there.

The plan for the next few days was to drive down to Philip island to see the penguin parade, then stay at the beach house in Mount Eliza for a couple of nights. We ended up leaving too late to make it to the penguin parade, so went straight to the beach house with the intention to see the penguins the following night. We never made it due to poor weather, and we just spent two days at Mount Eliza mainly playing jigsaw puzzles (Amanda and I had a race to see who could finish one first, but I did the gentlemanly thing and let her win ;) ), eating, reading and watching movies.

On our return to Melbourne, we took Sara's dog Bonnie for a walk to the war memorial, which was closed by the time we got there, but to be honest I didn't mind so much because I've really missed walking dogs!! It was also a big novelty to have a dog that fetches sticks instead of just chewing them and growling when you try to get it back. After one final night at David's house, we set off for the capital of Australia - Canberra.

It's a long drive from Melbourne to Canberra - especially when you take the long route. We did pass a cafe on the way that served excellent tea and scones, though. I'd say it made it worth it. Luckily, petrol prices had dropped by 10c per litre since we last drove anywhere. Unluckily, every time we needed to buy more petrol we were away from all civilisation, so petrol costed about 10c per litre more than everywhere else in Australia, so we ended up paying normal prices. It's still cheaper than England though. At around 11pm, we arrived at Katy's house in Canberra (I lived with Katy last semester in Wollongong) and after a quick catch up we all passed out.

In the morning, Katy took us on a whistle stop tour of the city which involved seeing old parliament house, new parliament house, the aboriginal embassy, the war memorial, and the memorial fountain (from afar). It was all very pretty, but it was a very strange city. Most cities are built as people start to live there, but I got the feeling that Canberra was built before anyone moved there. A lot of people say that it was purpose built to be the capital, and you can see why. A lot of people also hate Julia Gillard (the Australian prime minister), but when we went to see her in parliament she seemed nice enough and quite charismatic. She does keep trying to enforce silly policies though (for example, a huge carbon tax, even though one of Australia's biggest exports is coal).

The next day, we went to Questacon, the Australian science museum (come on, we do biology, chemistry and physics - we couldn't resist) where we found out that Matt has the taste buds of a non-taster but the habits of a super-taster, I have the taste buds of a super-taster and the habits of a non-taster, and Amanda was patronised by a member of staff while she assembled a model of the human body ("Do you know what the gall bladder does? Erm.. yeah I think that's right...").

We were pretty keen to sample the night life in Canberra, but apparently because uni hadn't started yet, then it would have been rubbish. Maybe one day we'll be back, but for now, it was time to come back to Wollongong. I had a great three months travelling around and living out of a very small back pack. There were high points and low points, times when I was frustrated, but also moments that I never wanted to end. I met some amazingly generous, kind, interesting and funny people along the way, as well as a few weirdos, but I'd do it all again in an instant. Most of all, this summer has inspired me to try to be that person who takes in random travellers and treats them like royalty, as so many people have done for me. A huge thank you!

This will probably be the last blog for a while, until something interesting happens in my life.. for now it's just normal university life, so until next time, thanks for reading!

Sitting, watching, waiting

The van wouldn't start, and we couldn't get anywhere. We were beginning to think that it was going to be a huge waste of money, but at least we had somewhere to stay. We were still with Marion in Adelaide, spending our days aimlessly wondering around the city, reading, watching movies, checking our emails, going to the zoo (Australia's only zoo to have a panda exhibit) - anything to keep us occupied. She even introduced us to the art of bin diving. Bin diving is when people rummage through supermarket bins at the end of the day to get food that is past its sell-by date, but before its use-by date, which I think is a great idea considering the amount of waste produced by the large supermarket chains these days. We also played with Marion's dog (a jack russell called Weasel), who would just lie down and present his stomach for a scratch as soon as he saw any human.

We got a quote from a mechanic who, mysteriously, managed to start the van straight away, but told us that the radiator was bust. There were a few other minor problems with it, for example, the bolts on the drive shaft were worn, so it could fall off at any point and pole vault the entire van onto its side; or the fact that there was a bolt missing that should have been holding the alternator (attenuator according to Amanda) in place, and if it keeps hitting the engine then it would have exploded. We weren't too worried.

The next day we drove up to Jenny and Mark's house (Matt's relatives, who incidentally live up a huge hill, we had to stop half way up to let the engine cool down) for Australia day - a nationwide celebration of the day that the British invaded the country (aboriginal people actually call it invasion day). Marion was very against this holiday, and her views kind of rubbed off on me a bit - but not enough to stop me from going to Jen and Mark's barbecue. While we were there that evening, they kindly offered to let us stay until we got the van fixed. As nice as Marion was, she didn't have a son who could fix Reggie for free!

