An early start and off to the Queenstown Visitor Centre where our tour would commence. We arrived about ten minutes late (I can't abide lateness ... in other people). As the last arrival, we were introduced to the group:
Kaz our Kiwi tour leader.
Pavol and Magdalena, honeymooners from Slovakia living in Frankfurt.
Igor and Andi from Germany (not together).
Sarah, a student from South Africa who will shortly be commencing studies in London Town.
Andrey and Yulia, a married couple from Moscow.
Leonie, a Marketer from Perth.
All together a lovely mix of ages, professions and cultures ...... how the hell would that work?
Our first challenge came about quickly. Food shopping. Imagine a game of supermarket sweep with the added challenge of language and cultural differences. Kaz gave out instructions and we wandered around trying to decipher Kiwi brands, and what on earth was a kumara? The beauty of it was, we would only really know what was missing / misinterpreted once we went to prepare lunch or dinner. Time would tell.
Once back in the minibus, roles were assigned. Yes roles. We had paid for a holiday that we actually had to do group chores on. Of course we had read the terms and conditions, but the important information was surely about the route and what to take with us wasn't it?
Banker was first up. The all important holder of the kitty. Oh, didn't I mention? The holiday that we'd paid for that included chores didn't include food or accommodation. Go figure. This role was too close to home for me and thankfully Sarah volunteered.
Next up, roster person. Quick thinking led me to believe that this could well involve ordering people around, it had to be mine. My hand was up before Kaz had finished the sentence. Getting in early paid off as the roles gradually got worse; water person, van cleaner, boot person, chilly bin person, rubbish person and of course the highly coveted poop person. This involved a shovel and hand sanitiser, I'll leave that one with you. By my reckoning, I'd nabbed one of only two white collar positions without them even seeing my CV. It had started well.
From there we headed off to our first hike in Fjordland National Park, taking in the glacial lakes of Te Anau and Manapouri Border, we were headed for Key Summit on the renowned Routeburn track (or so the itinerary said).
A pleasant but trying three hour walk with some uphill, made me a little nervous about what was to come. This may come as a surprise to you, but I'm not at my peak of fitness. It was a hot day, but fortunately, I have a fantastic cooling system, unfortunately all this actually means is that I sweat. A lot. And generally look close to collapse most of the time.
Hike finished and everyone in reasonable form, we drove (there was to be much of this) to Gunns Camp where we would spend our first night. Relief kicked in as although it was a 'camp' we were actually in huts that had a double bedroom and little living area and a further bedroom with a bunk and a single. Now, following that description you could be visualising anything between an Ikea showroom and a four star hotel suite. To clarify, it was basic but clean, and the toilet block wasn't too far away. In its favour mainly was the fact that it wasn't a tent.
The rota that I was in charge of kicked it, badly, with the wrong people doing things but the curry was really very nice, the sand flies seemed to think so too as we ate outside. This was to be my first introduction to them, there were many, many more to come.
It started to get dark and the generator would be turned out at ten. I took up my place in the lower bunk with Marion above and Igor next to me. As the two of them took to their sleep I wondered where the hell I had packed the earplugs.
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