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Published: April 30th 2009
Kia Ora! Welcome to gorgeous New Zealand, Han and I have now been here for 3 weeks and it's just so breath-taking!
We arrived in Christchurch on the South Island on the 8th April, and immediately we felt at home, this place is just so like England! The weather, scenery and Christchurch itself is so very English. C'church is the largest city in the South Island (home to 400,000 of the 1m residents on the island) and is where the English settlers first settled in New Zealand. The whole city is centered around Christchurch Cathedral, all the names of the streets are named things like St Albans, Manchester Street, Canterbury Street etc Its all very quaint and very English- you can even go punting on the River Avon! Han and I got there just before Easter weekend, and stayed in a lovely B&B with our own TV, so we basically stayed in for the first 2 days eating pizza and watching TV! Such a novelty! When you're backpacking and staying in hostels, it really is the little things that matter like comfortable mattresses, plug sockets, nearby female only toilets, radiators/air con, seating areas for enough people etc etc- we are
now in our 39th accommodation and haven’t lost a room key yet! what a miracle! So we eventually drag ourselves out of bed and do the combined city tram tour and a gondola (cable car) ride up a nearby mountain, which gave us our first taste of what to expect in New Zealand, the views really were just spectacular- you could see all the way to Pegasus Bay and the Pacific Ocean to Kaikoura; over Banks Peninsula, Lake Ellesmere and Lyttleton Harbour, and across the Canterbury Plains to the Southern Alps. WOW. Oh and in true Easter weekend style we find a pub on Good Friday and have a few cheekys! Although NZ is pretty religious and pretty strict on licensing laws- you can only buy drinks at Easter if you eat in the pub as well, no shops sell booze on Easter Sunday and all the bars shut at 12! Rubbish! (Although we have found it is easier to get hold of booze here then Oz as most of their supermarkets stock it).
After 4 days in Christchurch we then head to Kaikoura. Personally this four hour stretch of driving is the most breath-taking in New Zealand in
my opinion. The rolling hills, the huge snow topped mountains, the beautiful aqua marine sea and lakes............... basically imagine all your favourite places in the UK and times them by 100 and you're somewhere close to the sights to see here. Kaikoura in Maori means to eat crayfish, and the whole reason half a million tourists come to Kaikoura is because where there are crayfish there are a lot of fish, and where there are a lot of fish there are Dolphins, Orcas and Whales!!!!!!! But Rebekah was a little hungover so we didn’t actually manage to do any marine activity, but due to the nature of our Kiwi Experience bus pass, we get to go to C'Church and Kaikoura again so we will delay these activities til then! From Kaikoura we carry on heading north to Picton, where some of the group get off the bus and head over to the north island, we stay on the bus and head to a Vineyard in the Marlborough Sounds- well Rebekah was in her absolute element!!!! We paid $2 (80p) and did some wine tasting; Reisling, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Nior- so very yummy! Think I may have to do a
degree in wine (which you can do in NZ) and open up my own Vineyard, although I think I would just drink all the profits!!! We then carry on heading round to a town called Nelson and stayed there for a night, the next day we get up early and head to the Nelson Lakes National Park (NZ is basically entirely made up of national parks, mountain ranges, lakes etc, they're never ending!!!!!! So this is the lake which is on the front of our Kiwi Experience brochure, of 3 boys jumping into it backwards from a jetty, so we all come up with the bright spark idea to reenact the picture which is just so wholly stupid because that water was so FRICKING FREEZING!!! It was so cold you couldn't breath or actually move to swim out of the bloody thing!!!! But did one of my many hangovers some good so was not all bad!!! Then spend a night at a very small township called Westport; townships in NZ aren't always that appealing; they're kind of a bit soulless-not very interesting to look at, just grid of very similar looking streets, ghost towns really; the south island is the
Poo Pub!
Pupil, Paris Hilton, Parrot and Paleontologist!size of Britain but with 1 million people so it really is very sparsely populated.
