I want to go sightseeing.

Congratulations.  Upon uttering those words, you have just become my most hated person of the last five minutes.  Don't worry, my fickle nature coupled with my mediocre attention span mean that at some point in the next five minutes I will move onto someone else.  Or maybe just revert back to someone on my regular hate list, but until that point:  Well done you.

Am I being a bit harsh with this?  I've been back and forth.  Sure, we all like a bit of sightseeing.  There is nothing like being a tourist in say, London.  Have a walk around the Tower of London, it was built by Jesus probably.  That's over 2 thousand years ago!  And they chopped off peoples heads and put them on spikes or something.  And it has the Crown Jewels, and ravens, and Beefeaters and stuff.  Wow.  And look, there's Buckingham Palace, it's a billion years old and is where the Queen does her poo's.  And Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, and look at all these buildings!  They were all here since the dawn of time, and survived wars, and the Great Fire of London and stuff, and they were lived in by important people with numbers after their name!  Stare at them all, agog, with your mouths open and dribble your intelligence all down the front of your shirt!  Fascinating stuff.  And it was, despite my general tone of sarcasm, awesome when seeing these structures steeped in centuries of history for the first time.

But here's the newsflash.  You are in New Zealand.  A country that was only invented a few hundred years ago.  And furthermore, you are in Queenstown, New Zealand.  A town established a mere 150 years ago.  If you can find a structure more than 3 minutes old here, I would like you to show it to me.  And in return, I will direct you to the only sightseeing bus in town.  It runs a 3 hour tour, one hour of which is you walking around Arrowtown which granted, is quite quaint - it looks a little like a town from the Wild West - but still no more than 150 years old.  The rest is a visit to the bridge A.J. Hackett first leapt off, a winery visit, another bridge, and a lake.  It's a different lake to the one you sleep next to in Queenstown, I'll grant you that.  But it is still a massive expanse of water, and these lake things really don't tend to differ much.  You know what though?  They do it on a genuine red double decker bus from London, which may just be the oldest thing for miles.

So yes, technically speaking there are sights, but I can't help feeling most people who tell me this want sights like you get in big cities, like the sights I (historically accurately) described in my second paragraph.  And can't help but wonder if maybe they get a little disappointed with the lack of them, and it leaves me thinking that if they wanted to go sightseeing instead of throw themselves off or out of something, that they may be vacationing in the wrong town.

It's not technically sightseeing, but you could go on a Lord of the Rings tour, that horse that still has plenty of flogging potential over here, especially with The Hobbit being announced, but you may have the same problem I have with that one.  Want to know what that is?  I thought so, settle in and I will tell you.

I was never a fan of the books, I never read the books.  For some reason growing up they didn't really appeal to me.  But then in my later youth once I discovered I could get into bars, reading went out the window.  And there is something about having 'Lord' in the title which implies some sort of camp escapade.  The Lord of the Flies (a book I did read once) is pretty brutal, fair enough.  But Lord of the Dance?  Camper than Christmas.  Lord Lucan's claim to fame (besides the speculation of his death/disappearance) must be that he is the only man in the history of Homo Sapiens (snigger) that would ensure Freddie Mercury came second in a Freddie Mercury look-a-like competition.  Even in the 12 days of Christmas the Lords are a-leaping.  You could be as hard as nails but as soon as you call yourself a Lord you may as well skip around all day telling everyone how fabulous you are.  The prime example being Chris Eubank, the self-proclaimed Lord Mayor of Brighton.  Sure, he was a boxer and could probably floor me with a flick of his little finger, but come on.  The guy wears jodhpurs and talks with a lisp.