It took a whole day to replace the radiator. The gap to pull out the radiator was smaller than the width of the radiator itself, so the rest of the van had to be dismantled to get it out, and then reassembled after we'd sourced a new one and put it in. We could see why the old radiator wasn't working - if you touched it, it would crumble to pieces! We thought we should also put a bolt in to hold down the alternator. Exploding on the highway didn't sound like too much fun...

From here, it was another waiting game, because we needed to wait until Monday to hand in the change of ownership forms. In the meantime we kept ourselves busy by playing PS one games (mainly Rayman and Tekken 3), we went go karting one day, and Mark and Sam even play in a band, so we went to see them one evening. While we were staying with Jen, her brother and his wife (Dave and Alicia) were staying there too. Dave is honestly the most Northern person I have ever met. His accent is so broad that I could rarely understand him, and he had a whole vocabulary of word that I'd never heard of!

By 4pm on Monday 30th Jan 2012, after spending at least an hour trying to hand in the change of ownership forms, we were finally on the road again! I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone in Adelaide who made us feel so welcome, Marion, Jenny, Mark, Sam, Joel, Dave, Alicia, and all of the other people we met  during our stay. You were amazing, and I hope to one day see you all again, but for now, Melbourne was beckoning!

Welcome to Waikerie

It wasn't just me that was broke. Matt Blood, Aristo and Hamish were also running a little low on cash, and we decided that we’d all go and fruit pick together. The only problem was that no one was looking for pickers! We’d heard that the picking season in the state of South Australia was about to begin so we started to look at flights. It was about $100 to fly on New Year’s Eve, and $300 to fly on any day the following week, so Matt, Aristo and I booked our flights and would be in Adelaide to see in the New Year.

Our next issue was trying to find something to do that night, and for that matter, somewhere to stay. Matt had a distant relative in Adelaide, so he could stay with her, and I had found a woman on Couch Surfing who could accommodate Aristo and me. After a long walk from the airport in 35 degree heat at eight in the morning, we arrived at Marion’s (the Couch Surfing host) house. On her profile, she described herself as a Buddhist hippy, which I think was a very accurate description. Her house was full of ornate Buddhist artefacts and decorations. The three of us stayed in Marion’s kitchen for a while chatting with her until Matt’s almost auntie (his mum’s cousin... but I’ll refer to her as Matt’s auntie from here on in) came to pick him up. In this time, Marion had managed to accuse Matt’s mum of abuse, tell us about her boycott on German Couch Surfers, and describe in great detail the things she’d learnt during the course of her anthropology degree.

When Matt’s auntie Jenny arrived and saw three of us there, she kindly offered to let us all stay with her. As much as it would have been an interesting experience to spend a few nights at Marion’s house, we thought it would be a good idea for the three of us to stick together, so we all went to stay with Jenny. Jenny had moved to Adelaide with her husband (Mark) and two kids (Sam and Joel) six years ago, but to my delight, she had managed to retain her wonderfully broad Lancashire accent. As well as agreeing to let us stay at her house, she also treated us like princes for the entire duration of our stay! Instead of finding a job, I kind of just wanted to stay there until my student loan came in, but I knew we couldn’t, and the searching continued, but not before we’d welcomed 2012 with open arms. Jenny and Mark had kindly let us crash their little New Year’s Eve garden party, but we’d all had so little sleep the night before that it soon became a case of “How far away is midnight, and how rude is it to go to bed straight after?” The sleepiness soon passed though once the party had kicked off and we’d had some food, and I managed to last until about 2.30 in the morning before I started dozing off mid conversation (a bad habit I seem to have when I’m tired and have been drinking...).

L to R: Joel, Jenny, Mark and Sam

     

The next day we went into the centre of Adelaide to try and find a job. It took us a while to find any hostels – since it was New Year’s Day, the streets were empty and the map we picked up wasn’t very detailed – but once we did, we found a job straight away! “Work all year around picking oranges, call John” so that is what we did. It turned out that he was just upstairs so we went to have a chat with him and essentially said that we could start whenever we wanted. We marched ourselves to the bus station and that time the following evening we found ourselves in Waikerie – Australia’s citrus capital.

