I was just channel-surfing tv and I found the Badger game on ESPN!! I got to watch the end of it and it was sooo great!!! Gooo Badgers!!!
Now I can't get a job b/c I need to be around in the afternoons to watch my boys!! (Its 5.30pm Wednesday here)
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posted by Kirby @ 8:28 PM
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I just got back from seeing "The Prestige" and it was absolutely amazingly awesome!! Everyone should go see it, its sooo clever!!
No joke, go see it!! Let me know what you think.
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posted by Kirby @ 3:20 AM
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This is the 3rd part, up until today, so start reading from a couple of entires ago...hopefully this will work like that...
The next day we hopped on the bus again and headed to Queenstown- adventure capital of NZ. Apparently if you did EVERY adventure activity it would take 35 8hr days and NZ$6,000!! Crazy!! I wasn't feeling good at all for most of the bus ride, and when we got to a bridge to bunjy jump I was 1 of the only people on the bus not to do it. Dave did it tandem w/ Baggins, Dirk did it, and so it Cara and Will aswell as a few others. Eventually we left the bridge and made our way into Queenstown. By the time we got into town I thought I was going to be sick, and I NEVER puke!! We stopped to pick someone up and I had to beg Baggins to open the door so I could get out- he thought I was joking around- sweet (later he felt really bad!). Anyways I didn't puke, and got back on the bus, we got to our hostel, I checked in, dumped my bags and was going to go to bed...buttt we needed to book our activity for the next day..Dave and I went and booked Mad Dog River Boarding, well I let Dave do everything and I just handed over the money, then went to bed!! About an hour later I felt fine and got up, showered etc. A group of us from the bus went to dinner at Fergburger- Amazingly delicious burgers, and they're massive!! From there we went to the bars!! We started in the bar attached to the hostel...Dirk and I had tequila sunrise's hahah (remember?? The sunrise??) Haha. Uh and a few other drinks, later on we went to the Worl Bar where they're famous for Teapots (fish bowls but they poor it into shot glasses- weird). We hung out for a while, there was a fight and uh I dunno, it was pretty fun. We left there around 1.30 and went home. although Will went for another Fergburger- crazy! The next morning Dirk left on the bus to Christchurch and Will and Cara went to another hostel. Dave and I slept late, wandered around town and then went River Boarding!! Basically you get a wetsuit, fins, a helmet and a boogie/body-board then you jump into a grade 3 white river and try and hang on to your board and survive to the end!! It was tons of fun, Dave and I did the 5km stretch of river twice, then got dragged along behind the jet ski and thrown off, then jumped off some rocks...its was tons of fun!! We got dropped back in town in the early evening, we showered etc and hung out. I was exhausted so just had a juice in the bar (I'm cool, I know) Nads was there and got Dave drinking, Sebastian was there too (met him in Franz J) but I was tired and called it a night pretty early.
The next day (xmas eve) we hopped on the bus back to Christchurch. We passd through Cromwell which is the furthest inland town on s. Island. Stopped a few times and made it into Ch.Ch. Around 3.30pm. Milt picked us up from town center and we went home!
I should give you all a family tree so you know who I'm talking about from now on...ready? Its complicated.
Lynny (dad's sis); milt- lynnys husband, my uncle; craig- cousin; jane- other cousins (mike) wife, Will- mike and jane's 3 year old. (Mike jane and will live in England, mike is there at the moment, jane and will are visiting). Then there's Grandad- dad's dad, and Joy- grandad's wife, Lynny's mum. Got it?? Ok good! :)
Xmas day-
We got up around 8.30, showered and got ready. Grandad and Joy came over and we opened presents. Then we ate a brunch and hung out for a while- mainly watching Will parade about with his gifts- super cute! Grandad and Joy left and we all went over to Jane's dad's house for xmas dinner. There were about 18 in total so I won't name people haha. We hung out, opened more gifts and ate a MASSIVE xmas dinner comprising of: venison steak, bbq'ed sausages, ham, chicken, salad, asparagus, carrots, beans, brussel sprouts and maybe more! Crazy amount of food, but delicious! Then for desert we had Pavlova and fresh boysenberries, and xmas pudding!! Amazing!! We hung out with everyone for a while, I watched Ice Age 2 with the kids! :) and eventually we went home to bed!
Boxing day- we took Dave on a tour of Ch.Ch. And the surrounding area, including the beaches- v. Pretty but the weather was (and still is) rubbish! Came home, dave made some calls to find a place to stay in Sydney and I walked Finn. Oh I forgot Finn and Murphy in the family tree!! Finn is a chocolate labrador and Murphy is a black cat, both belong to Lynny and Milt.
On the 27th Lynny and I drove Dave to the airport at some ridiculous hour of the morning. This is where Dave and my trip ends! Sad :( Dave flew off to Sydney and I went back to bed! Eventually I got up and Lynny and I just hung around for the day.