The films however were obviously a big event, so I watched them.  All three films, which I believe to have taken around 23 decades to watch.  So as a result I have just seen them once.  And this means that every time someone points out a piece of land and says "Do you remember the battle of Scaramanga when that guy with the hairy feet and pointy ears threw that spear at that horse with the cardboard horns?", I have to look inquisitively at them, say that I do remember, and then feign a look of dawning realisation when they tell me it was filmed there.  For about 2 seconds.  Within an eon of footage.  They may as well just ask me if I remember that time I scratched my arse when I was 7.  Without a photographic memory on my side I would have to take a physical photograph of the site, go home, print it and rent the Lord of the Rings (all three, because they never tell me which one it's from), grab a haemorrhoid pillow and sit through every minute of them once again whilst holding the picture up next to the T.V. until that particular scene comes on the screen, pause it, make a note of which film it is and at what time the scene crops up on the DVD, and then commit this to memory so that next time I am round a friends house and we decide to have a Lord of the Rings marathon I can jump in at just the right time and excitedly shout "I've been there"!

That's not to belittle the amazing scenery round here, it is overwhelmingly astounding as I have said before.  It's just that it's not really a town built for sightseeing in the immediate locality.  It's more a town of locally putting yourself within inches of the jaws of death, and on a larger scale a vast expanse of beauty and serenity.  Like Milford Sound, somewhere I visited again recently but this time staying overnight.  I saw it as an opportunity to spend a little bit of time out of the bustle of Queenstown.  A time to be with myself, though not in that way (okay, maybe once in that way before I went to sleep).  A time to relax and contemplate.  And in that state of loneliness I discovered that I may be a bit of a paradox.  A lot of the time I don't like people, but conversely when alone, I really manage to piss myself off.

While I was there this time round, I took the opportunity to go kayaking.  The weather wasn't perfect, it was raining and there were high winds which meant we couldn't start kayaking in from the point we originally intended to, but when we eventually set off it was great to see the area from a different point of view.  We could get closer to the nature, watch seals frolicking in the shallow waters, paddle next to swimming penguins, and even touch one as the guide dragged a near decapitated one onto his kayak not incorrectly pointing out that "It's not the most ideal way to see them up close".  Being sea kayaks (which are operated by two people), mine - as happened before in my Festive Bitching post almost a year ago - came with an idiot in the back to steer us in the wrong direction and generally almost capsize us while dicking about trying to get the perfect camera shot, an experience I am becoming more and more familiar with, which only makes me wonder if it is actually me that's the idiot.  So with Milford Sound slowly inching it's way nearer the jetboat list of things I am arrogant enough to bore of (along with helicopter rides - I caught one back from Milford - honestly, if I have to go on another sodding helicopter.....) I decided it was time to try out another of the sounds, this time Doubtful Sound, on an overnight cruise.

Doubtful Sound is more remote than Milford.  It's accessible only by boat across Lake Manapouri, then bus over Wilmott Pass (named after 80's 'comedian' Gary Wilmott, as the historians are pretty sure they heard someone laugh at one of his jokes there), before you get to the Sound itself where you embark on the overnight cruise.  It was built in 1879 by brothers Eric and Percy Carruthers, who painstakingly carved it from the rock over a period of 34 years, losing a total of thirteen fingers between them.  Or it was carved by glaciers over thousands of years, one or the other, can't remember which one.  But if it's the latter, it would once again make it a Fiord rather than a Sound.  But this was realised way too late, and they already had Sound printed on the brochures or something, so they stuck with that.  Y'know what?  This isn't a history lesson, Wiki it.  It's an amazing place though, so peaceful, serene, full of wildlife once again.  Seal colonies, live penguins, dolphins, and sandflies.  Those bastard sandflies.  If Celine Dion and Bono ever had a bastard love child, to be honest it would probably be Jamie Oliver.  But if he then pro-created with Mariah Carey (who herself would be the bastard offspring of Chris Martin off of Coldplay and a traffic warden), the result would no doubt be those little bloodsucking harbingers of pestilence.  They have never bothered me in the past, they still don't too much.  The after effects are largely itching a lot.  And I love a good scratch, just ask my bollocks.  But being caught in an eternal cloud of them while kayaking (on my own this time - result) is the most irritating thing on the planet.  As is having them feast off my legs while eating dinner (which incidentally was amazing, they cooked my favourite food on the cruise - a buffet).  Honestly, I have never been involved in mass genocide, but I would imagine they would be marginally worse.

