Noosa – the first trip

Our next destination was our first where we would be starting our first trip that we had booked back in Sydney. As we were told nak all by wicked travel we were a bit apprehensive as to what to expect but were looking forward to meetings some new people. On the way to Noosa (where we would start the Kanoeing/Camping/Bush trip as described above) we had a night over at the glass mountains look out. This was a very picturesque spot slightly inland which we stumbled upon when looking for a go kart track that we had seen signposted. We attempted to BBQ chicken by moonlight before retiring to bed ready for an early start planned for the next day. And for once we actually woke up when the alarm went off and were on the road by 9. After a few Km we accidently bumped into the kart track we had been looking for the previous day and felt it was necessary to have a go. Always a good laugh and we all caned the locals on the track. We got back on the road for a while before stopping at a place called Caloundra on Kings beach. Here we had an awesome time being immature kids again. I.e playing Frisbee, frolicking in the sea, making sand castles and digging holes to bury each other (of course adding certain body parts to the buried individual. In the end we made our way to Noosa and prepared for the trip the following day.
We stayed..somewhere that night, oh yeah it was actually in Noosa, we had made it there and were ready after an early night’s sleep to start our Bear Grylls, lets catch a wild boar with some fishing line and a flip flop adventure. Or so we thought. As ive just mentioned, we thought we were in for a 3 day, be thrown into the bush/everglades with a tent and a stove and camp wherever. We had packed enough tinned goods to sustain a nuclear winter and had only our day bags to take, we were ready to take on any bush animals that might awake us during the night..or instead maybe just Pete. Anyway, thanks to the lovely folk at “Wicked” Travel, who as Sam has already explained, are shit, we knew nothing about the trip. It turns out that wer were basically staying in a rudimentary dorm for 2 of the three nights and camping at an actual campsite on the third. Not quite Bear Grylls eh? Well we met up with th van that takes people to the camp and we followed him to the supermarket where everyone was going to get their food for the trip, did we feel smug or what ught our food and walking out of the supermarket with Home Brand mossie spray and a carton of custard (oh yes!)having already bo We chatted to a few others going qand it turned out they had no idea what was going on either and had funnily enough booked it with “wicked” travel. So we drove to the bush camp, which is a road not desgined for our rig, but it pulled through and we parked up and got familirised with the place. After the usual meet and greet between everyone, we went for a quick walk around a path out of the camp to see what we would be in store for. It seemed pretty nice, not too much going on, apart from the huge incestual/Deliverance vibe obviously, we realised we had gotten a pretty good group. Some more people arrived later that day and that night we got to know everyone a little better with the only way that is right – Ring of Fire. After drinking maaany XXXX’s and hardly feeling drunk, because they have only 3.5% alcohol in them?! (this is a country of supposed ‘hardcore’ drinkers and one of their choice of about 2 beers is 3.5% proof – shouldn’t of exported Fosters, its much better) we deicded to reitre to our sketchy dorm bed to be up at 7.30aqm sharp for our briefing.
Several hours later and wishing that it really couldnt be 7.30am already, we begrudgingly got out of our bed which had happily not collapsed during the night and attened the briefing about the next 3 days. The man that gave us this briefing was clearly an alcoholic whose poor jokes, weird stories and obvious racism and misogynist-ism(?) did nothing to change the fact it was 7.30am. The briefing consisted of a map the we didnt have or werent to be given and some random pointing at a lake and saying what we would be doing and where we would be headed. After drifting off and regaining conecntration near the end after the words box and jellyfish were mentioned the “briefing” had come to an end. We were now left with about an hour to saunter around before we began the first bout of canoeing. This made the getting up so ridiculously early seem pretty unnecessary. Eventually we were on the water and sat in our much deliberated positions. (The guys had recommended putting the strongest at the back as apparently they did the most work etc so it was clear to me and Pete that Matt would take this job in a small attempt to begin his regime to become a meathead.) We reached our destination after a short while and some guess work/navigation and naturally won the race that according to the gagaju workers was not going to happen, beating our biggest rivals in the process – team Canada which included none other than Arni himself (he was actually called Paul but was totally ripped so we decided Arni was more appropriate and provided us with many amusing anecdotes in the mean time. “Yaaoo” a particular favourite of mine. We embarked on a short hike to the beach we were headed for with a short stop to take pictures and feed the wild kangaroos that we saw on the way. It was worth the walk. The beach was like many of the other aussie beaches we had been to, but as it was only accesible by 4WD was nearly empty. re enjoyed a frolic in the sea to cool down and then decided to soak up the rays and feel the deep burn. We even engaged in a bit of beach football while there – had a good 3 on 3 match which ended only when we decided that a half time was a good idea – we didnt make it to the second half. Arni went for a short jog around Australia and everyone just chilled out and enjoyed the awesome wheather before heading back to the gagaju base camp to sleep on the floor that night.

