Travel

Queenstown by night

Looking over Alexandra

Marie and Bern looking at our family tree.

Bern's daughter Alex, Bern, and I.

Leaving Dunedin

Flying in Christchurch

Gordon Ramsey!

Title says it all! I got into Winnipeg at 10:30pm on Wednesday and was welcomed by lots of snow. Good thing Leah and my mom brought my boots!

The first thing I did upon clearing customs in Vancouver was get Tim Hortons- as any self respecting Canadian would. I’ve had Tim’s almost every day since- due to trips to Winkler to get my phone and computer sorted. Phone is unfixable, so guess where my first pay cheque is going! Computer (the one with all my pictures) needs a new harddrive. We’re hoping my pictures can be salvaged- or at least that’s what the tech told me. He might just not have wanted to see me burst into tears. Either way- nobody gets to see my pictures for a little while longer, including me!

The thing I’ve found the weirdest since being back is not the snow, or seeing everybody again, it’s the driving. I didn’t realize how used to the left I got until we were driving out of the airport parking lot. Seriously throws me for a loop. Hence why I’ve been banned from driving for a little while. Other then that, absolutely nothing is different. That I’ve found yet anyway. I guess I expected that though, I mean, Carman isn’t a very exciting place on the best of days. My friend Katie probably has the best quote on how exciting it is here.. She came to see me on Thursday evening and after a good 5 minutes trying to come up with something new to tell me, this is what she said..”There was no dog sledding at blizzard fest this year.. cause there was no snow.”. Whoa. I know.

My horse is quite pudgy, and fuzzy. I haven’t seen him with this much hair.. ever. As usually he’s blanketed in the winter and by this time of year clipped for fair. He has quite a lot of muscle to gain back, and I’m pretty ready to get back on him and get going. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I can for a while- at least until we know when I have surgery. I’m feeling great right now, and I’m sure I could do some riding- and if the put me on a big waiting list, it’s going to be very hard to stop me. I saw a local doctor yesterday, who has referred me to a surgeon who is to call me early next week to set up an appointment, then I might find out how long I’ll have to wait for a surgery date. This is going to drive me nuts!

I don’t really have any other interesting news at the moment. So I’ll stop here until I have either some pictures to post, or something riveting for you to read.

Cheers!

Alright, so where was I.. Dr. Rennie. Right.

I think here’s the point where I should point out that my flight home was booked for March 7- which is this Wednesday (Surprise!). I’d been keeping this a secret- which no longer is a secret due to all these recent events.

It was decided that this was indeed a Pilonidal Cyst, and would need surgically removing. So Dr. Rennie gave me two options- which weren’t really options- 1- we could go to theatre and do the surgery asap, which would mean I would be staying put for 2 weeks at least- more likely 6 weeks or more- or we could go the conservative route first, and see if that clears up the problem enough for me to fly home and do surgery there- still having me on the surgery list just in case things went bad or didn’t imnprove. What do you think I chose. So, what came next? Rennie and her intern Nathan trying to get as much of the gunk out as they could. Definitely one of the most painful things I’ve ever been through, but they got almost all the pus and whatever else out. But in Dunedin I stayed for 2 nights. Dunedin and I do not have a great relationship.. first my hair.. now this? Really? The next morning I was examined yet again by Dr. Rennie, and a higher up surgeon, and their interns. I felt like I was in Grey’s Anatomy! There was interns scribbling furiously in charts around my bed, and surgeons having heated discussions about what to do next. Unfortunately none of them looked even close to McDreamy or McSteamy. So that was disappointing.. It was decided, on Sunday morning that they would insert the tip of a sterile glove into the small opening in the cyst to keep it open, and draining what was left inside- and I was to stay one more night to be observed. My antibiotics were switched to oral now so thankfully I got to have the line taken out of my elbow. I felt so much better after that was out.