We were taken through to one of the arms of the Sound the following day on the way back inland.  As we approached, the water was like glass, reflecting the imposing beauty of the surrounding mountains.  And as we slowed we were told to take all the pictures we needed to now, as they were going to power down the vessel and ask for complete silence and no movement on the steel decks for five minutes to take in the immense remoteness and the sound of nature as if we were the only ones there.  It was incredible.  An experience marred largely by the fucking Germans sneaking around the deck still taking pictures.  One can only assume that upon arriving home and showing people these pictures they pulled out the first one and said 'This is us approaching the arm before we stopped', and then a second taken not five minutes later saying 'And this is exactly the same shot, but in complete silence.  Oooooh, spooky'.  Despite the fucking Germans (maybe the only thing in the world worse than sandflies), it was still a place I am very keen to re-visit.  Until such time as I get arrogantly bored of it.

Since then I have also been out canyoning.  You may remember I had an interview for them last year.  I can safely say that despite it being great fun, as I spent most of the time trying my hardest not to shit myself I am probably glad I didn't get the job.  It's essentially travelling through a canyon using various means: scrambling, abseiling, ziplines, jumping off rocks (into shallow water in a certain place to avoid other rocks nearby), slipping off rocks (not a valid way of doing it, but one that I discovered to be perfectly safe after doing it and surviving), stepping off rocks (as if you jump you will land too far away, onto more rocks), I had a great time doing it but was honestly petrified for the most part as I am still largely uncomfortable with water.  I did win a t-shirt at the end of the day.  It was a prize given to me for being petrified of the first jump - around 6 metres high into shallow water, into which you have to land with your legs raised probably to stop you breaking them.  Essentially I won a t-shirt for being the biggest pussy, which I think is the first and only time that has ever paid off.

Even though I had an awesome time out in the canyon - the day was great, the people were great, the fact I didn't cry like a little girl was great - I am still not convinced that sports involving water are the way to go for me.  I am still determined to find something to do all summer but it may be on land.  If I don't find something to do while waiting for winter it's going to be a very boring few months.  And there will be another winter, as I have just had my visa renewed until November next year.

England's loss is New Zealand's gain!  There's that arrogance once more.

This will no doubt be the last post of 2010, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish anyone still here after the RSI inducing length of garbage up there a perfectly adequate Christmas, and a fair-to-middling New Year.  It's done smaller because I am not 100% sure who reads this, and there may be some people who do read this that I would wish a really shit Christmas and a bile-infested New Year to.  But try and have fun anyway.

Road Trippin'

We have already established that I am lazy, and that I am a very bad tourist. The worst, in fact. Present me with the most beautiful scenery in the world and the chances are I will sit and people watch the whole time whilst making snidey, derogatory, and if I may say so myself hilariously witty comments about the gurgling bum-wits staring open mouthed at the natural beauty I should myself be bum-witted about.

For example, spending three and a half months in Wanaka in New Zealand, then coming home. I traveled all the way to the other side of the globe and didn't venture out of my temporary home town that much at all. Yes, it's true. I was berated by friends for that one, so wanted to do something about it this time round.

Way back at the end of 2009, I managed to get my hands on a pair of tickets to see Faith No More in Christchurch. For the uninitiated, Faith No More are by far the single greatest band ever to have come into existence, until they split 11 years ago. My excitement at the reformation, and upcoming tour, was immense. I purchased the tickets at home on the internet, but yearned to take them to a house up the road, drop them off with someone, then pick them up later and half run, half skip home clutching them tightly in my hands and waving them in the air like a Frenchman with a white flag, all the time feeling like I had just got the last golden ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. The girlfriend suggested incorporating this into a road trip. Take in a bit of Faith No More, catch up with friends in the North of the South island, and then come back down the West coast, which was an immensely complicated conversation for someone like me who still has to do the whole Never Eat Shredded Wheat thing accompanied by pointing to understand where each one lies to comprehend.

