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Published: August 12th 2010
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Well our last weekend in Oz was full on rock and roll, we bought some thermals, did the laundry, charged the electricals, and packed up the apartment. We arrived in the land of the long white cloud on Sunday morning. Upon landing, I thought Christchurch looked the spit of Glasgow, plus it was grey, windy with horizontal rain so that also added to the effect. We hired a car at the airport, I'm the designated driver for the trip thanks to a certain someone's license being expired! It was the first time I've driven an automatic and we were off to a good start when I kept on trying to change gear and slamming on the break and coming to an emergency stop instead.
We didn't bother giving Christchurch a chance seeing as our time in New Zealand is limited and there seemed to be better things to do than hitting another city. So while Janet and Mustafa are sunning themselves in Lake Garda, freezing Lake Tekapo was our first stop on the south island. Most of the backpackers, well most places in general don't seem to have central heating here - a mix of power prices being horrendous
and the kiwi's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the plunging thermometer. Feeling chilly? What's the matter with you? It was around minus 6 degrees at night, so we piled on a million blankets with hot water bottles after the timed heaters knocked off. Our hostel had a big fire in the common room, but heat the bedrooms, are you mad?
We can't really complain about the weather though, once outside rainy Christchurch and into the mountains it has been bright, sunny and crisp and the lake was a gorgeous turquoise colour. At Lake Tekapo we climbed Mount John through knee high snow to see the space observatory at the top - the one thing I wanted to do most in New Zealand was go to this site at night on a star gazing tour but we were told it had been cancelled due to the road being solid ice, bah!!
BUT, our luck was in, they gave us a call to say it was back on - all the lovely scientists had been out digging the snow and the road was clear-ish. So, they picked us up in a van and back up the mountain we went,
the latter half of the journey had to be done in complete darkness as the telescopes can register any light like headlights or a camera flash as a new star! It was too icy for the van to make it all the way to the top so we had to walk the rest of the way guided by a couple of guys with a green laser pen. There were 3 telescopes set up outside and an enormous telescope inside a dome. The milky way was clear to see and through the telescopes the highlight had to be Saturn - I didn't expect to be able to see the rings, it was perfect. After looking at a bright blur in the night sky with the naked eye then through the telescope you realise the bright blur is actually a cluster of hundreds of stars all several thousand light years away! So for example the stars we were looking at that were 500,000 light years away, we were actually seeing them as they looked 500,000 years ago. We would have to come back in 500,000 years time to see them as we were looking at them now. Bonkers!
They had
a photographer there to help anyone with SLR's with astrophotography. There had to be a long exposure time of up to 10 minutes so he had a rather fancy tripod that rotates to follow the motion of the stars as the earth turns. On the bus back I was talking to a danish guy who had gone swimming in the lake earlier in the day then went for a cold shower thinking it was hot, must have frozen his brain.
The next day we drove to the highest mountain Mount Cook, went for a walk, or tramp as they would call it to Mueller glacier then drove to Wanaka to go skiing the next day at Treble Cone. The drive to Wanaka was stunning, through valleys, mountains and lakes. Wanaka itself was packed, everyone was there to ski or snowboard, we couldnt get a room anywhere and ended up in a dorm with loads of board duuuudes with their stinking socks and wet gear all over the place. The drive up to Treble Cone felt potentially life threatening - we laughed in the face of the other folk getting the shuttle bus up from the bottom and hit
Stars
The four brightest stars towards the bottom are southern cross, pointing directly to the south pole the dirt track with our snow chains in the boot winding up the mountains with a sheer drop a few feet away! At each turn I had reduced to 1mph with a quivery hand! After skiing we picked up a hitchhiker on the way back down who scoffed at our fear and my wimpy granny driving, obviously he probably does that kind of stuff every day.
Thats all for now, we are currently in Queenstown on a race to fit in as much as possible into our last 4 days on the south island. I'm sitting in the common room of the hostel and its full of idiots so I need to leave before I murder someone. I'll write again soon and happy birthday to Harris who turned 1 last month, Auntie Hannah will be home soon!
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Lisa
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NZ!!
Guys the pictures are amazing - sounds like your having fun! Have a blast in Queenstown. Miss you! x