Week 5
On Friday, I was packed
by 10, and was told to be ready by 11 – but wasn't picked up until
long after 1. Danielle had been running around town running errands
and the traffic really wasn't helping. She picked me up, and then
Luanna, and then we went back to hers to sort out the cars. Beko met
us there in his sports car, and between us we divided up all the
tents and sleeping bags. My suitcase stayed at Danielle's. I wouldn't
have wanted to lug it around all weekend and it was really great of
her to offer. I ended up going with Beko – front seat, extra
legroom – and Luanna with Danielle, and they'd pick up Rianna on
the way. The drive over was really beautiful. Lots of huge mountains,
blue sky and I even saw Castle Hill, which is in the second LOTR film
at the very beginning. Arthur's Pass is a tiny village with a few
cafés and a petrol pump (where you have to ring up the assistant to
come help you), but we stopped for a bite to eat anyway. I had
breaded fish (that's all), but put it in a sandwich with humus from
my bag of food in the car. Tasted pretty good actually.
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| Going over Arthur's Pass between Christchurch and Hokitika |
By the time we got to
Hokitika it was after 7 and we took some time setting up before the
others arrived. There was around 9 of us in total, everyone was
pretty friendly. I chummed Rianna and Luanna into town to get pizza,
and because it smelt so good, ended up getting on of my own: the Kung
Fu, with chicken, cashews and satay sauce. It was actually really
amazing without cheese! On our return, we had a few drinks and a bit
of chat before heading to bed. Some people kept drinking until the
early hours but I wanted to be awake properly for the festival the
next day. We were in the noisy camp and I was glad I had ear plugs. I
must sound like an old granny, but when you want to sleep, the last
thing you want to hear is loud music from a few tents over. They had
massive speakers too we soon found out, and wanted everyone to
listen. The fireworks were quite pretty though.
The next day, Beko
fried up some sausages for us all and Rianna, Luanna and I had
leftover pizza for breakfast too. I'd recommend Fat Pipi's Pizza to
anyone visiting the area. Pretty awesome cold! It wasn't until around
10 that everyone was up, a few of us went for the showers. Saw a few
interesting costumes on the day. The theme was “adventure”. I saw
someone dressed as a penis in a see-through costume – lovely...
not. There were a lot of skimpily dressed sailors and superheroes.
The best costumes I saw were a bunch of sheep and their shepherds and
a whole group dressed as snails.
Once we all got into
our costumes: a fairy queen, a pirate, a captain with her boat (me),
lara croft, an elf, scotty from star wars, a ladybird, a prisoner and
a biker, we headed into town. I got a few funny looks. Okay, more
than a few, but once we got to the festival all was okay. It was
really just a large playing field with tents all over it. There were
two music stages, both of which were obsessed with playing Johnny
Cash over and over. We made a little place for ourselves near to the
first stage and left Danielle and Mike there to have a break. They
had the largest hangovers!
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| Danielle multi-tasking |
I took a spin of the
field twice with some of the gang, trying fried grubs, grasshopper,
mutton bird, eel, kangaroo, wallaby, goat, crocodile and wild pig.
The grub was like biting into something and then the insides
exploding in your mouth. The grasshopper was crunchy, covered in
peanut sauce on a slice of baguette so you couldn't really taste it.
I ate the body first but refused to eat my second half with just the
wings and some feet. Mutton bird was greasy, salty and pretty
disgusting. It was cooked, but it had a consistency of rubber. Eel
wasn't bad, just like another piece of fish, much like mackerel.
Crocodile was by far nicest of the weirder foods I tried, tasted a
bit like chicken, yet more succulent and not too dry. As for drinks,
I tried moonshine which was strong and minty and also had three cups
of mandarin alcoholic lemonade and a glass of elderflower “bubbly”,
which I'm sure was more like juice rather than the advertised
champagne. I bumped into a friend from home, GS, while at the
festival. I knew he'd be there but we only managed an awkward hello
for 2 minutes before I ate the grasshopper. I didn't manage to see
him the rest of the weekend as we never did go out on the town.
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| Grasshopper anyone? |
At around 4, a Parry,
Luanna, Rianna and I headed back to the campsite via the town market.
Once back we all had a wee snooze for a bit, then into town for
curry. After dinner – where we saw a very drunk, sick pirate puke
into a bread basket and then leave it for the waiter without saying
anything – we were all a bit relieved to get back to the camp. It
was quieter tonight, no heavy thumping music. The weather had turned
cold and I sat on the blanket wrapped in my sleeping bag for a bit,
drinking a cider from the supermarket – apple and peach. Not very
nice, but it tasted like a Magners so after the curry, I came back
and drank the rest – still cold, but flat, on the table. There was
some activity on the beach, so five of us to a wonder down with some
marshmallows to roast them. We managed to find an abandoned but well
kept fire to do this and we all ate at least 5 each. I did anyway. I
love to let them burn and then take off a layer, and then burn again.
