Musings of an Idiot

Pitstop Dunedin

The strangest of things that took place on the morning of departure from Alexandra was that we traveled by the same bus driven by the same driver who drove us from Queenstown to Alexandra. So not much chance of any good photos but managed to sneak another couple of decent ones through the journey. It was an overcast day and it did rain for a bit as well but still the fact remains that Central Otago has stunning landscapes.



Driving through the small towns was weird because they were pretty small but each of them seemed to have atleast 3-4 churches. We stopped over in one of those towns for some breakfast and we talked to a Canadian couple who were travelling through New Zealand. Lance was supposed to pick a table to sit and as I finished placing my order I looked over and saw him sitting with the Canadian couple. I would have rather preferred if he had sat down with the cute girl who was sitting all on her own but it was not to be. He later explained to me that the couple had asked him to join them and that's the reason why he was sitting with them. Anyway it was interesting chatting to the couple as they were creatives as well with the husband coming to New Zealand and reconnecting with his ancestry who had originated from here 3 generations ago. It is a small world and it never ceases to amaze me how connected we all are - even when it is not really that obvious.

The rest of the bus journey was uneventful and the only minor event was being returned my sunglasses by a hot french chick. That was the day when I kept leaving my sunglasses behind everywhere - 4 times it happened and 4 times they came back to me - it just proved that we were meant to be together - my sunglasses and me. :-)



In Dunedin we stayed at Central Backpackers and it was a great place. The atmos was great and the rooms were clean and tidy and it had a homely feel to it even though it was a backpackers hostel. I would highly recommend it if you are traveling to Dunedin.

We sorted our shuttle service to the airport for the next day morning and then explored the city on foot. I loved the buildings in Dunedin - they have a very classical feel to them and you have some really cool back alleys that open into amazing looking buildings. An example of the buildings in Dunedin is the church below


After roaming about the city for a while Lance and me decided to have a couple of drinks at Craft Bar and luckily there was a live band playing in the pub and it was a great experience. I had the loudest hiccup in a while and it over rode every other sound in the pub for a moment. The bar tender was amused and offered me a shot of raspberry syrup. I was apprehensive about that cure and I just wanted some water but she asked me to trust her and strangely enough the hiccups disappeared as soon as I had that shot of Raspberry syrup. Oh and the lightly battered oysters that had come in that morning from Bluff were amazing - it was the first time I had oysters and that was one of the finest seafoods I have eaten.



After a few drinks we went back to the backpackers. I stayed back as the wind had picked up and it was freezing cold outside but Lance went for a walk to explore the city some more. After sometime in the room I decided to watch whatever was on T.V in the lounge. There was a whole bunch of people watching 'Grey's Anatomy' and I joined them. By the time Lance came back - the couple of guys who were in the room got bored and left, so it was really amusing seeing his expression when he came into the room to find that I was the only guy sitting amongst 10 girls watching T.V.

Lance bumped into a childhood schoolmate on the morning of the flight. She was having an exhibition of her photography in Dunedin. Again as I said - it is a small world really. The ride to Dunedin airport was long and it felt like the shuttle was driving us to a different town to catch the flight. I presumed that the flight was a direct flight between Dunedin and Auckland as the tickets didn't mention any stop over. But as luck would have it there was a stop over in Wellington - which annoyed Lance as he was supposed to go down to Wellington later that evening for his current camera job. If I had known earlier that it was a connecting flight then he could have just gotten off at Wellington but it was too late for that, so he grudgingly got onto the flight knowing that he would land in Wellington then fly to Auckland and then fly back to Wellington later that evening . Besides the constant jabs at me for the oversight by Lance the flight was pretty uneventful. Oh no - I almost forgot to mention the quiz about New Zealand that was playing on the flight - being competitive as we are, Lance and me started competing on that and funnily enough I won the contest even though I barely know anything about N.Z history. It annoyed Lance to no end but it was so satisfying for me. :-)


Lance's folks were kind enough to drop us off at the airport when we left Auckland and they came and picked us up when we returned back home. The first thing that hit me about Auckland was that it was pretty humid compared to the weather that I had seen in South Island. The good thing though that it was a nice sunny day, so returning home wasn't as painful. Tina - Lance's mom, cooked us an amazing lunch of fried fish that they had caught themselves a couple of days back. It was so yummy that my mouth is watering just thinking about it.



