Egg is in the air!

We've made it as far as Rotorua, so that means as far as NewZealands concerned there's only 3 stops left! Blimey how time flys!
Rotorua, on first impression, was not my cup of tea (ok, slight understatement). Admittedly it probably didn't help that I was in a ridiculously foul mood. My nights sleep was, well...the term "my nights sleep" is probably far too strong a term to use for the amount of rest I actually received. Jake decided to tap away on his laptop on the bunk below me until the wee hours of the morning, and then the two girls we shared the dorm with got up at the slightly less wee hours of the morning, packed their things and went on their way. This is not usually a problem. Staying in hostels has made me an even heavier sleeper than I was before! Seriously, a 4.9 earthquake hit Christchurch the night we slept there and I half woke up, assumed somebody had lost their balance and used the wall of our room to regain their balance and that was what had made it tilt (don't ask! My reasoning when I'm tired is beyond me!) and then I just drifted back off to sleep! But these two girls were the noisiest people in the history of the world! It wasn't the rustling of bags, nor the sporadic chatter that woke me up, it was the CONSTANT SLAMMING OF THE DORM ROOM DOOR! Considering mine and Jake's bunk was right next to the door you would have thought they would at least try to gently close it, but no. They opened it full and let go each time, leaving gravity to do it's work. By the fifth time I'd given up sleeping through it and just watched the door open, hesitate for a second, gather speed and theeeeeeeeeeen BANG! It was closed again, just in time for the other girl to come in from brushing her teeth. The door hesitates, gathers speed and sure enooooooough BANG!!! I very nearly turned to one of them exclaiming "Do you mind!?". Again don't ask why I thought at 5 in the morning this was a suitable way to tell someone off for being inconsiderate to an extent I've never encountered before. As I before mentioned, my reasoning when I'm tired is beyond me. 
And so, back to my original point, I arrived in Rotorua sleep deprived and with a head that hurt with the effort of trying to comprehend how two people, who I'm sure are very reasonable human beings most of the time, could be so, just, GRRRR! I was also hungry. And if you know me at all you will know when I'm tired I overcompensate for the lack of energy gained through sleep with energy gained through food.  So at around 2, having had no breakfast, no lunch and very little sleep we're walking along a beach when I notice a steaming pile of poop on the sand. I apprehended the pile of dung with more interest than I usually would. Something didn't seem right, although I couldn't put my finger on it...Oh, that's right, neatly stacked next to the pile of "do-do" was a bundle of used toilet tissues! And no, dogs in NewZealand don't wipe their bums. YOU do the maths! I shook this image from my head and kept walking. For some reason there where seagull carcusses dotted along our path. Don't get me wrong, growing up on a seaside town has hardly made me fond of these particular birds but none the less it doesn't mean I want to see their splattered mushy parts whilst out on a leisurely stroll. What was probably the last straw though, was losing my flipflop in a great big puddle of goo. Don't ask me what it was, because I don't know, but under a thin layer of sand sat a gloopy mass of rotting vegetation (at a guess), waiting for some poor, innocent sleepdeprived backpacker to sink her bare ankles into the gloop. I fell asleep last night thinking I couldn't wait to get away from here. 
This morning however we went to a thermal park, by the name of Wai-O-Tapu (this means sacred water in Maori). The smell of egg increased rapidly as we got closer (that always makes it harder to get to like a place, when it smells like egg, and thoughts like "I bet hundreds of people are seizing opportunitys to relieve themselves here, as it would hardly be noticed if you know what I mean" intermitedly cross your mind). However, within ten minutes I managed to forgive Rotorua of all her pooeyness and rotting birdness.
A Geyser goes off. Wooooosh! And a spray of water towers over me (and even Jake!) at about 15 meters, bringing down a smattering of faux rain. It turns from over 100 degrees C to just above cold in the time it takes to reach me from the underground resevoir. We were both greatful for it, today being one of the hottest we've had. The glob glob of bubbling mud pools surrounds us, like thick soup on a stove just starting to warm through (although Emma, it has to be said your home made soup smells considerably better than the mud pools did). There's something toad like in the way they glob. I'm not quite sure what. I think it's the way the toads throat slowly expands and then suddenly flattens again, soon after the awaited ribbit. The mud expands, tension builds and theeeen, blob, it's like nothing ever happened. One pool was quite literally green. Not mossy green, but pea green. If the owl and the pussycat parked their boat in said pool it would have blended in perfectly (and probably have been dissolved by the cobination of heat and sulphur). My favourite bit however was a shallow pool that sretched into the distance and out of view ("out of view" wasn't neccessaraly very far away, the amount of steam coming from the pool seriously limited how far you could see, but the effect was that of an endless mass of water...it was a good effect.) The rock at the waters edge was vibrant red, and stretched until it was about a meter in. From there on the water was a bright blue and green, with the odd pool of yellow, like someone had tipped in a tub of mustard power. It was completely alien. The pines in the background (planted by convincts apparantly) was the only image keeping the scene before me real. If it weren't for that I could have been on an alien planted for all I new.
Despite it's eggyness it was a thing of beauty!

