Boats, bikes and walks

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Lake taupo After our wonderful mud bath in rotorua, we went to check out zorbing, a great nz passtime, where u get put in a big plastic ball (which looks like a giant golf ball) of water and roll down a hill. It sounds crazy and is, but for 30 secs i decided $45 was just a bit too much money. So our car journey continued to Napier, via lake taupo, stopping briefly for lunch and to look over the lake.

Napier

Napier is a wonderful art deco town which was mostly destroyed in an earthquake in 1931, so when they rebuilt it, they built all the buildings in art deco style, which still looks great today. After a walk on the beach and around the town, we were off again, this time all the way to Wellington which was about a 5 hr drive.

Wellington

The hostel we chose to stay in, not only gave free breakfast, but also was full of people, it was the busiest and friendliest hostel we had come across. Even though the kitchen was huge it was busy day and night with people cooking and chatting. After recovering from our big drive and because we only had 1 day in wellington, we decided to do a walking tour, which even though wellington is relatively small was really interesting. After the tour we went to a camera shop, as i did not mention in the last blog that my new camera card got corrupted after a week of photos and i thought i had lost another week of photos. However this wonderful man in the photo warehouse (the same shop i had bought the camera from, but a diff branch), managed to recover all my photos and he replaced the card with 2 1g fast cards. I was really happy about this. After lunch we took the little cable car to the botanical gardens, which was a very small version of kew gardens, and even had a hot house. I decided that after more than two months, my hair was getting really out of hand, so we went to investigate the costs of a haircut and colour, which were quiet diff. Eventually we found a good place who could fit me in later that day. We had some time so we went to the amazing wellington museum. I however did not have too much time, as vanity called, but while i was being groomed, Steve stayed at the museum. Steve came to fetch me around 2 hrs later, but the lovely hairdresser was not finished with me, so she drove me back to the hostel- only in NZ. The outcome was that i did not really like my hair, but it has taken a few days to settle down and now i like it. That night the hostel provided a free sausage BBQ and they even bought us veggie ones, and delayed the BBQ till i was back from the hairdresser. Some of the Americans were preparing a big thanksgiving dinner, but unfortunately we were going to miss it as we were heading south the following day.

The south island - picton and Blenheim

We got up early in the mourning to get the ferry to picton. The crossing took 3.5 hrs and was very pleasent as on the ferry there was reclining seats, tv and even a bar where Steve could watch the eng/Croatia foot ball game. After the ferry we drove on queen Charlotte drive, where we were able to see the beautiful Marlborough sounds. There was a 4 day hike, the queen Charlotte track, as we did not have time for this, we decided to just do 3hrs at the end of the track which was really pretty and an easy walk. We had not done any hiking since we had got to NZ and were starting to feel lazy, fat and unfit, so this was a gentle intro as to what was to come. We then drove to Blenheim and stayed in a hostel that was situated right on the river and had gorgeous views, which were perfect for lazing around with our books.

Blenheim

This region is famous for its wines, in fact most of NZ is. We decided to hire bikes from the hostel and ride the route instead of drive it. We spent the whole day cycling, most of it was very pleasant, but we did come across some bad winds, which made it quiet diff. We visited 7 vineyards in total, most of them were free (those who charged, we did not go in to). they were generous with their tastings, we did have to watch how much we were drinking, to not weave too much in the road, although Steve said i weaved without the alcohol.

Nelson

The next morning, a little saddle sore we drove to nelson, which was only an hour an half. We went to the famous sat craft market and then after some lunch and then to the beach. It was boiling hot and this was our real first beach experience on this trip. Although there were a few sand flies, which NZ has plenty of, we had a wonderful swim in the sea. That evening we met up with the daughter of Steve's dads oldest friend and her husband, who were doing the same trip as us but the opposite direction and in a camper van, which was so small u could hardly swing a cat, a perfect hobbit size van.

Abel Tasman national park

An hr away from nelson is the most magnificent national park which is situated on the north west tip of the south island and is surrounded by the sea. As we did not have time to do the full walk, u might have gathered time is not really on our side, and we often have to do the abridged version of things, but at least we get a taste for things. We took a water taxi to a point called tongo, on the way the taxi stopped at beautiful small inlets and a seal island. The trip took over an hr and then we were dropped off. We had 4 hrs to do 18 km, which we were told was plenty of time, even for a swim. Well we only had a stop for half an hr for lunch and literally had to run the second half as we thought we were not going to make our 4pm taxi, which was the last of the day, but we made it with 20 min to spare. It was an amazing walk and had the most awesome scenery, despite our hustle for the last bit. Amazingly the trip back only 20 min.

Franz Joseph Today we have a long drive, 7 hrs to Franz Joseph which is a glacier, till next time.

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Comments

[Ben Jacobs]

Marlborough
Did you go to the Saint Clair estate?