Finally, A Drunken Night! (Sorry, it's had to be censored...)
Picton -> Nelson, 23rd November 2001
 The
bus wasn't due till midday, but we needed to be out of our rooms by
10am. So after getting up at 8, and packing, messing around,
fighting and even a bit of biting, we were packed and out on time.
We spent the morning killing time by strolling around town in the
rain & playing cards in the bus terminal, The bus was due in at
12:30pm, but the boat was late due to a rough crossing. So after an
hour of sitting in a circle with other travellers in the bus
terminal and eating celery, the bus turned up.
We threw our bags into the hold and took our seats on the bus, only
to find that the bus was leaking. Clearly the local transport can't
handle this rainy weather! Come on New Zealand sun, where are you?!
Apparently last year there was something like 114 days of solid sun
with no rain. The weather gods are simply playing catch up by
cramming the yearly quota of rain into the first few weeks of our
visit to 'sunny' New Zealand.
 After
a brief journey, we're led out to the suggested accommodation: 'Bumbles
Backpackers'. Due to the large number of people coming off the
bus, the place is packed. A huge queue snaked from the desk to the
street. We were lucky enough, or as we were to find, unlucky enough,
to get the last 4 person dorm. The room, for want of a better word,
sucked. It was absolutely tiny with room for no more than 2 people
to stand at any one time, the others had to cram onto their beds.
Plus, one of the bunk beds swung a good half metre to a very
precarious position when someone sat on it. We were told it wouldn't
break, but it looked VERY risky...
The bathrooms weren't much better. Our nearest toilet had a
removable seat, and my removable I mean broken, that came right off
and the cubicle had a swinging door with no lock. The kitchen was
pretty dank too, reminding us of the worst days in our friend
Gordy's kitchen. We unanimously decided to find a different hostel
tomorrow.
 We
took a quick walk around town, but at 5:30 the shops closed, so we
grabbed a bite to eat at the local supermarket. We also realised,
quite disgracefully, that we hadn't had a drink in ages! So Stinge,
Em & I decided to check out the local, top-rated pub: The Victorian
Rose.
The pub was pretty good, it was completely packed & buzzing. The
wooden beams & furniture and the beer garden reminded us a little of
home. It was very English but less smokey. We noticed that a band
was preparing in the corner and a busy kitchen was dishing out
fantastic looking meals. A brief look at the menu also shows
fantastic prices!
We grabbed a pint each and sat ourselves around a small wooden
table. Looking around, we noticed that we were clearly the youngest
there. No wonder we were ID-ed! The band was soon ready, and we
continued drinking for a while. Stinge soon decided he was too tired
and decided to head back to the hostel, but Em and I scoffed at his
weakness and stayed to watch the band.
The band was really good, but we felt a bit funny standing there on
our own. We decided to try the join the group of people from our
hostel that we'd noticed were taking up a good corner of the pub.
However, we were both too nervous to walk on over and ask them.
Eventually, after 20 minutes of Em trying to catch their eye from a
distance, a whole bunch of them got up to go somewhere, leaving
enough room for us to get round the table. We tentatively sidled
over and were greeted by a 'Hi there! Come on, pull up a chair!'.
Woot! We're in there!
After getting to know the others, the next couple of hours were
spent getting more & more drunk. Yeay, our first drunken gap year
night! The fact that we were buying 4 litre jugs of beer at about
NZ$16 (roughly 5 pounds) and playing rowdy drinking games helped the
drunkenness increase! The games included a type of 'Animal
Charades'; an 'Ibble Dibble' game; and the 'thumbmaster' game. With
penalties all over the place requiring us to down a pint and
constantly flowing (cheap) Kiwi beer, everyone was soon very merry.
(If you want to know the rules of these rather fantastic games, then
e-mail me and I'll get them to you).
After leaving the pub very late (I don't know when pubs close in New
Zealand, but they're open much later than the ridiculous 11:30pm in
the UK) we moved onto a couple of clubs. The first one was a metal
place, not really 'my thing'. Luckily, as it was empty we decided to
move on. The next place was packed and a bit better, but after an
hour or so, we were bored with the place, and with lowering
blood-alcohol levels, we decided to call it a night.
But the nights wasn't quite over...when we got back to our hostel,
we found out that the gates were all locked and that our only key
was, in fact, to our room, not the front door. Oh pooh. Sleeping on
the streets, seemed to be the only option...
After fiddling with the gate and thinking of a way to break in, I
realised it probably wasn't a good idea to get arrested in NZ. But
with a quick flash of inspiration, we remembered that some of the
people we'd gone to the club with were staying at the same hostel.
So we ran back and managed to get hold of them. Dragging them back
to the hostel, we used their key to get back in.
After stumbling around a bit, we tried quietly to get back into our
room, with limited success. After smashing the door down and
tripping over a few bags then swinging on the crappy beds, we
realised Nat and Stinge were still awake. Like angry parents, they
gave the "We didn't know where you were and you didn't say what time
you'd be back" lecture. After apologising half-heartedly, I fell
into a alcohol-induced sleep...
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