So my overview on Rotorua so far is that it's ultimately, hugely different from every other place we've been. It's beautiful, but not in the rolling hills and clear lakes I've become accustomed to in NewZealand...and my nose is becoming slowly accustomed to the eggy smell.
All my love, Beth :)
xxx

Pants!

Today I ran out of pants.
Today, for the first time sinse leaving home, my travelling provisions have run short.
So now I am lieing in bed, at about lunch time, because I refuse to start going about my daily business without a pair of clean underwear on. All I can do is wait for my wash to finish. So I FINALLY have time to update the blog!
It seems that unfortunately the pattern is the more I have to write about, the less time I have to write about it, so, due to the long gap in my blogging activity you can pretty much guarantee this one's gunna be a biggin! So I suggest if you need to use the toilet you go now, and you may want to get a cup of tea aswell (as I'm aware my posts are so engrossing that once you start reading it may be hard to pull away!)
I'm going to begin with two major life accomplishments. Firstly, throwing myself head first off a 135 meter drop. Secondly, winning my first hand to hand combat with a mosquito. The bunjy jump was insane, in fact I'm not really sure how to explain it, but I'm going to give it a go.
Step 1: Being strapped into the harness. At this point the feeling just a whole lot of macho "COMMOOOOOON!!!" as the adrenaline and (I'm pretty sure) testosterone starts to pump through your veins. I never felt so manly, and I wouldn't be surprised if I was very close to sprouting chest hair.
Step 2: The "Waddle of doom"! Due to the style of the jump the bungy chord goes around your ankles so you dive headfirst. This means you don't get to do a running jump or anything. You get to waddle helplessly to the edge, and stare down into the abys your about to plunge yourself into. At this point the testosterone runs to hide and the adrenaline starts to run in overload. The knees are shaking and the sensible part of your brain starts to really regret the choice you've made.
Step 3: The first few seconds of the jump. This is all a bit of a blur to be honest. You push yourself off the platform and even before you start falling, just as you hit the off balance point where there's no return you get this awful feeling of dread. "What have you DONE!?". At that point my reasoning which went something along the lines of your fine, it's safe, they wouldn't let you jump if you would be hurt, gets drowned out by billions of years of evolution. My whole body started wriggling and there was no way  I could control it. It was like every limb was determined not to die, and thought if it wriggled ridiculously enough and embarassingly enough it may just about begin to fly. All the other guys who did it before me just drifted down, still and unmoving, where as I flapped about like a dancing fish. I've decided that this means all the other people doing the jump are quitters, as their bodies had already accepted their fate, where as I'm a fighter and wasn't going down so easily!!! Either that or I'm just not half as solid as everyone else who jumped...I'm sticking with theory number 1.
Step 4: The adrenaline subsides enough for you to remember that you are safe and you really get a chance to enjoy it. The rush is incredible and your bobbing upside down in some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.
Step 5: Gettin wrinched up and having everyone point out, with photographic proof, how you had been squirming around like an idiot for the entirity of the fall.
Few! Now try and imagine all these things happening within the space of about 20/30 seconds. By the time your back on the platform there's just a very sereel fealing of, what in the world just happened?!