So we set off on Monday afternoon. She had to go into work so I stocked up on gummi bears and busied myself in the toy section of Warehouse while waiting, a shop not unlike supermarkets in the U.K. in that it's handy because it sells everything under the sun but deep down you want to leave empty handed because it's really all shit. In fact the toy section comprises of no more than 3 aisles, one of which I generally ignore as it's mainly dolls, and a 33 year old man hovering around a doll section in a shop is generally about as welcome as Kevin Costner in any one of his films. I paced around waiting for a while, and went back and forth between the cd/dvd and the toy section, out for a cigarette, back in wandering around, and was collected probably a good 15 minutes after I had been tagged as a potential shoplifter.

The second stop was Christchurch (the first being Burger King on the way out of town). It was a journey very reminiscent of travelling from South to North in England. The further North we got, the dingier landscapes became and the worse the weather closed in. We traveled up past Mount Cook, and through the nearby glacial fed, milky blue lakes Pukaki and Tekapo, which I am sure would be hilariously renamed to Bukkake and Takeapoo by the type of person that hangs around toy aisles in shops (as an aside to anyone who isn't down with the ancient Japanese art of Bukkake, it's a little like the ancient art of Origami, but with less paper and more ejaculate). We entered Christchurch approximately 6 hours later and found our accommodation, which was to be a hostel called the Jailhouse.

As you can probably guess from the name, Jailhouse is an old jail converted into a hostel. Built in 1874, used as a jail, and a military camp, it finally closed in 1999 and was bought and converted into a hostel in 2006. It's a novel place to stay in, and when you think about it hostels and jails have so much in common it's a surprise this hasn't caught on more often as they are both cramped, noisy rat infested hell-holes full of mental delinquents and ass rape. There are a few rooms which have been preserved with prison art on the walls, but the rest have been decorated, given comfortable beds and installed with televisions, and it would be so incredibly lazy and exceptionally obvious to insert a joke here about it being like a British prison but with less Playstations, and pool tables, and full body Swedish massages with happy endings or whatever else people are up in arms about prisoners getting these days that I'm not going to do it. After a long drive up there, we checked in and pretty much crashed out on the first night.

The next day we awoke and set out to fix a chip in the windscreen caused on the way up to Christchurch, and to get new windscreen wipers. Having been to Christchurch before, I was still not convinced that there is much to do there, and to be honest even being there brings back memories of the Masturbating Israeli so I was happy our time was occupied with essential errands. We also took the time out to visit Warehouse Extra, which had all the promise of a regular Warehouse, but with Extra. Extra what? you may well ask. Extra stock I think is the answer. Just a regular warehouse, but bigger and more full of the same shit as regular warehouse. Crestfallen from this experience, we went out to catch up with a friend of the girlfriends for lunch, and then headed back to the hostel where she caught a nap, and I bounced around with excitement at the prospect of Faith No More being but a few hours away. The gig was awesome. I felt a little old inside the arena, not because of a low average age, but because I really felt the need to tell people off for smoking inside. I started to feel young again when I noticed a guy at least 10 years my senior standing next to me. Until he pulled out a pipe and stood there smoking weed. I won't go into the details of the gig for fear of sounding like a gushing teenager, but needless to say after 18 years of waiting to see them again, I wept from all four eyes.

We made an early start the following morning to head up to Motueka. It was a long drive, and we finally arrived early evening, grabbed some alcohol and food, met up with some friends, and went back to their place. Their house is as close to a living embodiment of a Beatrix Potter book as you can get. They share with the lady that owns the place, an English couple, four cats, too many chickens to count, some chicks, roosters, and a talking magpie. All animals that ensure a good, unbroken nights sleep. "There's a chicken in the house......AGAIN" is a sentence I really never thought I would hear in my lifetime. Motueka is quite typical of a quiet, New Zealand town. On entering, you have a feeling that there is only one road in, and no roads out. Quiet, unassuming, and despite not-quite-throngs of people milling around it still has the feel of a ghost town. We spent the evening at home enjoying a quiet few drinks over a game of Wii bowling, a terrible, terrible game. Because I lost.