I should also mention that dear Marie and her sister Bern stayed with me through all of this. After driving me to Dunedin and getting me settled in they stayed the night at a rellys, and came back to visit me the next day. They went back to Alex that evening, and Marie packed my bags and brought them to me this morning (Monday) so that I would be ready to go, if and when, I got permission to continue on with my scheduled flights. They basically adopted me as their own, which I am so grateful for! I’m also very glad I wasn’t in some random hostel, by myself, when I started passing out and what not. That would have really sucked!

So I hung out in Dunedin for another night, treated very well by the nurses who were all lovely. Going on extreme diets. Since I was on hold for surgery, and nobody ever knew what was going to happen within 24 hours.. I was usually not allowed to eat or drink from midnight on. Usually I got something around 11am each morning, after the decision was made- but then it started all over again. Annoying! But the next night passed, and Dr Rennie came again this morning and gave me the very awesome news that she thought I’d be able to make my flights! So the discharge process started and before I knew it I was out (it felt soooo goood not to be stuck in bed and walking around for the first time in 4 days) and at Dunedin airport purchasing a $325 ticket for a 45 minute flight to Christchurch, where Lindy picked me up. Better then sitting on a bus for 6 hours… 45 minutes was painful enough. Which raises the question of how 14 hours would go over. Not well. This is why we’re hoping that we’ll be able to upgrade my flight to business class so I can lay down for majority of the time.

So that’s been my week. But I’m very happy to be coming home, on time. Even though I’m disappointed that I don’t get to really surprise people anymore.. and that I have to have surgery. Kinda upsets all my plans.. for everything. But I’m feeling much healthier now then I was a few days ago- antibiotics are magic. I haven’t had to rely on painkillers much. Which is good, cause I hate hate hate them. But I’m well stocked up for if I do need them.

Tomorrow morning I get on a flight to Auckland- where I’ll meet up again with my family there, repack and get on a plane on Wednesday evening for Vancouver!!!! I arrive in Vancouver around 12pm Wednesday, and then Winnipeg at around 10pm Wednesday. So time is standing still for me. That will surely be lots of fun!

What have we learned from this? Travel insurance is a very worthwhile investment…

Ookay, so long time no post- but I’m sure you’re used to that by now. I at least have something interesting to post this time, no pictures..thankfully.

I don’t think I mentioned this in my previous post, but I guess about on Monday this week I started getting really bad pain in my tailbone area. I hadn’t done anything traumatic- so I was a bit confused as to why this was occurring. At this point I was in Queenstown staying in a dingy hostel. I figured it must just be from spending hours and hours on buses (which I’m sure didn’t help anyway). I would rate this pain at about an 8 or 9 out of 10. Definitely the worst pain I’ve ever had- and if you know me, you know I’m decently accustomed to pain. Anyway, although I was a little concerned- I wasn’t about to not go out to Milford Sounds (10 hrs on a bus sucked), and hoped it was just bruising and would subside in a few days. Well, a few days passed- which brings my location to Alexandra at the lovely Marie and Ken’s place. By Wednesday, since I don’t usually carry painkillers with me, I had bought some nurofen (ibuprofen). This had little to no effect. By Friday nothing had improved, at all, so I finally decided to find a doctor. I was getting concerned because not only had the pain maintained for a week- it was constant pain. Usually if it’s a muscle thing, certain movements will make it worse, etc. But this was constant. Didn’t matter what I as doing, it was excruciating. So, went to Dr. Norman at the local family clinic. He did a quick look and decided it was a pilonidal cyst, and gave me some antibiotics and stronger pain medication. So off I trotted with my prescription. I started the antibodies as soon as I got home to Marie’s. Really not feeling too hot. So I spent the evening curled up on the couch. Later on, about 9, I got up to get another antibody pill from my room. I made it to my room, got the pill, but noticed as I went to leave my room I was feeling a little faint. Then my vision went. Then my ears started ringing. Then I was kneeling. Me, being me, figured I just needed a glass of water. So I got myself up and went to the kitchen. Where I completely failed at getting water. By this point I remember thinking, okay, this isn’t good, go get someone. So I started walking towards the living area. Still having no vision, or balance, I promptly walked into a wall, and proceeded to pass out. This got Ken’s attention- who quickly jumped up and exclaimed some words not appropriate for wordpress, and put a pillow under my head and got me back to reality. He got me up and almost as soon as I was up again, the whole thing started over. So we sat me down and called the doctor I’d seen earlier. Thank goodness for small towns! We met him back at the clinic where he reassessed me and decided that I might be a little septic, hence the fainting. Thus began my first night in hospital. Dunstan hospital took very good care of me, and it being a small hospital I got my own room too! After being assessed by another doc, having a line put in my arm (in the stupidest place, the only vein he could find was in my elbow), having that arm splinted so I couldn’t bend it, having IV antibiotics, and given some very strong painmeds, I was down for the night. I can’t say I slept great, because I hate painmeds. I can feel the exact moment they kick in, and wear off. So that caused a lot of me being wide awake.