The next day we travel down the West coast of NZ and stop off to look at some very interesting rock formations called The Pancake Rocks, where we also got to see some seals and some interesting hot springs; hiring a campervan and travelling NZ in it would be awesome, everywhere you stop there are just so many beautiful sights to see you could spend years here seeing everything!!! That night we stay at the Poo Pub in the middle of no where (don’t ask me why its called the Poo Pub, I have really no idea its not made of of sh1t or anything like that!!!!!!!) The Poo Pub is basically an excuse to get the whole bus in fancy dress and very very drunk. Les is the landlord of the Poo Pub and he's about 135 years of age; an absolute legend. Our theme was anything beginning with P, so we race to the nearby town of Greymouth, all 50 of us descending on the local Salvation Army second hand shop- the poor lady didn’t know what had hit her!!! So I
settle on Paris Hilton as my character (with little handbag size toy dog and everything!) and Hannah as a pupil (naughty school girl!) We have a great big feast prepared by Len and JB, our bus driver and then we just get very pissed whilst listening to songs on the juke box, lots of relationships get formed (although not for anyone our age as the average age of the Kiwi passenger is about 12!!!) And we all end up very stupidly taking a swim in a very cold lake at 3am!!!!!!!
So the next day a very sorry looking, disheveled 50 passengers get up at 8am and head to Franz Josef, a glacier in the middle of a rainforest (only in New Zealand!) where we check into a nice hostel called the rainforest retreat, go in the hot spa for an hour, eat bangers and mash and have a very early night to recover from the night before!!! Frans Josef is a very small, very nice resort geared up for all the tourists wanting to visit the Franz Josef Glacier; but unfortunately with it being in the middle of a rainforest the weather was horrific, very rainy and foggy
so we couldn't appreciate any of the beautiful scenery!!! We cant really complain though because the weather up until then has been so impeccable, bright blue skies, cold but not a drop of rain in sight. The Franz Josef 8 hour Glacier Hike is the number 1 activity for Kiwi Experience, everyone does it so we thought we would put our name down, I mean how hard can it be!? It was cancelled on Friday due to poor weather conditions, but we managed to re-schedule it for Saturday. OH HOW LUCKY WE WERE......... We had to be at the glacier centre for 7am where you get kitted out with a coat, very attractive waterproof trousers, socks, even more attractive boots, hats and gloves and crampons (spikes to attach to your shoes- that should have been the first warning signal I should have picked up on!!) We are then herded into an old truck (I think was once a school bus from China) and driven 10 minutes to the carpark at the foot of the glacier. It is only then you get you get a feel for the sheer size of this glacier; its fricking huge!!!!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Glacier it takes us an
hour walk through a river and a rainforest to get even to the foot of this thing! We then have to climb some near vertical ice steps onto the first ledge, and then it is a non stop hike for 6 hours (apart from 20 mins lunch break) up this bloody never ending ice mass! Pretty dangerous too walking over ice crevasses, very narrow ledges, going through ice tunnels (not ok with claustrophobic Rebekah!!!) it was HARDCORE. If I'd known how hard core it would be I dont think I would have paid the $145 (£60) for such torture! Although I am glad we did it, some of the blue ice was just so beautiful, but given the choice I wouldn't do it again!!! So we leave the glacier at 3pm and head to Wanaka, which we get to at 9pm and leave at 8am the next day so I really can't comment on the place!
We then set off to my favourite place in NZ- Queentown. On our way there we stop off at Kawarau Bridge, to watch people doing bungy- about 10 people off our bus and also 2 Swedish boys Anders and Joakim we met in
Magnetic Island in Oz did the bungy just as we got there! If you are into your extreme sports, NZ is the place to be. Everyday you get offered about 5 activities to do, whether its bungy (originated in NZ by AJ Hackett), white water rafting, horse riding, sky diving, jet boating, canyon swings, cave diving, everything you can think of you can do it here; you can end up spending a bloody fortune!!!! Bungy doesn't appeal to me but everyone we've spoken to who has done a sky dive has absolutely loved it; so if I can magic some cash from somewhere watch this space!!!! Queenstown is the Mecca for all things extreme, and it really is the most beautiful town. Has an alps feel about it and is the first place on my trip in 3 1/2 months that I can really see myself living in. It has some beautiful mountains named 'The Remarkables' as the backdrop and the most stunning lake.......... you have to see this place to believe it. We arrange to meet Karla and Joby who are a couple that used to live in Newark and moved out to nearby Queenstown 3 years ago, and
they are just having the time of their lives, they absolutely love it and never miss home or England, they have a 2 year old daughter, Ava and they say bringing her up here is just perfect; they’re going to teach her to ski next year! The more travelling I do the more I feel that I don’t want to live in the UK, well not for a very long time anyway; I miss family and friends so much but I haven’t been homesick once, it just doesn't appeal to me- not when there's a whole world out there!!!
