25DEC2019 – DAY 12: THE BURN

CHRISTMAS! Waking up after such a long night and hearing that the guy who jumped in the fountain didn’t remember a single thing from the night before was quite a relief. With 11 of us left (13 if you count the tour leader and bus driver), we got on the tour bus and made our way out to a nice spot on the beach where we met up with another Contiki group heading south. We spent the entire morning at the beach doing a variety of different things. We were challenged by the other Contiki group to a game of “touch rugby” and tossed around a frisbee and soccerball afterwards. I spent some time wave jumping and floating about. A little later, we had our morning brunch and some champagne. I never really liked champagne but was urged to have mine anyway. Unsure whether due to being warm or just my overall dislike of champagne, it was the closest I came to puking over the entire trip. Luckily, the feeling passed rather quickly. One of our group members had the awesome idea of burying one of the champagne bottles on the beach as a “time capsule” of sorts. We all wrote a little blurb on some scraps and buried it in a hole about 3 feet down. After almost 4 hours spent in the blazing NZ sun, we hopped back on the tour bus and made our way to Ohakune. There we spent a relaxing evening hanging around before doing a secret santa gift exchange. Upon arrival at our lodging in Ohakune, I was already feeling the effects of the high-intensity NZ limited ozone sunshine. Unfortunately the SPF30 sunscreen I had been slathering on all morning at the beach was no match and I was already developing sun blisters and bright red burns on my arms, legs, and face. By the time we got to our secret santa gift exchange, I was not feeling so comfortable with the painful burns, but I made due as I would have to until we got to our next destination the following day when I could buy some aloe. For the secret santa gift exchange, I got a Santa Claus outfit which actually fit surprisingly well. My burnt face helped make my face seem a bit more “rosy” for the role of Santa for a few moments, before I remembered that it was still a massive burn which stung like hell. I found out later that the Santa Claus outfit was actually a prize won by one of the guys at an arcade in Wellington. It was a challenge falling asleep that night when I couldn’t find a comfy spot that wasn’t pressing on my burns, but I made it work!