Waikerie is a small town north east of Adelaide. There is a supermarket, a petrol station, a couple of banks, and not much else. We arrived at eight in the evening and after a little bit of a mix up, John came to pick us up and take us to Kathy’s house. Kathy is John’s boss, and is in charge of the orange picking operation, but we didn’t get to see her, and we were told to camp in a nearby field and come back the next day at sunrise. The three of us were all so excited to start our first day of work, and had high hopes of picking at least eight bins of oranges each per day (at $25 per bin) – but maybe not on our first day. We filled out the paper work and put down deposits on picking bags, but when we saw the bins we couldn’t believe our eyes. They were enormous. They were described as 400L bins (your run of the mill recycling bin), but they were probably three times bigger than this! Our hearts completely sank but we got on with our new job anyway.

It took two hours to fill our first bin between the three of us (it is supposed to take a maximum of one and half hours to fill a bin by yourself, and there were three of us), and there wasn’t even enough fruit on the trees to fill it properly without having to scavenge fruit that had been left over on trees that had already been picked. Eventually our supervisor came over and told us that we didn’t have to pick the half-done trees (annoyingly) and moved us to another block where the trees were much better.

A few more hours passed, and a few more bins got picked, by which point it was past lunch time and Kathy, the boss – a Filipino lady who’d taken a shine to us since I told her where my mum was born – came to check on us. Apparently we looked so exhausted that she offered to buy us lunch, and fifteen minutes later she came back with three big sandwiches that contained some form of hot meat and a huge bottle of coke for us. We would be eternally grateful. Even after this energy surge, it took us until 7pm (eleven hours of work) to fill six bins between us. The going wasn’t great, but at this stage we were still feeling positive and thinking “yeah we’ll get better, we’ll be earning hundreds anytime soon”

That night we moved into one of the supervisor’s houses. From the outside it looked quaint and possibly even nice with all sorts of different fruits growing everywhere (grapes, peaches, oranges, apples, and more), even though it looked a little bit shabby. The inside was not nice. The floors, walls, doors and windows were all dirty and broken in some way. Each room had about a thousand spider webs in it. The kitchen was crawling with ants, and God only knows what else was in there. We were living in squalor, but for $50 per week, we couldn’t really complain, and by that point, I could probably have slept anywhere.

The next two weeks were spent picking orange, after orange, after orange. Sure, we did get better (it would be hard not to get better than when we started). On some days we even picked in excess of $100 each over a relatively short period of time, but we still weren’t picking as fast as we wanted to, and this seemed to frustrate us to the point where we would wish for rain (when it rained, we didn’t have to work because the oranges bruise too easily when they’re wet) or we’d contemplate falling off a ladder on purpose and suing because they never made us sign a health and safety form.

Like I explained earlier, Waikerie is a small place, so there wasn’t much to do during our down time. We’d swim in the Murray River or go to the library to take advantage of the free Internet on the weekends (Tony didn’t use the Internet so obviously didn’t have it installed). After work every night, we’d sit in the lounge in front of one of Tony’s many DVDs, not really paying attention and falling asleep after such a long day of work.

During our time at the orange farm Hamish and Amanda both joined us and we worked as a mega-picking team, but not long after Hamish got there, he and Aristo decided that they’d had enough and were going back to Wollongong, and who can blame them? The back, neck and hand pains were mounting to the point where standing up was difficult and we had to make a load groaning noise to make any sort of movement. We just weren't earning enough to make it all worth the pain. A few days later, we’d had enough as well and were back in Adelaide before we knew it.

Christmas down under

So, getting back into Australia was a little bit harder than I had anticipated. Customs and immigration in Australia are notoriously strict, so there were a couple of things that caused a slight delay after I got off the plane in Melbourne.

Firstly, Australian customs officers don't take kindly to passports that have been wet. Unfortunately, when I did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, since the weather was so bad, the rain seeped into my bag and got everything wet. Including my passport. This caused important things like stamps, ink, and the photo to become slightly less clear. The woman in New Zealand said that it was fine because the electronic chip could still be read, but did warn me that "Australia won't like that..." She was right.

When I got to customs, I was subject to a lengthy interview where I was required to tell the interviewer exactly where I would be at all times for the rest of the duration of my stay. Since I don't have much of a fully formed plan, I obviously couldn't tell her and managed to fumble my way though by saying I will be in Wollongong between February and July studying. She then asked what subject codes I would be taking and which lecturers would take my classes - as if she would know who they were anyway!

After eventually clearing customs, I was made to then go and wait in line to be checked out by immigration since I was wearing my hiking boots. I decided, to avoid hassle and save time, to not tell them about my week shovelling shit at the Gubb's place, and said that my boots were only dirty because I'd been hiking. I realise that this is naughty, but I was not in the mood to be rejected entry into a country.