On to my second acheivement. The death of the mosquito! This may not seem like a big deal to many, but you have to understand that I was one of those children who couldn't stand it when animals died. I would tell my little brother off for needlessly pulling mussels off the rocks down the beach, and go crazy at the boys in my reception class who thought it funny to pull worms in half! But I'm afraid after weeks of being mauled by mosquitos and savaged by sandflies my heart has turned bitter and cruel, and the innocence that once subsided there is now gone. (I should have mentioned before beggingin this section that this is a very dark tale). So I'm in the shower at out new hostel (which serves hot chocolate pudding every evening at 8!!!) when I hear a buzzing. I stop ridding myself of the days grime and stick my head out the shower curtain, and there, shore enough, cocky as ever is the spindly legged fiend perched vertically on the wall. I quickly decide on stealth. My arm reaches down to the floor, feels around for my trusty flip flop and within 2 seconds BAM! The mosquito now looks like a veiny pattern imprinted into the wallpaper. I grin smuggly, finish showering and step out. As i begging donning my oh so snazzy spotty pajama bottoms I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. It was coming back to life! Slowly pushing itself off the wall, one spindly little leg at a time, like a bouncy castle being inflated. I completely freak out. Undead mosquitos with a taste for vengence! No thankyou! I go ninja style on it, smash it a couple more times with my flip flop and dash out of the cubicle. I was very proud of myself...
Jakes just walked in, having had a shower and asks me
"Did you use the outdoors shower?"
"Yeh"
"The one by the giant chess set"
"Yup"
"Is the mosquito about this big?" He holds out his thumb and index finger.
"Sure was" (at this point I think he's about to say it's still there, smooshed against the wall, in a proud sort of "You sure got him good" way)
..."Thats a daddy long legs"
So after my epic tale it turns out I just killed a innocent, unintelligent creature that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could go back and delete the whole story, but I'm not going to. Mwahahah :).
We've been through Christchurch, up to Lake Tekapo, through Queenstown past the pancake rocks, along to nelson and now in Picton! I'm afraid I've misse out an awful lot! Bu I'll try very hard to write again later. I haven't eaten yet today and Jake's just brought me an avacado. NomNom!
Xxx

ChristChurch

And we're in New Zealand!
We landed in Christchurch last night at around 11, and it wasn't until today we actually got to see the effects of the earthquake. Portaloos squat stubbornly on the pavement outside every 3 or 4 houses, and to begin wth I assumed it was because of all the building going on. You see portaloos, you think builders (unless of course your at a music festival, in which case you think NO GO ZONE!) It just came on the news that the waterworks were so effected that for hundreds of people their bathrooms are still not suitable for use, and so if theyv'e got to go it's going to have to be outside, in the portaloo. And even more unfortunate than this is the fact that, as is usually the case with portaloos, they are disgusting. Piled up tissue and urine and...everything else. You don't have to have the best of imaginations to know what I'm talking about!  We can't drink out of the tap in our hostel, and we're some of the lucky ones who have any running water at all. Hundreds of people are homeless and have been made redundant, not to mention the hundreds that lost their friends, family and loved ones. It's not something you think about really effecting the western world. I personally didn't think much of the earthquake. It was so far away, and compared to some of the other natural disasters 100 lives isn't alot. But it's still 100 lives. 100 sisters or brothers, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends. So I'd like to ask everyone to send up a thought or a prayer or what ever you'd like to call it to those whose lives are currently in pieces. 

Because of this it's difficult to enjoy the city. The center's cut off with army men guarding its entrance and piles of rubble where peoples homes used to be, so instead of write about the city I'm going to write about something pretty trivial that happened whilst in the city. 

Me and Jake are crossing the road to catch a bus, or more accurately, Jake is crossing the road and I'm wondering aimlessly behind him until he starts pulling me along, in which case I just slow down even more because I'm like, Hey! We're on holiday! Why rush!? When something mahogony in colour, round and smooth winks out at me from under the grass. What is that? Could it be!?

It was a conker.

