New Zealand

It's hard to know where to start. This was the first time I'd been back here in a couple of years; most other times I've come back it was just for a week or two, so I was looking forward to spending 5 weeks here this time and seeing a bit more of my country. I was meeting my mate Toby from the UK who was coming here for a month, so we hired a car and got on a roadie around the North and South Islands. Here's how it unfolded.

14 - 24 October: North Island

We stayed with my brother Ed for a couple of nights in Wellington and had a pretty relaxing time. Toby had flown in from Sri Lanka via India and Melbourne so had a bit of jetlag to beat too. I caught up with a couple of mates I hadn't seen for a while, so inevitably we had a few beers. Wellington's always nice to get back to. A lot of people who travel to NZ don't spend any time in Wellington, which is a shame. It's a great city and is very easy to get around and friendly, especially for a capital city. So if you're visiting NZ anytime, make sure you have a night or 2 there. Ok? Ok.

Our roadie started out in fine fashion - when we went to pick up the car the dude behind the counter asked what we were up to. When we replied that we were on a roadie, he exclaimed a loud and long "sweeeet!!" as if it was the best thing he'd ever heard. Great form for a fella working in a car rental place. So already the stage was set for an amusing few weeks.

longest place name in the world

The first night we spent in a we place called Waipukurau, which is in central Hawkes Bay. You probably won't see it on many tourist maps, as there isn't much to see or do there, but it's a handy place to spend a night if you're on your way up to the Bay from Wellington. We perched at the bar of the hotel we stayed in and got a decent roast down, and sat there for a good few hours knocking back Tui - one of many NZ beers to which Toby would be introduced - with the locals. He was also very amused at the fact that the bar is also a bookies, so you can sit on your stool, watch the hounds and horses and place some bets if you're so inclined. Which I was, if even just for the novelty value. It's like having a William Hill and Slug & Lettuce rolled in to one. Like the guy in the rental shop said, "sweet". The barman at this place was a good joker and is setting up a hostel so if you find yourself in the area, for some odd reason, check out http://www.teshack.co.nz/. [LATER EDIT. BEN CHAPMAN WAS SADLY KILLED IN A ROAD ACCIDENT IN 2009. R.I.P. BEN]

Bright eyed and bushy tailed we headed north through Napier and stayed next night at Waipatiki Beach. It's a great little spot which is still kind of a well kept secret. I went there with Ed a couple of years ago when we went on a mini roadie up to Hawkes Bay last time I was home, and left a towel there when we left. The woman remembered the incident without prompting when I told her I'd been there a couple of years ago with my brother. That's how much goes down here. Nice view from the hut too.



It was pissing down most of the time so we didn't get out exploring and didn't get into the sea. But the wildlife provided some entertainment. We slowed for a baby possum crossing the road and then stopped to marvel at the cute little fella, then it tried to climb into the car wheels, so we had to get some passing road workers to extract it gently with a rake, which it held on to by its tail. A couple of turkeys going at it with some voyeur cows watching on was pretty funny too.

Next day we were off to Gisborne, the first city in the world to see the sun each day. On the way, we went to Lake Waikaremoana and had a wee wander up to another lake nearby - Lake Waikareiti - which was one of the quiest places I've ever been.



On the walk up we were treated to plenty of chirping from one of NZ's favourite birds, the tui (yes, same as the beer...) which we would hear all over the country.

"look at this little fella"

Without wishing to sound like a fake David Attenborough, the birdsong's one thing that always gets me when I visit home. And the birds generally. There are plenty of native birds that can't fly (the kiwi being the best known), which kind of defeats the raison d'etre for a bird, but we like 'em all the same as most are endangered, and native.

After a quiet night in Gisborne (we'd hammered a fair bit of grass and beers when we were rained in in our hut at Waipatiki) we headed to Rotorua (or "Rotovegas" as its also known around here).The area is well known for its thermal activity so on the way we went and checked out Hell's Gate.



Man, I am so glad we weren't hungover. You know it's gonna smell, but the whiff still knocks you for six. We had a soak in a thermal bath and most of my clothes, a few weeks on, still have a whiff of sulphur from being in the machine when I washed my shorts afterwards. We stayed at a great hostel with plenty of character. If you're ever in Vegas, you find a better hostel to stay than Cactus Jack's. We went for a couple of beers which turned into a ridiculously heavy night, especially for a Sunday.

