The Roadtrip, Part 2

“Take the next left.” Gemma turned right.
Clearly this was a sign of good things to come…

Our first stop in Abel Tasman was Totaranui campsite. Long gone were the memories of the previous night in our “luxury” lodge and we pitched our tent and headed off for a hike along the coast. It was beautiful. And hilly. Cue more moaning:
“Why is New Zealand so hilly? I don’t like hiking. I like flat walks.” This went on for three hours. Three. Whole. Hours.
“My legs hurt. Oooh that view is nice. Do we have to come back this way? Why didn’t we plan this better? ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH SOMETHING JUST BUZZED IN MY EAR!!!” And on and on it went.
“I’m hungry.” Of course you are Gemma. Of course you are.

On returning to camp the sun was shining so we decided to lounge at the beach. It was relaxing, warm and everyone was happy. Until the bees came.
“WFT is that?!!” Neil jumped so high he headbutted the sun and a bee chased him round the beach.
“OMG there’s one on me now!!!” Gemma screeched and joined Neil running around and wafting her towel in an intimidating manner. The bees were not intimidated. In fact, they were so unintimidated that they started divebombing the two of them. Meanwhile I lay there watching the scene unfold in front of me, devoid of bees and wondering if Gemma was still hungry.
Eventually Neil returned after running the entire length of New Zealand in an attempt to lose his bee. “Let’s go back the tent,” he panted as Gemma ran past at lightening speed, her bee in hot pursuit. Back to the tent we went.

The bees disappeared, and we decided it was time for food because Gemma was wasting away. Sandwiches were made by Gemma and Neils’ shaking hands and agitation levels were at an all time high. Crisps were consumed (as seemed to be a daily occurrence on this trip). A blade of grass touched Neil’s toe and he screamed so loudly Lyvette heard him in Australia. Then a wasp joined the party. Gemma was up and off and I swear Neil actually wept. The wasp was not deterred. The extravaganza reached its climax when Neil finally hit rock bottom and launched his sandwich at the wasp with an almighty roar. Salami went everywhere.
I stood half laughing, half mesmerised, wondering how we had reached this very low (but loud) point in such a beautiful part of the world. Neil sobbed in frustration and Gemma twitched at any sound other than her own breathing (which was intense).
“Lets go.”
So, five hours after we’d arrived, we packed up the tent and left. That was our experience of the northern end of the Abel Tasman.

One hour later I was in the drivers seat allowing the other two to regain their composer after their bee ordeal and we were putting good distance behind us and the killer army of buzzing villains. Gemma was in the backseat and I had the window open so my hearing was somewhat limited.
“Heather,” she said calmly (too calmly). “You need to pull over.”
“Yeah I don’t know what the weather is doing either,” I replied as I eyed up the dark clouds above.
“You need to pull over,” Gemma repeated.
“Yes they are coming over.” I was very aware of these dark rain clouds. And clearly very unaware of what Gemma was actually saying to me.
It was only when I glimpsed her body rigid as stone in the back, eyes bulging from their sockets, that I realised there was a chance that Gemma hadn’t been discussing the weather.
“STOP THE CAR!” It was Neil’s turn.
They had jumped out of the car before I had even skidded to a holt, batting the wasp that had sneaked into the back to traumatise them even more. Gemma’s collected demeanour had diminished rapidly and they had taken it upon themselves to kick and punch every air molecule within a ten metre radius.
“Ahhhhhh. You were asking me to stop the car.” I finally understood. Now it all made sense.

We arrived at Marahau a few hours later because we had decided to kayak to the bottom of the Abel Tasman national park the following day. We were all in relatively good spirits, all heart rates had returned to normal and there was not a buzzy thing in sight. We arrived at the campsite just as reception was closing and ran in to try and get a spot for the night. That is to say, myself and Neil ran in.
“Arrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It’s gone!!!” Gemma was sprawled over the bar bonnet holding her back, apparently crippled. Seriously. What. The f**k. Has happened now?!!!
“My back’s gone!!!” she yelled.
“How?!” Neil enquired. “We’ve not done anything. We’ve only got out of the car.”
“It does this sometimes.”
Oh. Ok then. Myself and Neil glanced at each other, unsure of how to respond, but silently agreed we had to leg it to the office before it closed, leaving Gemma to limp dramatically towards us, dragging both legs and a contorted body.
We were just paying for the last spot on the site and booking tomorrows kayaking trip when Gemma burst into reception wailing as she staggered to the counter and slumped over it.
The receptionist was concerned, “Are you ok?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m with those two over there…they don’t care….” Gemma responded nodding towards ‘us two’ who were looking away trying our hardest not to laugh at Gemma’s figure sprawled along the worktop.
“And I’m starving,” she continued. Of course you are….
Ten minutes later we were pitching our tent in the rain with Gemma prancing around like she’d won the bloody lottery.
“But what about your back?!”
“Oh yeah, it’s fine now…it just does that sometimes.”
Oh ok. Well that was a very dramatic ten minutes that resolved itself very quickly….

