"Ok, I am actually back in the UK now and recovering from the after effects of an epic 33 hour journey around the world, but nevertheless I promised a final instalment so a final instalment there shall be (and this is it).
My last e-mail left off in Dunedin, which is known as “Edinburgh of the South”, and my guidebook indicated that the residents actually still have a distinctive Scottish burr. Disappointingly, this proved to be a tissue of lies, much like some of the other nuggets of information which I spotted in the Rough Guide, for example the suggestion that New Zealand measures beer in “flagons”, “riggers” and even “elegantly fluted twelves”. Presumably in the fantasy world in which one can order such measures in a pub without being greeted with gales of mocking laughter, if one was not quite up for an elegantly fluted twelve one could settle for a “quaintly piccoloed four and a half”, or something of the kind. Almost as far fetched as the suggestion by a man who inflicted his company on me in the bus from Rotorua to Wellington, who suggested that if I put butter on my fingers in Arthur’s Pass I would have Kea birds flocking to lick it off without taking my fingers with it. The fact that both of his hands still featured the usual five digits suggested that he had not tried this experiment himself, and because I never take suggestions from strange men on buses these days, neither did I (in fact we did not end up even visiting Arthur’s Pass, let alone take any dairy products with us to use for such inappropriate purposes!)
Nevertheless, the Rough Guide and the Lonely Planet Guide did prove invaluable to us on a number of occasions, and did at least provide us with a glossary of useful Kiwi phrases such as “daggy”, defined as “uncool; from the dags that hang off sheep’s bottoms” and “westie” defined as “from West Auckland; rough edged fellow, probably wearing a black tee-shirt, drinking beer and listening to AC/DC; see also bogan, munter” (in fact both “bogan” and “munter” refer back to “westie”)!
Anyway, I would venture to suggest that Dunedin lacks some of the charm of the Edinburgh of the northern hemisphere as well as the Scottish accents, although the swimming pool, the Cadbury’s World and the Speight’s Brewery are all fun. But it was nevertheless nice to get back to Queenstown, a town with real charm and a huge number of things to do, except of course that we did not end up getting a chance to do most of them because practically the only time it stopped raining during our three day sojourn there was when it started snowing. We did, however, get to do some snow shoeing, which due to the icy weather was particularly dramatic and brought back alarming recollections of the fate of Captain Scott from our recent visit to the Antarctic Centre. Although if Captain Scott had had to put up with such a politically incorrect travelling companion as our guide (his “hilarious” Chinaman impression would have made Bernard Manning wince with embarrassment), he would probably have ended up eating him and thereby ensuring his own survival (which would have made for a considerably less heroic story, perhaps!)
We did go up the gondola in Queenstown as well, which had a fabulous view (if you happen to find thick fog visually appealing), and we were not short of things to do in the evenings thanks to a fantastic wine tasting shop which had 84 wines to taste (we did not quite get through all of them but we had a pretty good try), but during the other two days (before and after the snowshoeing day) we had to settle for swimming and going to see “Despicable Me” at the cinema (was it me, or did they model the central character on Dara O’Briain?)
Thus moving over to Australia and the warm, temperate Sydney climate was a bit of a welcome relief for both of us. You will recall that Australia have now got their first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, whose reign began inauspiciously when she was photographed with her new banner “Flying Start”, with one word below the other, and most of the photographs cut off the first letter of each word so that it suggested something else entirely! Despite this hiccup, she managed to just about retain power at the last election due to the fact that her opponent, Tony Abbott, appeared to spend most of the election campaign wandering around Australia’s various beaches in a pair of excessively tight speedos, waving his ponderous beergut in the faces of the horrified electorate, which was probably enough to put anyone off!
We had to fly from Queenstown to Christchurch, and from there we took a flight to Sydney. The flight out of Queenstown was itself pretty dramatic (and I still have Julie’s fingernail marks in my arm to prove it) which for me partially made up for our not getting to do an official “scenic flight” over Milford Sound, which I did back in 2003.