The next day I was seen by yet another doctor, who found that the cyst had begun leaking a little bit-not a lot- as the hole was very small. Here came the decision (not really a decision, more like “you’re going, now”) to move me to Dunedin hospital. Marie and her sister Bern were more than happy to transport me themselves, and set up the car like a mini ambulance, as I couldn’t sit. So I had the seat reclined and full of pillows. I was pretty dopy the whole ride- but my pain at this point was down to 3 or 4 as some of the pressure had been relieved. Upon arriving at Dunedin, I was assessed again by a surgeon, Dr. Rennie.

To be continued…….

Phew. Got most of my organizing and booking done today- up to next tuesday that is where my planning has stopped for the moment.

As mentioned before, I went out to Waimate for a few days to meet and stay with Esme Elliot. She gave me a tour of the town (complete with showing me where everyone of importance lived), which is a bit smaller than Carman, took me out to the old Elliot farmstead, and kept me entertained by taking me to her Woman’s Society meeting, and on visiting rounds with other long lost family members. I drank lots of tea, and made lots of small talk- but it was great to meet more rellys.

I spent this past weekend working at a horse show for Tessa Williams (pictures will be up shortly). She and her mom were very pleasant, and it was very nice grooming for people who appreciated your help. She had 4 horses, two in the 7 yr old division, one grand prix horse, and another who didn’t end up competing that much as the first day he gave himself a pretty nasty puncture wound from overreaching. Never seen an overreach that bad. It was quite deep. I slept in my little one person (see picture in next post) tent beside the horse truck and stables, so the melody of horses kicking walls, and NZ’s bird chorus sang me to sleep and woke me up each morning. My tent is so tiny that I can’t really lay straight in it. I always have to be curled up at an odd angle in order to fit. Plus, all the pegs have been bent out of shape by the previous owner- so pegging it down is near impossible. Thankfully there were no strong winds, and the rain held off until the last day. My days were much the same, I fed the horses at 6:30am and then mucked out, watered, walked, and put studs in, and plaited if needed- usually around 8am Tess was either up or texting me with further instructions. On Sunday I let myself sleep in until 7am, as we didn’t have any classes until later in the day. Once competition commenced, I basically spent the rest of the day tacking up, walking to the ring, holding, watching, holding, bringing horses back, getting another horse, and repeat. Pretty relaxed compared to the crazy days we had working at shows for LC when there were 10 horses on the go each day. For three days of work, I got $200. Not bad! That plus the $600 I got from Airhill have pretty much been used up on this week travels. But boy have I got some awesome things planned! Here’s what I’ve got!

Tuesday (Feb 21) I take the train from Christchurch to Greymouth. Said to be one of the worlds greatest train rides- it travels through some gorgeous scenery. That experience (one way) costs me $110. Sure I could take the bus and cut that cost by about thirty bucks, but I’m going to be doing the bus thing for the rest of my trip- so I think I’ll avoid the squished seats, blurry finger/head printed windows, chatty asian tourists, and the awkward guy who headbangs and sings along to his death metal.

