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Published: January 28th 2008
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Christchurch
Arriving in New Zealand On the 16th of January, I landed in New Zealand, Christchurch to be precised. We flew over the Glacier and the view was just amazing.
I had kind of a temperature shock when I left the airport: it was 24 degrees which is good but trust me when you have spent 1 month at 35 degrees +, you need to re-adapt.
What I read and heard about Christchurch wasn't really good; most of the people didn't like it and found the city boring. Well to my surprise I found this little city absolutely charming and beautiful, very laid back and the locals are very, very friendly. I spent 2 days there wandering around and went to the restaurants and bars recommended by the Lonely Planet...there are hibs of them and they are really, really good. I could have spent more days there with no hesitation.
I started my real NZ adventure on the 18th of January with Stray bus. It is the same concept as Kiwi experience but with people between 25 and 30 + rather than 16/20...from the 1st day there has been a great atmosphere in the bus, and quickly we became a big group of friends...since then we
Christchurch
Arriving in New Zealand are just having great fun and doing all kind of activities such as hiking, Helicopter trip, jetboating etc etc.
NZ is really a jewel scenery wise and there is so much to do...it hurts the credit card big time but everything we do here is so worth it.
From Christchurch we went north to Kaikoura where I did some whale watching, amazing...we went to Abel tasman National park to sail, and now we are going south after spending a few days in Queenstown, where we are doing some crazy stuff. We did some jet boating in Wanaka...woaaa the sceneries were fantastic and on top of that the thrill of the jetboat doing 60km/h on 10 cm of water is just something else.
One of the top thing I have done so far is the heli hike at Franz Joseph glacier. I never went to an helicopter before, what an amazing experience. The views were just the best you could get and the sensation of an helicopter ride is unbelievable. We landed at the very top and did a 2 hours hike around the glaciers, the only thing I can say about it is enjoy the pics!
We had an absolute
Christchurch
Arriving in New Zealand mad party last night, well like every night actually (no clothe party, beach party and on and on). Queenstown is the party town of the country and the most popular for bungy etc...I'm looking forward to tomorrow cause I will be doing the canyon swing:
Have a look at this link and yeah, you can see I have gone mad to do that 😉 I really cant wait...by the way, my sky dive is in 2 weeks 😉. I will just chill taking the gondola today and try not to think too much about tomorrow...hopefully I will write again soon and let you know how it was...
Here I am, I survived the scariest thing of my life so far, the Canyon Swing. I have uploaded the video and here is the link on you tube in case you can't access it here:
Sorry for the abuse of using the "F" word but honeslty it is just pure madness. There is no word to decribe how you feel after you are back on the platform...the adrenaline rush is just something else...cant wait for the sky dive now 😉
The day after this I went travelling the south of
Christchurch
Arriving in New Zealand the south Island: Milford sound, Stewart Island etc. There was no rain so I was very lucky as it is very hard to predict the weather here (weather wise it is really similar to Ireland). It was just beautiful and very relaxing after the few days of madness in Queenstown. I went back to Queenstown actually for Matt's Birthday, was a hell of a session. I'm back in Christchurch today and will go visit Akaora tomorrow, which is a French town in NZ...
The little French town was awsome. The weather was fantastic and the locals were really nice. It's a beautiful little place with most of the street names, cafes etc being still French. I had a great day there...just walking around and relaxing on the beach. Our driver was really cool as well and cooked us a BBQ for lunch, good job Ernie 😉 Heading to Wellington tomorrow. It is supposed to be the best city in New Zealand, we shall see that!
Well indeed Wellington was very interesting, spent 2 full days there. We took the ferry with Becky, Jemma, Matt and Scott from Picton and got there at about 6pm...the weather was really bad so my
idea was to do a...PUB CRAWL!! great idea isn't it. I had 13 pubs on my list, only manged to do 6 of them (maybe because we had 5 drinks in the very 1st one hehe). Was a great night as the bars in there are really cool.
The day after, even with a hangover, we managed to go the Te Papa museum: we had fun there as there loads of interactive stuff to be done...it was a Bank Holiday so there was a few concerts in the park etc, so just chilled after that in a nice bar and took it easy that night; the guys were taking the bus the day after.
I had another day to meet up with Kylie and Steven who were travelling from Brisbane. Had a fab day in the botanic garden. The weather was Gorgeous and the beers beautiful: thanks Jo for that super pub with the tasting tray 😉 that night we went to Jo's for an awsome BBQ cooked by Phil...great night, great food, great fun...I knew I'd have a sore head to get my bus at 7pm the day after to Auckland, but it was worth it. Thanks again for
welcoming me guys 😉
My last adventure with Stray was then departing from Auckland. I had 6 days to visit the north island and as all the friends form the south were gone, that was a complete new start with new people and a new driver: what a blast! after an hour, the driver, Thumper, put everybody in a great mood and we all felt that we were going to have a great time together for the next 6 days...
We 1st stop in Hahei, quiet little beach resort where we had a BBQ cooked by Thumper aka "da butcher" for that night and a few beers. That was well deserved after a 2 hours walk through the bushes and on the beach, that was brilliant.
We then went to Raglan where the weather was really bad: to be honest I was happy cause it was a great excuse to use the TV lounge which has sky TV and catch up with the 6 nations tournament and the 1ership. Allez les bleus, wish I was in Dublin that day hehe, sorry lads ;0)
The day after was the best experience of those 6 days: we went to a Mauri village
to assist to a typical Maori show. The grate thing was that the house belongs and was built by a Maori, Uncle Bob and the show is not commercial. Only Stray bus goes there so the show was only for us. We had dinner there and then participated to the show. The Boys had to learn the AKA and perform if in front of the girls. The girls had to learn some typical songs and dance and perform in front of us. It was great fun and we learnt a lot as well on their culture. Thanks so much again to you guys for your kindness and the great show.
On the last day, we went to lake Taupo where my skydive was planned...the weather was too bad in the evening so it was canceled...but the morning after (today!!!!!!!!!!) was absolutely beautiful so finally my jump was going to happen...and it has!!!!!!!!!!! My god there is no word to explain the feelings!! I chose to jump from 15000 feet: 60 secs freefall!!! absolutely amazing, still trying to take it in as I'm writing this. Unfortunately I can't upload the video on this blog but enjoy the pics and come visit
me when I'm back home to watch the DVD. Special thanks to Lacie, my skydiver who did an amazing job with the handy cam and for being feckin crazy, loved it dude ;0)
I'm therefore back in Auckland today where I will just chill for the next 2 days. I will then fly to Singapore and meet Rosie for 2 weeks between there and Malaysia, really really looking forward to that.
This is it for the Kiwi adventure!! ;0)
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