After the quick meal - it was back home for a quick shower. The shower was so refreshing after having skipped taking a shower for 2 days in a row. :-) After that it was off to my acting lessons, which ended the wonderful 5 days of time away from Auckland.


So thats the last of the blog entry in relation to the South Island trip {I will probably do a new entry with a few pics from Rachel's wedding once Lance comes back}. I will definitely take a longer trip there sometime in the future - maybe backpack my way through - who knows?

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Adventure, Dunedin, New Zealand, Queenstown, Travel

posted by Amit @ 8:05 PM 0 Comments

Farewell Queenstown, Hello Alexandra

The early morning starts are always a killer and I definitely was sad leaving Queenstown. Lance and me walked to the bus stop and somewhere inbetween I lost the bus tickets. They were sitting in my back pocket, so they must have fallen off when I shifted the weight of the bags around, so I ran back about 50 meters from the bus stop and sure enough they were lying on the footpath.


The bus journey was good and bad at the same time. Good because the central otago scenery was stunning and the landscapes are a marvel; bad because I couldn't take very many photographs as the bus was swaying from side to side through the entire journey. I did manage to get a couple of them.



The trip was pretty uneventful and as we got down from the bus we realized that we did not know where the backpackers was in relation to where we were. Lance asked a couple of guys but they didn't seem to know the location either and just then a lady yelled from about 10 feet away, telling us where it was. We were pretty amazed - first because the backpackers was just around the corner and second because the lady who gave us the directions had pretty amazing hearing capabilities.

Since we had about 4 hours before the wedding, Lance thought that it was a good idea to check out the church and then also check out the place where the reception was taking place as he was going to film it. On the way to the church Lance pointed to a guy sitting in a local cafe and said 'That's Frank Bunce', since I didn't know who that was I asked him 'Who is Frank Bunce?'and because the air was so quiet and the group at the cafe was sitting next to the footpath - my words would obviously have traveled through to them. Lance was shaking his head in disbelief at me that I would say such a thing like that. After we got a little distance away from the cafe he told me that Frank Bunce was a famous All Black - back in the day. I am ignorant about NZ Rugby and rugby legends, so I told Lance that it didn't really mean anything to me.

The church was easy to find and after a quick look we decided to walk to the reception area based on a street map on the public board. After walking for about 30 minutes odd it felt like we were going nowhere and the heat in Alexandra was searing. Lance was teasing me about wearing an icebreaker in such hot weather - the double catch was that if I removed my ice breaker and tied it around my shoulders he would start calling me 'preppy boy' - a term he gave to me in Queenstown when he saw me tie my ice breaker around my shoulder. So the long and short of it was that the heat was really getting to me. Then Lance had the brilliant idea to ask a couple of locals about how far the place really was and the guys told us that it was a good 6 KM walk. On hearing that we promptly started walking back to the backpackers. But as we were walking back Lance realized that the guy sitting at the cafe was not Frank but it was another All Black legend called Chuck. On hearing this I cracked up laughing as the joke was on him - that he didn't recognize the person properly and based on my initial question 'Who is Frank Bunce?', Chuck would probably be thinking a couple of choice things about Lance's recognition skills.

Alexandra is a small town and even though it is very quite I can't imagine ever being able to live there for a long time - more so because it reminded me of Rohtak - the small town where I studied my business degrees. I mean it is way more beautiful than Rohtak but the vibe was kind of similar. We didn't really explore the town that much more as it was really hot and considering that it had already been a long day and we still had the wedding and the reception to attend - taking a small nap before the wedding proved to be an excellent idea.

