Participants all in black and white

Yup I'm starting this again even though I KNOW I will start to have messed up dreams. I've been listening to the no sleep podcast a few months now as I sleep and have had mostly good dreams so maybe I'll be ok this year? Anyways List so far as it is now October:

Bolded= New film Italic= Seen it before

1.)Paranormal Activity 1
2.) You're Next

This is primarily going to be about getting around in Wellington. First off you can walk to most places provided you do not have any health issues that prevent you from doing so for long periods of time. The only down side to walking is it takes a lot longer than just hopping on a bus or taxi. Their bus system is fairly easy to use though and really not too expensive if you keep some things in mind.

The bus from the airport to the bus station in Wellington is about 8 bucks. If you plan on seeing the city the day you arrive ask the driver for a day pass. It's 9 NZD and you can use it all day and it really saved a lot of money if you look at most stops cost about 5 and if you want to go to more than just one place that quickly adds up.

Also be aware that Wellington is divided into 14 zones. (Maybe other cities do this as well but we walked everywhere in Queenstown so I hadn't encountered it) The more zones you drive through to get to your destination the more the cost. http://www.metlink.org.nz/fare-zon…

Pretty much what we would do if we had time was walk as far as we could and catch the nearest bus in the last zone so our fare was cheap. Normally you'd just do as I said before and get a day pass...but it was the end of the evening and the 9 dollars was more than 3 the trip really required.

Plan for your bus to break down. Especially if time is of the essence. I say this because at least 3 different times the bus I was on jumped off the power lines and we had to stop and catch the next bus. The wait was never too long but if you're late for your flight you might be screwed.

You can actually save money getting back to the airport if you take one bus near Miramar. There's a stop that's quite close to the airport and it cost 5NZD from the station. Yes you'll have to walk about a mile (though you can clearly see the airport when you get off) but again if you wanna save money or are nearly out of cash then this is your best bet. Again not the best option if you need to hurry and catch your flight, but we had time that day and not a lot of money to do much else. The airport flyer is not expensive though and probably more reliable than the buses so really it's all dependent on how much you need to save.

Okay so you should know where you want to go and when by the time you start to book places to stay.

First I want to stress that you really don't NEED to PAY for internet in NZ. Most places you stay will have wifi but sadly charge quite a bit for the hour. Most McDonald's have FREE WIFI, and I'm sure other eatery places do as well, they'll even post signs. Queenstown only had one McD that I saw and you had to buy something to use their code but the employees were pretty lax about this and usually you could get more slips to log in if you asked. Other places you didn't even need a password (like in Wellington) or need to buy anything. Libraries also have free wifi. And Wellington had a tourist ISite center that also had free 30 minutes if you needed it. Also along the pier there was one stretch where the wifi was free for everyone.

Also charging your devices CAN SUCK. I say this because while I had the correct adapter, most of my devices wouldn't charge if they weren't plugged into a laptop that was then plugged into the outlet? I'm still trying to figure out why but this also happened in India, but oddly enough not in England. So take a watch if you use your phone for a clock just in case you cannot charge your phone for a few days. Have back up maps so you can still navigate without anything electronic should you become desperate. Also you can buy a cheap phone or swap out the SIM cards...unless you're like me and have an iphone and yeah I basically just made no calls while I was there. No biggie...but if you need to call someone just buy a cheap phone and call card. You can usually get them at the airports.

And for the most part I stayed in backpacker lodges. They were cheaper than hotels, but usually I had to share a bathroom. That seemed like a small sacrifice to make, and it was, but honestly I disliked showering because they weren't always as clean as I would like (I am kinda a germaphobe). Getting a hotel at the end of the trip was a nice treat and it was just nice to have towles and a TV.

The places I stayed for the curious:
Pinewood Lodge-Queenstown
Downtown Backpackers Lodge- Wellington
Cambridge Backpackers- Wellington
Horse and Jockey Inn-Matamata
Abel Tasman Hotel- Wellington

When I booked my flight it was in November, you can sometimes find some good deals around black Friday. My biggest mistake was actually waiting too late to book my domestic flights to get from one island to another.

If you visit grabaseat.co.nz you can get cheap flight to get around quicker than if you drove. Most flights are really cheap but seats go fast! When I first looked it was November and they didn't even have domestic flights listed for the date I would actually be in NZ (in February). I didn't sweat it. I didn't check back til late January and go figure the flights I needed were almost all booked, more expensive and limited my options immensely.

If you plan on flying to get from one island to another or even one city to another you need to check grab a seat almost every day. I'm serious. What would have been a $22 flight turned into a $113 flight because I waited and that's for just one way.


I also drove the first two days of my trip. Just to get from Auckland to Matamata. Driving isn't too bad except I wasn't used to the roundabouts. We had a GPS and probably would have gotten a bit lost without it trying to get out of Auckland. Once you're out of the city things navigating is much easier. But I noticed they don't have as many signs as I would've thought for certain places (like the Shire rest cafe) so prep ahead of time by looking up directions online.

I'll try to keep this as informative as possible but I'm by no means an expert and have only been to New Zealand once. However, when I was trying to plan my trip certain things just weren't explained or explained well. And it doesn't have to be difficult but some things could have saved me a lot of time and money during my planning. So hopefully this helps someone!

First I'm going to keep this one short. Time. Realize that unless you're going to be there for a month or more, you will NOT get to see everything. There's too much to see to squeeze into a short trip (like mine) so make a top 5 list and go from there.

Also if anyone has any specific questions they'd like me to answer leave em here. I specifically visited Auckland (ok just the airport not the city so much) Queenstown, Te Anau, Milford Sound, Matamata and Wellington. I drove a bit but mainly walked and bused it. Also I am the WRONG person with food questions because I really dislike going out to eat even on vacation so I usually end up eating cheap places and almost always junk like fries or dessert. Sorry.

take the horror challenge




Rules;
001) It must be horror (cross genres are okay)
002) It must meet the minimum of 60 minutes (documentaries/silents are okay)
003) Only movies (no tv-shows)
004) Each movie is only counted once
005) You have five wild cards to use any way you like

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Comment to be added =)

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