Queenstown, NZ

Safely arrived in Queenstown, NZ tonight, after a 4 hour drive from Dunedin.  The drive is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen!

So when we left you last we were headed to Dunedin & all seemed good, but what Sara didn't anticipate was on the drive from Christchurch to Dunedin, her leg would start to throb with pain, she'd get a headache, and even after taking lots of Advil still thought she had a fever.

The bus arrived into Dunedin around 1.30pm, we walked the 2 blocks to our accommodation, Sara dropped me & the other bags off & was headed to the store to buy some breakfast supplies, when the Cadbury's World Tour caught her eye.  Now understand she didn't feel really bad just yet as the Advil was still working, but about half way through the tour she felt very faint . . . but since the tour was inside & outside she thought it must just be the fact that she was wearing so many layers indoors.  After leaving the Cadbury's tour with about 10 bars of chocolate, she went to the grocery store & bought some food and drinks before heading back to our room.  After about an hour of shivering from the chills & feeling like she had the flu, Sara realised maybe this was connected to her leg pain, so she went to the Dunedin Urgent Care Centre, which was just 3 streets away.  After waiting about an hour (people are seen on priority & every person who entered the door had a small child who was screaming in pain from swallowing indigestible objects to falling off the balcony & not being able to stand up fully), Dr Sam Moon pronounced Sara had a 102.5F fever (39C) and had a slightly elevated heart rate, but they ruled that to be more Sara's fear of taking the bandage off & having to see the cut, which now over a week old, was no better & if anything looking quite a bit worse!  (Note Sara took photos but will NOT be posting them, that's how gross they are!!)  Dr Sam decided 400mg of erythromyacin 4 times a day should clear it up, assuming it's not erythromyacin resistant, which of course we didn't know at all since we weren't sure where it had come from!  Dr Sam gave Sara one dose in the office & told her to get the prescription filled tonight next door & to take Advil as needed to help with pain & fever, BUT if by the morning you're leg hurts more, fever is the same (fevers are normally highest at the end of the day), or the redness is massively larger then to go to the hospital.

Sara got the prescription filled, walked home, took 3 Advil, forced herself to eat something, cause you can't have all that on an empty stomach, and attempted to go to bed . . . not so easy when every time you move your leg you feel shooting pain - even a sheet over the bandage hurt a lot :-(

The next morning, the fever was still evident, but NOTHING like the night before & the cut was still sore, but since she'd not had Advil for 8 hours, it was expected to not feel good, but nothing worse than the night before, so she again took 3 Advil, 1 erythromyacin, 1 vitamin, and 1 anti-malarial pill (yes the Malarone wasn't over until today!) with some yoghurt & apple juice.  Luckily she had nothing to do until 12.30pm, so she just lay in bed relaxing & hoping that by then she'd feel up for going out . . . which she did.

The afternoon was spent on a tour of Otago Peninsula Harbour tour, where she saw 20 New Zealand fur seals, about 30 in total of 4 different types of albatross, blue penguins (like I'd seen in Aus with dad), and yellow eyed penguins, the 2nd rarest in the world behind Galapagos Island penguins & also the 3rd largest behind Emperors & another kind I've forgotten now.  The coolest part about the trip was that there were 2 crew (a female skipper & male wildlife guide) and 2 passengers (a guy from Chicago & Sara) so it turned out to be a very specialised tour for them.  Interestingly the guy from Chicago had never been outside of the US, nor had he ever been on "such a large boat in open water" (to quote him) and Sara thought it was a rather small boat to be going out into the ocean & Sara thinks he was pretty scared, cause he sat holding on with both hands, while Sara & the guide were walking all around looking at the wildlife.  We all know Sara can get sea sick, so obviously this boat was not that bad out on the water.

That evening Sara stayed in & had a microwave meal to give her leg a rest, cause it was sore, Sara refused to take more Advil at this point cause it wasn't that painful.  This morning when she woke up it was not really sore until she started to walk around & even then it only required 1 Advil to get to a point of non-painfulness.  So another morning of pill popping with yoghurt & a muesli bar and Sara was off to walk around Dunedin before the bus trip at 2pm.

At 2pm, Sara boarded the bus headed to Queenstown, for what turned out to be 4 hours of some of the most beautiful drive she's ever taken and here she is now, safe & sound & mostly pain free :-)