We got to the wedding early and the church itself was a beauty - it had a nice cozy feel to it. The wedding was nice as well and Rachel looked stunning in her bridal gown. I don't have any photographs of the actual ceremony itself but I will post some pics up once Lance comes back to Auckland from his current camera job.




After the wedding the big challenge was to get a ride to the reception and by turn of events we got a ride with Peter - the preacher who conducted the marriage ceremony and Marilyn - his wife. Peter is a really funny guy and add Scottish accent to it and it is fascinating listening to him. Anyway the reception was great and the guest had to find their way to the center of the maze and once you got there you had refreshments and stuff. Lance got some amazing stuff of people trying to get to the location. After enjoying the lovely weather, the actual reception ceremony began and I am still surprised at how short the wedding ceremonies over here usually are and how the receptions are longer affairs unlike India where both the ceremonies are pretty long drawn affairs - more so in South Indian than in North India.






The food was great, the festivities were roaring and we finished the night by catching a lift back with Peter and Marilyn back to the backpackers at almost 1.30 or 2.00 in the morning. In a way it is good that I decided to attend the wedding otherwise I would not only have missed a good occasion but would probably procrastinated for another couple of years before visiting South Island.

That's the lot for now - stay tuned for Dunedin.
Amit

Labels: Adventure, Alexandra, New Zealand, Queenstown, Travel, Wedding

posted by Amit @ 6:16 AM 0 Comments

Queenstown Day - 2

I woke up on friday morning having had a nightmare about getting diabetes. This was after Tania, Andrew and Lance hassled me on thursday evening about having a sweet tooth - they discussed cases where a person went blind because of diabetes. The whole thing no doubt had a massive impact on my small mind - enough to have nightmares about it. Lance's mission was to shoot a time lapse of sunrise over the mountains and with that in mind we went to the spot from where you got a great view of the horizon. This was 7.00 in the morning and needless to say it was pretty cold. The point we picked was not sheltered by anything from any side, so we were basically freezing our balls.




The sun almost came up and I got a couple of beautiful shots but within 10 minutes the clouds came over and enveloped the horizon and the sun was hidden from view for the rest of the time that we were there.





So after almost 2 hours in the freezing wind we called it a day for shooting time lapses and went and got some hot coffee. It was so nice getting something warm going into the body but I didn't really feel alive till the point I took a nice hot shower.

After the body came back to life we went about sorting out our bus tickets for the trip to Alexandra and then onwards to Dunedin. I also decided to exorcise my 'sugar demons' and went to 'Remarkables Sweet Shop' - it is definitely a kids dream come true. Racks and racks of different kind of sweets and lollies and what not - how cool is that. Spent a good half an hour browsing through the various kinds of sweets before I bought a bag of them.



There is this pizza place called 'SLICE' in central city and you've got to try out their pizza if you are there - it was really really delicious. After the late lunch, both of us roamed about the city doing window shopping and also did some actual shopping for gifts. The thing I loved most about Queenstown was the girls - there are so many of them and all of them are beautiful, coming from different parts of the world. The eyes never got tired looking at the beauty all around. It almost makes me want to settle down in Queenstown but the only problem is that there is not much film or TV work there to make a living. Yeah 'Wolverine' is shooting there at the moment but an occasional movie once every few years can't justify the move.




















Stay tuned for more.

Labels: Adventure, New Zealand, Queenstown, Travel

posted by Amit @ 6:59 PM 0 Comments

Queenstown Day - 1

I have just come back from a short trip to the South Island and I just realized that all the experiences are too long to write in one big blog entry. So I have decided to divide it into each day spent, so I can also put up as many pics as possible for each of the days.

The whole point of the trip was to attend Rachel's wedding in Alexandra on saturday but as it happens the flights are costlier over the weekend and so Lance and me decided to fly out earlier to Queenstown - spend a couple of days there before going to Alexandra. We took the earliest flight out of Auckland on Thursday morning and it is always hard waking up in the early hours of the morning to catch a flight - the body doesn't like it that much.

