West Coast Trip Part One*

*quite possibly the only part.

I went to the West Coast on the weekend! Probably you guessed that from the title but I thought I'd better clarify.

Sorry if this post is a bit scattered, but family have just got new phones and they are trying out all the ringtones. All of them! I made a comment about how trying out ringtones is really fucking annoying and apparently now I'm being irrational, or something, but it is hard to be rational when TEEDLE EEEDLE BOM CHICKA WOW WOW - TEEEEEEEDLE EEEEDLE EEEEP GAHHHH.

Here is a photo of a West Coast double-ended cow.

DOUBLE BEEEEEF. WHAT DOES IT MEEEEEAN?

Here is the Obligatory Scenic Photo. (Ringtone people have now started watching The OC. They are watching an episode called 'The My Two Dads' and singing along with the theme song. Am going to close eyes and think peaceful scenic thoughts.)

Stupid OC.

Also discovered that every small town in New Zealand has three things: pub, tearooms, and shop selling poorly-constructed crafts. You know the ones, stones with eyes painted on them and the name of the town stuck on in bits of wood, or something. Crapft! Have decided that if current life plan doesn't work out, I am going to move to a small town and open a shop called "Local Crap".

This was my favourite Local Crap Warning:

How do you tell what is the art and what is the stuff?

Also good: hand-lettered sign by the side of the road that said 'PSYCHIC READINGS. PUNGAS. SOAP.' Presumably not all three at once but you never know, perhaps they have some sort of deal? I should have stopped. "Your spirit guide is coming through... they say you should buy some soap." Pause. "Also possibly a punga."

Also good: sign outside a hotel advertising 'MEALS BEDS BEERS.' It's all you need! It's certainly all I need.

We also went to Franz Josef to see the glacier - it was absolutely pouring with rain but with a complete disregard for Dragon's instructions we went out anyway and spent half an hour trekking towards the glacier, which looked like this:

Totally worth it.

I assume the glacier is usually scenicer than this, or that tourists have really crappy taste in natural landforms. Is massive river of ice which somehow manages to look exactly like massive regular river in photos. Except in this photo, where it looks a bit like a yawning tiger:

ENTER THE CAVE OF THE ICE KING *yawn*

In conclusion, glacier = breathtaking in person (well, in glacier); very unphotogenic. Like me. I am like a glacier. (Cool.) Yeah yeah, I know I would be a better glacier if I was quieter.

We also went to see the nesting white herons (herons? Do you say herons? More than one heron. Heron is a weird word) but all of the photos were terrible, so no white herons for YOU.

OK, just the one. (Photo taken by not-me.)

All in all, it was a good weekend! Even though it was three days of camping and no internet and no makeup (!) - although the girl in the tent next to me plucked her eyebrows at a camping table one morning, prompting me to think, 'who the fuck plucks their eyebrows when they're camping?' and then answer my own question five minutes later when I ran into a really cute German co-camper and wished I had plucked my eyebrows also.

That's probably about all except that I wrote an awesome song based on my experiences in the campground showers, it is called "Pubes of a Stranger" and it has the same tune as Eye of the Tiger. I'll leave you with that so it can be stuck in your head too.