Proud Galleries...

There was plenty of beer.... and there was also this:

Apparently the act was called "Wizard Sleeve" - not that it's important... 

Obligatory Superlatives in the South Island of NZ

Leaving behind the bright blue sky to be swallowed by the Bluebridge ferry did little to dampen the spirits because within minutes of leaving the car in the belly of the ship our view from the ship’s bar was clear and we were already one beer in to the trip. Next stop Picton!

The waterfront in Picton was at its usual picturesque best, so with a bellyful of fish ‘n’ chips, shoes and socks were discarded allowing the calm and cool waters of the Marlborough sounds to gently lap around our sweltering feet. Once satisfied, it was onward to Nelson.

Sunny Nelson greeted us with an evening swim and an impressively photogenic sunset while motel owner Mark attempted to bamboozle us with his wheeling dealing accommodation deals. A few beers plus nachos polished off our night.

Under 35+ degree heat we made for Motueka – it was time to test our mettle in the age old Man vs. Gravity challenge! We were going skydiving! As predicted the first 45 seconds from jumping out of the plane Gravity was in complete control, Man had reached terminal velocity and was hurtling to certain death – but then, upon deploying the parachute Man began to fight back – for the next five minutes Gravity did its utmost to upset Man’s descent but it was Man who ultimately won the day suffering nothing more than mild nausea, fist pumps, and obligatory superlatives. Man had landed safely from whence he came. IN YOUR FACE GRAVITY!

Once the superlatives’ had all been spoken we  pushed on and with ice-cream in hand traversed the Motueka Valley Highway, pausing only in Reefton to fetch the Service Station owner off the golf course so we could fill the tanks enough to make it to Greymouth. Our meal at The Hong Kong Restaurant was polished off with a warm tin of Ranfurly Draught. There’s simply nothinglike a cheap meal and a crap beer to make you feel young again!

The following morning the world famous in New Zealand Monteiths brewery reminded us that all that beer is equal, but some beer is more equal than others. A sophisticated look at a brewery allowed us to see how far our beer drinking palettes have come since our Ranfurly Draught drinking student days. 

Fox Glacier was as huge and impressive as ever; and despite a brief dalliance beyond the safety ropes we survived and are still here to tell the tail. Later that afternoon we hit the Haast pass visitor centre where some intensive study on the surrounding rain forest took place, oh, and we saw this sweet Eel too! After some white bait fritters on bread for lunch we swam – or more accurately – got pounded by the waves at Haast beach – once refreshed we made our way towards Wanaka.

In order to break up the drive to Wanaka along the Haast Pass highway, we stopped at a rest area and undertook what was supposed to be a pleasant 30 minute return bush walk – what actually happened was quite different – it was a 20 minute dash through sand-fly territory – particularly perilous was the rope bridge where one simply could not spare a hand to swat away the marauding blood suckers. Still, what doesn’t kill you… 

The backpackers in Wanaka was holding a BBQ for the paltry price of $6 which included a two for one drink deal. Not only was this to our liking, it was just what we needed. A good five or six hours of drinking followed – just enough for us to really feel the effects while kayaking LakeWanaka in the stinking heat the morning after. 

The journey to Dunedin was largely uneventful although several rouge Riders of Rohan were claimed to have been spotted. We ate Thai food, coffee, dessert, and then proceeded to play games of pool before settling down on couches/floors of old friends for the night. The DunedinMuseum live butterfly exhibit occupied most of the next day before we hit Christchurch later in the evening.

Christchurch was a bit disappointing – but what do you expect from a city largely founded by the English, so we ploughed northwards sighting such wonders as the Kaikoura seal colony before setting up camp early evening in Blenheim. In contradiction to our basic camp ground accommodation, an extravagant dinner at an Italian Restaurant was devoured and enjoyed. 

Waking up with sore bodies due to minimal cushioning the night before did not depress us for today was the day of the Marlborough Wine, Food, and Music Festival! Needless to say, much wine was tasted, food eaten and music danced to. Happy times.

But the trip would not go down in history as being complete just yet, oh no, not without a game of Mini-Golf! So before boarding the ferry back to Wellington, nine holes were completed with victors victorious and defeatists defeated.

The End

Island in the Sun: Grenada, the spicy one.

As jealous laser eyes slowly bored holes in the back of my head, the little clock in the bottom right corner of my screen clicked over to 17.30

I stood up, smile beaming "see ya in a few weeks guys". My work mates muted responses were understandable; they weren't the ones leaving the gloomy confines of London, they weren't the ones who in about 20 hours time would be sipping the Caribbeans finest on a beautiful white sandy beach. No, they were the ones that would be getting up at some ungodly hour to commute to work in an overcrowded tube shoved up under some guys smelly arm pit...

Yes, its good to be me.

I arrived in Grenada halted only slightly by immigration to a rousing display of affection from eternal good mates Guy and Tony, a beer later and the sweat and jet lag kicked in.
The cricket was pretty run of the mill to be honest, but Grenada more than made up for that. Try to imagine a morning swim in the ocean followed by the Grenadian fresh fish breakfast, a Carib (beer), and sitting at a bar so close to the water you had sand at your feet.