You may not see why this is a big deal. Why I suddenly got so excited. It was the fact that something so known and common to me growing up in Cornwall could possibly be there, just the same, on the other side of the world. I bend down to pick it up and realise there's more! Dozens of them littering the floor. I pick up one. Then another. Soon I'm scooping them into my handbag.

"Beth? What are you doing? Seriously!? We're going to miss our bus for some conkers?!"

He goes quiet for a second, and I see in my peripherals a white blonde circle bobbing around by the floor.

The conker fever is catching!

Me and Jake return to the hostel and tip our treasure onto our bed, to admire the sheer number of them! Theyr'e like an army of tubby, squat shiny brown people. 

It suddenly hits me that there's NO way they're going to let me take 50 conkers through customs..maybe if I declare it...

Are you bringing any food in your luggage? No

Are you bringing an amount of tax deducted items that come to over 1000 dollars? No

Do you have in your luggage any wooden items, or items that may be made partly of wood? I have a total of 153 conkers, but I promise the reasoning behind them being there is innocent and trivial, maybe even juvenile.

Do you have in your luggage any seeds? As I before mentioned, I have a total of 153 conkers. I plan to plant none of them. If this is going to be a problem I'm willing to leave 53 behind, but any less than that and I lose my title of conker centurian. This is a title I will not reliquish readily.

Sometimes I really struggle to explain why I do things. I just do!  When I was younger I used to have this weird "What if?!" Problem. It was very simple. I, for example, remember sitting in a car, on the motorway on the way to Bristol and my brain suddenly goes

"What would happen if I throw care to the wind and fling open the door?"

As soon as this thought gets into my head it sticks there and I find myself realy considering to do this ridiculous thing.

I remember walking up the stairs, with my favourite cup. It was Beauty and the Beast style, with two layers of plastic and between the two layers of plastic was liquid, bits of glitter and little plastic shapes that moved around. I'm pretty sure everyone in my generation had one of these cups. Well I get to the top of the stairs and think "What would happen if I dropped it over the edge?" 

After being in mental turmoil for a couple of minutes I reluctantly drop my beloved plastic, glittery Beauty and the Beast cup and watch it fall. 

It smashes into 100 pieces.

I start to cry.

It was pretty standard. Nothing interesting happened. It just fell and smashed. But I must have done something like that at least a dozen times before I got the hint. Gravity really is a stubborn bum!

We're headed off to Tekapo tomorrow, expect hundreds of photos of one great big beautiful lake!!

Love to all. 

Xxx

City of Lights, Second attempt!

Hmm...

about the last post, I would like to apoligies.But I blame it on the invention of boxes of wine!

Not only can you have copious amounts for a very small price, but it's very hard to keep track of how much you've drunk! With a bottle it's just, oops, I'm halfway through, better slow down, and then once you've finished the bottle you know your at prime perfect drunkness and thats the time to swap onto lemonade or something.
With the box you have no idea how much you've drunk, until the box becomes considerably lighter and Jake decides to, out of curiousity, take the bag out of the box and see how much was left.

The answer? Not alot. Between me and Jake nearly all 4 litres had been consumed. Yesterday morning began at about 2pm with a banging headache, spinning dorm room and overactive gag reflex. Blerg!

Anyways, I'm going to try and explain (again!) why I'm referring to Melbourne as the city of lights. 

In the daytime it's nothing spectacular. I mean, it's pretty great but not like, wow! Well, a little bit wow. Quite a bit wow! But the lights are the cherry on top. In the day there's buskers on every corner, artists drawing famous paintings in chalk on the sidewalk, thousands of boutiqes and cafes and gymnasts all competing for your loose change. It's hustley and bustley, but it doesn't feel as crammed as London. So you get the feeling that there's something going on all the time, without the voice in th back of your head going "So, this is what it feels like to be a sardine!" (That's the sort of thing my little voice often comes out with. If everybodies conscience was as absurd as mine Pinnochio would have been a much more interesting movie!). But at night the citie's just incredible. 