After a pretty awesome day and now everyone was getting to know each other from the previous nights escapades and that days trip we decided that there was only one thing for it – some more ring of fire. Pete and Alex went off to buy more beer (proper strength beer this time) we ate some pie that took about 3 days to cook in the old skoool industrial style oven at the camp and then commenced the inevitable onslaught. We were on the third game of ring of fire by the end of the night and the Jagermeister had been broken into. We also met some crazy Isaraeli guy and a funny irishman that enjoyed ganging up on himself in drinking games. I say no more. After a heated discussion between Matt and Pete in the tent we retired in the knowledge that we would have slightly longer in the bed that morning.

The following night we would be staying at a campsite further up the river, so we had to packthe boats with tents and general camping equipment that morning. Everyone feeling a little worse for wear. The ground was not very comfortable to sleep on. Anyway, that day we had the possibility of pissing about on a rope swing and eating spit roast pig and beef if we were to get there in time. The paddling was “less enthusiastic” today as can be expected so we made slow progress until we eventually found the rope swing. After much diffculty parking the canoes near the river bed and different people getting out whilst trying not to capsize any, Sam and Ed jumped out of the tree and had a go on the swing – realising that hyperthermia was a genuine possibilty afterwards – whilst some people took pictures. We then continued on to the camp site where it was a short walk to the much awaited spit roast. In the end only a few of us got to the roast in time and just as they were clearing up. But oh my god what a win – a big plate full of pig and cow so tasty and tender and all for 10 dollars. One of the things I have missed a lot whilst away – a good old roast – and it was glorious! Arni trumped us all by polishing off two plates – one of just meat and one of salad. We had no idea at this point of his eating habits apart from the fact that he ate a lot – including a lot of plain tins of tuna. We all set up camp and then chilled a bit more – Sam and Matt went the whole hog and had a napage. One conversation that stuck in my mind from that day was when Dale (quite an open Candian guy) asked Allan (a fairly quiet but awesome israeli guy) what Israel was like. Allan answered “oh horrible, I live in a mud hut” or something along those lines. There’s something about an israeli being sarcastic that just makes it more amusing. Anyway it led to us trying to find out what Allan did in the army when he did his compulsory service as they still have this in Israel – Each bloke must do two years when they turn 18. Turned out he was in intelligence but, even after a lot of probing from the rest of the group, would not elaborate much. We cooked soup for dinner then everyone huddled round what you might call a camp fire – others would refer to it more as a BBQ with logs that are on fire in it. A little more beer was drank and we got a pretty motivational speech from Arni and then went and slept on some more ground.

The next day had nothing planned – we just had to pack up everything, attempt to put it all back in the canoes and paddle back the base where we would get our infamous deposits back (basically we payed 20 dollars each deposit for the camping stuff when we got there and throughout the weekend the gagaju staff used this as a sort of power to make us do what we were supposed to do – pointing out many things that would loose us the deposit. This inevitably turned into a bit of a joke for the group involving what they would buy with our deposits which we were so definitly not getting back etc) before returning to civilisation. We arrived back just in time and milled about for a bit at the camp before leaving – surprisingly with our deposits. Deciding in the end that we would go straight up to Hervey Bay that night so we could stay with basically the same group of people for our next trip on Fraser Island. Unfortunately leaving behind Dail, Mallika, Rachel, Toby, Heather, Ed and Allan but staying with Candaian Dail, Arni, Jen, Alex and Eve. So we drove, and drove some more until we arrived at the hostel that evening.

Australia 1!

The next day – I say day I mean afternoon as we didn’t see a lot of the morning – Sam and Matt ate as much foder as possible while Pete suffered from the night before and spent most of the day in bed. Matt and Sam polished of over a Kg of lamb for dinner and then packed – ready to leave NZ the day after. After a short shuttle journey to the airport and a short delay on our original flight time we were on our way to Aussieland. We arrived to the expected quarantine point but were surprised how they let us stroll through without checking anything just because we had said we were bringing food in. We then ventured outside and were greeted by lots of rain – not good.

