Day 143 - Dunedin

I had an AWESOME time in Dunedin. It was one of those towns that i will always remember fondly. It was great.



Anyway, Dunedin is a cute town on the east coast of the south island. Its loosely based on a scottish town, so feels kinda familar, and its a student town, so there's loads of young people littering the streets and making the place look fun to hang out in.




About 2 weeks before getting here, we decided that we kept missing good weekends out in new zealand because of bad timing, so we fixed a date for going out, getting drunk and having fun. And this weekend had come. By the time we had checked in to the hostel, we were buying beer and catching the last rays of sun on the balcony. And by 11pm we were drunk and ready to party.



So, after hitting the town, me, Anna, Sam and Eve got wasted in a student bar full of 18 year olds. I wasn't really feeling the vibe, but we partied hard until Anna was taken home sick at 2am. Killer. Sam, Eve and I resumed partying, found a club, where i got all depressed and miserable for some reason. So I went home too. I was in bed asleep by 3am. Then awake again at 9am when Sam and Eve returned, with a random boy in tow.

The four of us joined two scottish guys drinking red wine and singing irish rugby songs until the 2pm, when sam went to bed and drunkenly I spent the day waking people up, forcing anna to talk to me and watching films. When I finally went to bed at midnight, I had been caining it all day, and felt horrendous. As did Sam, who went to bed at about midday and spent the day in bed feeling equally horrendous. As did Eve, who after hitting the sack at 3pm didn't surface again until the next day. But I had a great day - getting wasted and chatting to Anna. Loved it.



Now, on a slightly different note, when we were hanging out with the rugby boys, one of them nipped out to the shop and came back with a little packet of "red hearts", which intriguied me greatly. Because, New Zealand seems to have a bit of a drug problem (please note, this is not from my own personal research, more from what new kiwi friends have told me). The kids here love their drugs. But not like in the UK, where the kids love to take cheap drugs because drinking is too expensive. Oh no. here, they wanna get destroyed. drinking just doesn't match up. The country is going through an horrendous crystal meth problem, where kids as young as 12 and 13 are getting hooked on the stuff and going mental.

The problem with crystal meth is that when making the stuff to sell on the streets, the fumes that are produced absorb into everything. Into walls, curtains, sofas, carpets, everything. And if you're exposed to those absorbed fumes, you can't expect to stay healthy very long. There are hundreds of reported cases of hotels rooms being rented for a week, used for crystal meth production, then the drug manufacturers move out. And the only traces of the problem come when the next person to stay in the room for 2 weeks comes down with blood clots on their lungs after 2 weeks of exposure to the fumes.



Anyway, enough of the grim drug stories. To combat the problem with the kids, the government introduced "party pills" 2 years ago. These are safe, clean, chemical equivalents to drugs like ecstasy and crystal meth. Throw a bit of the chemical "BZP" at your brain, and you'll go happily crazy (much like a pill, but without as much loving everyone as much) for 6 to 8 hours. They're safe to take (unlike scary pills off a scary dealer). They're clean (made from pure compounds which they 'know' wont hurt you). And they're unbelievably popular in this country. Legal only here and 2 other countries in the world (sorry guys, can't bring any home since they are offically a class A drug in the UK), you can get the equivalent of 3 pills for a tenner. Which isn't too bad (by Kiwi standards, at least).



So, 2 years after they have been released in New Zealand, I'm told by this dude that they are MASSIVE. Kids gurning on street corners, party pills outselling regular pills on the street (how they know that, I have no idea), and people having the most horrendous come-downs EVER the next day (party pill casualties line the sofas at almost all the city hostels the next day). These little capsules of pure BZP are epidemic. And legal.



Anyway, enough of the BBC News commentary. After spending a whole day doing absolutely nothing (and loving it), we were on a mission to hit Queenstown - adventure sports capital of the world. Anna was excited, I was hungover and the laser was ready to take us 4 hours back into the mountains.