Hello!
Sorry for not updating for so long.
We spent the night in a nice youth hostel in Lake Tekapo and in the morning managed to fit 4 people and 6 bags into the car which was miraculous! We stopped in Geraldine on the way to Christchurch and admired the Guinness world record holding 'giant jumper' - we were surprised how small it was! We arrived in Christchurch and checked into our room - surprised to find we weren't in a dorm - we'd forgotten we'd treated ourselves! We ended up taking both of our hitch hikers a very indirect route to the shopping mall (neither of us wanted to but both of us thought the other had offered it later transpired!) as the Dutch guys usual sense of direction departed him and we ended up heading 20 minutes in completely the wrong direction. I was not amused. We sent our rather large package home at vast expense and dropped off our car to the rental office without any hitches which we were very glad about. After eating as much of our remaining food as we could manage we attempted to get a good night's sleep. Unfortunately the other hostel guest had decided have a party just next door, though we managed to get a few hours before our 3am alarm.
As I'd predicted we arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and spent the early hours of the morning wandering around duty free and attempting to use up the remainder of our phone credit. We arrived in Sydney at 8am and after the Spanish inquisition over the contents of our lunch box (the cheese, bread and butter all came from New Zealand in case you were wondering) made it to our wonderful lodgings for the night - Base backpackers. We were rather exhausted after our flight so spent the day wandering slightly aimlessly around the city - taking in the Botanic Gardens and the giant bats there as well as Bondi beach in the torrential rain. We hadn't planned on heading to Bondi, but on check in we'd been informed that for every bucket of sand we brought back they'd give us a bucket of drink that evening. After lugging 6 buckets full of sand back on the bus and receiving various strange looks in the process we were informed that we were only allowed one drink each. After an interesting supper made using the one sharp knife provided in the entire hostel kitchen we decided to try to get another early night - having been awake for 20 hours by this stage. Once again we were unsuccessful as the hostel staff decided to burst into our room and drag us down to the bar (Billy just about managed to change back out of his pyjamas); though we managed to make our escape before the wet t-shirt competitions began - thank goodness!
In the morning we phoned up Bill and Bonk's friends the Bowerings and were very grateful when they offered us a bed for a few nights - not sure we would have enjoyed the party hostel that much! We explored Chinatown and then headed over to their house where we spent the evening - enjoying a yummy Thai meal and sampling Tom's cocktails. On Friday we walked down to Bondi along the very pretty coastal path and hired out a surf board and a body board for a couple of hours. I'd forgotten how much my eyes hate the mixture of sun and salt water so spent most of the time lazing on the beach whilst Billy enjoyed some spectacular wipe-outs, though he did manage to stand a few times! Next time I fear I may be the only surfer wearing goggles!
Yesterday we decided to do our own walking tour and spent several hours getting lost around the harbour. We went to the Rocks market and watched a slightly interesting fashion show before venturing across the harbour bridge (though thankfully lack of funds excused us from the actual bridge walk!) and catching a ferry back for some amazing views.
Today we're meeting up with Billy's friend Nick and his bride-to-be Bridgett to go to see the Blue Mountains, which should be good!
Hope everythings good at home,
Sorry for the awful spelling - spellcheck has decided to give up on us!
Lots of love,
Rosie and Billy
xxx
I think.
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