I’ll spend two nights in Greymouth ($48 in Noah’s Arc Backpackers). There are rumoured to be some very nice walks and hikes in that area- plus it’s right along the coast. Plus the hostel I’m staying at provides free bikes to use while staying, bonus! I’d love to get up to Punakaiki park, where the “Pancake” rocks are. It’s about 40 minutes up the coast, but unless I can find some cheap transport I might have to skip that (save it for next time:))

On Thursday (Feb 23) I bus to Franz Josef ($40). On the Friday I’m doing something awesome. I’ve booked a full day Franz Josef Glacier guided trek. A must see of NZ. We spend the day hiking up to the glacier, and then climbing up and through the glacier before returning to have a dip in the hot glacier pools. Everyone I’ve told about this has told me “not to fall down any cracks”. Clearly they know me well. I’ll stay in Franz Josef at the Chateau Franz for 3 nights ($72). One night longer then I’d likd, but the bus service doesn’t run on Saturdays for some odd reason and to use the other bus service was going to cost me an extra $50. NO thank you. My hostel comes with a free spa pool and free soup and popcorn so I’m sure it won’t be too hard to stay an extra day. Normally I wouldn’t be this excited about free soup and popcorn (okay maybe I would) but when travelling on my budget, any extra food is absolutely a god send.

On Sunday (Feb 26) I bus to Queenstown ($33), where I’ll stay for 2 nights ($44). On Monday I’m partaking in a scenic day trip out to Milford Sounds ($121) – which includes a 2hr cruise around the sounds. After Queenstown I’ll bus to Alexandra ($15), on Tuesday (Feb 28) where I’ll meet up once again with Marie and Ken, do some laundry, and enjoy a unshared room. This is where I’ve stopped planning. I haven’t quite decided if I’ll go down to Invercargill. I very much want to, but it’s going to cost me $80 in bus tickets so I’ll have to decide if it’s worth it. I also need to decide if I want to go up to the top of the South island to Nelson area. Oh well, one day at a time. At the rate I’m going my bank account might make that decision for me!

I’m officially a backpacker… without a backpack.

Let’s just skip over all the common sense arguments. When has common sense ever really applied to me or my life, anyway? I’ve done this entire trip the backwards, upside down, and sidways route- so why not finish it that way. My good old mountain equipment co. duffle bag has gotten me this far, I’m not about to ditch it for a easy to carry, fancy shmancy, state of the art backpackers back pack. Sure it might be easier on the shoulders, and the rest of the body. But that’s just not the way I roll.

So, now that we’re past that. Update time! I’m currently in Christchurch. I flew in here on Saturday- and after a lovely meeting with hunky All Black’s star, and Captain Richie McCaw, I was settled in with Lindy Elliot and her family. I love love love meeting all these relatives. I’ve always been a family person, so it’s great to meet the international rellys. Plus, it beats staying in a hostel, or sleeping in a car, or in a tent in the cold by myself. A lot cheaper too. On Sunday Lindy and her husband Ed took me out to Sumner, where we walked along the beach and got to know each other a bit more. Driving there and back we went through a lot of the more heavily damaged areas from the recent (and still occuring) earthquakes. The roads are very bumpy, and cracked. Kind of like Winnipeg roads.. except because of a natural disaster, not lack of repair. It was common to look up and see houses on the sides of the hills and ledges either falling off their perches or half way demolished. It’s all something that’s impossible to even imagine for somebody that comes from a place like MB, where chances are we’ll never experience that level of natural disaster. Floods, snow storms, droughts, and the occasional twister are one thing. The entire land mass you live on shifting, cracking, and changing shape in an uncontrollable manner- that’s something unpercievable to us.

