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Published: August 1st 2009
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Apparently June and July in NZ are not summer months, its bloody freezing. On the airport bus into Christchurch we were asked by a local "so why exactly have you come to NZ in the winter?" The tans we picked up in SE Asia are fading fast and pretty soon there would be nothing left to show that we have even been away. To combat this I decided to grow a beard, so I could look like one of those hippie/traveller/refugee types and also to try to provide some insullation to the lower portion of my face. This has failed miserably and after just over a weeks growth the bum fluff had to go!
The bright idea we had of campervaning around NZ now seemed insane, we would freeze to death. A quick change of tactics and we found ourselves with a Yellow Toyoto Yaris, why do they insist on giving us these terrible coloured vehicles?
We spent 2 nights in a prison cell in Christchurch. We had not been arrested for being drunk and disordely, it was an old jail that had been converted into a hostel. After doing our time, we travelled South taking in some awesome
sights, including the worlds biggest wooly jumper. I guess they have to put all those sheep to good use! Everywhere we drove was spectacular, highlights included Lake Tekapo, Mt. Cook, Hooker Glacier and Lake Pukaki. At the coast we saw blue penguins and yellow-eyed penguins, also seals, one of which ran out right in front of the car.
At Dunedin, which reminded me a bit of Scotland - it didn't stop raining the whole time we were there, it was time to put the banana-coloured fun wagon through its paces. Baldwin st, apparently the steepest street in the world with a maximum gradient of 1 in 2.66, would be the proving grounds. I was going to bottle it as it did look bloody steep and it was raining pretty heavilly, also the fact that we were in a custard-coloured 2WD supermini with a measly 1.3l engine - the odds did not look good. We went for it. To my suprise we made it, the lemon coloured pocket rocket almost shrugging and saying "is that all you've got?"
Freestones backpackers near lake Manopouri is probably the best place we have stayed @ so far in NZ. Individual cabins heated
by log fires (another case of man make fire) set into the hillside with a view over lake manopouri and surrounding mountains that you could look at forever. Watching the sun-set over the white peaked mountains was one of the highlights so far.
From manopouri we visited Milford sound, another awesome drive. At Milford we went on a cruise and took in the dramatic landscape of the fjord. We saw plently of wildlife including fur seals and dolphins which put on a spectacular show for us.
Making the most of the winter conditions we enrolled ourselves in a 3-day learn-to-snowboard course. This took place at Cardrona ski resort in between Queenstown and Wanaka. The drive up there the first day was an adrenelin rush initself, the Yellow perril taking us to over 1600m. Now, how hard can snowboarding be?, you strap yourself to an elongated dinner tray, plonk yourself at the top of a snow covered mountain and there you are, let gravity do the rest... How wrong I was, this approach ends up in hurtling down the mountain at break neck speeds, stopping only facilitated by either crashing into a fellow snow user or by throwing yourself
face first into the snow. Both hurt, although I preferred the 1st option.
We needed lessons. These helped somewhat and after 3 days we learned skills such as ‘stopping’ and ‘turning’, both of which came in handy. We were soon heading down some of the easier runs and loving it. I even attempted a blue run which was f@*ing steep, I spent most of the time on my arse! It was all going fairly well until those pesky skiers. Two of them, taking up the whole run, travelling at speeds best described as ‘below walking speed’. I could do ‘em, this pair of fools with planks attached to there feet and a walking stick in each hand. I went for it, and sure enough they ate my dust (snow). Except that in pulling off this manouver I had reached speeds best described as ‘bloody fast’. There was only one outcome and it involved my head, the snow and a mild concussion.
We also saw on our travels the Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. It was good to finally see where all those mints come from.
Murchison would be the location for our first experience of an earthquake,
apparently around 7-8 on the Richter scale at the epicenter, so not bad. Initially I thought it was a delayed result of hitting my head snowboarding and that my body was finally giving up in one last shaking fit. But then I realized that Hannah and other people in the room where shaking too.
In Hokitika I had to make my first visit to the quacks. I had been experiencing a severe swelling of the lips and eyes, had flu symptoms, a chesty cough and a headache. In the waiting room I was roped off from the rest of the patients for fear of swine flu! Unfortunately, it was confirmed that I had something far worse than the pig flu, man flu. The swelling was due to allergies. Financial pain was added to my list of symptoms after paying the doctors fee.
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