Had a late get up this morning, the weather was a little better than yesterday but it was still over cast raining off and on. Nick booked an afternoon off road motor biking for the following day (deciding that downhill mountain biking might be too dangerous given his lack of experience) We decided to do a tour of Queenstown. We first walked to the Botanical gardens which had a Frisbee course (like a golf course with fairways, rings and nets rather then holes) Walked through the memorial gardens taking time to look at the heroic locals. We then visited Queenstown Lake [View Full Entry]

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It had been raining most of the night which made us worry we would not be going. With a clear(ish) head we rang the canyoning company to see if the trip was still on, they we going to wait a while to see if they could get a better forecast. We called the company again and they said they would give it a go. Down in the shop Nicola and Mike were not convinced that once we got there we would be able to get in the canyon as there had been so much rain but there was only one way [View Full Entry]

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We made plans to meet Jamie for breakfast in town and swap photos from our Africa trip which took a lot longer than we expected. Afterwards we walked around town trying to decide what we should do over the next few days we had in Queenstown. We booked our Canyoning trip and our trip to Milford sound we then met the girls for a few beers in a bar called guilty by the time we got there they were already on round 5!! A few more drinks then food then a few more drinks then off to bed ready for our [View Full Entry]

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We got up early packed our bags ready for check out time, we were not being collected by the Magic bus until 2:30 so hired some bikes and went for a ride around the lake. We found some really nice tracks along the lake side and stopped to take pictures of the lake and surrounding mountains. we passed loads of other bikers and walkers enjoying the weather, again we could wear shorts. The water in the lake was really clear we could see the fish really easily from the river banks. There were a few monuments by the river we stopped [View Full Entry]

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We wondered around town in shorts for the first time in ages and decided to go to Puzzling world which was a 2km walk from the town. We visited all of the illusion rooms, they were really cool there is a room where all the faces follow you and another where water runs up rather then down and a chair goes uphill. There was also a room where you go from being short to really tall. The shop and café have loads of games and puzzles that you can attempt some of them were really annoying. Our entrance fee also included [View Full Entry]

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We left the glaciers behind and headed for Wanaka, because there were so many people travelling towards Queenstown the Magic bus had to get an additional bus to take us!! First stop was lake Matherson which is famous for its reflection of the Alps. The driver only gave us 20mins but it took 20mins to walk to the look out!! We then stopped at Thunder falls where we bumped into our ice climbing buddies and coach loads of other travellers!! Further along the road we stopped at the Gates of Haast for a photo stop the bridge gave great views in [View Full Entry]

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What we forgot to mention about yesterday is that we decided it would be a really good idea to go drinking after our quad bike adventure and keep on drinking . We even enlisted a number of other English travellers which was not that hard really. Anyway the reason for mentioning this is that luckily when we booked onto the Heli hike it was not until 11:15 it could have been 8:45! We got to the office and were told it was going ahead great news!!!! We were then taken to the kit room to get boots and rain gear, we [View Full Entry]

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We were planning to do a heli hike on Franz but as usual it was raining and very cloudy. We set off at 8am for a town called Hokitika which is famous for New Zealand Greenstone the jade is carved into a number of shapes which have special meaning in Maori. Next on to a town called Ross which is an old gold mining town. The town still sits on huge amount of gold but it can’t be mined because of the village built above it. We had a go at gold panning and found gold!!!! Next we stopped in a [View Full Entry]

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On the bus most of today and again bad weather on a day where we are looking at scenery, first stop cape Foul wind named by captain cook as he blown off course. Then on to the pancake rocks and blow holes the sea was not quite right for the blow holes but we did see some water come out. The rocks were cool and reminded us of the great ocean road in Australia. We continued on to grey mouth where we decided not to go on the beer tour just went for a look around the town, got some food [View Full Entry]

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We got up around 7:30 had some hot drinks as it was still raining a bit, we packed away our stuff while breakfast was being prepared. We had to get all the stuff back in the Kayaks it went smoothly compared to our first attempt. We set off along the coast to look a seals then off to the seal island there were loads of young seals and seals jumping out of the water around us. We didn’t manage to get any pictures of the seals jumping. We headed back to shore to carry on along the coast the sea got [View Full Entry]

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