After Sumner, Lindy had a meeting in Christchurch so she dropped me off at the park, where I had been before. I planned on catching up on some reading, or studying (Anatomy.. yaaay), but I was lucky enough to stumble across a play in the park. It was done by a comedy group called the Outwits, who did a humerous recount of Christchurch’s history. Perfect! There was even a musical part, titled “Munted: The Musical” on Christchurch’s most recent history, the earthquakes. Munted, for all you Canadians, is a curse word. Similar to ‘screwed’, ‘destroyed’, ‘f..iretruck’, ‘totally messed up’, etc. While I’m sure many of the jokes in the play went straight past me, I throughly enjoyed this little bit of theatre. The acting was great, and it kept me laughing the whole time. As well as educating me in a very unboring way! Much of it was kiwi humour, so it’s hard for me to describe the jokes and scenarios to you, as you probably won’t know who Richard Till is, or what Countdown is. It was quite interesting for me to be so excited about meeting Richie McCaw, only to have pretty much everyone from home go.. “Who’s he? What are the All Blacks?”. To be honest, I didn’t even know Canada had a rugby team until I came here and witnessed the amazingness that was the Rugby World Cup, I also really knew nothing about Rugby in general. So, fun fact: Richie McCaw is the captain of the All Blacks, one of the greatest rugby teams to exist, RWC 2011 champs, and an amazing team of stupendous athletes.

On Monday, after going out for breakfast with the family for Ed’s birthday, I was shown around downtown Christchurch (pop-up mall, red zone/ghost town that was the city centre), and then to New Brighton by Lindy’s son, Jonty and his girlfriend. It was a rather grey and chilly day, so after walking down the pier and getting a warm drink we came back and I settled in ready “Eat, Pray, Love”. Today, it’s again grey and drizzly. A great day to read, and blog. Seeing as this is the first time I’ve had an actually computer to use I figured it’d be good to type out a good long post on my happenings. My phone is great, and I can and have been blogging off that (I’m too cheap to replace my laptops charger while I’m here) – but fighting with autocorrect for 1500 words is not something I like to do often! This afternoon I’ll be heading south to Waimate, where I’ll meet the rest of the Elliot family and stay with them for a couple days. I’m quite looking forward to it! On Thursday afternoon I’ll come back up to Christchurch and go to Macleans Island to work at the 3* show jumping show there as a groom for Tessa Williams. New connections, and extra cash-what’s not to love?

What happens after that? Well, I’ve been wondering that too! The front runner in my plans as of the moment is to take the scenic train ride 4 hours from Christchurch to Greymouth, on the west coast. From there I will lug my trusty duffle to a hostel that I’ve found. Rumoured to be the best in the country. Where I’ll stay for a couple nights and explore the area. The famous Pancake rocks are only 40 minutes away and are on my ‘to do’ list. After seeing what I can there, I want to get to Queenstown (obviously I have to see Queenstown, it’s kind of a must do when in NZ), where I don’t want to spend too long actually as it’s said to be very expensive and touristy- neither of which I’m too big on. Nakedbus offers a day trip from Queenstown out to Milford Sounds, with many scenic stops along the way and a cruise around the sounds included. What’s not to love about that? Especially when it’s at an affordable price.

Here’s where my plans get a little bit fuzzy. Going back to Alexandra and visiting once again the lovely Ken and Marie Paulin is most likely next. I debated doing the Rail Trail bike tour, through central Otago. But it’s about 3 or 4 times what my budget is- so not happening. Maybe I continue down the west coast from there, and then back up the other side. Or go straight to Invercargill, explore that area, and then head up the east coast. I definitely have some more research to do on what I want to see and do in my remaining time. If anybody reading this has any suggestions, please let me know!