Kayaking day and it was raining. Myself and Gemma were sharing a boat and Neil was paired with Sjoerd from the Netherlands. Sjoerd seemed like a nice guy although you could see he was concerned about his partner when Neil screamed because some sand fell on his toe…
The first part of the tour was great, the weather cleared up, we saw seals and the landscape was lush. Then Sjoerd got seasick. He turned green. Our guide had some sickness tablets so we stopped to retrieve them from the front of her boat.
“You’ve got seasickness tablets?!” Gemma exclaimed. “I’m seasick too! I’ve just caught it!”
Now is the time to note that this was the perkiest and least sick Gemma had been for the entire trip. Meanwhile Sjoerd was heaving at the front of Neil’s boat.
“Gemma, you’re not seasick. You can’t catch it!” Neil scolded.
“I will be soon!! I know it. Well, I definitely might be.” she reassured him as Sjoerd passed out.

Turns out our guide hadn’t packed the sickness tablets and the trip went on with Sjoerd suffering every thirty minutes and Gemma deciding she was going to catch this bout of contagious seasickness imminently. She never caught it. Obviously. But that was officially the most dramatic twenty-four hours of my life.

Next stop was Picton and Marlborough Sounds. We arrived and the sun was shining, there were actual people, we booked into a hostel with actual beds and a nice kiwi owner. Now the thing about the kiwi accent is that they pronounce ‘e’ as ‘I’ so an ‘egg’ becomes an ‘igg’ and to the unkiwi ear ‘six’ and ‘sex’ become the same word. Very confusing – we know. So, in Kiwi, ‘Heather’ is pronounced ‘Hither’ and so on.
“Ahhh,” said the hostel owner, “it’s viry (that’s ‘very’ to you and I) funny because you think I’m saying ‘Hither’ when actually I’m saying ‘Hither’.” To which Neil, ever the diplomat, replied;
“No the reason we think you’re saying ‘Hither’ is because that’s exactly what you’re saying.” We all got the giggles and then we left the hostel in search of a beer and treated ourselves to our very own version of tapas; which included wedges, chips and gravy, garlic bread and prawn skewers. Very Spanish. We were content, bee free and excited about our dolphin tour the following morning.

During the briefing we were informed that dolphins like singing and once we were in the water the best thing we could do was get vocal. We were also informed that the dolphins of Marlborough Sound are the largest bottlenoses in the world. The dolphins were wild and it was up to them if they wished to come and have a gander at us. Into the water we jumped. The dolphins headed towards us and the only song I could think of was ‘Happy Birthday.’ They didn’t appreciate it at all and these dolphins didn’t feel the need to approach me. Fair enough. My song choice was shit. Neil had opted for a bit of Taio Cruz and although the dolphins weren’t impressed he did get chased by a fur seal pretending to be a dolphin. So that was a win.
Round two and this time I was determined to up my game and become besties with a dolphin so off I paddled, snorkelling around Marlborough Sounds singing the Spice Girls (Wannabe) at the top of my under the sea voice. And then the magic happened. A baby bottlenose swam over and decided to play. It swam around me and came so close that I thought my new mate was going to headbutt me. Then it looked me in the eye, we had a brief staring contest (with me still singing the Spice Girls) and my mate went off again with a new spring in its swim. So, I can confirm that bottlenose dolphins are partial to a bit of the Spice Girls. It was a great morning. We were at one with nature, had swam with wild dolphins and an attention seeking seal pretending to be a dolphin. We celebrated by eating more crisps.

Next stop Hamner Springs to experience the natural hot pools. This was all very relaxing until myself and Neil found a waterslide and Neil screamed so much I wet myself. Post wetting oneself we hung out in a thermal pool when a man started talking to us. He was about one metre away but he was speaking so quietly no one could understand what he was saying. Eventually, after saying, “excuse me? Sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you…” numerous times (to which he’d nod and continue to speak at the same volume) we just stared at him wondering what he was going on about. Me and Gemma turned away, trying not to laugh, and left Neil to engage in the conversation that he couldn’t hear. Neil, being Neil, was having none of it.
“It’s really weird,” he loudly announced to me and Gemma, “doesn’t this man realise I can’t hear him?!”
We looked away. The man who was still sat one metre away stared at him. He’s speaking quietly Neil, he’s not deaf. We awkwardly got up and left.