The next day (28th) lynny and I went shopping in the sales but didn't really find anything. I phoned a few places for jobs and volunteer opp's but almost everything is closed until the 8th! We went to Grandad and Joy's for dinner and hung out with them for a while. Then we came home and went for a family walk with Finn :)
On the 29th Lynny and I went shopping somewhere else, and in the car park we bumped into Greg Sommerville. Who's that? He's and All Black (NZ national rugby team)! How cool is that!! My cousin Mike used to be the fitness trainer for the All Blacks so he knows them all, and so do Lynny and Milt! Sweet! And pretty much everyone in NZ is familiar w/ the All Blacks, they're amazing! So yeah that was cool- my first famous kiwi! Hooray!! Not much else happened this day...and I can't remember what we did on the 30th, probably not much.
On the 31st we didn't do much either, although I did go for a run! then I got ready and lynny and milt dropped me at Craigs place for new years eve. his roomie Dave was there, and a couple of their friends- Jo and Ollie, Andrew, and Randall. We had a few beers and then went out. We went to a new club called Boogie Nights. Its a 60's-70's themed place that played oldies! It was tons of fun! Jo and I split from the guys and went dancing on the light-up dance floor haha, it was great! Oh and the DJ's booth is an old VW van haha. We counted down to midnight- although I think it was a bit late- and we kept dancing. I met some new people pretty randomly- a set of twins Mike and Todd, Mike's g/f and another dude, Dave (another Dave!) They came and danced with our group and it was tons of fun! Eventually left there at about 2.30 and went to Shooters bar next door which was just a regular bar with a dance floor but it was huge!! Hung out there for a while, talked to the twins more- Todd is a rower, ha. Can't get away from rowers!! Ch.Ch. Has 3 club teams so its a pretty big, and apparently pretty good rowing city...I'll have to check it out. So new year was tons of fun and I met quite a few people so that's cool :)
On the 1st we had a nice brunch and then I slept pretty much all day! Jane's sister, Sarah and her 7 year old Harriett came over and went to see "Happy Feet" with Will but I was too tired so stayed home. After dinner we watched Forest Gump (Milt's fav) and went to bed!
Today is the 2nd and I'm finally up to date!! Hooray!! Leave some love, this too FOREVER!
Hope everyone had a great new years eve!! Happy New Year!!
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posted by Kirby @ 4:11 PM
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The next day we got up and Dave and I went accross the road to a guy's Bone carving workshop. We designed what we wanted to carve, transferred it to a piece of cow bone and started carving by machine...a couple of hours and a lot of sanding later, we had a sweet bone necklace each. Mine is a kiwi bird with a koru carved out of it, its super cool! And Dave's is a hook- traditional Maori, of her own design. We ran back to the pub and jumped on the bus to leave but 2 asians decided to be an hour late- Nads almost left them but we saw them walking up from the beach and picked them up. Once we got on the road we made our way towards Franz Josef...we stopped along the way at this crazily hillarious place- Pete's possums- where possum pie was highly reccommended!! No thanks. We eventually made it to Franz Josef which is the location of a glacier...I ate dinner and Dave went to the internet...this hostel was more like a resot, it was great!! A bar, hot tub, sweet spacious rooms etc etc. I met up w/ Dirk in the kitchen- he'd spent the day on the glacier, in the rain, and was less than impressed haha then I was happy that we spent the day in Abel and not Franz...good choice on our part!! Poor Dirk. Haha. We were going to shower etc and then go our but instead we played table football- dirk and I against dave and dirk's new friend Sebastian... I think dirk and I lost, several times! But it was fun. From there we went straight to the bar and proceeded to drink...lots. We had tons of fun, Nads came out too and so did Baggins- another driver. We ended up going to the ice bar ha. It was pretty lame, and a local dressed as santa started giving me a hard time for being English...his ancestors were more than likely English but I let him ramble on. Then we left and headed home. I wanted to go in the hot tub, in fact I wanted to go in it before we went out but that didn't happen, and when we got home it was locked up....booooo.
In the morning we got on the bus with a new driver- Baggins- and headed to Makarora. On the way we saw tons of beautiful waterfalls. And we were in the dead center of the southern alps, which needless to say was stunning. We stopped at a really blue river, crossed the rope bridg- made an old lady mad b/c she thought we were rocking the bridge and she was petrified but we weren't, we were just walking accross it too!! We spent ages there skipping rocks haha- easily amused! When we arrived in Makarora we checked into our place, not really a hostel, kind of a camping ground with huts...dave and I shared w/ dirk, along with a crazy israeli girl, 4 germans who didn't talk to us the whole trip, and a Swiss dude. Not so fun but it was ok for a night. Dirk, Dave and I walked over to the river and trew rocks around again, then a crazy jet boat flew past us and its a good thing we moved otherwise we would have been soaked!! We went back and went into the cafe/pub attached to our place...I sat reading the newspaper and this old guy came over w/ 2 young guys and asked if they could join me...sure. The old guy started asking me all kinds of questions and at somepoint I said I needed a job, so he offered me a job as a shepherd. No joke. "You can come be a shepherd like these 2 young lads, oh! Do you need a husband? You could have either one of these!!" Thanks buddy, let me get back to you. We ate dinner, then the fun started...the locals were crazy!! My 2 "future husbands" got ridiculously drunk and were running and diving onto a boogie board accross the pub!! I had a couple of beers but went to bed kind of early.
