Well chaps, after a month of travelling to various places in Australia and New Zealand I'm back with a bunch of anecdotes sure to keep those belly laughs coming, for a few minutes anyway. And before you all write in saying 'Dan this is way too long' I know okay, but that's why I broke it up in to easy-to-read segments, so you can come back to it. Or if you can't get past the first paragraph without thinking life's too short, that's why God invented the delete key.
Anyway, so having had my soon-to-be-in-laws stay for a month we decided to show them all that is good about Australia and New Zealand. Having seen the Whitsundays, I thought what a jolly fine idea it might be to show them New Zealand. So we jump on a plane and hit Christchurch at one in the morning. Man, it was quiet there. Like no traffic, no nothing. Bit scary.
We hire a car and head north up the east coast to a place called Kaikoura. Now there's really only one reason to come here, swim with dolphins. Yes my friends you get to get up at 0430 in the morning, drive to a shack, yank on a scandalously tight wetsuit and jump on a boat where they try to locate the bastards in a bay about the size of the Caspian Sea. Nice. So we don our wetsuits and, unable to breathe, head into a dark briefing room where we're shown a video presentation telling you how unlikely it is you will actually see or do anything. Now, I realise this is just about managing expectation but even so, I did have to ask myself 'If I'm not going to see any dolphins why does my bank statement say you took two hundred pounds off me. Screwed over once again. A-holes.
So after the thoroughly depressing briefing, a back door opens and we are herded on to buses. I remind you it's now 0600 and the South Island has the same climate as England so at that time, do you know how cold it was? Yes exactly.
We transfer on to this boat and go dolphin hunting. The captain says look out for them jumping or somersaulting (or hiding in the shadows, smoking crack and laughing at the silly western tourists). I can't see anything because my eyes are glued shut with sleep.
Anyway, finally we see them and we all have to move towards the back of the boat and sit with our feet in the water. I tell you, dear readers, when my feet touched that water my bollocks shot up to my chin so fast, I didn't see them again until the following day. It was so cold I actually thought I might slip in to a coma there and then. Then the captain sounds a claxon horn in my face signalling I'm supposed to get in.
When I pushed myself into that water (shaking my heading and sobbing quietly) I quickly realised why I had not been born an Eskimo. However my snorkel seemed to be working and I could just about breathe if I focussed all my attention on it. I peered into the water. Nothing. Not a sausage. Just dark, cold murky water. Fuck. What the hell am I doing? I glance up at my dolphin -swimming colleagues who have all swam away humming and singing.
See, they tell you in the briefing that you have to entertain the dolphins so they're curious and swim up to you. I do this, I'm told, by singing and humming and swimming in a 'dolphin-like' way or generally looking like a bellend. Okay, if it's a bellend they want, I can oblige. So I start humming and messing about and sure enough, out of the gloomy darkness two shapes fly into view. Dusky dolphins. They swim around me; I have to spin to keep up. They swim under me and disappear back into darkness. Wow, this making a penis of myself really does work. I try it again. Another finds me, I spend about a minute making eye contact with it whilst changing my tone and pace of my humming. I can see by the dolphin's expression, I can see he's thinking 'Look at you in your stupid flippers. That wet suit looks a bit snug. Look how fast I can swim, come on...catch me you lazy bastard.' Then he buggers off.
This goes on and on, more and more dolphins. Gotta say, it was pretty special. We were in the water for about 45 minutes and I barely noticed it.
The rest of New Zealand in 8 sentences.
After that we drive further north to the Marlborough wine region. Very nice, although New Zealand really only makes decent white wine which I confess I'm not a big fan of but hell, alcohol is alcohol isn't it?
Then we drive up to Marlborough Sounds where we board a mail boat for a little trip on the water. Very pretty, blah blah.
Next, it's over to Nelson for some stunning walking along the coast, very nice, recommended.
After that we head over to Westport, New Zeland's industrial shithole...however the road down the west coast is pretty spectacular so did a bit of that.
Then Arthur's Pass, a staggering drive through the mountains. Holy crap, I think my mouth was open most of the way through that which the sandflies loved.
Once we returned to Australia we had a couple of days before Alison's parents left, so we take them up to Palm Beach (where they shoot Home & Away). It's 35 degrees, cloudy and so humid I started to wish I'd put deodorant on my balls.
We arrive, get out of the car and are confronted with something about Australia I'd heard about but never properly experienced before today. Flies. Hundreds of them. And these aren't your basic English country flies where if you lightly brush them away they tip their hat and leave contented to have been a minor nuisance. Oh no, these bastards fly at your face...over and over again. Then when they're bored of that they go for your eyes. And they will not leave you alone. We stayed about 10 minutes, bearing in mind it's a 45 minute drive from where we live. Nope, sod this, we're heading back. But the little bastards were everywhere. Not sure if the Ozzies have some sort of cream they put on because none of them seemed to even notice. Oh, and apparently it gets worse the hotter it gets. Wonderful.
Oh yeah and I had this haircut at the mall up the road. I go in and I'm confronted by this enormous humpty-dumpty girl with bad skin, sporting a black sun hat. Yes she wore a hat whilst cutting my hair. Alarm bells should have rung but I think someone must have cut the cord because I heard nothing. When she finished I put my glasses on and gasped, holding my hand in front of my face, tears welling in my eyes. It was like she'd taken a chainsaw to my head, got bored and thought 'sod it, I’ve spent enough time with this prick.' Worst...haircut....ever. Now I need a bloody hat.
Well this has gone far too long. More adventures to follow...at some point...maybe.
Ciao
