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Published: August 9th 2009
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Sunny here in Auckland - 1 day to go! Hello Everyone!
Well time flys, it is hard to believe that it has been nearly 3 months since we left the UK, with this in mind we decided to make the most of the winter here and take a little holiday within our holiday!
We went to Queenstown, which is the adventure capital on New Zealand! its where everyone goes to scare themselves silly in what is argueably the most beautiful place you could ever be. For those of you who dont know where Queenstown is, it is right at the bottom of the South Island (Auckland is right at the top of the North Island) it only takes an hour and a half to fly there! Its also the place where they film all the 100% NZ adverts (the ones that made me an Mike hot foot it out here in the first place) and more importantly for me (being the geek that I am) its the place where they filmed Lord of the Rings (Precious! come on Mr Frodo etc...)
You cane see all the amaxing moutains from the Plane and believe it or not, they are called "the remarkables" which they certainly are, there are
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Will we really need our thermals? also some moutains down the road called "the averages" and then some further still which are 'not more then hills really" ok the last two are a bit of a lie : ) It was absolutely freezing down there (minus 3 at night) so we are pelased that we packed our thermals!) we looked very attractive! Mike had great fun pretending he was the Milk tray man!
Anyway, I digress, so when we first arrived we had to try out the mighty "fergburger' which is legendry throughout NZ as the best burger you can buy, and it was huge! there is even one called the "big Al" which we could not finish! we had to share, Mike could not believe he had been beaten by food and I can still hear him lamenting "I have turned into everything I ever hated, theres food on my plate and I dont want to eat it!"
On our first real day there and our 3rd anniversary..it absolutely pissed it down with rain! Fun! we had just got to the top of the Gondala and we couldnt see a thing! so instead we jumped on the luge, which is this little
go kart thing at the top of the moutain which was a lot of fun! weather cleared up and we managed to get some fab pics of the bay!
On our second day the weather was crisp and beautiful and perfect for sking, so thats what we did, we hired some ski gear and hopped on the bus up the Remarkables to try our luck! the journey was amazing, you gradually wind up the moutain and the views are spectacular, if you dont think for too long how narrow the road is or that your driver has had to attach chains to the tyres to stop you slipping!) Once we got there it was time to strap on our snow boots (we looked like we had tranformer feet - very uncomfy) grabbed our skis and headed for our first lesson! which went surprisingly well! Mike took to it like a duck to water! and was soon mastering left and right turns while heading down the hill, in fact, I didnt do too badly either and by the end of our first lesson we both hadnt fallen over at all! we returned to the cafe victorious, both assuming we were
naturals at this winter sports lark! How wrong we were....by our second lesson we returned over confident and not realising the weather conditions had changed, and we both fell flat on our faces within five seconds of each other! bloody funny to everyone watching! anyway, we soon picked it up again, Mike was brave enough to ski down the moutain (I just went back down on the ski lift!) which is a very surreal feeling, your just hanging there all alone in complete silence surrounded by white and blue...with these mountains in front of you that look so amazingly perfect you beging to wonder if someone has just placed a huge photo there!) Anyway I reached the bottom and waited for Mike to return for an agonising 25 mins I kept picking people out that wasnt him! but he soon returned and I was so proud of him, he looked like a real pro and he told me he had been skiing while singing the grand stand theme tune on the way down! He did so well!!! xxx
On our third day we were going to Milford Sound but the road was shut so we went horse riding
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The mighty Fergburger! instead. It was an absolutely brilliant day, we took a tour of the Lord of the Rings film sites which was absolutely amazing. We saw where Borimer was shot with arrows and where they staged the siege of Isengard, but you didnt have to be a fan of the films to apprecaite how beautfiful the reserve was, the great thing is no one is allowed to build there, so it gets to stay just as it is for many moons to come! I loved Horse riding so much that I am going to book lessons, and hopefully get a lsightly faster horse then last time (my horse was called scar but I feel Glue stick would have been more appropriate! whereas Mikes horse was a bit of phsyco, constantly foaming at the mouth and shaking his head!)
So a brillant time was had by all! we are now back in Auckland recovering and planning our next adventure! We love and miss you lots! if I have missed anything out let me know and we will do our best to answer any questions (especially Dawn and Boys as I know you are as geeky as me about LOTR!)
xxxxxxx
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