A memorable afternoon was spent wandering the markets and knocking back a few bottles of Carib and having a good old yarn with Guy and the infamous one (new-found friend Lance). Grenada is a place with the kind of heat that made you thristy, really thirsty, this had the uncommon effect of making each cold beer just as refreshing as the last, needless to say, but we had many refreshing beers that afternoon.

Between swimming, beer drinking, and cricket we found time to have an evening out at a resturant followed by a night out at a club called Fantasia. Tony and I cut up the dance floor as only we can. Around 3am that night, Tony's snoring reached 747 levels and Guy and I decided to have yet another beer on the beach. Waking up hours later I prodded Guy awake, we dusted off the sand and headed back, assuming the spoon formation and slept like babies.

Grenada, you spicy Island you. I will return...

It's my country's party and I'll drink if I want to...

In a fantastic return to form, I've started drinking heavily again and the world has become a better place.

So begins the famous Waitangi day circle line pub crawl. It was a mission to end all missions and it would be undertaken by approximately nine thousand cold and home sick expatriate Kiwis, and I was one of them.

I arrived among throngs of silver fern clad Kiwis at Paddington tube station to the sight of the Kiwi, the sound of the Maori strum, the taste and smell of beer, and the feel of fellow Kiwi's up close and personal in the cramped but festive circle line tube. Simply put, All five senses were buzzing.

Due to thebeereffect motor control steadily declined among us all and the "no sitting and no holding on while riding the tube" rule became steadily more fun. Akin to the concept of antipodean dating, i.e excessive beer equals chatting up which in turn equals score; add a moving train to the mix and everyone has ample excuse for the odd tender caress.

The circle line tube, notorious for its unreliability, subsequently shut down. Fortunately yet uncharacteristically for the UK, the weather matched our sunny dispostion. As we merrily wandered along in the sunshine through a rather affluent area of London, the locals looked on confused as to why thousands upon thousands of singing silver fern-clad revellers wandered through their usually quiet streets.



[English accent] "Erm you're all off to a sporting event are ya?"

"uh yeah"

[English accent] "oh who's playing"

"um we all are"

[English accent] "eh?"

Ahh the English, don't they know that a pub crawl IS a sporting event?

As the Big Ben clock struck 4pm the Haka shook the halls of Westminster and the Kiwis dispersed back to their usual hang outs in and around west London.

Quite a day really... here is what I was up to last year and here are some photos.

Swiss army knives/watches/chocolate etc...

It was time to cash in on another generous offer of free lodgings, this time I was off to Switzerland to visit the lovely Amanda.

As it turns out, even the efficiency of the German trains couldn't’t help the fact that the journey from Copenhagen took an entire day and cost a shitload. Still it was totally worth it.

Incidentally I met quite possibly the nicest German guy in the world on the train. No honestly! It turned out that my ticket was wrong and I had to pay extra, having no cash I was pretty much fucked until the aforementioned ‘nicest German guy in the world’ offered to pay it for me. Now it was no measly sum, a full 30 Euros had to be coughed up. I was incredibly grateful. I arrived in Zurich where again ‘nicest German guy in the world’ proceeded to buy me a beer and a sandwich while I waited for my train change.

As I left there was handshakes aplenty and promises to spread the goodwill of the Germans, because around that part of the world, God knows they need it ;-)

After a first class journey between Zurich and Lausanne (no really it was first class, oh dear, wrong seat again Ben, tut tut tut) I arrived late at night and met up with Amanda and her friend Laura who makes a great Thai green curry by the way.

Amanda and I undertook many adventures in and around Lausanne, the first of which was a hilarious bike ride to Morges. Mainly hilarious for the fact that Amanda could hardly reach the pedals, and the ‘Amanda versus hedge’ incident which I’m sure the nation of Switzerland will be talking about for some time.

A short train ride to Montreux, town of the rich and famous was made especially interesting by the fact that it had an official Freddy Mercury celebration day, on discovering this I of course was immediately sold on the place.



In between times Amanda, Laura and I proceeded to drink cheap wine, eat well, and generally be merry.

Eventually I made it to Geneva to see the UN headquarters, but as usual due to being subject to veto by the powerful few it was closed to the weak and helpless masses that day so we just went to a Thai restaurant instead which was equally as satisfying.

With a large block of Swiss choolate under my arm it was off to London to search for a house/job/wife/life etc. Wish me luck!

Swiss photos here:

Amandas blog here:

Four days of pirating pleasure...

Looking back on it all, all the days seem blur in to one. Basically I spent my time swimming, drinking, reading, eating, snorkeling, fishing, and then repeating the cycle with a great bunch of people.

I guess there was one particular moment of note though. After mooring in a bay for our final night on the water with about 20 other boats we found ourselves taking a water taxi to a bar.

Firstly, I should explain that this is not the kind of terrain that one would expect a bar to exist in, a rocky but calm bay on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey only accessible via boat, and utterly devoid of people. In fact it seems like this is the last place someone would put a bar. I guess no one told the owners of Smugglers Inn.

