The Fellowship Of The Kiwi Bus

Here is a top tip when travelling through an airport; Always wait for the last call to board your plane, when you get within sight of the boarding gate someone always greats you by name, “Mr Brodie”, and ushers you into the plane like you’re Barrack Obama, “This way Sir”, its almost as if the plane was waiting for you to take off, so if you like travelling first class but only paying for coach this is the way to accomplish.

New Zealand is the adrenalin junky capital of the world with the south Island being the meca that everyone flocks to, whether your choice of rush be a skydive, bungee or cave diving NZ has it all and its bigger and louder than everywhere else in the world so read on and try and guess which ones I tried…if any!

Once landed in Christchurch I made my way to meet the person I was staying with whom I met via *Couch surfing, luckily I made the right choice, Anna and her flatmates showed real Kiwi charm and made me feel right at home, not that they needed to as the grey blanket of cloud obscuring the sun and the freezing rain worked just as well.

When you have been travelling a long time the cities unless they have iconic sights/activities all blend into one and generally there is not much to do, we found this almost instantly in Christchurch, once I had seen the cathedral and centre square the general train of thought hits ‘is it beer o’clock yet’ and once that yard arm hits a midday it is perfectly acceptable to visit said pubs. I have 6 weeks to complete NZ and a choice has to be made; How to travel? The choices were to buy a car/camper or rent one but after driving all of Australia I felt it was time for someone else to take the strain and for $319 we have a bus ticket that takes all around New Zealand.

The bus was amazing value but what always makes or breaks the trip is the group which this time was spot on, so armed with a thirst to see what New Zealand has to offer we headed north to Kaikorra where we got to see seals in the wild on the beach then entered a pub quiz to get to know everyone a bit better and see if we could win some prizes, we didn’t. The first thing that you realise when driving through the country side on NZ is the isolation, there is absolutely no body around with the only living thing being copious amounts of sheep, this only adds to the beauty of this place as the scenery at times has been breathtaking, rolling green hills with snow capped mountains and perfectly calm lakes where the reflection from the lake makes you wonder which way is up. One of the lakes we visited (I forget the name) but we all decided to jump in as it is likely we will never visit this place again, remember that this is winter time and the water comes from the snow capped mountains in the distance, needless to say the temperature was heart attack cold and once I had jumped in it took you breath away. Friends still on the jetty asking me questions was pointless at this point I literally could not speak just breath and there was no waiting around straight into the doggy paddle to the shore. One of the girls, to be fair she was pushed in, started to cry and hang onto the jetty while our tour guide and Geordie had to pull her up to safety.

Our next stop was to Nelson where we decided to go Jet boating along the Buller river, jet boating included getting perilously close to the gorge side and then turning into blind crevasse that only the driver knew about, also doing 360 degree spins where the people at the corners would be living a reconstruction of the Hillsborough disaster as the people next to you would be catapulted on top of you with the pad less wall crippling your side – I happened to be one of the people on the side

We pulled into Barrytown and had the choice of two places the first was a lodge in the middle of no where but was beautiful we decided to go with the second as it was closer to the pub, unfortunately we were told straight away any noise we would be chucked out and considering we had 3 screechy girls that option was not viable either, so on our way then to a pub in the middle of nowhere where we participated in a fancy dress night, yet again I got to drag up! This was an unscheduled stop that our group had to keep hush hush so that our driver Q would not get in trouble, this night turned out to be one of the best nights even with just the 10 of us we made it great!

Cue massive hangover the next morning we headed for the poo night (Mahinapooa) where again we had a fancy dress night but due to the nasty hangover I could not be bothered to dress up for the night where the theme was the letter ‘M’, I was a Moomin, but yet again I was one of the last people to go to bed in one way or another.

Cue even bigger hangover and this was the day that I had been dreading, I was to jump out of a plane at 16,000 feet travelling at over 200k falling at 20 story building per second over the fox glacier which has been voted the second best place in the world to skydive (number 1 being the skydive over Mount Everest base camp). It was one of the best experiences of my life however I am in no rush to try it again. The views of the Fox Glacier and the mountain ranges were amazing however on the flight up it was very hard to enjoy the views especially when you are about to jump from a plane.

The next activity was the trek across the Franz Josef glacier which so far has been my favourite part, the trek involved clipping on the crampons and hiking up the ice and making our way around the narrow cracks and crevasse’s and when I say tight I mean claustrophobic tight, there were parts where I did get stuck and found it hard to get through but this added to all the fun!

So there you go, I have just got to Queenstown so you will hear from me soon!

*Couch Surfing is an American mans invention where people advertise their couch/spare bed/floor on the internet and travellers can stay with them for free, some people may take you out cook for you or just advise you.