We arrived at our pre booked hostel (recommended by STA) to find that (even though we had booked about 6 months in advance) we were squeezed into a 2 person room meaning me and Matt would have to get cosy on a double bed – because we wouldn’t be doing that enough in 5 weeks that we were renting the camper, clearly… – after a day of travelling we couldn’t be arsed to change rooms so after discovering that there was no plugs, the mattresses were made of concrete and the showers were a hike away we decided to drown our sorrows by purchasing some unsafely cheap ”Chinese” which surprisingly made none of us ill. Before the Chinese however we mistakenly wondered to Wicked travel – a company offering packages for travel up the east coast – as they had what looked like some good deals on for that day. About 2 hours later the naggy sales women finally let us go after we had parted with $550 dollars of our hard earned cash for trips to islands etc as we travelled up the east coast. In the end I think we got a good deal but it was just the way the women sold it too us that really pissed me off – typical sales tactics inc the infamous good cop bad cop technique “Oh your bad for giving it too them for that price Zoey, I would not have given it to them for that”; full of bullshit. Anyway, rant over, back to the terrible Chinese. After we ate we enjoyed our first free sample of the infamous goon that we had heard so much about whilst we took part in a quiz at the hostel. Goon is basically an alcoholic drink which is mascara ding as wine but served from 4L+ boxes and made of, well, no one really knows.

The next day we woke to a sunny day and after checking out made a sort trip to Travellers Autobahn to pick up our camper van – passing several gorgeous car garages on the way. The van wasn’t ready at first so we went and got a smoothie/juice drink to pass the time. One of those that are made in front of you using a blender – heavenly. Pete ordered an apple juice and there the women must have blended about 12 apples into a 500ml container for it. When we returned we were given the decision of Excess Waiver or not. Basically when you hire the van it is insured but with an excess of about 1500 pounds if it is written off etc. You can however reduce this to 125 pounds if you pay a daily fee adding up to about 450 pounds for the length of our rental. After much discussion we felt the only way to reach a fair decision was the trusty rock paper scissors. Who ever wins gets to choose – we didn’t get the excess waiver. At time of writing this at has worked in our favour, fingers crossed well have no mishaps from now on in.

Sam drew the short straw and had to drive “the rig” first through the horrible busy roads of Sydney with its grose one ways systems and thousands of traffic lights and lanes that randomly end with no warning and toll roads that have no cashier because all the locals use Etags which means people like us a pretty buggered – I think this sets a nice picture. Anyway, we had a mare – driving 74km and passing through toll roads that led to places we didn’t even want to go – so we decided to purchase a city map. Which worked well and we found a nice spot by a sports park with WC’s and a BBQ where we stayed for to nights in the end whilst seeing Sydney. Fortunately man points were still intact as we did not ask anyone for directions. That evening we planned the drive for the next day – circling points of interest etc and having a rough idea of a route to make it as easy as possible when it cam to actually driving it. This worked quite well as we made it back from North Sydney over the Harbour bridge (tick) into circular quays where you can board a ferry to go to toronga zoo – our original plan. Unfortunately the weather was not as expected and hindered this plan – forcing some on the spot thinking over some noodles at lunch. We visited the opera house (the funny shaped building in all Australia pictures) while we were their which was pretty epic but photos were difficult because of the rain(tick). After this we decided to head into town in the direction of aquarium – we felt it was a decent substitute for the zoo and would involve being dry. On the way we got distracted for quite a while in an awesome apple store. An 3 story all glass building full of apple shininess – you imagine that Matt was struggling to contain himself. Anyway, we finally made it too the aquarium and finally made use of our useless ISIC cards to pay for the entry fee. This place turned out to be awesome. We saw Crocodiles, sharks, manta rays, sting rays, massive cod, huge crabs, eels and of course manatees amongst others. They had these cool tubes that you could walk down as if you were inside the pool that the sharks etc were swimming in which were pretty awesome. We left the aquarium to experience Sydney at night – the bridge etc lit up – which was pretty cool and it had stopped raining! On the way back to the rig we stopped at a sports store to purchase a footieball and Pete bought some running shoes to commence his get fit regime in Oz.

