Overseas Travel Series
New Zealand delivering the goods in its usual spectacular fashion - a fiery sunset shot along the Arrow River as it meanders around Arrowtown with Mt Beetham featuring in the background.
The three of us (Russ, Tim and I) had arrived to NZ that day - me in from Melbourne and Russ & Tim from Brisbane - and after catching up over a couple of beers and damn tasty pizza in Queenstown, made our way out to Arrowtown in our clunky, old, piece-of-shit 4wd hire car which would faithfully cart our butts around the South Island for the next 10 days.
Anyway, let's just say this was a lucky shot. With tired dry eyes thanks to the flight and the crisp cold NZ air (and perhaps that one beer), one of my contact lenses was feeling gluggy & blurry, like as if someone had unloaded a jar of Vaseline into my eye. It happened in a flash; seeking quick reprieve, I innocently rubbed my eye and next thing I was blind as a bat! That damn contact lens had decided to pop out and land straight into the river I was standing in. Great! Normally this wouldn't be an issue as I always have spares on trips like this (and also a set of dorky looking glasses)... but in true Bernie form I'd managed to leave that particular toiletry bag back in Melbourne.
That night we drank shit-tonnes of scotch and Russ & Tim made plenty of fun of me as I wore a makeshift eye-patch made from a sock and some ingenuity on my behalf. Luckily the next morning we found a legendary optometrist who just happened to have a spare contact lens in the ridiculous strength I needed - crisis averted!
Cheers, Bernie