If the bunk's a rockin'...

Years back there used to be an ad on the telly with the catch phrase "Don't leave town till you've seen the country". Geography is one of my many weak points but I'm proud to say that, thanks to Beloved, I have travelled this beautiful little country of ours from Cape Rianga to the Bluff - top to bottom. Well, except for little Stewart Island. As you'll recall from a previous post, poor little Stewie tends to get left out of a lot of the action. I did actually look out across the sea from Bluff because I heard that on a clear day you can actually see little Stewie from there but my eyesight's not that great so I just saw sea and sky.

I was about 6 months pregnant with C when Beloved took us to the South Island. He's a bit of a cheapskate so we drove down in the ute with my kids vomitting in the back (he doesn't seem to believe in hourly pit-stops on a road trip). We crossed the Cook Straight on the Interisland Ferry where I learned that I'm prone to chronic sea sickness (more vomitting).

Not long after Picton, after all the public restrooms had been passed, my eldest announced that she needed a toilet stop. Beloved pulled over at the nearest rest area, which consisted of a patch of grass, a few shrubs and a rubbish bin. Eldest searched for the most discreet area and settled on squatting behind the rubbish bin. Indeed, she was well hidden from the view of all the south-bound traffic. It was just a shame that she hadn't worked out that all the tooting and cheering from the north-bound traffic meant that she'd been mooning them with her little, pink tushy. I would save that story for her 21st but she's 22 now and I forgot to tell it at her birthday dinner so now's as good a time as any.

Flitwick was living in Dunedin at that time so we dropped the kids off with their dad and went on a little tiki-tour around the South Island in the ute. Eventually we found ourselves in beautiful Queenstown. We knocked on the office door of the only backpackers' hostel with a vacancy sign (No expense shared with Beloved, eh?) and were given seperate, mixed, bunk rooms with people half our age. With a bulging uterus and swollen ankles, I found myself staring incredulously at ladder leading to the top bunk. I wondered if this was such a great idea after all and was about to consider the option of sleeping in the back of the ute... Then a nice English boy offered to trade the bottom bunk with me. Relieved and exhausted, I slipped into bed while my young roomates went off to experience the Queenstown nightlife.  I slept soundly until about 2am when my roomies stumbled in the door. I tried to ignore them but it seems that the fun was only just beginning.

I felt someone lifting my blanket and a warm body was attempting to slip in beside me! I knew this definately wasn't Beloved so either my luck was about to change or somebody was making a huge mistake. She was about 20 years old and Canadian and was a little taken aback to find that the nice English boy who occupied the bottom bunk the previous night had morphed into a middle-aged, pregnant Kiwi lady.  My voice was shaky, "Err...we swapped" I said, pointing to the the upper level. You'd think she would have been embarrassed but she just calmly slid out from the covers and climbed the ladder. Then the fun started - for them. Let me tell you, it is not easy to settle back to sleep on a bottom bunk while the whole structure is shaking amidst groans of ecstacy. I know I was pregnant at the time but I'm still quite naive at heart and could not get my head around the situation. Being prone to motion sickness I decided the safest course of action would be to slip out the door discreetly and "wait" in the lounge area for the United Nations to finish their convention. I waited for an hour-and-a-half.

I hadn't waited long enough.

I took a long shower.

They still weren't finished.

I would have been better off in the back of the ute.

I waited until morning and gave them a filthy look when they emerged. Yeah, I bet that taught them a lesson.

Meanwhile in the other room, Beloved hadn't slept so well on his hard bunk either and he had the audacity to have a migraine the next day. I gave him a filthy look too.