How to go from Nelson to Auckland in 3 days or less

One of the major problems in traveling from Nelson to Auckland in the space of three days is that it leaves you very little time to appreciate the towns you go through on your way. Picton, Wellington and Rotorua have all passed in a blur of travel leaving us just enough time to check in to our hostels, grab a camera and do a brief dusk/night tour of both the capital city of New Zealand and one of the more reputed picturesque locations on the North Island.

So much win!

That being said, we still came across some quietly brilliant finds. A night out in Wellington, once we'd got off the ferry, involved stops at the cocktail bar Matterhorn, with the best stocked bar I have ever seen and a bartender who took some real joy in his work, along with the “biggest student bar” in Wellington, which featured a wheel of fortune, guess the right colour an your beers were free. 

Badger's Piss and Peanuts

The award for “Bar of the night”, if not of the trip so far has to go to The Bangalore Polo Club, where one can enjoy a pint of Badger’s Piss Beer along with all the free peanuts you can handle. You take your pint glass full of peanuts (complete with shell) and shell them at your table, throwing the shells to the floor. Wandering in at midnight produces an experience akin to visiting the monkey house at London Zoo, in the best possible way of course.

Onward to Rotorua, via a shocking Intercity coach ride that delayed us by over 2 hours, where we found a waterfront and a night market both worthy of checking out. The market provided dinner, with the finest brownie either Marv or I have ever encountered (apologies to Ellie Jackson, now maker of the second finest brownie in the world). Marv was so bowled over he almost proposed to the stand’s proprietor on the spot. Also, for a night of great blues music and niche beers, heading over to The Belgian Bar was a good move, where the manager Peter was more than happy to chat about how the Irish had drank him completely dry.

The view from Rotorua

Make it to Auckland we did though, in spite of the tightness of our schedule, and we finally got to the purpose of this whole trip thus far; England vs Scotland at the incredible Eden Park. I will blog about Auckland separately, as it deserves a chapter to itself, but it’s struck me as an incredible city with the kind of all-night partying that can leave a man as a shell of himself…

A couple of nights in Dunedin proved to me that you can find English weather wherever you go. In spite of being 11000 miles from home, it still managed to feel like we were going to watch England in any town in the UK thanks to the continual rain that showered the city on Saturday, which did little to lift the mood following a fairly huge night out on Friday night that left me feeling like if anyone even showed me a beer I might fall over. Put simply, starting a night out with an informative 90 minute brewery tour, complete with 30mins of a completely free bar is a great way to ensure you hit the pubs already half cut.

 The whole Friday night was not aided by the continuous flow of free Canadian Club whiskey from a load of blokes dressed as Mounties who seemed to put up only minor resistance to our attempts to get multiple cans of their beverage out of them. I wouldn’t mind; but the damn stuff just tasted like slightly weak ginger ale and merely acted as a gateway to a night of slightly more solid spirits. Remember kids, if a man in a Mountie uniform offers to introduce you to the cool, refreshing taste of Canadian Club and Ginger Ale, you say no and run away. Far far away.

As for the rugby, finally getting to a World Cup game was a feat in and of itself as it started to feel like we’d just flown to the other side of the world to watch it at a slightly more convenient time on TV. But sure enough we made it to the Otago Stadium and actually saw a fairly impressive performance out of the boys and I took enough blurry photos to secure my place as a front runner for Sports Photographer of the year.

Leaving my Dunedin friends behind we moved onward to Nelson on the Monday, where the sun actually shines and there’s plentiful scenery. Our first night here saw us drink in a converted church full of local ales, warm fires and the Sky Sports commentary team of Stuart Barnes and Miles Harrison. Marv, unfortunately, couldn’t be persuaded to give Stuart a flying hug and we moved on to badly play some pool and indulge in ACTUAL Skittles Vodka. I can neither confirm nor deny that it’s better than a skittle bomb as we insisted the bar lady mix all 5 flavours together to produce something that looks like you can clean an engine with it.