A full two and a half hours after landing, I escaped from the airport and was on the bus into Melbourne. After settling down into the hostel room, Charlie came to meet me, and we explored the city's shops to try and find Flic a Christmas present (she was having us over for Christmas day after all!). This proved to be more difficult than we expected - especially when we'd literally just bought her a DVD box set of Misfits (a British TV show) when Charlie received a text saying "I just downloaded all of Misfits! It's so good!" ... At least we knew we'd made a good choice, even if it did then have to be returned!

That evening, the wonderfully generous Sara and her son Dave had me over for tea. Sara lives in Melbourne, but met Charlie's dad while travelling through Peru a long time ago, and so Charlie was staying with her. As well as showering Charlie with gifts and affection, when Charlie mentioned that she had a friend (me) in town, Sara invited me over to enjoy a roast chicken with the three of them. It was delicious, and definitely a welcome break from the pasta and tuna diet I'd been surviving on in New Zealand!

The next day, Charlie got the train to Albury to go to Flic's house, but I stayed in Melbourne for a day longer so that I would have a chance to take in the sights and soak up the atmosphere. I really did enjoy it. I don't know if it's like this all year round, or if it was just because it was Christmas time but there was a really creative atmosphere in the city, with street performers or artists on every street corner. Everywhere I looked, I saw interesting architecture or a statue, and on top of this, everyone seemed friendly and willing to help. At one point, I was obviously looking lost, staring blankly at a map when a business man stopped, asked me where I was going, and even walked me most of the way to where I wanted to go while we had a full on chat about my travels (in the UK, businessmen are notoriously grumpy and in a rush, so I was a little taken aback by his kindness)! I usually say that I would never like to live in the middle of a city, but I think this is the exception to my rule.

After two days, that went by incredibly quickly, I was on my way to Albury to spend Christmas with Flic and the rest of the Treloar family. As I predicted, Flic and Charlie were late picking me up from the station (it turns out that they took a wrong turn and got lost in the bush) so I decided to sit and read my book. It was so hot, that even this was making me break out in a sweat! Eventually they arrived and we were soon back at her house which, thank God, has air conditioning. We lazed by the pool and were later provided with enough food to feed Africa for at least three days! This became a recurring theme for the days running up to Christmas day.

On Christmas, we exchanged gifts, drank beer, and ate enough food to keep us full for a good while, and then some more after that. It was pretty similar to my normal Christmas traditions, with added "shrimps on the barbie" - although whenever we called them shrimps, Nick shouted at us and told us to call them prawns (technically correct). The weather on Christmas day itself was not great - it rained all day - but it could have been a lot worse - I could have been in Stockport!

The next day, Nick drove us all back to Wollongong where, since then, I have been frantically trying to find a fruit picking job. Tomorrow morning I will arrive in Adelaide, regardless of whether or not I have found a job yet, and we shall see what happens from there! My instincts are telling me that this is not a good plan, but I'm sure it will work itself out - it usually does!

Adventure Activities and the Scenic Route

I was in Queentown, at last. The first thing I did after checking into my hostel was to sign up to a bar crawl that was happening that evening. I thought it would be a good way to meet people in the hostel and familiarise myself with the area. It turns out that, while I did get to meet people, I had no idea where I was because they blindfolded us between bars, and we had to do the conga along the streets being led by the hostel staff to make sure we didn't get lost - a surreal but admittedly fun experience, especially when you've had a few beers!

The next day, I decided to face my massive fear of heights and do New Zealand's highest bungy jump - and wow it was amazing! I was terrified though. Especially in the little box that shuttled us over to the ledge (which had a see through floor...) and when they had me sat down doing up my harnesses. Strangely though, my fear completely disappeared when I got to the edge - I just thought "wow, that's a long way down!" but I wasn't scared, and just like that, the man in charge counted down 3... 2... 1... and I (rather inelegantly) threw myself off the platform! I could see the floor coming towards me, and was probably free falling for about ten seconds before I felt the bungy rope lengthen and save me from hitting the rocks below me - what a rush!

Once I was back, and had calmed down from the jump, I decided to go and taste one of the world famous Fergburgers. They are enormous, delicious - and best of all - cheap! Everyone who has been to Queenstown told me to get a Fergburger, and they did not disappoint at all, with layer upon layer of burger, salad, sauce, bread and a whole bunch of optional extras. I had one of these burgers every day of my stay in Queenstown, which meant I actually spent more on Fergburgers than transport on the South Island.