So with Tobes feeling pretty shaky after our impromptu mammoth Sunday session, we headed further north, to the Coromandel Peninsula. I hadn't been up that way before so it was nice to be discovering new ground. And it's seriously good looking up there. Big, unspoilt and empty beaches all over the place. On the way we stopped in at Opoutere Beach for a couple of hours. There wasn't a soul on it.

That night we stayed in a wee place called Tairua. There's a hill overlooking it called Paku, which gives views over Tairua and its fancy Aucklanders-with-holiday-homes neighbour Pauanui, and also out across some islands in the Pacific.

We had a pretty amusing night at the hostel playing drinking games with a couple of young upstarts from Auckland who were on a roadie of their own, navigating only by way of tossing a coin and turning left or right as the coin dictated. I like the spirit.

Next day and we're off again, this time cutting across the Coromandel Peninsula and heading west and across the north island, south of Auckland.


There are some stunning views as you cross the Coromandel, and I can now
see well what all the fuss is about. The colours are amazing, the way the greens of the grass and the bush bounces off the blue of the sea and the sky. You don't need to photoshop pictures in NZ, nature does it for you.

We had a couple of nights in Raglan, south of Auckland on the west coast of the North Island and part of the so-called "Surf Highway". The waves were looking good too - it's easy to see why some people say Raglan's got the best surf in the country. My guess is there's a well kept secret hidden away somewhere that would have better surf than Raglan. Maybe one day I'll find it. We saw quite possibly the finest display of "not arsed" parking in Raglan too. Check this out. We were cracking up about it when we discovered that the guy we'd been drinking with for the previous 3 or 4 hours was the man behind the legend.


Next day we headed to New Plymouth on our way back down south. Nothing remarkable about New Plymouth and the weather was shit again, but we did see a nice waterfall just outside of Raglan as we left - Bridal Veil Falls.

After New Plymouth we continued to Wellington for another night and stayed with my friends Sally and Mike. A heavy night, that one, as it was always going to be (thanks guys!).

25 October - 9 November: South Island

We caught the ferry across the Cook Strait to the South Island. That crossing can get pretty rough when the wind's up, so with our hangovers we were glad to have calm waters. We had a couple of uneventful nights in Christchurch and Dunedin and then headed west to Te Anau, in Fiordland, where some of NZ's most amazing scenery can be found.

Just south of Te Anau is Lake Manapouri, which can be reached by road or by way of walking the Keplar Track. There are various ways you can do it - a walk over several days right around the Keplar track, or the option we went with, which was just a half day walk to the lake and back.

It was raining so the clouds were low and visibility over and around the lake wasn't great, but somehow that added to the atmosphere of the place. There wasn't a soul around, so we had a smoke and just stood there listening to the rain and the sound of bellbirds which were amazing - kind of a digital sound, which you couldn't believe a living creature could make. With the benefit of the smoke, in my head I was imagining what it would be like to have the bellbirds mixed in with a bassline and some beats, and it sounded pretty bloody amazing. I'll have to see if I can put something like that together someday.

The walk back was amazing too, the forest floor covered with a carpet of moss. It gets pretty wet down here so the surroundings are incredible and vivid, which means the rain isn't a problem when you're tripping around.

The next night we spent on an overnight trip to Doubtful Sound. which is kind of mis-named as it's a fjord. This is one of the most remote places you could ever see. The landscape is amazing, sheer cliff faces formed thousands of years ago with glacial activity, covered with lush vegetation and with waterfalls all over the place.


Fiordland is one of the wettest places on earth, with annual rainfall of 7 metres or more. We were lucky enough to get a bit of sunlight in the afternoon, so could see better the rainforest surrounding us. I'd always thought that it had to be warm for rainforest to survive so it was interesting to see that temperature isn't an issue, at least down here.

There's a seal colony here too,
but these are sea lions.

We saw some penguins too.

































We headed to Queenstown after the night in Doubtful Sound. Bizarrely the population is only 5,000 which seems incredible given the scenery around there. We went for a drive around Lake Wakatipu and a little north of that, to Glenorchy.

































It's well known for its adventure tourism and must pump a fair bit of cash in to NZ's economy. They're certainly good at relieving you of some cash down there. After a couple of days resisting the temptation, I saw we were in for a day 0f 25 degree sunshine with no cloud and no wind. Perfect for jumping out of a plane at 12,000 feet strapped to a Finnish dude half my weight...


