I awoke at 8.30 am, which seems to be a bit later than average, so I must have needed the extra rest - it has been a rather hectic few days!
I was the last one in the room, which I was OK with - check out here is 11am instead of the normal 10am, and I had intended on sleeping in anyway.
I cooked up some breakfast sausages and ashed up, then checked out after making sure all my stuff was together.
This time when I was packing I managed to leave my day sack completely empty, and had the idea to try and fit the camera bag in it - which worked!
That made it a lot less cumbersome to carry all my belongings now, as everything was on my back, and nothing left around my neck or hand held - though I'm starting to think I should look at getting a smaller camera case and some other way to carry the lenses - I have definitely used all the lenses, so I need everything the camera bag carries, just, something a bit smaller. I wonder how much tax HMRC will try and charge on a camera bag that's being mailed back home ...
As my bus wasn't due for another 4 hours or so, I sat in the lounge of the lodge, and played about with the guitar. The top E string(low E) was snapped, which made it difficult for me to find stuff I could play, as I normally rely on the bass E a lot, but then I realised I could tune the B up to a C, and it would be like normal tuning only missing the bottom E instead.
They also had a piano and I decided to tinker on that too (there was nobody else around for me to annoy so I had free reign), though that was ended when a sand fly decided to bite my on the inside of my foot arch - out with the clicker device to try and prevent itching, and an application of the bug repellent - wasn't expecting to need it inside!
The rain came and went in waves, and I decided to go to the dock to try and arrive around the same time as the bus would be arriving on its inward journey. This paid off, as I managed to get a dry gap in the weather!
I got to the docks after the bus, but by now it was lunch time, so I broke out the picnic lunch I had aquired on the previous day on the boat tour, and enjoyed that while watching the multitude of tourists rushing about to get on their boats.
It got a little colder and damper, so I ventured inside the terminal building and occupied one of the comfy couches, using the free time to write up the journals for the previous days.
It was soon time to board the bus, hough the people who had used it for the day trip (Queenstown - Milford Sound - Cruise - Queenstown), were given priority for boarding.
There were no tourist type stops on the way back, and so the first stop was at Te Anau, where we all had to get off the bus, as the driver wanted a coffee, though of course we could all grab one if we wanted too - I decided to forgo the expense!
When we got back on, we were given priority boarding over the people who were joining the bus here, and then the driver put on a movie about a Burt Munro, from Invercargill (very south of New Zealand) who set the land speed record on two wheels, which to this date over 30 years later, has not been beaten! 'The Fastest Indian in the World' movie took us to Queenstown. I didn't watch every moment of the movie however, as the scenery that had been hidden by clouds on the way out, was visible, and reasonably epic to say the least!
As we crossed the river in frankton there was a rainbow out, which coincidentally seemed to end in the river, almost proving the point that there is gold at the end of the rainbow, since the river is the one I mentioned a couple of days ago as being the one that was dammed to try and get at the gold in it!
I checked in to the Absoloot hostel, this time was much quicker. Once I had set down my bags in the room, I went to the reception to try and sort out some activities to do for the next few days. I established that the lord of the rings tours were all cancelled for Saturday (probably due to poor weather), but I did book on to an evening boat cruise down the lake including BBQ Buffet meal, which I'm rather looking forwards to!
I met one of my room mates, who is from Kilmarnock. he's been in New Zealand for almost two years on a working visa, and is involved in the contruction of a new bridge at Frankton to allow for two way traffic.
I had been advised to go to Fergburger so decided to try that out, though the person at reception recommended that I go to Devil Burger instead as it is the same price, better burgers, and shorter queues - so I took that advice, as I was pretty hungry, given it was 8.30 and the last time I had eaten was 1pm.
It was good advice, I only had about 15-20 minutes to wait for the burger, which was delicious! On my way over there I became aware that Queenstown is very definitely a party town, as a large group of revellers taggered by whooping and cheering and generally being loud and drunk and having fun!
I did some organising online of things as I settled down for the night, and Kayla and Becka from America arrived in the room. They are just over for a long weekend, before their exams, and are staying in Australia where they are attending college. They recommended that I go on the catamaran tour up in Brisbane, which includes barrier reef snorkeling.
It was around 10.30pm at this point, and they were pleased to hear that it was a party town, as they were still on Australian time (7.30pm), and so headed out to party.
It didn't take me long to fall asleep after that, though I was woken at about 2.30 am by someone arriving in the room, who started loudly telling his friend (who had arrived nice and quietly so hadn't woken anyone), that he has just spent the last 15 hours in jail, after being accused of stealing a girl's wallet. As I don't know the whole story I won't judge, but he did settle down after 15 minutes or so, then they both got up and loudly prepared to leave at 6.30am.