The following day we set off to see some of Abel Tasman. The heavens opened and it rained hard, so we did the only thing you can do faced with that situation - pub. We sat in the pub, caught up, chatted a while, watched as a bird continuously flew into one of the windows in a desperate but largely failed bid for freedom, and as soon as the rain passed headed out to see some of the sights. Which culminated in a game of mini-golf. A terrible, terrible game. Because I lost. After more sightseeing, we grabbed some more beer, pizzas, and went back to chill and watch the Olympics.

From Motueka, we made our way to Hokitika down the west coast of the country. The scenery on the way down the coast is stunning until you get to Greymouth, which looks so shitty they didn't even bother to try and dress it up with a fancy name. The only reason I can think for it to have been called Greymouth is that Shittypoo Town was taken. As you drive past, as we did, you can smell a faint whiff of stabbings and teenage pregnancy in the air. We got to Buller Gorge, and stopped at what was claimed to be New Zealands longest swing bridge, spanning the Huxley River. Much to my dismay, my illusions of recreating the final scene from the Temple of Doom were short lived as it turned out to be a rather robust affair, but being the kind of 33 year old that hangs around toy aisles in Warehouse, it was fun to walk as fast as I could without holding on.

We also stopped off at Pancake Rocks, which are rocks. And they look like pancakes. When pancakes are stacked that is. They are essentially a heavily eroded limestone area where the sea bursts through a number of vertical blow holes during high tides. I can't really elaborate more than that for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am sure you can imagine what a stack of pancakes in rocky colours looks like. Secondly I don't actually know much more than that. And thirdly, the only wikipedia entry for them is cut and pasted into the above sentence. Once we got to Hokitika we checked into the hostel and went out to grab some fish and chips. Hokitika is a town much like I described Motueka. Nothing much happening, but it looked and reminded me very much of Sandford from Hot Fuzz.

Finally from Hokitika we began the final leg of the journey back into Queenstown. We went via Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, although we didn't have the time to stop off and explore either. We did however, take a dirt road down to Gillespies Beach, about 20km West off the Fox Glacier highway, and had crisp sandwiches for lunch. We then stopped off at the Gates of Haast, a single lane bridge over a gorge with massive boulders, nearby Thunder Creek Falls. A popular destination for both tourists and sandflies alike, which resulted in so many bites that the other half ended up with a cankle.

For those interested, most of the photographic evidence that I completed this journey can be found by clicking here. Though being a typical crap and lazy tourist, all I did was point and shoot, and have no idea what most of them are of. Aside from the shots of the only train I have seen here in New Zealand, which was about 73 miles long.

Since arriving back, the only thing I have been doing aside from working, is trying to delay my return to the U.K. by going through the visa application process. Part of this was a full medical, which came back clear which is a result. I don't have syphilis, I don't have the HIV, my blood is good which is a rather nice compliment I have not received before, my piss is a fine vintage, all in all it seems I am not dying of anything which is always a good start to a Tuesday. Testicular examinations were not included, I was informed, but was told I should check them at least once a month. The rest of the examination was a little awkward after I told the nurse I check them far more than once a month.

After 3 weeks of waiting, and stressing purely because denial of the visa would mean going back to the U.K. and doing something grown up with my life, it came back approved so I now have another winter season down here to look forward to. Fuck yeah.