On the Christchurch-Sydney flight I found myself sat next to an elderly woman, who initially seemed friendly, chatty and above all, harmless. This first impression swiftly disappeared over the course of the flight, when in three hours she managed to miraculously transform herself, through the medium of alcohol, from Miss Marple into Oliver Reed at his wildest, taking every drink that was available from the air stewardesses and then surreptitiously pilfering a couple more from behind their backs whilst they were not watching. It was when she started doing an impression of me that my hackles started to rise (needless to say, the soused old bat did not even get close to doing me justice). In spite of her mockery, she then asked me to hold her hat as she staggered off to make one of her several drunken attempts to upgrade herself to business class. She was very fortunate that she was sitting next to one of the last gentlemen in the English speaking world, as a less restrained fellow traveller than myself would have probably have retaliated by punching a hole in her hat and then stamping on it. She had disappeared by the time we landed in Sydney, so I can only assume that she was ejected somewhere over the Tasman Sea.
We had a wonderful time in Sydney from start to finish. The YHA room was probably better than any of the rooms we had had in NZ (with the exception of the “Raja Room” in Blenheim) and unexpectedly en suite, which brought a jetlagged smile to our faces. It also had a swimming pool on the 9th floor which offered spectacular views of the city even if it was only slightly larger than our bath.
On the first morning we did a tour of the Sydney Opera House (probably narrowly beating out the Colosseum in Rome for the title of “my favourite building in the world” on the basis that opera singers tend to receive slightly better treatment than the gladiators in Ancient Rome did), thinking that we would be lucky to get standing room seats at any actual operas that they happened to be showing for the price that we were willing to pay. However it turned out that we were in fact able to get tickets for “the Marriage of Figaro” on our last night there for less than half the price we would have paid for the Lord of the Rings tour we had turned down in Queenstown (in all honesty there is only so much I am prepared to fork out for the opportunity to touch Gimli’s helmet!) I am not much of an opera buff but I was nevertheless excited at the opportunity to get to see an opera that wasn’t Don Giovanni!
In the afternoon following the Opera House tour we had a look around the wonderful Botanical Gardens nearby, then after lunch we walked around Sydney Harbour, looking at the Literary Walk of Fame, which has plaques for such legendary Australian authors as…er, Umberto Eco (who apparently merited inclusion because he “visited Australia in 1982”). We then went back and forth over the Harbour Bridge before retiring to the hostel, then out again for tapas and sangria at a Spanish restaurant (Sydney being a relatively international city, and I did try kangaroo as well on another occasion so no one can say I did not have my fair share of Australian cuisine. FYI it tastes like a particularly bland steak).
On the second day we took a ferry out to Manly beach. We almost ended up missing the boat due to my being a glutton for punishment and not running away fast enough when one of the street “entertainers” at the harbour “volunteered” me as one of his stooges to help him ascend a twelve foot tall unicycle. He then proceeded to waste twenty minutes of my time with “hilarious” banter interspersed with moments of virulent anti-New Zealand hatred (which was quite surprising bearing in mind that he was actually American) following which he finally climbed up the damn thing, and I got my revenge by scuttling away to catch the ferry before he could ask for my help getting down again. From the fact that the area was not cordoned off when we came back, and there were no suspicious bloodstains on the pavement, I can only assume that he roped in some other unfortunate victim to help him down. We had a nice walk along Manly beach, although it was not quite warm enough for me to feel any envy for the rugged Antipodean lunatics who were surfing nearby, and then got dinner at a restaurant that was recently voted as having the best pizzas in Australia.
The final day was spent going at Tauranga Zoo, followed by the opera in the evening (with dinner beforehand at the Opera Bar, which is not in fact in the Opera House at all, as the person on duty informed us with some smugness, but nearby overlooking the harbour). And that is all I have to say about the trip for now, and if you have any desire for further information you can pester me with questions at our engagement party, which, just to give you all a further reminder, is next Saturday (i.e. six days time) in All Bar One in Butler’s Wharf)!
See you all soon.
Al"
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