- - -
Queenstown Airport is the location, a small but busy hub of
tourist travel across the South Island of New Zealand. Through the
glass-fronted exterior a small crowd gathers in anticipation as flight NZ245
from Wellington touches down. As with most small airports, the passenger entry
is further dramatised by the visible traipse across the tarmac towards the
terminal building.
As the hordes depart the plane, some laughing
uncontrollably, it is left to the last punter off the plane before the crowd is
satisfied. As the man in question – dressed in an ill-fitting pink playboy
bunny suit – makes his way through the terminal doors with nervous trepidation,
a roar erupts as the entire airport stands and applauds. A fitting way to start
an unforgettable stag do with the Beige Brigade – NZ’s equivalent of the Barmy
Army.
The next two days mixed stunning scenery across the Southland with incredulous laughter, silliness, genuine fear, endless wit and the fine art of ale tasting. With two minibuses filled with Speights, men dressed in the theme ‘Been at the bookies four days straight’ and an air of chaotic anticipation, we began a 200km pub-crawl of Herculean proportions.
The road to Te Anau – surely the story for a future
blockbuster movie – featured the stag being ushered to bungee jump from a
bridge in full playboy bunny attire, a visit into the caves of the Gibbston
Valley winery, stops at Kingston, Garston and Mossburn pubs, a magnificent BBQ
on the Gerken family farm and bar stool jousting in Manapouri.
This, in hindsight, was merely the warm up. Saturday
morning, bleary eyed but still functioning, the buses loaded up once more and
headed further south. On a farm just outside the small country town of
Tuatapere, the stag – dressed in a one-piece camouflage lycra – was left with
the farmer for two hours as the group wandered off up the road to shoot clays.
On return the result was astonishing: the stag wondered back, gun in hand, with
an actual stag. As we all applauded his efforts and marched onwards with the
prize antlers to boot, a near washout of a game at Winton CC failed to dampen
the spirits. If anything it spurred on the company as Invercargill was taken by
storm with more gusto than Poland in the Blitzkrieg.
A long night followed by an emotional farewell breakfast in
the morning marked the closure of an epic weekend, but from there my Southland adventure
continued with a full day of work, ferret hunting with The Goosh.
After a quick pre-Test shave it was on to Dunedin, the city
of students and burning couches, for two days of international cricket at the
most southerly Test ground in the world. So southerly, in fact, it felt like we
were in the arctic.
It was a sight to behold: Chris Martin ripping through the
South Africans – dressed like Michelin Men with four or five layers – in front
of a brave crowd at the picturesque University Oval. Alas, the Kiwis would fail
to capitalise on a fantastic platform and fall to a glorious defeat. Kiwis,
they’re just too nice.
Dunedin – with its people holding two great qualities, namely being students and New Zealanders – was also a perfect place to Couchsurf. So, on the steepest street in the world, Elizabeth and her flatmates opened their house to me, and with the couch fortunately not alight, two days of nostalgic, university-style banter resulted. A further day of Couchsurfing in Christchurch followed before heading back to Australia to see out my last two weeks of travels. New Zealand, to me, still remains the best country on Earth (bar one, of course).
No comments:
Post a Comment