Unlike the morning I was about to hitch from CC the morning I was about to leave Dunedin was good, windy but rainless. I was determined to hitch to Queenstown but since it is quite a few hours away from Dunedin I didn't book a place to stay just in case I wouldn't make it all the way there. This of course bit me in the arse later on.
I made all the appropriate preparations for hitching, aka sign, said goodbye to the staff and woofers at the hostel and headed towards the road heading to Queenstown. It's no big surprise that after 15 minutes of hitching a Kiwi guy told me that my location might just not be the best one and it would be better to hitch on the actual road leading to Queenstown. With no shame I thanked the guy and changed my position to the intersection where the highway starts. Minor flaws I say :D At least I was on the right side of the town. Muahhahaaa.
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| Me, Arnika, the sign, my accidental Donald Trump hairdo and B.Nana! Yes, she is aliveeeeee. |
It took me one hour and 15minutes and couple of honks on the horn to realize that I had a car behind me just waiting for me to jump in. Jiiihaaaa! I was lucky since the guy was driving all the way to Queenstown, it's about 280km away from Dunedin anyways. It was also a perfect tourist ride since the guy knew a lot about all the places and landscapes so I got my private guide for the whole ride.
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| The first snow covered mountains I saw in New Zealand. |
The guy dropped at the centre of QT and I headed to Subway to get some food and to find accommodation. No, they don't have beds at Subway's but I was gonna google for it you dummies! ;) Like I said earlier my lack of booking bit me in the ass, first.
I checked the interweb. No free beds in any of the hostels and there's plenty in QT. Shiiit. It happened to be Saturday and QT just happens to be one of the biggest, if not the main attraction city wise on the South Island. I called one place but it was also totally crammed. Double shit. In some countries having no accommodation would be no problem but here the Hotels are freaking expensive and you would end up spending one weeks money for just one night and since I'm not carrying a tent so camping was out of the equitation all though I still do have my sleeping bag from Croatia. I already started checkin the nearby forests for a nice place to sleep. One of my plans was also to spend the night in an old fashioned phone booth for there's plenty of them here. It would have been vertical sleeping but safe from the wind. I still had one ace on my sleeve though and I headed to the tourist info. They weren't really hopeful either but were kind enough to give a call to the one of the places I had already checked and they gave me some hope. In half an hour they would know if there would be any cancelled bookings. I headed straight to that hostel and told the receptionist that I'm gonna wait there for the info. Sometimes the stars align and somehow it happened again. Everything looked full booked online but some old school footwork made the difference and I managed to get a bed in a hostel! It was huge, industrial like, youngster's party hostel but still a bed instead of sleeping in the forest.
I checked the interweb. No free beds in any of the hostels and there's plenty in QT. Shiiit. It happened to be Saturday and QT just happens to be one of the biggest, if not the main attraction city wise on the South Island. I called one place but it was also totally crammed. Double shit. In some countries having no accommodation would be no problem but here the Hotels are freaking expensive and you would end up spending one weeks money for just one night and since I'm not carrying a tent so camping was out of the equitation all though I still do have my sleeping bag from Croatia. I already started checkin the nearby forests for a nice place to sleep. One of my plans was also to spend the night in an old fashioned phone booth for there's plenty of them here. It would have been vertical sleeping but safe from the wind. I still had one ace on my sleeve though and I headed to the tourist info. They weren't really hopeful either but were kind enough to give a call to the one of the places I had already checked and they gave me some hope. In half an hour they would know if there would be any cancelled bookings. I headed straight to that hostel and told the receptionist that I'm gonna wait there for the info. Sometimes the stars align and somehow it happened again. Everything looked full booked online but some old school footwork made the difference and I managed to get a bed in a hostel! It was huge, industrial like, youngster's party hostel but still a bed instead of sleeping in the forest.
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| View from my dorm |
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| Two thumbs up after a nice hike. On my right you can see QT |
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| Scenery from QT |
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| Also here. |
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