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Colin's Adventures In Sheepland
The 2nd day in Sheepland was "fun". You will never appreciate cars until you try to rent one from
the friendly folks at Avis. First they ask you to fill out a form, and you have to detail all
of your traffic violations so that they can laugh about it during lunch the next day. You also
have to tell them your home address, driving licence number, frequency of car crashes, any
embarrasing insurance disputes, and amount of time spent in Afghanistan. Once you've
filled that out, they tell you that they are out of cars and ask you if you want to burn that
form for a $20 fee.
New Zealand National Car Rental Co. was much better, all they wanted to do was tell you that your car was parked in a car park a 5km walk away. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it seems a lot longer when you have to walk uphill past a series of open sewers. After all, there are 30 million sheep in New Zealand and the shit has to go into sewers that leak onto city roads, or the farmer gods will be angry and rain fire upon the harvest, causing great pestilence and suffering. Or, they will send angry Canadians to scatter maple leaves all over the place, having the same effect. That would explain the "Canada Kicks Ass" airport incident (see Sheepland 1).
Once the formalities were done, it was up and down the highway with 2 hours to burn before
we had to show up at the airport to be kidnapped and taken to Milford Sound for $100 per person.
It was a wine country out there. Every 20 metres was a signboard inviting you to a vineyard with
free wine-tasting sessions, also specifically saying that arrogant French conniseurs would be
lynched and thrown into the nearby Shotover River (which has a sight-seeing jetboat going down it every
2 hours, making swimming uncomfortable).
It was there that I spotted one small part of Canada's plot to take over all known nice-looking mountain ranges. Right there on that wooden deck outside the Butterfly Motel (VACANCY!). Obviously Canada's special forces (DDH - Drunken Deer Hunters, if you're wondering) wanted that flag to be in any picture that anyone took of that mountain, so that people who saw it would assume that it was in Canada. And in case you're wondering, yeah I did go up and check, but the moment I confirmed that it was a maple leaf and not blood on the flag, a guy with a shotgun told me to step away, so I did.
So remember! Just because a Canadian flag's in the picture doesn't mean it's in Canada! And if their intelligence agency or whatever they call it over there is reading this, I'm on to you guys! And by the way, what's your favorite hockey team? I'm a Calgary Flames fan. Iginla sure is good ain't he? Bet he's gonna win the Richard trophy this year (for you heathens out there, that's the top scorer award).
Anyway, once in a Cessna plane to Milford Sound for a cruise, I took lots of pictures that I plan
to sell to the publishers of the geography textbook, which will finance my skiing trip to Big
White resort in British Columbia this winter, which will also pay for the ticket to watch and
laugh at the Vancouver Canucks get thrashed by a random team on home ice. CANUCKS SUCK! Heh.
Alright, a bit of jealousy is involved. Let's not get too deep into this.
Where was I? Oh yes, the pictures I'm gonna sell to Federal Publishers. Yeah, take a good long look cause soon they might be copyrighted! Well, technically they are already copyrighted but you know what I mean. And many of the pictures aren't here. I'm not running a free sample service here.
I don't know what is more frightening. Being in a tiny airplane with the Southern Alps stretching out as far as you can see, or a nervous passenger muttering that if the propeller engine fails we're doomed and then proceeding to fake vomiting (I was in the front seat so I couldn't really tell, but that doesn't explain why he had to throw the bag out the window. Hmph.)
It was an hour up there and it was really beautiful. If you got sick of the scenery you could stare at the dials or watch the pilot bring the plane (hopefully) safely through the mountains. Or you could open the window and vomit outside, but I wouldn't reccomend it. But like I said, 'tis fun being in the co-pilot seat. Besides, I've been playing flight simulator games since I was 6 and if the pilot suddenly fell over dead, someone had to take control. But not me, mainly because I don't know how to read a analserumalitikasperitisnonsense-meter.
In part 4, I'll tell you the bizzare things that happened on an innocent boat cruising in New Zealand's beautiful Milford Sound...