Well the good thing was that the flight was great - perfect weather conditions and a real smooth flight. The only thing that was annoying was a girl sitting a row behind us who had the most annoying shrieky voice that one can ever hear. She just didn't stop talking through the journey and it took a lot of effort to block her voice out. Lance started solving a newspaper puzzle after the stopover at Christchurch and full credit to him that he managed to finish it before the flight landed in Queenstown.



Much has been made about the 'landing' in Queenstown - it is supposed to be really scary and turbulent as the airport is nestled in the hills and one tends to catch a lot of wind coming from the mountains but luckily for me - the landing was perfect and there was no turbulence whatsoever. Tania - Lance's sister picked us up from the airport and both her and Andrew (her husband) were kind enough to put us up at their place.

Since it was a beautiful day we didn't waste any time and hit the road straight away. Queenstown is stunning and everywhere you turn all you can see is natural beauty. It is called the adventure capital of the world for a good reason and there are so many things to do here - especially if you have some money to spend. And even if you don't have any money there are still heaps of things to do.





At one point Lance and me decided that maybe we should walk all the way to the top of Bob's peak but after a short distance we felt that it probably wasn't such a good idea and so we took the gondola to the top. On the way up we saw someone take a bungy jump and just judging by the height we were at - I would presume that it must be a terrifying jump.



The views from the top of the observation deck are stunning. You get a great view of Queenstown and it's surrounding areas. And on a stunning day like this the beauty is magnified.




After spending a good chunk of time taking in the views, the next stop was a few rounds of Luge . We had to take a lift to the starting point and as we put on our helmets I noticed a booth which said that you could buy photos of the Luge drive. I presumed that it was a pre-paid service and asked the attendants if I could pay for the photos now and it cracked them up and Lance joined in the fun and they were laughing there heads off at me because they thought I wanted to buy pics of someone else. Well the misunderstanding was cleared up once they stopped laughing and they explained that we pick our photographs after the ride and then pay for them. I wasn't embarrassed, I was pleasantly surprised that people can find so much amusement from presumptions about other people. :-)



Oh about the Luge - it is a gravity ride on a 3 wheel cart. The unique braking and steering system provides the rider full control and allows them to travel as fast or slow as they wish. It is so much fun - you get used to it on the first round and by the third round it is exhilarating when you can go through tough bends at a good speed. Lance was cheeky and he overtook me on the last go and beat me by whiskers - well actually a little bit more than that.


After the luge- we carried onto the top of Bob's peak and the views from there are even more stunning and it is also the point where the parasailers take off. It was a fascinating process to watch and the number of people who were doing it grew exponentially after we got there.












After spending half an hour at the top, we walked back and the rest of the day we explored the town. It is a small place but at the same time there are so many nooks and crannies that you do end up in some interesting shops. Also the biggest thing about Queenstown is that it has a massive tourist population and that gives the town a completely different vibe. There is manic energy and excitement in the air. After walking about for what seemed ages - we went back to Tania's place and I had a nap - which was so refreshing, considering that I had been up since 4.30AM in the morning.


The evening was again beautiful. I was taking photographs from the room I was in and I chanced upon a couple who were throwing stones into the lake and getting it to skip the maximum number of times that they could. They were having so much fun that I couldn't resist but take a few photographs and I got one that was eye catching because of various reasons. I rushed down the stairs and showed the pic to Tania, Andrew and Lance - all of them agreed that the pic was definitely something special. Lance suggested that I should talk to them and share the pic with them incase they wanted it. I thought that it was a weird suggestion as it meant walking up to complete strangers and telling them that I had taken a photograph of them without their knowledge but if they wanted it then they could have a copy of it. But I thought why not and so just walked up to them, introduced myself and showed them the pic. They loved the pic, so I gave them my card so that they could email me for the pic. It was pretty nerve wracking for sure but I felt good by the time I came back to the house.

Labels: Adventure, New Zealand, Queenstown, Travel

posted by Amit @ 12:49 PM 0 Comments