A simple waterproof sack that we’ve used to put our important items in, keeping it dry while kayak touring and hiking. What can we say, very durable and has been submerged too many times. Invaluable.
After lots of searching, we found this MP3 player on amazon for about 150 quid, which has turned out to be invaluble and rather robust!
We left the UK with 80 gig of music, video, photos of friends and family, digital copies of our passports, tickets and important documents all cleverly encrypted away from prying eyes. It comes with a ‘USB Host lead’ which means, when our digital cameras full, we can dump the photos on the device and start taking more, all without the need of searching for a computer.
Due to the nature of how we’ve been travelling, it’s had a hard life, even getting soaked through (invest in a waterproof case) and although I’m sure the warranties now void, the metal case scratched and dented, it’s still going strong (touch wood)
Its been great, entertaining us on wet evenings and listening to music in the car when radio stations can’t be found.
We’re here in the capital of New Zealand, which incidentally shares its name with my home town. It’s true what they say of Wellington, it’s very very windy.
We came across the Strait from the south island yesterday which left us feeling like New Zealand was almost over for us (which of course it is, we just don’t want to admit it).
We had left Queenstown a week earlier to continue south through Te Anau and Milford Sound, with its breath taking views and vast mountains.
Through Invercargill, famously labeled ‘Arsehole of the world’ by Mick Jagger, we’ll leave it at that… skipping Bluff, the self proclaimed furthest southern point to go to Slope point, the real southern point of the south island. From the bottom the only way was back up, journeying through The Caitlins National Park and up to Dunedin, failing to find any sign of a bra or shoe fence that hear-say had led us to believe existed. So Dunedin, home of one of the 19 Cadburys Factorys worldwide (and well worth a tour), New Zealands oldest university and the worlds steepest street. Its also worth mentioning, just incase any of you go there with a car, that the innercity carparks close at 6:15, which could leave you, like us, stranded the other side of a large shutter from your car, tent, food, clothes… Then back to Christchurch via Mt Cook (see a life in the day of) for our rare luxury accommodation with our OWN shower! Finally whizzing up through Kaikoura, Blenheim and Picton to catch our ferry.
And here we are, in the city centre, waiting for dinner time after spending a full and hectic day in museums (Te Papa is possibly the best museum we’ve ever been in!), art galleries, on the cable car, window shopping and a cinema visit.
We’re staying in a sizable hostel in the middle of town that an elderly couple checked out of this morning due to it being a ‘Party Hostel’, it’s certainly not the loudest we’ve been in. The Kitchen’s a little grubby so we’ve been using ‘health reasons’ as an excuse to eat out every mealtime.
And the future, plenty of things we want to do but little time, definates however are walking the Tongariro crossing, snowboarding, sailing and climbing in Taupo then off to Sydney!
Maybe another post before we leave ‘The Land of the Long White Cloud’ otherwise, see you in Oz!
