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Whoa....
Trying to stay upright for a pic.....After 2 1/2 months in Oz we were both happy and ready to move on..time for a change. As pro-freebie finders we spotted some free internet yay!! And did some facebook whore-ing. Whilst reading his emails Greg looked over his shoulder to see a small pack of Indian children staring and reading the emails too..Grrreat. Nevermind only 2 hours left in Oz we could deal with it..
As always Greg likes to be centre of attention at airports especially at security. So while Katy breezed through she realised Greg had been held up. First off losing his spork set -even his spoon, although not sure what damage that could do.. Second time round after assuring them there was nothing else in there it appeared Katys pocket knife (a gift from my best mate) had been 'hiding' at the bottom. So this got confiscated aswell, enter a petrified Greg having to tell Katy!
Flight to Christchurch was pretty chill, Katy kinda coming to terms with flying and sleeping, whilst Greg kinda almost cried at Bucket List (film) v.sad. Whilst Sleeping Beauty was sleeping Greg brought some 'im-very-sorry Elizabeth Arden stuff' how very nice.
Trying three bank cards, finally managed
Steaming.....
Thermal pools overlooking lake Tekapo..... to get some money out, as we came over with no NZ dollars. Strolled out carefree and hopped onto a bus that we assumed was going to Christchurch central. Rocked up at the very helpful info site and proceded to get overwhelmed by the info...
After picking up the biggest van yet later named Polly (hence the title) we headed to the nearest supermarket (Paknsave) to stock up on goodies. As some of you from home may know going to the supermarket is one of our favourite past times, we were soon cruising up and down every aisle with the hugest trolly ever, amazed at how cheap everything was.
Next stop was the camp site which was awesome and it had a pool.. unfortunately the heating in the pool was not working however that did not stop us, and we hurridly did our 20 laps and then rushed to the showers and our long johns.
Polly is well worth a mention at this point, coming with an electric clip on desk lamp, a fan heater and a bed that Greg can actually fit in. All this and two double duvets and shes covered in Clint Eastwood..
Ol Polly.....
Our no power stop.......... Once again making the use of free Sunday parking we headed to Christchurch which is actually very pretty. Katy in desperate need of haircut, hopped into get one while Greg caught up with current affairs...finding out how to make his teeth whiter. Katy stepped out with straight shiny hair and a massive smile. As the night before was pretty chilly Greg wanted to get a new Jumper.........10 mins later a wollen navy job was purchased amid loads of giggles.
After a quick drive to Akaroa which was a pretty French looking place, we soon found ourselves at Lake Tekapo which was very very blue. Woke up that morning freezing our arses off surrounded by ducks. We thought we would warm up by visiting the thermal pools. Noticing the olympic sized empty ice rink we couldn't resist and soon we were whizzing around the rink... Greg with flaying arms.. Hahahahaha. As Katy had never been in a sauna we decided to cross it off the list. What can we say the pools were very warm and it was lovely with the mountains around us, overlooking the lake...
On the road again, we ended up at Mount Cook. It is
Wibble wobble.....
Very rocky bridge strange milky water! true what they say about NZ there are sheep everywhere, aswell as loads of cows. Trying to keep our costs down we stopped at a cheap camping ground that had little more than a toilet and no power! So we truly froze our arses off even with our long johns, although it was very pretty being surrounded by snow capped mountains. To again warm ourselves up (a long running theme) we set off on a three hour walk, ending up by a massive lake with icebergs floating in it! The river we were walking next to was milky white.... we did not know what was going on.
Next stop was Lake Wanaka, proper misogg weather, soon cheered ourselves up hitting the brown paper bag section of the supermarket. Greg with a cheese scone and cinnamon doughnut and Katy with the most chocolately muffin ever and sushi. It was Great! Seeing as the weather was so crappy we headed of to a place where we spent half the day shooting shot guns, rifles, archery and hitting a huge amount of golf balls well worth the 30 quid. On the recommedation of the Lonely Planet we went to Puzzle world the
Taliban......