The trees lining the side of the roads are apparantly, not quite green enough, and so they pump the bark with a luminescent green glow, kind of like The Hulk in foliage form. Every building is lit up in bright whites and yellows, and the stadium in the distance twinkles in pinks and purples. Me and Jake stop off at the bridge, where we get a great view of the whole city (twice over if you count the reflection), and a bierded busker starts tootling away on his flute. Jake turns to me,  "Well that's a nice touch!". Suuuure is. 

On the way home we pass through the rememberance garden. The Romanesque building, with two lots of steps on every side and 5 columns lining the entrance is basking in a honey glow, as the sprinklers fracture the light and add extra entertainement for those immature enough to dare try and outrun them. There's a fire lit, flickering either side. 

And that's why it is the city of lights!

Hopefully I've redeemed myself a little. I haven't read through the last post. I'm too ashamed! But I can't bring myself to delete it, I guess it's all part of the blogging thing!

Love to eeeeeeeveryone back home. :)

T.T.F.N

X

The City of Lights!

That's right, we are in the city of lights!
...Ok. No, we are not in Paris, but Melbourne gets pretty lighty once the sun goes down!
Our jouney didn't start off very well.
First, we have a 10 hour train journey. I can handle this, Australia is a big country and so travelling across it will take a while, but the night before we're off, disaster strikes! (For those males who struggle with the womanly neccessities you might not want to read this next section)
For the first time, in about two months, my period starts!!!
So, I'm on a train for 10 hours, with cronic period pains, continuously having to visit the toilet (which smells awful iffy!) and in the worst mood ever! We finally get to Melbourne station, and decide to get a taxi considering we have huge backpacks and have no idea where we're going.
The taxi driver took us to the wrong park street! What stupid city has two streets with the same name! So even after paying 10 dollers we get to walk around the city for about an hour. At least we bumped into some nice locals who led us bascaly to our hostel's front door.
Then we enter St Arnauds.
From outside it looks clean and fresh but pretty standard. White walls with blue trimming, the sign in blue and a font I'm pretty sure I've seen on "word" before. But inside it's something else!
There's a gramaphone in one corner, an old fasioned spindel (think sleeping beauty style), with chandeliers and an old fasioned cabinet full of bits and bobs. We go upstairs, and to the right as the stairs splt and then back on ourselves to our dorm room. There's 6 beds all in all, two of them are already occupied by german girls, who are very lovely. Another girl comes in. She's very friendly, and it turns out she's from London. We get talking and it turns out all the other people in our room are in their 20s, and most of them speak 3 languages! Feeling like very amateur travellers at this point!
We're now sat with a load of very load 20 something year olds, and a box of red wine. I've just glanced up and there's a cat, sat in the middle of the room. I swear it wasn't there before!!! Bring on the travellers life style!
(just incase there's any horrendous spelling mistakes or any sentences that make NO sense, I'd like to point out that I have had about three glasses of red wine. So bare with me!)
I'll blog soon! :)
(i've just realised I haven't talked about the lights at all, which was the whole aim of my blogging, but I'll get to that tomorrow night or something!)
Beth
xxx

Our trip to the Zoo

A few posts ago I mentioned my first travel related apiphony, that I am far vainer that origionally thought. Today I had a second. I turn into a bad bad person in the heat. It's lovely to begin with. The sun shining down on you, kissing you gently with its rays...but then after about 4 hours of walking about in it I get a bit like, Do you mind woman!? Can't you see I'm trying to DO things?!? Stop kissing me with your rays!!! YOUR STRESSING ME OOOOOOOUT!!!

Then I feel cloustrephobic and my skin gets all itchy and everything is just wrong! Jake pointed out the road was clear to cross so started making his way to the other side, and in my head I said something along the lines of

"Oh Reeeeeeeeeally!? You want to cross the road now do you!? That's right go ahead. Don't worry about meeeee! We'll just do what YOU want to do. All the time. Everyday...Hmpf!"

It was one of those things where I know I'm being completely unreasonable, but I'm in such a bad mood I don't really care. 

So there we go, I'm vain and the heat turns me into a stroppy cow. I'm hoping I get a positive apiphany soon. It only seems fair!