We headed back to our camp, a car park on the outskirts of Sydney, cooked up some dinner and turned in for the night ready to be nine years old again tomorrow and head to the Sydney Zoo.
We awoke the next day and headed to the Zoo for more childishness and again made use of our ISIC cards (they were finally coming good!). We meandered around the zoo seeing all the interesting animals (the ones that could kill a man – not the shitty ones that are basically rats) until <we saw the best thing in the Zoo that day. The lesbian. I say 'the' lesbian, because this..lady..was the dykiest dyke I have ever seen, so much so that we all thought she was a man before she looked up and made face to face contact. Sam even gave a brief Fruedian slip by saying 'Lets go back up and see the lesbians…I mean Zebras' which provided much entertainment for all. We headed back to the rig for a brief spot of lunch and got the real road trip under way.
Deciding we needed to make up a fair nit of driving that day to compensate for the time we had spent in Sydney, so we cained it up the coast to Port Macqurie where we made camp for the night by parking about 10m from the sea, which as waking up to a view goes, was pretty awesome. Not really being much there, we hit the road the next day and moved onto Coffs Harbour another smallish town along the east coast but according to our guidebook was worth visiting. We stayed in a proper campsite that night, making use of our fully functioning microwave (!) and having power for the first time in a few days. We decided that it would be a good time to wop out some of our duty free alcohol that we had purchased from SYD Airport and play our collective favourite drinking game – Ring of Fire. We opened our Mango Malibu and began to play, realising the small pleasures in life – just sitting around a table with good company and good times in general, reflecting on basically how awesome we are. After becoming slightly intoxicated (ahem) we remembered that the campsite had a bouncy 'pillow', like a bouncy castle submerged in the ground and that the addition of rain could have only made this much much more fun that it could have possibly already been. We headed over there and began to realise just what a great idea this was as the water was going everywhere and it turned into a game of who would fall over the first – and as I had been ganged up on in our game of ring of fire prior to this, it was me. Several times in fact. We put our clothes in the wash forgetting we had washing powder I n our drunkenness and hit the hay, on our way to Byron Bay the next day, our first proper stop along the coast.

We headed up to Byron the next afternoon which was just another uninteresting drive along the motorway until we stopped at another rest revive survive stop where we encountered many other campers and caravans doing the same thing. One man especially caught our attention, he was dressed as if he was just about to venture into the heart of Africa when in fact we were only 1000 km north of Sydney, needless to say he was a strange one. After eating some lunch we resumed the drive onto Byron bay, which if the information we had received was correct, was going to be awesome. We came off the motorway early to take the scenic route to Byron which passed through a place called Lennox head where we could view for miles from a cliff side car park. When we got to Byron we drove around for a while trying to find a suitable hiding place to stay that night – this proved quite difficult as they seemed to be quite tight on that sort of thing here. In the end after a trip to the lighthouse for another pretty awesome view out over the sea and long sandy beaches, we headed to the beach car park for a bit where we cooked our first BBQ which after a lot of effort to get it going (the cheapest charcoal and cheapest fire lighters are not always a good shout) it turned out to be a win. Although Matt felt unwell which meant me and Pete ended up having to eat half a cow and a whole pig in burgers in sausages. We finished off with some marshmallows which were questionable and got chatting to a German guy who was also staying in a van/car and had been around Byron for a few nights. He recommended the local supermarket car park as a place to stay for the night. Awesome we thought, right in the centre of the town – a lot easier than we thought it would be. It inevitably didn't end so well. As Pete would probably put it “answering a knock on the door at 530am to a big dyke and being told to move on was a definite loss of man points” According to Pete Caulfield on Lesbians, Dykes are more powerful than men. So we moved 5 mins down the road to a hostel car park and stayed there for the rest of the night. Quite funny looking back at this but not so much at the time!