Worth every cent too. I didn't feel nervous beforehand, though the closer I got to it the more I wondered what I was about to let myself in for. The tension builds slowly as you ascend in the little plane and it was when it levelled out at the drop zone that I started to get a bit of the fear.


That wasn't helped by seeing the other punter, an Irish lad called Eddie, fall out attached to his tandem dude. They disappeared from view immediately, then it was my turn. I sat on the edge of the floor, with my feet out the door.


You have to dangle your feet right over the rail as well, so there's no support beneath your feet. That was the aspect of it I found most difficult - being subject totally to someone else's control. Who's half my size. Then we were off.



The first few seconds were amazing and I replayed them in my head several times over the next few days. It's 45 seconds freefall from that height, and I didn't feel like it went too quickly at the time - like I had enough time to really appreciate and buzz off it before the chute opened.

Thinking back on it after the event, it does seem like it went quicker, but I do remember being able to appreciate it fully at the time. It's an incredible experience and it won't be the last time I do it, for sure.

After Queenstown we headed up the West Coast to Fox Glacier. You can go walking on the glacier but it was pissing down so we didn't. It's a tiny place without a great deal to do but we ended up having a couple of nights there. The second day we went and had a look at Lake Matheson, which when totally calm gives an amazing mirror effect with the surroundings. On a good day you can see mountains reflected, but there was low cloud when we went. All the same it was pretty sweet.


































From there it was off to the northern part of the South Island, near Nelson, which was where I went to school and know the area well and remember fondly.



We borrowed a rugby ball from a guy at the kayak hire place and lost it in the water at Kaiteriteri beach, so I had to brave the cold water to swim (unsuccessfully) after it when the wind got up and swept it out. Good way to wake up though.








That night we watched with relief and amazement as the US elction results came in. There wer a few Americans staying there too and the relief for them was easily apparent.



We were nearing the end of the trip by now and decided on a couple of days' kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park, which really is one of NZ's most beautiful areas. They gave us an hour's safety briefing and then we were off in the kayak.

It was pretty easy going, we only needed a couple of hours worth of real effort to reach the boat we were staying on for the night, so that gave us time to pull in to a couple of beaches and chill out
and have a beer and something to eat.














We stayed on a floating backpackers in Anchorage Bay which was great. We enjoyed a wee smoke on the back of the boat and watched the stars. We saw a meteor enter the earth's atmosphere, trail for a second and burn up, which was pretty incredible and a sight I'll never forget.

Last stop was Nelson, where my other brother Dave lives with his wife Trace and my niece and nephew, Edie and Tom.


Always great to see them and this time was added value with Tracee's 40th birthday. Very boozy. Nelson's a beautiful wee place and if I ever move back to NZ it'll be when I'm ready to settle down a bit, so Nelson's a good place as any to do it. We will see.










The day after Tracee's 40th was a bit of a slow one, to say the least, with our hangovers. We had a smoke in the Centre of NZ, which is a walk up a hill to the geographical centre of the country. Which seemed kind of an appropriate place to sign off on the roadie.

Thailand and Sydney

1 October: London - Bangkok

With eastern Europe in my rearview mirror and after a few days to catch up with some folks in London, first stop was Bangkok to see friends who've been living there for a few years. They've got a sweet expat lifestyle there and it's always good to see them. They've got a good bunch of friends they've met in the time they've been there and we had a good night out for Ellie's birthday. I don't think I've ever seen as many mojitos sunk in a single session.

One thing that always amazes me is the size of the city. I like Bangkok and its craziness. Not so keen on seeing fat old white men wandering around with Thai juniors, but in a bizarre way you don't notice it after a while.



I've visited Thailand half a dozen times in the last 2 or 3 years and usually spend a few days in Bangkok before heading down south to the islands. We had a good day out wakeboarding, just outside of the city and with a temple in the background to make an interesting setting.



This time I'd have liked to do something different and go north to Chiang Mai for some walking around in forest, but there was a typhoon around and if the thunderstorms up north would have been anything like the ones in Bangkok it would have been pretty miserable. So I went south again. Not such hard luck really.






I was in Thailand for a couple of months around xmas last year and spent a fair amount of time on Phi Phi. It was pretty much wiped out in the tsunami so it's weird sitting in a beach bar and looking up and down the beach and imagining nothing being there.



