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Published: March 15th 2007
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New Zealand fookin Rocks! been here for just under three weeks now and i absolutley love it, if i could buy a holiday home anywhere it would be here. Landed in Christchurch on 28th Feb, and would you believe it they have a cathedral there which has items in there that belong to Canterbury Cathedral in Kent. Anyhoo spent a few a days in Christchurch just chilling out in the city havin a few drinky poos and doing some shopping, hired a car to travel around the south island aswell, got a nice Hyundai which is a few years old, this baby has got some accelaration, have to put it in 2nd gear to make it over a speed bump, also tend to get a bit of burning smell when you drive a bit too fast oops! still what do you expect for 20 quid a day plus i get about 15mpg with this hog!.
First stop of the road trip Dunedin, quite a nice student city not much to do there but we headed to the Otago peninsula where you can check out some wildlife, did'nt fancy paying for a wildlife tour as i'm still saving the cash for
the dolphin swimming, we did manage to find some Seals/Sea Lions which you can get up close and personal with which was pretty cool. It was also Marks birthday so we headed out for a few beers, i was trying to get him hammered but he was'nt having any of it, probably not a bad thing as we had a curry earlier and i could feel a slight case of firey bum coming on (you all wanted to know that right). If you love outdoor activities then get yourself to Queenstown, they have loads of things to do and its fantastic place stay overlooking the lake and surrounded by mountain ranges. We booked up Jet boating along the Shotover river, excellant fun going really fast through canyons dodging rocks and doing 360 spins. Unfortunatley we went to a bar the night before and as i was talking to the bar staff and they kept giving me free drinks and shots so i got completley hammered and was trying to keep the vomit inside whilst on the jet boat, urgh! We also went white water rafting in the afternoon and as i was still hungover one of they guys came outside
while i was lying on top off some life jackets clutching my head and asked what was up i made the mistake of telling him i had a hangover and i was the victim for the rest of the afternoon being thrown into freezing cold rapids, oh great! Although it was cold it was still really cool and sorted my hangover out. Due to the river being so low though the rapids were only grades 3-4 which was a bit of a pisser but still def worth doing. I managed to work up the bottle to book a skydive (after a few beers and loads of abusive texts from Chris and Dan calling me a pussy) but due to bad weather it was cancelled, if its cloudy and they cant see the drop zone they have to cancel all skydives, this happened three times after trying to work up the courage to do it, bastards! so i had to cancel the whole thing as we needed to move on.
After Queenstown we headed to Milford Sound, booked up a boat to go through the mountains and out to the Tasman Sea, talk about frickin freezing Mr Bigglesworth (i have
a t-shirt and hoody, thats it!) well worth it though spectacular views and loads of wildlife, came upon a pod of dolphins and they all swim under the boat and jump out of the water literally a few feet next to you, probably the best thing i have ever seen. There are aslo loads of birds and seals around but the dolphins were definitley the best. Also gotta mention its bloody cold in the south island, well it is in comparison to all the other places i have been on this trip, after leaving Ayres Rock which was 45 C in the shade to coming to New Zealand where its 11 C i'm not exactly prepared for it on the clothing front.
Fox Glaxier and Franz Josef, well there's no getting away from it, i read in the lonely planet that they have skydiving in Fox Glacier, i had to work up the courage to book it again and sure enough after the weather check we are all good to go baby (bet you were reading earlierand thought i chickened out did'nt you). Absolutley unbelievable, i was shitting my pants before i got on the plane and you can
River surfing
i was tempted to this but after speaking to one of the locals, a shitload of people have died doing it so i changed my mind tell from the DVD i had made, the guy is like "so Paul your about to throw youself out of a plane over New Zealands highest mountains, are you looking forward to it?", "of course i'm bloody not!!! i'm shitting my pants and i have a lumpy jump suit!!!!" i did'nt say that on the DVD though, it's more like "h- h-h-h-h-h-hello", i reckon thats just cos i dont like being filmed though, ahem. Thing is once you get in the plane and your strapped in you forget all your fears and just enjoy the views, until you hit jumping altitude and the door opens parp! The free fall has to be the best, you roll out and do a slight tumble and there's just this weird feeling of nothing holding you and your just falling and its really loud as the wind is rushing into your mouth and you can hardly breath as you accelerate to 200kph in a few seconds. Once the guy opens the shute though it all goes quiet and then you take in all the views of the mountains, glaciers, lakes and the Tasman Sea. An unbelievable rush of adrenalin and definitley worth doing if
you can get past that initial fear of booking it up, everyone should give it go. So after my adreanlin rush the prevous day, i decided to do a chill out day do a trip onto the Glacier in Franz Josef, really cool doing some ice climbing and walking inbetween small crevasis with your crapmons on and my oh so loverly wooly mits, they did'nt have the string on them which goes through your jacket so you dont lose one which i was gutted about. Looks really amazing when you head further up the glacier and you look down into the valley, loads of blue ice everywhere, cool. Mark has spent the last few days in the hostel though, i came back from the Glacier trek at 6pm freezing cold and soaking wet as it pissed it down all day after leaving at 8am to find the chunky git lying in bed watching TV, Bastard!
Well thats it for now, i'm leaving Franz Josef tomorrow and heading to Kaikoura where we have booked up a trip to go swimming with dolphins so really looking forward to that, mainly because i can leave the south island for the north where
its just a tad bit warmer. Excellant trip so far for New Zealand, could stay here for a lot longer everyone is really nice and helpful, when i took a taxi and i was in the front chatting to the guy he knocked $10 off the bill because he said it was good to meet nice people, another one was a bar in queenstown and the bar staff were giving us free drinks and discount off our food just because we were chatting to them. Pretty cool, wonder if i can wangle some money out of someone next.
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Dan
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No Ho's mo fo
Sounds like its fuckin A down there, cant wait to get down there. Left Chris in Hong Kong on Monday. Hong Kong was fuckin sweet - loads of women made a few new friends - going to pop back there befor NZ. Keep in touch Dan