The next day was fairly productive. I bought a surfboard and we all bought various rash vests/wet suits so we could piss about in the sea on the new board. The current was carnage – we later found out that only experienced guys were in the sea that day. You literally loose concentration for a minute and just drift. Anyhow, we enjoyed getting a good battering. A new experience for Matt and Pete who haven't been in real waves before. We felt it would be necessary to have a proper shower etc after larking about in the sea all day so checked into a camp site and after much discussion about the meatball dinner and pasta we were going to make, we settled for a cuppa soup and got to bed at a human hour. In the morning Matt and Pete went and hired a board each and we spent most of the day in the sea again. The current had eased off a bit but it was still pretty big surf and we were having quite a hard time getting the hang of it. Loved every second of it though. That evening we got round to making the much discussed meatballs which turned out to be awesome then went to check out a recommended bar in town called cheeky monkeys. All in all – pretty disappointed so we again retired to bed. We planned to move up the coast to a place called surfers paradise on the gold coast the following day which, after a while sorting some stuff out that wed left a while (like giving lots of money to wicked travel), we did. We were surprised when we got there at how big the place was and how commercialised it was. Lots of high rise buildings, lots of tacky looking shop s etc etc. Very much like a typical American city. We found a handy place right next to the beach where we managed to stay for two nights without getting moved on. The beach here was awesome – white sandy beaches like a lot of the other beaches we had been on in Australia but it stretched for miles; lined by tall executive looking buildings and posh apartments. The surf was smaller than Byron but neater and just rolled in in nice barrels. The whether while we were here was not bad the first day but the second day we woke to glorious sunshine. No clouds in the sky, the best since we had been in Oz. Had a good day here – Sam surfed in the morning while Pete and Matt wondered into town to sort a couple of things for further up the coast. Then we whopped the football out for a bit of cuppy which, although ridiculously hard work on sand, was a good laugh. After some lunch we decided we should have a change of scenery and move towards Brisbane – hopefully somewhere a bit more low key than surfers. Ended up driving over 100km after getting a bit lost and having a tour of paradise point (an obviously very raaa area where not owning a yacht was abnormal) and some of the more inland towns of the east coast. We ended up at a place called Victoria Point just 40km south of Brisbane which was basically a little crossing point to one of the tiny islands off of the mainland. This was a pretty awesome place – good views and scenery- and we were treated to a beautiful sunset in the evening after a great day for the weather. To finish off we had another BBQ with a large amount of cow and Pete had his first go at driving the rig. Failing quite badly I hasten to add. We woke again to glorious sunshine and after dosing about again for a while we headed up to Brisbane – arriving in plenty of time to look at a few hostels as we felt we needed some time in a proper bed. In the end found a newly built YHA just out of the centre wear we park our van for free – ideal! We checked into our room and sorted out various shit that had been building up after a few days in the van and had a glorious showers – you learn to appreciate the simple things. In our a room were a 3 other guys who, after much deliberation, turned out to be Irish. They came from a little village near Cork and spoke the most un-understandable English I have ever heard from someone who speaks it as their first language. We got chattin to them in the pub that night whilst eating 7 dollar steak/chicken breast and it turned out they were leaving in 2 days and had some stuff to get rid of – inc a car. Eventually we just took a few sleeping bags and bits n bobs off them but at one point were going to have an additional vehicle for just 60 dollars as they couldnt be arsed to sell it. Anyways, we had a couple of nights in Brisbane – a pretty nice city. Very much like Sydney but smaller and a little more chilled out.

Skiing/the rest of NZ…

So we arrived at the base of Mt Hutt got into our gear and purchased our passes for the afternoon. The weather was pretty decent – all was going well. For a while anyway…

We all had a few goes down the learner slope so Matt and Pete could get a feel for being on skis and learn to turn etc. Pete managed to fall over before he got to the lift to go up this slope – Matt 1, Pete 0 I believe. They seemed to pick it up a little – well they could both go straight anyway – so we decided the best way was to throw them in at the deep end and go up on the green run. This seemed like a good idea at the time – what was the worst that could happen? Well… about an hour later and we had got to about half way down the slope. Majority of time Matt had spent on his arse, Pete had gone ahead slightly but also encountered a couple of heavy bails including one which resulting in his infamous convict hat blowing off the side. Eventually Matt started getting the hang of turning without just falling and getting back up facing a different way so we continued down the slope, until Pete fell in front of Matt whilst he was on a roll – causing some more time on the deck. When Pete went to clip back into the skis he noticed that the binding was bent and he wasn’t able to get back into it. In the end he had to walk back to the top of the slope where he handed his skis to a women to take down for him and he got a lift down on a snow-mobile. Meanwhile Sam and Matt went up for another go. When we met up with Pete again, he had got his ski fixed and so we headed back up in the mindset that it can only get better for him. We were wrong. About half way down the mountain, when he was just getting the hang of it, he took another good tumble, banging his head and this time breaking the opposite ski binding. This “threw him into a rage” as he had to walk up the mountain again and follow the same procedure – this time coming down in the chair lift. Whilst Sam and Matt did a couple more runs Pete got the other ski fixed and we met him at the cafe. He didn’t fancy going up again.

Anyway, Matt went up for a final run and managed to get all the way down without falling; out of control for the majority of the run but nevertheless – done well. Sam did a few more runs and ventured to the top chair lift where it was flippin freezing and windy while Matt waited with Pete. This is where it gets more interesting… Pete turns to Matt and says “ I think ive got concussion – I feel like ive been drinking and my vision is a bit blurry.” When Sam had finished his final run we decided it was a good plan for Pete to go get checked out by the on site medical centre. Little did we know that when Sam and Matt returned from waiting in the cafe for a while we would see pete hooked up to oxygen and a blood pressure monitor and shortly be informed that he was going to be transported by helicopter to Christchurch hospital – an hour and a half drive from where we were supposed to be staying that night.