Neil’s friends from Uni live in Christchurch and they very kindly put us up for a few nights. We arrived after eating five bags of crisps on the car journey. Five whole bags. Large bags. In one day.  That was a new record. That night Paddy and Karen got us slightly squiffy and decided to open MORE crisps…
“Oooh crisps, we love crisps!” and in we went for a few more family sized packets. I’d eaten so many crisps my throat burned.
“I’ve got a burning in my ganet.” I choked
“You mean gusset?” Gemma asked.
“No.” Neil shook his head in despair. “She means gullet.”
It wasn’t me, it was the crisps. They killed my brain cells.

The following day we embarked upon a three hour hike around Godley Head to burn off our crisps, armed with zero water and no breakfast. Very prepared, hence more moaning. And some more moaning. And a bit more.
“I’m so hungry I’m going to die.” Shock.
We arrived back, ready for our gourmet sandwiches with pastrami, salami, humous, cheeses and salad. Gemma ran to the fridge to retrieve our edible goods and set them up on the table outside. By the time me and Neil had ventured onto the patio she was sat there, with a face like thunder, tapping something hard on the table.
“What’s that?” we asked pointing to the red ball she was tapping.
“This.” She announced drawing a deep breath, “Is a tomato. And it is FROZEN. Like everything else in the fridge. Solid. Our lunch. Not edible.”
All of our food was frozen. We sat and looked at the concrete tomato and slices of solid pastrami. Then we slowly made ourselves some crisp sandwiches.
Then the wasps came to attack us once more.
Then Gemma and Neil legged it, sliding on frozen lettuce, throwing their crisps and screaming. Just another standard day on our NZ roadtrip…

The final leg of our journey was to Tekapo, Lake Pukaki and Mount Cook (my personal fave). Here we braved the cold and camped again, accompanied by a random ferret. It was cold, really cold and our sleeping bags fit for a children’s party did nothing to prevent the frost bite. I actually think it got into the minuses. Gemma and Neil woke in a very frosty mood (see what I did there), once again wondering why I had brought them camping with crap equipment. Apparently winging it was not ok. The whole campsite knew Neil was awake when he started shouting and flapping around the car where he was sat, with the door open, putting his shoes on. Gemma hobbled over with her frozen toes to see what was happening with me close behind. We found him waving his hands and making screeching noises and a little bird jumping around him. The little bird had clearly decided that Neil looked like a fun guy to land on and was flapping around Neil’s frozen feet. Neil, however, was tired and not ok with little bird dancing around him. Little bird didn’t give a shit. He was happy as Larry doing his jig and avoiding a flapping frozen Neil. Another great start to another great day.

We warmed up walking around Mount Cook and ended up enjoying our final day. We devoured our final bag of crisps and headed home. The only drama in that journey was when Neil (who was driving) had something dangling from his beard;
“Neil, you’ve got something in your beard.”
“Waaaaaaaaaaa!! Is it alive?!” he screamed as he slammed the breaks on and Gemma’s head nearly crashed through the windscreen and her eyeballs fell out of their sockets and were found rolling around the dashboard.
The thing in Neil’s beard was a crisp.

And that concludes Neil and Gemma’s voyage to New Zealand. After a few days in Queenstown they left for home armed with chilblains and frostbite tainted metatarsals. They had eaten their way through every bag of crisps in the southern hemisphere and saw the beauty of New Zealand in ten days. They got chased by every wasp, bee and flying thing on the island and jumped out of their skin so many times they almost gave themselves whiplash. Neil befriended ferrets, little birds and fur seals and Gemma left in a state of extreme ketosis due to her apparent lack of food (crisps are not included). We learned that my camping preparation is terrible and its touch and go if I will ever survive the extreme outdoorsy lifestyle in New Zealand. I vowed to remember that correct equipment is crucial.

Despite the (constant) moaning and whining Gemma and Neil left New Zealand with abs of steel from all the laughing, potential diabetes from all the crisps, contagious seasickness and the knowledge that even as full grown adults it’s still possible to shit yourself when you locate a crisp in your beard.