On arrival the said owners of Smugglers Inn 'treated' the crowds of people to a selection of pop music from various times in the last thirty years. You know the kind of music that everybody knows the words to and screams at the top of their lungs and dances like flocks of headless chickens to? So um yeah that's basically what we did for a few hours. Eventually in the early hours of the morning, sweating and laughing, we caught the water taxi back to our boat.

But our hardy drinking souls had not quite finished yet, no not when there were still cold beers on the boat to drink and pop songs still fresh in our minds. During this final beer someone had a fantastic idea (well all ideas at this stage of a big night out are fantastic), Lets streak! This so-called 'fantastic idea' was later attributed to me, however to this day I disagree to it being my idea personally, in my opinion it was more of a group decision arrived at collectively after some rigorous democratic debate.

Either way there were ten very drunk and very naked people in the Mediterranean that night. However there was one problem, the definition of streaking implies that one first get naked and then run around stupidly in front of people who are not, as we were, in a state of undress. Where the hell were we going to find such people in the dead of the night? let alone somewhere to simply 'run around stupidly' while swimming in the middle of the bloody Mediterranean?

The answer was quickly discovered after some more 'rigorous democratic debate'. 'Hey look a boat' someone shouted, 'lets go' added another. So there we were, drunk, naked as the day we were born, and about to climb aboard another boat with the intention to 'run around stupidly'. Climbing aboard presented no real problem, they had conveniently left a ladder down so that we could do so. The problem was that unlike the pirates of time gone by, we were neither stealthy, ruthless, or indeed cunning. Between us our pirate skills amounted to drunkenness, loudness and an exceptionally high quality of stereotypical pirate-like quotes.

'Hand over ye booze and women ye scurvy scoundrel, or I`ll keel haul ye and throw ye bloody remains to the sharks, ARRRRGHH'

Hence with only one of us on board the ladder was withdrawn and one unlucky soul was made to unceremoniously walk the plank. We returned defeated but defiant to our own boat and slept soundly, the subject of our dreams being similar to your average Wilbur Smith novel.

Finally, a collective sigh was uttered as peace reigned again over the Mediterranian, ...

Boat trip photos here:

Day tripper, y'all...

So on the way to Fethye from Selçuk I decide to check out Pamukale to see the famous Heiropolis ruins and the thermal water-filled natural white terraces (travetines).

The ruins, especially the Theatre, are quite impressive and make for some great photos. However the much vaunted travetines proved to be a bit of a let down. The brochures implied that you could walk around them and even swim in them however due to it being a protected area of natural beauty this was not the case. I wouldn't have wanted to anyway because the Turks, in their infinite wisdom, had drilled down elsewhere and taken all the thermal water, leaving a bunch of naturally created white dusty terraces. I think the Turks need a lesson on how we (mostly) look after that kinda shit back home.

My day however was not to be ruined because the bus stopped at this random point on the highway and we were told that we had an hours break and that there was a waterfall 10 minutes hike away that we could swim in. Of course this was told to me in Turkish and I had no idea what was going on but I followed the locals as they wandered off in to the forest. The waterfall itself was fantastic as the temperature in the bus was hovering around 30 degrees despite the best efforts of air conditioning. I play the crazy kiwi and do a few cliff dives, well I say cliff dives when I mean I bombed off a rock that was about 3m above the waterfall, but none of the Turks did it! Oh and I saw my first frog.

Arriving in Fethye I find Ned, the guy who "booked" my accommodation has not actually booked anything, fortunately he's the guy that owns the boat for the boat trip that I'm going on the next morning so along with two others in the exact same situation I get to sleep on the deck of the boat for the night for free.

Before sleeping there was the small matter of 'bars are open and they have beer that needs drinking', now that's a problem me and my trusty wallet can help with. I head off with Arthur and Kim and we head to a bar that is full to the brim of people that hilariously I've already met and are basically travelling in the same direction as me. Much drinking and dancing ensues until I decide to try out my new best come-on line "so I've got this boat..." and I bring back not one but two girls (Claire and her sister) for more beers. Of course I'd already met them a few days before in Selçuk but still, I gotta get my own boat man...

I end up not sleeping at all and the girls leave about 8am and I get some breakfast followed by a haircut and a Turkish style shave at the barber. Now for those of you that don't know the significance of a Turkish shave I will explain.

First of all they lather up your face in shaving cream then proceed to shave you with a cut-throat razor, once that is done they re-lather you up and repeat the process. This is followed by a lemon spray which inevitably makes my face sting like crazy and then some sort of facial cream stuff all over my face. The man proceeds to crack my neck and all my fingers and begins to massage my arms and shoulders. He then gets me to lean forward and washes off my face.

I thought it was all over but he dips his hands in alcohol and smears it over my face and puts his fingers in my ears. This is a little weird but nothing compared to what follows, he lights up a small torch and at this point I'm a little nervous because my face is basically flammable right now but he leans my face back and taps the flaming torch on my ears and face to burn off what remains of the hair. While I don't get burned or anything the smell of the burning hair permeates the air as I walk out reminiscing about the last time my face was this smooth, i.e. when I was 11 years old. Now lets be honest, the Gillette mach 3 has got nothing on the Turkish shave.