I'm Back, and I'm Running Away

I’m back! Sorry for the yearlong hiatus. Truth be told I’ve been on a few adventures, Jesse’s parents came to visit and I went on my first ever helicopter ride, I’ve been to Auckland a couple of times, and I even jumped off a bridge, but I’ve also been working my ass off and just haven’t found the time to update this thing. I have been unemployed for 3 days now and am currently finishing up day two of what I’m referring to as “the final hurrah” so updates should be pretty frequent over the next couple of months.

After over 4 years abroad I have made the decision to move back to Canada. I’m not in any rush to get back though, in fact I would like to miss as much of winter as possible, so I will be doing a bit of travelling in New Zealand before heading to Fiji, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, and then finally home where I fear I may freeze to death.

My adventure started yesterday with a bus ride to the airport after franticly scrambling to complete my to-do list before leaving Queenstown (which I managed to finish about 2.5 hours before I was scheduled to fly out). The airport bus in Queenstown is ridiculously expensive. When I arrived it cost $8.50 (I know that might not sound like a lot but the airport is only ten minutes from the town centre) and it has since gone up to $10. This is made worse by knowing that it only costs $6.50 to get to the bus stop after the airport. Luckily I managed to get the coolest bus driver in town yesterday. I waddled onto the bus with 1000lbs of luggage strapped to my body and the driver asked where I was headed. I told him I was going to the airport but if he wanted to believe that I was going to the Remarkables Shopping Centre (the next stop) then that would be cool with me. He asked if I was a local then told me he didn’t care where I got off the bus and only charged me $6.50 and I was a very happy panda.

Fast-forward an hour and a half and you will find me in a complete panic in the airport. Queenstown airport is a teeny tiny little thing and you can’t clear security until your flight is boarding so I was freaking out when they announced that my flight was boarding and I hadn’t been through security yet. Turns out for some strange reason passengers on my flight didn’t need to clear security for some unknown reason. I think it is sketchy enough that no ID is required to board domestic flights in this country but not having to clear security? What is happening?!

The plane for this flight was the smallest plane I have ever been on. It only sat like 60 passengers and the wings were overtop of the fuselage. With all of the plane crashes lately I have developed a fear of flying and being on this weird little plane was not helping! I had a short layover in Christchurch then got back on the same toy plane for my flight to Wellington.

After finding my hostel in Wellington I went for a bit of a wander around the area my hostel was in. I would have liked to have checked out the cable car and botanical garden but unfortunately I didn’t have enough time so didn’t really have any real ‘travel goals’ and just wandered aimlessly. During my walk I learned that everyone in Wellington either runs, or rows. There are probably people who do both but I didn’t have time to confirm this. I also saw a few cool sculptures, and grabbed some dinner before heading to bed ridiculously early.

Today I woke up at the crack of dawn, well maybe it was a bit later than dawn but 7:30 is really early for me. I had a bus to catch at 9:30 and wasn’t sure how long it would take me to find the stop and didn’t want to risk missing the bus so sleeping in wasn’t an option. I ended up making my way to the bus stop rather quickly and ended up having to wait for over an hour. Oh well, more time for breakfast!

When the bus finally arrived it was not the bus I was expecting. The sent a lay-flat sleeper bus. This would have been appealing if I had actually been able to lay-flat at any point during the 7 hours I spent on this torture device. The bunk beds that would be in place during night journeys had been turned into the most uncomfortable seats ever! The backs went up at a 90-degree angle and you had to face the person across from you. I don’t ride busses to make friends, I hate everyone, I ride busses to get from point A to point B cheaply, and hopefully somewhat comfortably. In this case I should have shelled out the extra cash to fly as I got off the bus 4 hours ago and am still experiencing back pain.

Luckily I got to switch to a normal bus for the final hour of my journey and made it to Rotorua around dinnertime. I have been here before so didn’t really do any exploring this evening. I only came back because I didn’t get a chance to check out any geysers when I was here last time and that is the plan for tomorrow so I have just been having a lazy evening.

After checking out some kickass geothermal activity tomorrow, and hopefully meeting some kiwi birds I will be hopping on yet another bus. Please keep your fingers crossed it’s not another sleeper bus. It’s in your best interest because I’m just going to bitch about it in my next post if I end up on another one of those things!

Okay I'm being kicked out of the lounge so I should wrap things up but hopefully my posts will get more exciting in the days to come!