After fighting through the haze of that this morning I decided that a trip to climb the hill that leads to the centre of New Zealand might be best to get yet more stunning scenery shots. The one thing I seem to have in abundance right now is scenery shots. Damn this beautiful country.

And now for some Italy vs USA action. USA! USA! USA! 

Queenstown

Everything that Christchurch was (depressed, wet, at sea level), Queenstown is not. The self-styled Winter/Extreme Sports capital of New Zealand is a vibrant and buzzing party town in the mountains, with more bars per head than any other town in the country.

The drive in to Queenstown, using the excellent Intercity coach service complete with ongoing narration from our driver, took us past the stunning Lake Tekapo which featured one of the most breathtaking views I’d ever seen. So I made it my facebook profile photo; because that’s what we do in the 21^st Century it seems.

Queenstown itself was able to offer up its own spectacular views, with the town on the edge of New Zealand’s longest lake and providing the backdrop of the South Alps mountain range. It’s not the worst sight in the world to wake up to.

The nightlife in Queenstown reminds me of a student town, on steroids and crack. The sheer volume of bars means you’re never short of somewhere to go, although there did seem to be a lack of places to go to listen to decent rock music, and organised bar crawls seem to be a money making endeavour across the town. The Wednesday night Ice Bar Crawl was actually very good value, providing entry to the $32 Ice Bar with 5 other pubs, a lot of free shots and all for only $35 a head.

Of course the hangover that resulted from a night of partying and ski shots (an actual full-length ski with holes in for shot glasses) made the White Water Rafting the next day even more challenging. Still, nothing like taking a massive couple of blasts of ice-cold water in the face to wake you up, and taking a dive off the side of the raft to float downstream was incredibly refreshing. Just a shame that at the end I felt like I was walking around with to goldfish bowls strapped to my feet where the water had got in to my wetsuit shoes.

Whilst dossing about we ventured to the top of the cable car route on the mountain overlooking the town. Sufficed to say it offered even more spectacular views and the opportunity to go land-luging. A word of advice for anyone contemplating land-luging; if you don’t shave off enough speed after a Vettel-like inside pass on your mate then you may end up beached on a hairpin shortly afterwards.

Also, I'd be no blogger if I didn't mention the awesomeness of Fergburger, the finest burger I've ever had and allegedly the best in the world. The simple Fergburger is good enough, but the sheer wealth of options available are staggering. My second trip to the Ferg resulted in a Chief Wiggum; pork belly, wholegrain mustard and a load of  salad. 

So onward to Dunedin, where I’ve already endured a night of far too much alcohol, and England! 

Christchurch (posted from Queenstown)

After 36 hours of travel we land in Christchurch. Unfortunately our luggage does not. It turns out that a 1 hour turn around is considered plenty of time to navigate 2 security checks and an entire terminal, but not enough for our bags to be moved from one plane to another. Thankfully I post this with the bags returned 24 hours later, which is good as the replacement Stag brand underwear I bought was starting to develop its own life forms.

Our hostel by the beach is basic, but with a good atmosphere and some friendly folk. However New Brighton appears to close at 10pm on weeknights, including all local bars, which pretty much everyone has noticed. It makes having massive nights out a little difficult  to do, although our first night was aided by a 48 hour stretch without having slept outside of a plane. There's nothing like the crazy buzz of 4 pints and utter sleep deprivation.

Christchurch itself is, or rather was, no doubt a lovely town with old style architecture mixed in with newer buildings but the damage from the February earthquake was more widespread than I'd ever suspected, the entire city centre turned in to a red-zone with no access and the majority of buildings within a square mile condemned to destruction. A walk around revealed the extent of the carnage and it's a crying shame that one of my first photos is of this.

However areas do still flourish and the interesting-if-pricey "Antarctic Discovery Center" by the airport passed an afternoon of -18 degree weather simulators, 4-D films on the Antarctic and a ride in a Haagland ATV (google it...I'll wait here while you do...cool aren't they?)

All in all, not a bad start. Now to Queenstown to begin the partying.