Queenstown and finding a place to reside

I arrived in Queenstown early evening, having only a vague idea where the hostel was. The coach journey, which to be honest I was dreading, turned out to be more than bearable in the end.
During the ride down, we stopped off for a lunch and toilet break at a lake called Tekapo. It's not quite pronounced "Take-a-poo", but given the nature of the stop I duly christened it so. Photos can be found here.
Once here, I dragged my sorry ass and 4 huge bags down the road to the hostel, checked in, and then went out for dinner with a few friends from Canada, one of whom is staying in Queenstown for the season and has offered me a room for a while.

I had visited Queenstown during the winter of 2007 when I was based in Wanaka. Having been in Wanaka (population: 4) for most of the season, I found Queenstown to be quite a large intimidating place. Having now been here a few days, it is smaller than I remember, but largely uphill.
Situated by Lake Wakatipu, it is a town that feels like it was designed by M. C. Escher, as it tends to defy all gravitational and logical laws that would suggest that you would walk an equal distance downhill as you would up. I seem to have just walked up. I feel like I should be at the top of Everest by now. If it weren't for the fact that I am some thousands of miles away from it.
Since being here I have joined the plethora of individuals running around town, handing my C.V. into various establishments in the hope of finding work. And somewhere to live.

As far as finding somewhere to live goes, after viewing many nice places, many not so nice places, I narrowed my choice down to 3. Out went the spacious room at the top of a hill occupied by a Japanese guy called Yoshi (honestly! The whole time I was talking to him he slowly morphed into a little green dinosaur), who had what seemed to me to be an unhealthy obsession with ensuring all plates are rinsed after washing up. Something he told me that people from the U.K. and New Zealand don't do which is the oddest racial stereotype I can ever recall having fallen into. Out also went the Japanese girl who opened the door with a cigarette in her hand who seemed totally non-plussed that her pit-bull terrier was fiercely determined to chew off my genitals during the tour of bedrooms to rent with mattresses on what used to be the floor, but actually resembled a landfill site.
The 3 I had to choose between were:

• 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 current occupant - English fella, 1 occupant yet to come
• 3 rooms, 1 bathroom (that I saw), Kiwi couple owning, potentially renting other room to another couple
• 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 current occupant - English girl - whose bedroom was mezzanine and opened up into the lounge/kitchen meaning living in my room while she was asleep/in bed.

After consulting friends for advice, I was told to avoid living with couples, or someone I might shag. So the first one it was. I move in on Monday.

Now finding work has been slightly harder. The ski season really kicks off later in June, and the Queenstown population is expected to expand in the next few weeks, so most places won't be hiring for a week or so yet. I have had limited success; in following up a few leads my 2 seasons at Olympic Park in Calgary as a ski instructor have helped me get a foot in the door with people familiar to the park, but as expected everywhere seems to have a stack of about 20 million CV's to trawl through. Ideally, as with most people here, I am looking for something that is not Monday to Friday 9-5, as I am here to ski and ride. So working at a bar would be ideal for morning riding and evening working. And as you should all know, I have a LOT of bar experience, albeit the wrong side in this situation. But I am at that age where I know that in this town right now there is a ton of more suitable people for the job, who are younger, have blond hair, big blue eyes, and massive tits.

Which leaves me with fewer options. Ski rental shops would also be ideal, as the hours can be irregular and it is in the industry in which I have experience, but they are few and far between.
So essentially I have applied for anything and everything. My diligence has got me an interview on Tuesday - kind of. Quiksilver are opening a branch in Queenstown soon and I have scored a group interview (as they have had a ton of applicants, they are interviewing all in group sessions), which includes "Meet & Greet, Q & A, Group Games". This instantly strikes fear into my heart, as it screams "role playing" at 16 million decibels through a megaphone the size of the Hubble space telescope at me. And I hate role playing almost as much as I hate that smug-twat-with-a-major-God-complex Bono. It is an informal interview, so we are meant to go along in clothes that we would wear should we get the job. I have t-shirts with me depicting the brand of many Quiksilver rivals, but none of Quiksilver. So I may have to go topless. Here's hoping my massive tits get me a job there.
Wish me luck.