Apart from stifling heat and sore feet the zoo was great. Its the first time I've ever seen giant pandas! The male was named WangWang, and the female Funi....Hopefully you, like me, would have thought somthing like "Well, that seems appropriate! Hehehe *snigger*". Another thing that amused me about the zoo was how very un P.C the whole thing was! I'll give you an example of what I mean...

One of the icelollies is names "Golden Gaytime", there's a cheese named "CoonCheese" and, to top it off (this seemed like the most absurd, probably due to the visual aid) was a sign saying "No disabled access"...fair enough. Exept it was accompanied by a picture of someone in a wheelchair slipping uncontrollably down a slope into the open jaws of a crocodile!

Maybe I'm just being very English.

Only a couple of days until we're off to Melbourne. VERY excited :)

Xxx

Laygo

You may be wondering, what is this laygo I speak of? Is it some Australian thing? Or maybe some fantasy item? No.
It is Lego, but for some reason alot of Australians have that annoying, rather American habit of prounouncing certain words belonging to our language incorrectly. (and yes, I do stubbornly maintain that the language of "English" belongs to the people of England, and therfore if anyone pronounces it differently to us they are WRONG!). This includes status being pronounced to rhyme with cat-us (if there was such a word), and route managing to rhyme with about.
Me and Jake where discussing the odities of language on our way back from the bus stop, with ecclectic comments about how bazaar it is, and Jake randomly comes out with "Whats the plural of sausages". I thought about this for a bit, and replied "I don't know, I've never really thought about it, I guess it would be sausagi.", "Hmm, it's funny how little that word comes up in conversation". We were quiet for a moment, both being lost in our own little thought bubbles, then all of a sudden a confused/concerned look simultaniously spread across our faces...
"Sausages is the plural, isn't it"
"Yup."
"And "Sausage" is the singular"
"Sure is!"
"...Lets not ever mention this to anyone"
...*perfect blogging moment, Thaaankyou!*
It seems amazing that after speaking a language for about 17 years all it takes is a day in the heat to scramble your brain!

Back to the subject of lego (or laygo, depending on your diction), we got a box of the stuff out earlier and began to have a good old remeniccent building session, aided, of course, by the 4 and 6 year old we're staying with (Please! We wouldn't be sad enough to start playing kiddy games without some children to pin the immaturity on!). We managed to build a superdog, a house and garden for said superdog, along with a car, a garage and a campervan. Jake was the brains and muscle behind the car. As we're putting our creations back into their box, after all the hard work and attention to detail that had gone into them (not to mention the sweat and tears, and believe me there was a lot of the latter!) Jake says to us, concern in his voice,
"Put them back carefully! Don't you dare break them!"
And just as I'm putting the garage in...complete with car
"but you couldn't break my car, it's indistructable!"
At that moment I tilt the garage and the car comes rolling out. It hits the floor with a CRASH and bits fly everywhere, a firework display in plastic primary colours! I glance back at Jake, all 6ft 7 of him statue like in horror! Mouth wide open. Disbeliefe in his eyes!
"Why would you doooooo that!?"
"It was an accident! I promise!"
"Noooo! Really! Why!?"
"I was distracted for a second and just tilted the garage a bit and...actually. Your 18, its lego, I'm not going to feel bad about it"
At this point Jake is scrabbling around on the floor, picking up pieces and trying to put it back together.
"I can't find the break light!!!"
"Nope, I REFUSE to feel bad about this" *walking out*
"Now people are going to crash into the back of me!"
"Nope, refusing!"
"It won't pass its M.O.T!!!"
This is the main reason I've found time to write my blog ...he's currently ignoring me.
I maintain that I have nothing to feel guilty about. It's not my fault nobody put the handbreak on! Goh! Laygo drivers nowadays!

I'll write again soon, I realise there's been rather a large gap in my efforts. Admitedly I have been SUPER busy. Going to the beeeach , soaking up the sun, enjoying ice cold beers. But hey ho, as is life, ;)

T.T.F.N
Beth

P.S. Jake has just come in with the offer of a cup of tea, I think it's fair to say I've been forgiven. I think he may be missing his car just a liiiiiiittle bit more than he's been letting on.