8 October: Bangkok - Sydney

Next stop was just a weekend in Sydney seeing friends, on the way back to NZ. I've been a couple of times before. The first time I didn't rate Sydney as I stayed in Bondi which I thought was a bit up its own arse. Last time I came I visited friends in Manly and had a completely different experience. That got me thinking I'd like to spend a few years in Sydney when I leave London. This time pretty much set that plan in stone.



Sydney's got it all. Great beaches, good climate and the idea of living in Manly and getting a boat to the city to work each day sounds pretty mellow. Plus having friends there already and being closer to NZ makes it a no brainer

Check out the artwork with the seaweed here.



Next up's a roadie around NZ for a month.

Final Thoughts

So, here I am back in London at the end of it all. Eastern Europe is amazing. Beautiful, interesting and fun - and that's just the people. It's hard to say I had a favourite place as I liked different places for different reasons. I guess I liked the Baltics for the women, Kiev and Budapest for stunning cities, Slovakia and Poland for the scenery, Bosnia and Serbia for surprise packages and Croatia for the partying. So it was all good.

It's amazing how easy it was to get around. Almost everywhere, anyone under 35 speaks good English. It wasn't as cheap as I'd anticipated, and after a while I abandoned my budget and decided to just enjoy it.

The recent history of so many places was pretty sobering. Around 1989 - 1992 there was so much change all over eastern Europe. The fall of communism, the USSR and Yugoslavia were massive and I guess it's pretty amazing how quickly it all happened, and around the same time. Almost overnight, so many new countries on the map. The people are so outward looking and just keen to get on with their lives. Which I guess is human nature.

Now, I'm heading to Bangkok, Sydney, New Zealand and finally South America.

Croatia, Munich & Prague

5 September: Mostar - Dubrovnik

I'm gonna be lazy now and whip through the last few days of my trip. I went to Dubrovnik and hung out there with the kiwi dude I met in Mostar for a couple of days. It's a beautiful little city and even the abundance of tourists doesn't put you off. It was super hot so I hung out at the beach for a couple of afternoons. "Beach" is a little ambitious, given it was rocks and not sand so doesn't qualify as a beach for my money. Still it was nice though and the Adriatic water was amazing.





From there I went to Split, a little up the coast. I was thinking of going to Zagreb to try and get a ticket for the Croatia v England football World Cup qualifier. But decided in the end I couldn't be arsed sitting on a bus for another 5 hours without a guarantee of getting in. Plus I didn't want to be there if the English lost and a bunch of hooligans ran around smashing up the city centre. So I went to an island just off Split called Hvar and hung out with 3 English I met on the ferry on the way over. We took a day trip the next day around some tiny islands off Hvar, which was pretty sweet. The water was amazing and the sun was shining.



From there it was back to Split for another night to get on the Sail Croatia party boat for a week. Picture the scene if you can: 44 people on the boat sailing from island to island, with a couple of mainland overnights as well. 37 of those 44 were girls. Seriously. This is what I'm talkin' about:




I was lucky enough to have great people on my boat (there are 8 boats all going at the same time) and had a fantastic time. The only downer was the weather, which turned for pretty much the whole week. It was a shame for the people who were only on holiday for a couple of weeks. I wasn't too worried as I'd not seen any rain for several weeks and the G&Ts helped to take the edge off too....

22 September: Croatia - Munich

So after a week of little sleep and much partying it was off to Munich for Oktoberfest for, um, more of the same for 3 days. Oktoberfest is mental. But such good fun. I met up with a boatmate and while we were there we bumped into a guy she works with in Sydney. He was there seeing a few of his mates that live and work in Munich so we were well looked after.







I went to Prague after 3 nights. Well that's not strictly true - I was meant to go to Prague but fell asleep on the train leaving Munich and missed my stop to connect to Prague. So woke up at the end of the line in a place called Hof, somewhere else in Germany. I had to get a room there for a night and get to Prague the next day. I met up with a couple I'd met in Hvar who are studying in Prague (he's from Slovakia, she's Japanese) and they took me out with a big bunch of their mates who are also studying there. So it was another late night which was a fitting end to my Europe adventure.

Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia & Bosnia & Herzegovina

24 August: Zakopane - Nový Smokovec

Truth be told, it was a relief to get out of Zakopane. The setting was nice enough, shame about the town itself. It might once have been the cute little mountain town I was anticipating, but it's now pock marked with Tesco, KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and no doubt plenty of other monotonous franchises that I didn't see. Added to that it was the weekend, and there was an annual folk festival, so it was hideously overrun. Under different circumstances I'd have gone to check out the festival, but the weather was terrible and there was a "fun fair" attached to the festival. (Those things are seldom fun, and never fair)

Nový Smokovec, on the other hand, is exactly what I was after. A pretty little township placed in the middle of the Tatras, with plenty of nice walking trails and friendly faces. I went for a hike and checked out this wee water fall (a "watersmall"?) in the mountains and was treated to some sweet views.



In 2004 a massive windstorm swept through the area and ripped out big sections of forest. What's left is still worth the trip, and enough people keep coming to keep the place ticking over just fine. I coasted the 3km back to town downhill on a scooter which was a laugh.

And another sign of the "same as a mate's name" variety. Here y'are Papey.



My hotel's one of the coolest I've stayed in too. It still cost less than a shitty hotel in London, was touch screen this and bleeping that, had its own 2 lane bowling alley and this was the view from my window.

Tomorrow I'm heading further south to a national park which has some cool hiking trails up through ravines with plenty of waterfalls to see. No accommodation sorted so it could be interesting.

25 August: Nový Smokovec - Spišská Nová Ves

Long story short, with all my stuff it was a hassle getting a place sorted (at least without seriously pissing off the locals barging my way onto a local bus), so after much walking around I got a shitty hotel in town and got out of there with a day pack for an afternoon hike which was cool. After a couple of hours I came across a trail which had this view from the bottom....



and this was the view from the top of where I'd taken it from...





I wanted to go back the next day and do an 8 hour walk up through the spectacular ravines and waterfalls. But all the maps and literature on the area warned not to do that walk without sturdy hiking boots, as there are ladders and chains and step walks along the route. I only had trainers, and hiking boots wouldn't have fit into my budget or my backpack, so reluctantly I decided to abandon the idea and go south.

26 August: Spišská Nová Ves - Budapest

Budapest was a strange kind of experience. Again I didn't really get to engage with any locals and was subsequently told by a few people that's not unusual for Budapest. The city had some really cool architecture and interesting history, so notwithstanding the reticence of the locals it's still a city well worth visiting.






The hostel wasn't overly collegiate either, people tended to do their own thing. I did meet an American girl who it turned out knew a bunch of people I knew in Baghdad from the Hash House Harriers there, so we hung out for a bit.

The tramp of the week this time I picked on account of her serenity. One of the most chilled out tramps I've seen, which takes some doing.



And more gold dust on the sign/name front. Ed, not sure if this is you or me or both?



29 August: Budapest - Belgrade

Serbia's been one of the real surprise packages of the trip so far. After Nato bombed the country only 10 years ago, I could be forgiven for thinking that the people might not be so friendly towards westerners. Not a bit of it - the folks here, like those from the Baltics, are incredibly relaxed, outward-looking and open people. On my first night I went for a wander around the city to see if I could find some good nightlife. I was amazed to stumble upon a huge open air party / festival set within the walls of a historic citadel with 2 DJs I'm into - Steve Lawler and Sasha - on the decks. I met a couple of girls from Serbia's 2nd city, Novi Sad, and hung out with them until they had to go get their train at 7am. Belgrade's not a photogenic city, even by the locals' own admission, so I didn't feel too bad about not going on a photoshoot. The 2nd night I went out with a couple of Portuguese girls staying at the hostel but was pretty bored by the end of it, seeing as they'd picked a party boat with the world's worst form of music in my opinion, R&B.

31 August: Belgrade - Novi Sad

I'd arranged with the girls from Friday to come and visit their city. Unfortunately my phone died in Belgrade so I had no way of contacting them. I took the train up anyway. It's smaller and more relaxed than Belgrade, but still with plenty going on if you're so inclined. I was so exhausted after Belgrade I just had a wander round to see if I'd run into the girls - always unlikely as Novi Sad's not that small. So I had some fodder and got a welcome early night.

Next day I went for a wander around Novi Sad's greatest treasure, a massive fortress. Then back at the hostel stuck my sim card in another phone and got a couple of texts from the girls so was able to meet up with them for the night. Good fun too, we took my guitar down to the beach and stayed there drinking Serbia's favourite booze - rakia, which is a local brandy - until the early hours.