So we go out partying in Queenstown which is a lot of fun- and very expensive! We go to the well renowned 'The World Club' which is a backpackers heaven where they serve cocktails in teapots-very dangerous; 3 people from our bus got kicked out for being so smashed; see these young 'uns just cant handle their drinks!!! Hannah had to walk 2 of them back to the hostel separately and get them to bed!!! The next day we meet up with Anders and Joakim and Sophi (a girl we met from West Bridgeford!) go on the Gondola up a
nearby mountain http://www.skyline.co.nz/ which was again just breath-taking; we then 'Luge' it down the hill which is basically a very simplistic Go Kart which was so much fun! We then go and eat a Ferg Burger which is a famous burger bar in Queenstown, this place is permanently pack out- especially at 4am and serves by far the nicest burgers I have ever eaten in my life!!!!!
So we reluctantly say good bye to Queenstown after 3 fantastic days and head back up the east coast to Christchurch; a mammoth journey- the biggest stretch on our pass. On our way to C'Church we stop off at Mount Cook which is the highest mountain in NZ, and one Sir Edmund Hillary practiced on before becoming the first man to conquer Everest; Lake Tekapo is at the foot of Mount Cook and it just has the most vivid aquamarine water, so stunning. We get to c'church about 6ish and go out with the group one final time as a lot of the group flies out of C'church, and Han and I continue up to the north island; pretty sad really we had virtually the same Kiwi Experience group for most of
the South Island and got pretty close so always sad to say good bye.......... Next day we head up to Kaikoura again to do our swimming with the Dolphins eventually; but guess what!!???? No fricking Dolphins to be seen!!!!!! So we settle on doing a whale watch instead........ we learn quite a lot about the history of the marine life around Kaikoura and its pretty sad listening really; the first European hunters really did decimate a lot of the whale, seal etc population and almost drove them to extinction......anyway after 40 mins we find a giant 17ft Sperm Whale, but unfortunately we couldn’t get very close and my zoom on my camera is rubbish, so we only really saw a bit of a hump back, some blow holes and a tale gliding into the water at the end; pretty impressive but not worth $126 (£50) But Kaikoura is lovely, probably my 2nd favourite place in NZ after Queenstown. So we leave Kaikoura and head to Picton again where we catch the 3 hour ferry to the north island and the capital of NZ, Wellington (although only the 3rd largest city after Auckland and C'church- and the most southern capital city
in the world). The north island is smaller than the south island but has 2.5 million people more, this is mainly due to the warmer climate. The weather really is atrocious and I'm afraid to say the 4 days spent there we only saw inside a bar, 3 restaurants and a museum where we saw a colossal squid. Nice! So no actual pictures of the capital city!
So we continue from Wellington to Taupo, only stayed there a night weather again was atrocious so not much to tell of there! The next day we continued north to Rotorua, the Maori capital of NZ. Rotorua is a very small city consisting of about 60,000 residents; 30% of them being of Maori descent- did you know there were no longer any full blooded Maoris? The last lady of 86 died a couple of years ago apparently..... Maori people originate from Polynesia and came to NZ about 1000 years ago. The English must have been pretty desperate to conquer NZ as coming across these Maoris’ so many years ago doing their Hakka must have been pretty scary! Abel Tasman, a Dutch man tried to claim NZ 100 years before the English, but
Maoris’ ate 5 of his men (in Murder's Bay on the South Island). He described NZ as being full of giant cannibals and not to go there!!! So as we’re in NZ for only 2 more days we decided we had to explore more of this Maori culture; so we went to a Maori night in a nearby Maori village called Tamaki, on arrival the Tamaki tribe did the Hakka, and it was so scary!!! You were told not to laugh as this is offensive, but I didn’t know where to look! Eyeballs bulging, sticking tongues out, weird animal guttural noises, I’ve seen it on the TV when the All Blacks are playing rugby, but its very different in the flesh! So we walk round this authentic Maori village, learn about their way of life and culture, and then they put on a show for us where they sing and dance and it was so much fun! Then we have this huge feast of traditional Maori food, cooked underground for 4 hours, divine! And all for $85 (32 pounds!) Mum; you would have loved it. The morning we left Rotorua we went to the hot springs and they’re just madness!
