South Island – Nelson

We left Wellington early in the morning and took a shuttle bus to the ferry terminal where we caught a 3 hour ferry from the North Island to the South Island. I was so tired I slept all the way but Jemma tells me the scenery was stunning. I will see it on the way back. The Magic bus was waiting for us at the other side with a new driver and new set of faces. We headed straight to Nelson ('the sunshine capital of NZ') and noticed a lot of flooding down the sides of mountains due to the heavy rain. The South Island has a lot more grand scale landscapes with big mountains covered in forests everywhere. We arrived in Nelson at Paradiso backpackers hostel. It was completely different to any of the other NZ hostels we have stayed in. It had a holiday camp/ hippy vibe to it, with an old bus outside where people could socialise, a pool, hot tub, sauna, volleyball nets and chalets that you stayed in. It was run by a bunch of chilled out Mancunians. As it was New Year, it was completely packed and there were little balconies that you could sit on and watch tv and a big kitchen/ conservatory. We were in a 4 bed dorm that we had to hop over several massive puddles to get to in the pouring rain. Everywhere was soaking wet and damp. We had a sink and bathroom in our room and there were 2 boys sharing with us who we would later meet. Once we had put our stuff down, we heard someone shouting saying that the van was leaving to take people to the supermarket, so we jumped in the packed van, with a load of French and Spanish hippies. It was a pleasant change not to be surrounded by the trendy English types, but some of these were free spirits to the extreme, having lived in the hostel several months and they all seemed to know each other. The driver came from Lancashire and couldn't seem to get the hang of driving a van, and was thus shouted at several times by other drivers. We arrived at the supermarket safely where we were given 20 minutes to get what we needed. 20 minutes! We quickly dashed round and bought a cool bag and a box of wine. W hen we got back to the hostel, we looked at the wine more closely and realised it was only 5% - no wonder it had been so cheap!

At 6pm we queued for our free vegetable soup in the kitchen which was served with crusty bread – a great backpacker novelty! After tea, we decided to drink the box of wine and play risk in the conservatory. A Japanese boy called Tenshi approached us and asked if he could play too, so he joined in, and I, the only person who had never played risk before, conquered North America and Europe and won. We went to bed about 11 but were woken around 3am by our two very rowdy kiwi room-mates who burst into the room, flashing the lights on an off, laughing and woke us up. One of them shook Jemma's hand and had a conversation with her. I lay still and pretended to be asleep until they finally piped down about an hour later.

The next day (New Years Eve) we got up noisily to get revenge and had breakfast in the conservatory. It was pouring with rain but people were still in the pool and hot tub. We then went for a wander into town to get some more alcohol. No more boxed wine, just the bottled variety. We had a burger king for tea and then went back to the hostel to get ready for a night out. I was a bit worried at this point as we hadn’t made any friends in the hostel to celebrate nye with. There seemed to be certain cliquey groups that looked hard to break into: the drugged out international hippies who had lived in the hostel for weeks (actually they lived in the tents in the back garden) and then there were just hoards of Germans. Jemma went to the dvd room to watch a film and I went to get ready and decided to turn to Janet for some help (i.e. drink some wine). Sure enough, about an hour later, there I was sat on the balcony chatting in French to two of the hippy girls and then about 2 hours after that, I was in amongst the Germans, laughing about German trivia and playing higher or lower. We had our friends, now all we needed was a party. As more and more people in the hostel started to drink and move into the kitchen, the party took off, and we all walked into town together to watch the countdown. There was a live band playing in front of a clock and people were crowded into the streets. This is when Janet really came into her own, but I will skip past the details and just say that I had one of the best New Years Eves of my life, culminating in me jumping into the pool with one of the boys from our room and being chased out by the security guard shouting 'you either leave the pool or you leave the hostel!'. It was a fantastic night and we spent most of it with the two boys from our room and their crazy Dierdre lookalike friend who was hilarious. The Kiwis, it turns out, really know how to have a good time! (They don't however, know how to do good chips, and there is definitely no vinegar. Oh and the sauce,! The sauce, you have to pay 50p for a dollop. This was a subject I made my views clear about to the woman behind the counter. The conversation can't have gone too badly though, as there are pictures of me high fiving her and her doing the peace sign).

The next day (New Years Day) was just a hangover day. We spent the morning in the pool/ hot tub, went for a subway and then had fish and chips for tea before watching Armageddon on the mezzanine of the hostel. It was a really nice sunny day - the warmest New Years day of my life! I spent most of the night trying to avoid Karl the security guard who I had ranted at the night before because he wouldn't let Diedre into our hostel. Apparently I told him I would bring the hostel down on Trip Advisor by giving terrible reviews and advising everyone not to come. I saw him the next morning when we checked out and he said not to worry and that he had found it hilarious.