We stayed on the beach
for a long time, keeping warm by the fire and listening to the surf.
At midnight we returned to our tents, to find everyone else had long
gone to bed. Apart from listening to a couple nearby fight about
mussels, there wasn't much night noise until the crowds came back
from the pubs around 2. So that's where they were!
In the morning, I was
awoken around 8 by Jim, motorbike man, shaking out his tent. I got up
around 9 and joined the others while they had tea and coffee before
packing up our tents. We all had breakfast in a deli café on the
main street before going our separate ways again. Danielle, Luanna,
Beko, Rianna and I looked around the tourist shops. I got myself some
nice Paua shell earrings but I was really aiming for something with
Jade in it, but they were all incredibly expensive.
I had a ride back with
Beko again. I did offer to swap, we were all going to the same place
after all. We almost broke down on the way back. As an automatic, and
someone not used to an automatic, Beko got very annoyed with not
being able to change his own gears whilst going up hill, and
accidentally put the car into neutral while going up hill. It took a
few minutes for it to start back up again, and I was so relieved when
it did. I did not want to be stuck in the middle of the mountains, in
the middle of nowhere with someone I did not know very well.
We arrived at
Danielle's house just before she did, and on collecting my things
from her house, she dropped me off at my new hostel on Worcester St,
the Vagabond. It had actual beds – not bunks – and after being in
a tent all weekend on the ground, I was really rather glad to be able
to stretch out.
Back in Christchurch, I
took a wander around the town from this angle. I was much closer to
the Cardboard Cathedral this time, and there was a whole new part of
the town to get to know. I found another library and found I was much
closer to another pac n save so did my weekly shopping there. I also
booked a doctor's appointment for P, who had told me before she left
Korea that she thought she had bronchitis. I kept on getting a
sensitive tooth as well, so I emailed a ton of surgeries in the area
in case they had space for me.
On Tuesday I picked up
P from the airport. After settling in the hostel, we went to her
appointment. All okay, but she's been given medication to make it
better. We had a late lunch in the nearby mall before having a wee
look around Christchurch. The next day, I had managed to get a
dentist appointment up in Merivale, so I went to that, thinking it
was only a check up. A tooth in the back of my mouth had a hole in
it. It wasn't the sensitive one so I had ignored it. Stupidly, I had
thought it was a wisdom tooth coming in and pushing the other tooth
out. They did the filling on the sensitive tooth and had a look at my
other tooth and told me: either it came out or I had to have a root
canal. Taking it out seemed the better option. My mouth was injected
with local anaesthetic and after the tooth was out, and after I found
P in the mall opposite (as I had been longer than originally planned,
I'd asked the nurse to give her my mobile just so I'd know where she
was), we went into the ladies and I saw how much my face was still
numb. Of course, I could feel it, but to see it in the mirror was a
bit strange. Smiling at myself, my nose wouldn't move, neither would
an entire half of my face. I looked as if I was having a stroke. I
tried drinking some water and dribbled all over myself. I had to
stand over the sink, holding my lips closed, just to swallow
anything. I looked awful. I still had to rinse my mouth out with salt
water as the dentist had instructed and that definitely wasn't easy.
We missed the return bus so walked back to the hostel.
In the afternoon, we
had an explore in the centre. I showed P the parts I've liked,
including the Greek food van at the re:start mall. Falafel and Lamb
in a huge pita that's more like a naan in thickness, with plenty of
home made tomato sauce and salad. Mine was without tzaziki, but P
really liked hers. It's very filling though. I'd totally recommend it
if you're ever in Christchurch, it's like two meals in one! Watch out
for the seagulls when you're there, they can be really vicious!! This is the picture she took of me. Notice one side of my face droops on one side... that's from the dentists... it took 6 hours for me to feel me flaring my nostrils again (my test).
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| Mmm Greek Food! |
Next day we left for
Dunedin. We were sharing a room with one Swedish guy and one ageing
hippy who snored like a chainsaw in his sleep, yelled in his sleep
(like nonsensical yelling) and then when we were all getting up at
6am (apart from him) there was some peeing in a cup on his part even
though we were less than 5m from the bathroom. Ahhhh!!!
Next blog will be on
Dunedin, I'm about 4 days behind at the moment because we've been
doing so much and then we haven't been having great internet either.
Will try my best later!!
Over and Out!
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