Katy all wrapped up...... main attraction of which was a giant maze. Part way in we were getting worried and feeling very retarded as it was only supposed to take an hour and a half and we had been in for ages! Thankfully we got out....
Wanting to get on with our adrenaline type stuff we headed for Queenstown via Twizel which sells the best chips ever!
Anywho....got a camping site just outside of town, had a real wood fire and a friendly cat Popstar, who loved us. Soon handed over a few dollars and we had Bunjy (well Greg), Sky dive and water rafting booked. The rafting got cancelled cos of too much snow but we werent overly bothered.
Gregs Bunjy was pretty funny, him trying to jump and eventually falling amid laughter from everyone standing on the platform. Sure you have all seen it if not check out YouTube. Just click th link or type it in....
Having survived that, the next day saw us all set for the Skydive. Spent 45 mins being driven to the sight by what turned out to be a Londoner who sounded very much like a Kiwi a very stoned one at that.
Who even had trouble telling us his name.....!!!?!? We were both pretty chill even after seeing the teeniest plane ever - it had a propeller god damn it! Opting for the cheapest 9,000ft jump, donning our fetching flight suits we started climbing and climbing and climbing, turns out the pilot wasn't paying much attention, always handy, and we soon found ourselves at 12,000ft seconds later, Katy being the first one to go we were soon tumbling towards the earth at 200kmh, 8,000ft and 45 seconds later the parachute jerked us upwards, greg loving it and Katy worrying what parachute had just been deployed.
Back in Queenstown, as it was a Sunday/cold/been away awhile, we treated ourselves to a suberb lamb roast.
Next we headed to another Lake called TeAnau plan was to go to Milford Sound the next day as there was masses of fog everywhere. Luckily half way there it started to clear up, turned out to be a picturesque drive minus all the buses.
Arriving in Milford we thought there would be a small town or something, but there was nothing! We walked down to the Harbour and there was still nothing. Unless you wanted to pay
Robin hood.....
Minus the green tights..... to go on a boat that looked more like a Ferry. That said we took some snaps and headed back to camp, where we had another lamb dinner, this time making it ourselves at 25p a chop it was awesome!
Seeing as there was nothing of interest between us and the west coast we headed off on an all day drive roughly 7 hours, getting into Franz Joseph around 5pm, but not before almost running out of petrol! Camp site owner was funny - if not a little rascist specifically towards Koreans........
Set off to see the Glaciers, decided against the tour, both of us had a "is that it" moment, but dont take our word for it apparently inside and at the top its quite spectacular. Deciding on another walk while we were in the area, Katy half dropped, half threw the camera on the floor, Greg picked it up to find it not working and it was Katys turn to look petrified. Luckily it turned out alright.
Hanmer Springs was our next stop where we met another friendly site cat. We went to the thermal spa, where there was a huge range of pools temps
strong......
i can hold up a house............. from 35 degrees to 41. There were also sulphur pools which absolutly stank but were kinda chill if you didnt breathe.
AS we hadnt seen too much wildlife we decided to go whale watching in Kaikoura. Managed to get on an earlier boat for nice calm seas, we saw Sperm Whales, Hump Backs and loads of dolphins. It was an awesome afternoon out. Unfortunately it didnt photo too well and they all look like little logs...
Bringing our time in South Island to a close we stayed at Picton which is the ferry town. Greg deciding to join Katy on her detox but obviously jinxing it as the oven stopped working so we had to go out and buy chips...but hey its still veg right??
Sitting watching a film an exceptionally rude lady stumbled in and demanded to watch a rugby game, we kindly told her to do one until the film was finished.
While we were waiting for the ferry to the North Island, Greg was confused about the departure times, so rang them up only to find he'd managed to book North to South Ferry instead of South to North.... Doughnut.
South was awesome lets
Toasty.....
Chilling with our real fire............ hope the North is as good!!!!!!!
Peace Love and not working... hahahaha. xxx
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Out of all the pics, the roast lamb looks lush!! I'm most envious of the whale/dolphin watching though, I'm so going to do that too! x