As I’m sure pictures will show you I got into a helicopter to be airlifted to Christchurch hospital, I was not the only person to be airlifted to hospital on this day, I shared the journey with a girl who had at about the same time as I hit my head had faceplanted the ice, unfortunately they had deemed me to be serious so the paramedic in the back of the hospital spent the whole journey staring at me and asking if I was OK, if being in a helicopter on your way to hospital wasn’t disconcerting enough this certainly pushed it over the edge. The helicopter journey was about 20 minutes long and the views were amazing but that was not really what was on my mind, we landed about 10 minutes from the hospital in a park where an ambulance was waiting to take us the rest of the way at blistering pace. We arrived at hospital to be put in beds in the corridor next to the nurses station so they could monitor us closely. When the nurse eventually came to see me they did all the checks I had already had twice which consists of checking my neck isn’t broken, taking me pulse and blood pressure, checking my pupils were dilating correctly etc.

Meanwhile, Matt and Sam were left too drive down the 12km mountain up to the ski base in the quickly dissapearing light before sorting out the hired skiing gear that needed to be returned and the hostel booking that we had for that night (but hadn’t paid for yet) whilst squeezing in an awesome battered Mars or Moro bar; of course. This all went pretty well – the ski store gave us a full refund for Pete s equipment, we didn’t have to pay a penny to the hostel for a late checkout and the battered mars bar was potentially the best ever. To finish it off we decided to push the boat out and get a full fish and chips before setting off to Christchurch. After about an hour and a half – inc a short stop for our pudding of ice cream – we reached Christchurch hospital to find Pete doing what he does best… sleeping! After a short chat with the doctor he was discharged into our care. This inevitably led to many comments and threats that we would take him back to hospital if he was to say, snore that night, for example. After Pete effectively inhaled a subway because he had not eaten in 10 hours we checked into Charlie B’s where we stayed the first time we were in Christchurch. They have possibly the best mattresses in all of New Zealand. The next day we went into the city centre were Sam designed and booked his tattoo and matt booked his to be designed properly on the day he got it done. After that was done we hopped in the car and because we were in Christchurch a few days early we decided to head north to a place called Hanmer Springs we new there was very little there but we went to go into the hot springs they have there after all we had driven most of the south island in the last few days and after the the Mount Hutt incident we thought we would just take a day to relax. Hanmer springs is only 2 hours north of Christchurch and is basically a road with some hot pools in it, but is well worth visiting. We went to the hot pools to chillax and go in their sulphur pools to smell like a stink bomb, but apparently so good things for you, who knew? After being slightly disturbed by the smell we went back to our hostel to eat our dinner and make win cake – atrleast I thought so. Sam and pete were less impressed by the small cake and how it turned out. We rented Wedding Crashers, lolled heartily and went to sleep to head back to C’Church the next day.
After arriving back in C’Church we booked into good old BASE, as we knew it would be a decent hostel and did sweet fuck all, knowing we could just chill out for the next few days and our last in New Zealand. The next day Sam dropped the car back off and he and Pete went out to get ham and came back with $100 of food…..riiight. Whilst a bit confused initially, it soon became clear that all the food would be eaten before we left NZ. And it was…mostly. Anyways, back to the food later. We again did naff all all day and prepared ourselves for the the next day were sam and I would get tattooed.
Not quite sure what to expect when we walked into DV-8 tattoo, which I would highly recommend if anyone ever happens to be in C’Church and wanting a tattoo, I watched as Sam went first having his already been drawn up a few days earlier. I watched as Sam looked mostly comfortable but with a few painful bits – it was hard to tell from the other side of the room going on only his hands clenching to guess that he was feeling the pain. Well after about an hour, he was done and it was my go. Pete and Sam went with Kris and Neils for a well earned subway and to pay Sams fine whilst he prepared mine on his win I-mac. Sam and Pete returned when I was about half way through to see that it was going pretty well – not too many skirmishes just a decent amount of fist clenching. After a short while all was complete and a second visit to subway was in order before we returned to the hostel. That evening we had a few drinks at the hostel with Kris and Neils before venturing out to the bar below which turned out to be pretty poor. We then went for a tour of what C’church has to offer at night before returning home in the early hours of the morning – Pete admittedly most worst for wear.