Check this out for some well organised travel:-
> Drop a campervan off at 3pm, get a lift to the airport and arrive 2 hours before you need to. > Arrive at your first destination at 7pm, with no-where to stay and no real point of staying anywhere as your next flight is at 6.20am the following morning. > Book a shuttle bus for 3am, leaving you stranded in a foreign town with no-where to stay for 8 hours and then arriving over 3 hours before your flight actually leaves. > Arrive into your stopover destination, with a stopover of 4 hours to look forward to followed by an 11-hour flight.
I don't know who the fuck sorted that out, but you'd think after 26-months travelling he would have sorted his shit out by now.
So we've finished travelling New Zealand. We've driven past Mount Cook, we've seen the glaciers in all of their glory in a thick fog, we've seen the blow-holes at the wrong time of day to see anything blowing out of any holes, and we've arrived at a geyser 10 minutes after it finished it's 1-hour daily eruption. Basically if you want to know how NOT to tour New Zealand, ask us. We drove to Greymouth on Good Friday to find ALL of the shops closed, we drove to Westport on Good Friday to find ALL of the shops closed, and we drove to Nelson on Good Friday to find ALL of the shops closed. I think - although correct me if you know any better here - I THINK the shops may close on Good Friday over here. They also have ye olde licensing laws on Easter Sunday ("are you planning on eating a meal with your drink sir?" - "nope" - "then I can't serve you alcohol, are you sure you're not planning on ordering a meal with your drink sir?" - "nope" - "ah for fuck's sake, are you from Preston?")
My one major tip of the day for anyone planning on touring New Zealand would be to take more than two weeks to do it in, and to bring more than a few quid to invest in the numerous activities available. I've had to make a hard choice between taking once-in-a-lifetime opportunites by the scruff of the neck or having a few beers every night. So as I sit here with a can of Tui's and a hazy memory of what the fuck I've been doing for the last two weeks, I have to ask myself...
I wonder what the beer tastes like in Vietnam?