I spent the rest of the day wondering around the town, finding my way around and looking at clothes I knew I couldn't afford, and when I got back to the hostel, predictably, the Kiwi Explorer bus had arrived. I've not yet mentioned the Kiwi bus, and I will now explain why I knew I would bump into them at some point in Queenstown. I first met the passengers of the Kiwi bus in Westport (at the top of the west coast of the south island). The next day, I saw them at the pancake rocks. The next day, we were on the tour of the Franz Joseph glacier. By this point I was thinking that it was silly to keep seeing them everywhere and to not know any of them, so we all got chatting, and they said that they'd noticed me everywhere they went as well! Just like that, friendships blossomed and as we parted ways we said "see you in Queenstown!" - I didn't know they'd be in the same bloody hostel as me! So for the next few days, I kind of latched onto their group - drank with them, ate with them and sat around doing not much else with them...

I did, while in Qtown, also go on one of the 'world famous' jetboat rides on the Shotover river. It was pretty fun, but for the first five minutes of the 45 minute ride it was raining, and when you're going at 80 km/h, you do NOT want it to be raining. After the initial pain of rain splattering into my face though, it was great. The driver obviously knew what he was doing, and took us very close to rocky outcrops and pebble beaches to make us think we were going to crash, but obviously we weren't. In summary, quite a fun experience, but probably would have been more fun if I was with people I knew, instead of a load of Asian tourists that said "iiyyyaaaaa" every time the driver spun us around...

At this point, I was completely broke. I searched everywhere I could, in every bank account I'd ever opened, and I realised that I had almost nothing left. I made a call to my parents, and begged, and they kindly agreed to give me my Christmas money early (THANK YOU!). To stay on the safe side though, I didn't do any more adventure activities while in New Zealand. They might have been worth every penny, but they still costed a lot of pennies!!

I reluctantly moved on from Queenstown after four nights and went to Mt Cook - New Zealand's highest mountain. Apparently it's beautiful. I wouldn't know, there were too many clouds, so I spent the rest of the day watching the Lord of the Rings (which seemed to be playing in every hostel I'd stayed in - how clichéd) and playing scrabble with the other people staying there. The next day was still cloudy, but not as cloudy, so I went for a walk to kea point, hoping to see some kea. Unfortunately they were nowhere to be seen, but I did find some really, really, really blue lakes! I stayed there for a while, taking in the atmosphere, and eventually the clouds did start to clear up and I managed to see the summit of the mighty mountain.

Later that day, I got the bus to lake Tekapo. Wow. It had the bluest water I've ever seen. Properly blue, like when you're a kid and you use a blue crayon to colour in the water. It was so blue that you couldn't even see the bottom when you went and stood next to it - it was opaque because it was saturated with minerals that had been collected as glacial ice ran down the rocky mountain. It was stunning, and almost enchanting. I was told that there was no other civilisation around the lake within a 30 mile radius, meaning that there was no light pollution or any other kind of pollution, so on a clear night, it was the perfect place to do some star gazing. Because of it's ideal location, the'd built a large telescope there, and it was available for public use. At midnight, me and some other tourists went up to the telescopes and had a "tour" of the night sky, where they pointed out constalations, galaxies, nebulas and stars. We even got to get a close look at Jupiter, and saw its rings and three of its moons! A truly humbling experience.

Me in front of lake Tekapo

The next day I made my way to Christchurch. I didn't really know what to expect. Most of the travellers I'd met had told me not to even go there because the Earthquake damage had been so extensive. There's not even anything left - they'd tell me - but since I was flying out of Christchurch airport, I thought I'd at least have a look around. What I found was that it wasn't actually that bad. I was expecting some kind of apocalyptic wasteland, where you couldn't walk down the streets for fear of building collapsing on top of you. In reality, most of the destruction had been cleared and I felt very safe as I roamed the streets. In saying this, only one street was open for business, and the shops here had been made out of shipping containers, so that when the city has been properly rebuilt, the containers can be removed easily.

By the way, I don't mean to belittle the devastation that has obviously been felt in that city, but by the time I'd got there, almost all of the collapsing buildings have been demolished. I think they've made a lot of progress since the initial quakes, and it won't be long (a few years) before the city is back to normal again - although personally I feel like it would be a better idea to move the city away from the major fault line...

After a long night in the airport, talking with a French girl, a German man, and an Italian man, laughing a lot, and keeping everyone else awake, I finally boarded the plane and was on my way back to Australia! But getting back into the country was not as easy as I thought it would be, after getting my passport ever so slightly soggy back on the Tongariro crossing, but that's a story for next time! Thanks again for reading :)