New Zealand: Part Three (!!11~)
January 2, 2009 | Filed under Travel
It only took me ten months, but I’m finally getting around to finishing the travel series I was writing on my trip to New Zealand back in February of last year, days before I go on another overseas trip. The next three days will have the last three parts of series being published and posted on this blog – stay tuned!
Click for Parts One And Two of “My Trip To New Zealand, Exclamation Mark, Exclamation Mark, One, One, Tilde”.
Canyoning
A daytrip to Glenorchy (about half an hour from Queenstown) saw us take part in one of the most thrill-seeking experiences available in that adventure sports corner of New Zealand – climbing through a canyon, jumping off rocky ledges into pools of water, flying through the air twenty feet above a canyon on a flying fox, going on natural non-man-made water slides, jumping off a waterfall, etc.
Canyoning is one of the most amazing experiences you could have. Obviously it’s not ideal for those with a fear of heights, an inability to swim, or who aren’t fit enough to spend half a day clambering up boulders and rock formations that have no handrail or stairs carved out, but for those who are healthy and adventurous, I can’t promote it enough.
Considering the physical dangers that such activities hold (the waivers we signed were pages long…), it’s obviously something that’s best done with full eyesight and use of all limbs. It probably didn’t help that I lost a contact lens ten minutes into the experience so I was throwing myself off cliffs with only one operating eye, and that I gashed my hand on a particularly jagged piece of rock early on (creating an interesting yellow festering sore a few days later).
I was aching by the time we finished. It’s not even a reflection on me and my fitness, as my cousin who’s an athletic sports nut (he plays soccer and volleyball, cycles, runs miles, etc.) was feeling just as bad as I was. Prepare to be unable to move without wincing the next day. However, I don’t regret my physical pain a bit, as I was running on adrenaline from that one experience for days afterwards. SO WORTH IT.
By the time the canyoning experience was over, it was starting to get dark. Time to leave Glenorchy and Queenstown, and return to Christchurch.
Cokers Backpackers (Christchurch)
Without hesitation, I can tell you that this was by far the worst backpackers hostel we stayed in whilst in New Zealand. My experiences, I admit, are coloured by the fact that Base Discovery Lodge, as well as YHA International in Auckland were absolutely top-of-the-range, but the sheer cleanliness (or lack thereof), as well as other clientele, of Cokers was really quite shocking.
To start off with, the room we were in was, like at Base Discovery Lodge, a Quad Room. Unlike Base however, we didn’t have our own private bathroom – Cokers doesn’t believe in such luxuries! No, you use shared bathrooms at Cokers, even when you’ve paid a higher price for your Quad Room. And of course, these bathrooms mustn’t ever show any sign of being cleaned or disinfected – that would simply be too hygienic! Bathrooms with broken toilet seats, soap scum collected around the floor of the shower stalls and hair clogging up the drain? That’s more like it!
Also unlike Base, we weren’t provided with single beds of average-quality mattresses…instead, we were sleeping in wooden bunk beds with inch-thick mattresses. These are, for those who have never slept in a wooden bunk bed before, the lowest of the low. You would shift an infinitesimal amount, and the whole bunk bed would shake and creak as though it was about to collapse upon itself. Needless to say, I ended up spending quite a few sleepless nights in Christchurch, constantly fearing that I would be crushed by the collapse of the bunk on top of me.
It sounds pretty horrific doesn’t it? That however, isn’t the worst of it – the kitchen facilities are, in the eyes of someone as anally neat as myself, horrific. The other residents at the hostel didn’t have the decency to clean and wash up after themselves. Common courtesy? Fuck that!
Funnily enough, it turned out that Emily had stayed in the same hostel a few months previously, and had had an experience almost completely the reverse of my own, but there you go.
5 Responses to New Zealand: Part Three (!!11~)
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Canyoning sounds awesome. I wish I could try it one day, but I think I’d be too scared :(
Kaylee on January 3, 2009 #
Well, I think I should rule out canyoning, seeing as I can’t swim and I’ve got a huge fear of heights. :P
But it sounds like a lot of fun! :)
I’m quite a messy person, but I don’t think I’d be able to handle a dirty hostel. The description of the bathrooms made me cringe!
Yara on January 3, 2009 #
Ick, one reason why I can’t stand public restrooms is that they give me a sense of dirtiness. I would hate to have to use a bathroom like that in a lodge I was staying at. XO
Noellium on January 3, 2009 #
Ha! Cokers’ bathroom facilities sound like the ones I offered you when you turned up!
Nellie on January 3, 2009 #
eew, shared bathrooms…that’s probably the main reason I didn’t dorm my first few years at uni. But canyoning looks amazing! I’d probably be too chicken to go though.
marilyn on January 3, 2009 #