More South Island Exploits

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After swimming with the dolphins in Kaikoura we decided it was time to move on again and made our way further down the eastern coast. We bypassed Christchurch, where we arrived in New Zealand less than a month ago, and headed for Mount Cook.

Mount Cook village sits at the base of Mount Cook in the heart of the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. A popular place for skiing in the winter and walking/tramping in the summer, accomodation in Mount Cook village is hard to come by. We managed to get rooms at the YHA hostel and arrived in the early evening amidst heavy clouds. The next morning the clouds had blown away and the views were amazing. The village was surrounded on all sides by snowcapped peaks that put the Snowdonia region to shame. We took a walk up to the Glacier lake, where meltwater from the Abel Tasman glacier as well as the Fox and Franz Josef ends up. The lake also had a couple of icebergs, large chunks of ice that had broken off the glacier and fallen into the lake. Later that night we were in the pub with a couple of guys from the hostel when we heard the unmistakeable roar of an avalanche somewhere in the valley. The thundering continued for 1/2 minute as the sound was echoed by the mountains. The guy who owned the bar informed us had that been a major avalanche the roar could have lasted up to 5 minutes. So the one we heard was pretty insignificant but still unnerving all the same!

After two days at Mount Cook we headed back out on the road and drove back out to the coastal town of Oamaru. The small town had been the subject of a huge industrial boom during the victorian era. However with all booms the bubble soon burst and the port was no longer required and the money and employment went elsewhere. This has left Oamaru with some of the best examples of victorian architecture as nearly every building in the town was built during the boom and hasnt been changed since. However today the town is famous for it's penguins and tourists travel from all over the world to see the colonies 'little blue penguins' and rare 'yellow-eyed pengiuns'. The lady who ran the hostel in Oamaru (who was also from Coventry!) told us that the best time to see the penguins was late at night. So we returned to the beach just before midnight and sure enough with each wave more of these small, inquizitive penguins were washed ashore. As we sat there on the beach the penguins walked around us edging forward closer and closer. One got so close to Joe that it pecked at his shoe.

As Christmas is approaching we decided it was time to head back to Glenorchy. Yesterday we went Canyoning at 12 mile creek. Canyoning combines, swimming, zip-lines, huge jumps and slides all within a real gorge. The highlight of the trip was a massive 10 metre jump into the canyon. The landing area was a small area of fast moving deep water 10 metres below in the canyon. A jump that scared the crap out of me at the top but was an amazing accomplishment once I hit the water. At one point we had to abseil into a remote canyon, first we ziplined into the middle, then whilst dangling 20m above the raging water we had to unhook our safety lines and abseil down into gorge, dropping the last few metres into the icy cold water and swimming to the shore. Unhooking the safety line and releasing the line that began the drop was another really scary moment.

We're currently preparing for christmas here in Glenorchy. We have invited Trevor, Sam and Chloe whom we met in Fiji to join us for a BBQ on Christmas day and we're planning to do a skydive before New Year which should be amazing. We also hope to get tickets to watch the Blackcaps (NZ international cricket team) play Pakistan on New Years Eve, and then a big New Years Eve party on the Queenstown waterfront. It should be a great couple of weeks.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!!!!

From

Neil, Joe and Anne. 😊

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