There are loads of these pools of bubbling water coming up from the volcanic ground below; and they stink!! All the Sulphur makes them smell of rotten eggs; you can dip your feet in them but you cannot submerge you whole body as this can cause Meningitis!? WTF!?
So I am now writing you this blog from Auckland; home to 1.4 million Kiwi’s; the largest city in NZ. There are more Samoans here than in Samoa!! The European settlers enlisted the help of the Samoans to build NZ’s infrastructure, and they’ve stuck around! A lot of Auckland is based around water as well; with 1 in 4 Aucklanders owning some kind of boat. Auckland is built on 30 volcanoes and Wellington is built on reclaimed land from an earthquake……. Kiwi’s aren’t the brightest sparks sometimes! Auckland’s nice; lots of people say not to spend a lot of time here but when I’ve seen of it go far its pretty nice and quite up market. I’m off to meet a friend who lives in Auckland who Han and I met in Bangkok 3.5 months ago! Weird how things work out……. So we fly to Fiji tomorrow; it really is a
hard life! Very looking forward to getting some sun again; the tans have completely faded now! Although we could spend more time in NZ, I would have like to have gone more north to The Bay of Islands as the beaches up there are supposed to be amazing, with great weather too but we’re just so short for time! It sounds weird, but I couldn’t be further from home but soil is still soil, the air is still the same……. There is concrete, dodgy carpets….. what I’m trying to explain is that it doesn’t feel that different; I mean I wasn’t expecting it to resemble the environment of Venus or anything stupid but you cant get much further from home and it all kind of feels very familiar………
OK so as per usual these are the 10 things I have learnt about New Zealand:
1. It is beautiful- everyone before they die has to visit here, you’d be stupid not to.
2. Kiwis are more sophisticated then Aussies, I think that’s because it was founded by settlers as opposed to criminals!
3. As with Oz too, the great thing about these countries are if you cant afford it
don’t buy it. You very very rarely see nice expensive cars here like you do the UK, and that’s because there isn’t so much this HP culture here, which can only be a good thing. No ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ here!
4. I’ve looked everywhere for a hobbit and they don’t seem to exist. Maybe they’re just very shy.
5. They celebrate their Maori culture and heritage. What do us Brits have? Hardly any of us know the National Anthem fully; we have no traditional dance other then stupid Morris Men, we don’t even recognize St Georges day………… pretty sad as I think you’ll agree. Maybe due to ridiculous political correctness we are afraid of celebrating our Englishness as people may confuse our patriotism as racism or something ridiculous. Oz and NZ have a great ethos for freedom of speech and passion for who they are as a nation, something I definitely think we should take heed of.
6. There are a whole lot of sheep.
7. The South Island is the size of the UK with a 60th of the population!
8. They sell alcohol in supermarkets!
9. It is the adventure capital of the world- what NZ
does have its not worth doing!
10. It’s a 3 hour flight to Fiji. Did I mention I was going to Fiji tomorrow for a week? Nothing but sunbathing? All inclusive holiday? This backpacking malarkey is just such hard work!
So signing off now; enjoy your British Spring, from the sounds of it, it’s a good one! It’s so weird here being in Autumn, everything getting colder; it’s all the wrong way round!!!
As always much love, miss you all- will be home in 6 weeks!!
B and H xxxxx
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Michelle
non-member comment
Love it!
That's all i have to say!!