When am I home, you may wonder? Ah, yes, the questions I’ve gotten a lot lately. Too bad I’m not giving any specific dates, suckers! Because I’m a jerk. And I like surprising people. I have already lined up a job at Aubins Nursery for when I’m home, thank God. I also still fully plan on taking some spring courses (Anatomy, lord help me) to ease up next years schedule. It won’t really ease up anything, but I definitely think taking Anatomy on its own will help me get the grade I need in it (B or higher). Pretty intimidated by that, because I suck at studying and getting higher then average marks in general. But, me and goals go hand in hand, and once I set one it’s pretty damn hard to get me off the wagon. Hence why I’ve been fitting in some pre-course studying whenever I can over here. Never thought I’d see the day (as I’m sure my parents didn’t either) where I’d be studying.. for fun. Just one way I’ve changed in the past 6 months!

All this being said, my travel plans are (as always) subject to (and most likely to) change. Chances are I’ll get lost. Again. Or organize something and then realize later I organized it in the completely illogical, unethical way- shrug- and do it anyway. Whatever happens I’ll have my trusty iPhone (my entire life) in my hand, or pocket- ready to take a picture of every completely upsidedown, sideways, and backwards situation I get myself into. Finally starting to really enjoy NZ the way it’s supposed to be enjoyed. Just took me most of the trip to figure out how. Once again, I went the long way around. Story of my life. But you can meet some amazing people, see some mindblowing things, and have some unforgettable experiences going the long way.

There’s quite a mix of emotions going on at the idea of coming home. As I’m sure every traveller experiences. On one hand, I’m absolutely, and whole heartedly ready to be home and see everyone and get going on all my plans again. Travelling doesn’t really allow you to plan your future. I mean you can think about what you want to do, and make decisions based on those thoughts, of course, but you can’t exactly act on them when you’re in a one person tent somewhere between mountains and the pacific oceans on strange little island. Also, facebook, emails, and other means of communication with all your closest friends back home is not really always ever the same as actually seeing them. This is where the other hand comes in. It’s going to be so weird having a face to face conversation again with everybody and anybody back home. It’s one thing to see their face on a blurry little screen with voice delays and bad connections- and another to actually be there. It’s also been 6 months. Which isn’t very long in the scheme of things, but it’s long enough for lots of changes to occur. That’s 6 months where I’ve been experiencing things people back home can’t really ever understand because they’ve only got the retyped version, and I’m really not the greatest story teller (hence all the pictures). And vice versa. That’s 6 months where all my friends back home have been changing in their own ways. It’s not that I think that things are going to be all different and awkward and whatever, well, kinda, but it’s just that there’s a big gap in that time where I’ve been growing and changing in my way, and everyone else has been growing and changing in theirs. But I guess that’s really what growing up is. Once you’re out of high school and you go on your own way.. you really learn how to be independant. It’s not something you can truly learn when you’re constantly surrounded by people you’ve always known and somewhere you’ve always been. To be able to know yourself when you’re 10,000 miles away from everything you know? That’s growing up. So it just makes you wonder sometimes what it will be like getting back to everything that you left behind. That got deeper then I meant it to. Anyway, a more light hearted reason why I’m not as excited for coming home; I’ve gotten very used to not having a routine, or a schedule. It’s nice to just be able to up and decide you want to hop on a bus and go see something new. Or just hang out on the beach listening to the waves. Or go hike up the side of a mountain. For obvious reasons (other then the most obvious, there are no mountains OR oceans in MB) I can’t do that when I get home. As much as I am looking forward to getting back into my routine, riding, school, everything- it’s going to take some adjusting. A lot of adjusting. 3 months ago, if I had come home, probably would have been easy. Other then I would have been very disappointed in the trip. But now that I’ve started to really travel, and explore and have some fun like I always meant to, it’s a bit different.

To conclude, I don’t have a backpack, I’m working this weekend, I love my family here there and everywhere, I’m a emotional epiphany about coming home, I have some kick ass plans for the remaining time here, I plan on changing those plans, I’m going to take pictures, I’m going to keep updating this blog (so stay tuned!), and most of you won’t know when I’m coming home until I’m physically at home.

Kia Ora!