my kiwi experience

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Today is the last day of my 15 day contiki tour which covered both the north and the south islands of this stunning country. I've been so busy having fun that I haven't written in this online journal since oz which feels like forever ago. Nz has been unreal, have met so many great ppl and have had the best time on this tour led by ali our tour mgr and danny the bus driver. I am absolutely exhausted - this tour has been go go go with super early mornings and late nite partying each night, but hey that's contiki for you. Ali did say right off the bat that we will all need a holiday after our contiki trip as contikis aren't relaxing vacations, they're an experience.

The tour started in christchurch which is a nice city often referred to as the garden city due to the extensive botanical gardens and the avon river which flows all around the city. We spent the 1st nite of our tour at lake ohau where we stayed a beautiful quaint lodge. the views of the alps here were spectacular! Then it was onto the famous milford sound where we did an overnite boat cruise, it was fantastic and had a real magestic feel to it with all the little waterfalls streaming down the sides of the cliffs. There were also plenty of big waterfalls with rainbows to boot. We saw the fiorland pengins that afternoon, unique birds and heaps of dolphins and a few fur seals in the am. I went kayaking off the boat, man was the water freezing! Seeing mitre peak and milford sound was an experience to treasure.

From there it was off to queenstown, aka the adventure adrenaline capital of the world! We stayed 3 nites at a lodge overlooking the beautiful lake wakatipu. On route to queenstown we stopped at the k-bridge bungy where I crazily did my 1st ever bungy junp - I was terrified lol. I'm glad I did it but I'm in no rush to ever do another one. I did a cool activity called mad dog river boarding one day which entailed going down a river in a wetsuit on a boogie board, it was good fun but the water was bloody freezing. A memorable experience is definitly the gondola ride up to the top of a mountain to the skyline yummy resto for a nice dinner w. The group. The views of the city at nite were amazing. Let's not forget crazy partying in queenstown, 1 nite I was up past 6am. On my last nite in queenstown, something unexpected happened - I met up w. Beccy, my english pal from oz east coast and ryan and tony from home... Sooooo great to see them all!!! Coincidentally the boys were rooming in the same hostel as beccy in the next room believe it or not. We all went for a big bbq with the boys friends then out to the bars, obviously. It was so wicked to see everyone again and so unexpectedly... Fab finish to my time in queenstown.

Our next destination was franz joseph glacier where we stayed 1 nite. I did something real cool here - I went on a helicopter up fox glacier then we got our and hiked around the chilly glacier for a couple hrs. It was a pricy activity but hey when else will I get the opportunity to play on a glacier?!? The electric blue hue throughout the glacier was stunning. We got to go through a couple ice caves, was good fun!

We spent a nite in christchurch then headed to the north island across the sea on the ferry. We spent 2 nites in the capital cosmopolitian city - wellington. We drove past a fur seal colony today - it was sooooo cool!! The 1st nite was unreal as david beckham and the la gallaxy soccer team was in welly so we went to the game. Ali organized this for us which was fab. Seeing beckham in the flesh was interesting.. Esp. When he took his top off at the end hehe. Oh yah there was a naked lady streaker which was dodgy lol. Welly nitelife was pretty wild, good times!!

I'm actually using my buddy noah's blackberry at the month and we're on the final hour drive of the tour so I should get off this thing and socialize so will continue this entry later...

Home in 9 days, omg...

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Photos

steely blue colour of the water in the S. island
I find this shade of blue so stunninng... how I'd picture glacial water

Milford Sound
saw an endless amount of waterfalls and a few rainbows as well

just another ordinary day in the life of Kim
Bungy jumping off the K-bridge outside of Queenstown

partying in Queenstown
some of the gang!