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posted by Kirby @ 4:11 PM
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Ok so its about time I posted about our trip on the south island...
I already said that we spent the night at Lynny's (my aunt)in Christchurch, then hopped on the bus to Kaikora. From Kaikora we headed to Picton- which is the port where you get the ferry to/from the north island. On the way there we stopped at a little Crayfish hut thing and Dirk (a German guy on our bus) bought a crayfish to try later. We saw tons of seals, and stopped to see if there would be any pups at a waterfall where Spanky had seen them before. There weren't any pups but it was still pretty cool. Back on the road we saw the solar salt works- which is the only 1 in NZ. We saw tons of Vineyards too, but no wine tasting. We arrived in Picton, dropped some people off (to go to the north island) and picked up some very obnoxious English people to go south with us. We got on the road with another driver- Nads, super crazy, tons of fun! Drove through Havelock which is world famous for green-lipped mussels haha. We arrived in Abel Tasman National Park early evening, it was absolutley beautiful!! After we checked in to Old MacDonalds Farm, Dave, Dirk and I went for a walk on beach, the tide was out and we could walk out really far, but it soon turned and came in surprisingly fast! The farm we were staying on had sheep, and shamels haha Sheep-Camels aka Lamaa's, they were pretty amusing. Dirk decided to eat his crayfish for dinner, and I tried some but it was disgusting!! Soo gross! Dirk didn't enjoy it either and ended up feeding it to the ducks haha they liked it, as did the peacocks and the Dicken (duck/chicken haha). I also fed them some pasta, and then a spider crawled accross my table, I flicked it on the floor and the duck ate it!!! Hhaha too funny. Dirk called me a spider killer!! But I argued that its just nature ha. Oh and then I tried to rescue a crab from a bucket of some kind of shell-fish but it fell down the drain, so then I was a crab killer according to Dirk, butttttt I said that all drains lead to the ocean (finding nemo of course) and that the crab would for sure survive!! A friend from our north island bus was there- Neif, a Welsh guy, so that evening, Dave, Dirk, Neif and I went to the local bar/cafe and had a couple of beers...pretty much got kicked out at 11 even though it said "open til ....late" soo we went back in the dark and found some beers on the "free food" shelves in the fridges!! I dunno who would leave beer when they're just getting on a bus! But anyways we weren't complaining!! Neif and Dave called it a night around 1 but Dirk and I stayed up talking for a while and then decided that it was close enough to sunrise and we should just stay up! Haha, so we did. And the sunrise was crappy!! It was soo cloudy we couldn't even tell the sun was up!! Haha, so I went to bed for about 2 hours and slept perfectl)! Dirk and I made up a story about how great the sunrise was and that there were dolphins and penguins and we swam with the whales etc. We told Neif and Dave the next morning but were laughing and they didn't believe us....oh well. Neif and Dirk hopped on the bus and went on to the next stop and Dave and I stayed. We went sailing on a sweet catamaran! They took us to Split Apple Rock to take pics but Dave and I dove in and climbed into it and had others take pics of us! The water was absolutely freezing!! I cut my arm climbing into this thing, battle wound! Ha it was funny, I'll post pics soon so you can see what this rock is- or look it up online! We sailed some more, saw blue penguins, a seal colony and stopped for lunch on a beach (still in the national park), we explored some caves w/ Kerri (the sailing dude) who told us about flying spiders that lived in the caves!! We got out ASAP!! We set off from there and started to sail back when they heard on the radio that someone had spotted a pod of orcas/ killer whales!! So we went looking for them and found them! It was amazing!! They're massively huge but soo graceful!! And we didn't even pay for a whale-watching trip haha. When we got back to the farm Dave and I went horse riding on the beach...my horse was called Mac and was pretty hyper- we had some fun galloping along the beach, and walking through the water- we even saw sting rays, it was super cool! We helped the dude turn the horses out, then went back and showered and ate dinner. Then we went up the road to meet the sailing guys, and Nads. We had a few beers with them, I went to bed around 11, exhausted from the "amazing" sunrise! Haha.
The next day we hopped on the bus with Nads and headed to Barrytown...we drove through/past the Bulla River and gorge which goes from east coast to west. We stopped at Taurunga Bay to see some seals. And then Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks and blow holes. Eventually we arrived in "don't blink or you'll miss it": Barrytown. The 1 pub, and a few houses town. Sweet. We checked in to our rooms at the pub, ate dinner and started drinking- it was 1 of the girls b'day and leaving party- 80's themed. There was a massive table full of fancy dress clothes so everyone took part. It was fun but pretty small-town local type thing. I went to bed around midnight. Oh, haha earlier in the week Spanky had told us that the pub in Barrytown were hiring, I considered it and decided I'd see what it was like when we got there... NO CHANCE. Ha.
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posted by Kirby @ 4:11 PM
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This blog started with my trip around the world w/ Davies, to avoid entering the real world of work & instead entering the real world of foreigners, while only being armed with a back pack full ... not much! But now, 4 years later, I'm living in the real world, I even have a mortgage!! I'm going to try and keep up with this blog a little... I hope you enjoy...