They told me what it was like when Nato bombed the city. As you'd expect, it's something that still resonates clearly with them deeply. They were only young at the time and said the worst thing was hearing the bombs and not knowing if someone they knew had been killed or hurt. Like Iraq 15 years later, it makes me pause for thought about the extent to which our "interventions" tend to be "humanitarian". But the Serbs don't hate America or the west, in spite of what happened. Impressively, they are able to distinguish between a country's people and the actions of its government, which is kind of ironic given the inability of some westerners to do the same.

That dark horse again in Serbia - the Cyrillic alphabet - but they also use our alphabet, particularly in the north. I've become much more comfortable with Cyrillic now, especially being able to remember what the right sound is for characters which are the same as ours. For example PECTOPAH is RESTORAN. It's easier in Serbia than it was in Kiev too because the language is similar to many surrounding countries. I've also managed to remember some of the Cyrillic characters which bear no resemblance to ours, but then when I was younger I could write in the 2 simple Japanese alphabets and when in Baghdad I was able to remember Arabic numbers, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised when I forget.

More gold on the sign / name as well - Bob I knew I'd come across something for you, and Nick here you are too...



3 September: Novi Sad - Sarajevo

It's an 8 hour bus trip from Novi Sad to Sarajevo. The Serbian side's pretty unremarkable, being dominated by fields of corn and sunflowers. The Bosnian side's a different story altogether, immediately snaking alongside an emerald green river, before the road diverts up a valley and across one of Bosnia's many mountain ranges. During the first valley we ran alongside another river, but unlike its neighbour this was a truly bizarre bright rust colour. Along with the Tigris, this must be a contender for the world title of Rivers You Don't Want To Swim In.



Into and across the mountains and it was a bit touch and go at times whether we would reach Sarajevo. Not because the driver was insane or the road was bad (which neither was), but because the bus struggled to make it up some parts and would occasionally shudder to a grudging halt on some of the tighter corners. No matter, it gave us time to appreciate some pretty sweet views.

Approaching and into Sarajevo, you're immediately at ease the city. It's pretty in a way that Belgrade's not, and being set by way of small central city surrounded by residential areas on hills it reminded me a lot of Wellington. The vibrant nightlife, friendly and relaxed people and size and population were all similar too.

Imagine concentration camps, "ethnic cleansing" and thousands being forced from their homes and villages. Now imagine that it's not the 1940s but the 1990s. RightSaidFred was too sexy for his shirt and I was still at high school. It's incredible that as recently as 1994 this city was a battlefield. But sure enough, as you walk around the city you can still see the outside of several buildings bearing the scars.




When I was in Serbia, I felt cagey asking my friends about what had happened there, though they were happy to talk about it. I'm not taking my chances here. It was another kind of conflict, brutal and I think even more tragic than what happened elsewhere in the region around that time. Still, people seem determined to get on with life. There's no evidence of that changing anytime soon, but anything's possible in the long run. It's amazing how different religions coexist here - mainly Muslim, then Orthodox, Catholic, others and Protestants - but then so did they before the conflict. You see dozens of mosques' minarets peeping up from the city roofs in Sarajevo, and apparently Saudi Arabia has funded a rapid building (or rebuilding) of mosques across the country. Theirs is a particularly hardline branch of Islam - Wahhabi - so there's understandable concern about the risk to what is for now a generally secular and tolerant Muslim persuasion.

3 September: Sarajevo - Mostar

Last stop in Bosnia and it's half way to Dubrovnik in Croatia, an interesting place and a good way to break up the trip. The journey down was stunning the further we got towards Mostar. The mountains are barren like desert and can't have seen any rain for a long time. But we followed the path of a stunning river. The water was amazing. See for yourself.


Mostar suffered badly during the conflict and the graveyards are full of stones bearing the tale with the same date of death for so many. This place is famous for a bridge, which was destroyed in November 1993 but rebuilt immediately after hostilities ended.


Some people jump off the bridge to entertain the tourists. A couple of English lads jumped off when I was there. I considered it for a nanosecond until I went and looked down. Not me, mate. Met up with another guy from NZ and we had a few beers and then the guy whose bar we were in got us really baked. Fun fun fun.