Advertisement
Published: January 27th 2008
hello all! after writing a big long blog last night, i hit publish and the computer crashed and my blog was lost...so here goes again, and hopefully this one will work...we've had a busy couple of weeks since i last wrote. we spent 10 days on the south island, visiting some great places. first up was christchurch, which reminded me a bit of england. it was pretty but not spectacular like i had been expecting. we didn't have much time there, so just walked around the city a bit and got a feel for the place.
from there we drove up to akaroa, a french town on the west coast, which is set on top of an old volcano. the drive up was a nightmare, bad weather coupled with winding roads with a sheer drop off the side didn't make for a relaxing trip. but, we arrived alive and it was totally worth it for the views from our hostel, and the accommodation itself which was great. we stayed in a converted farmhouse, in a loft. the best bit about the hostel was the gourmet dinner they cooked for us all each night. tell you what, after eating packet pasta for 2 weeks, real food is amazingly good! they went all out, we even had crayfish one night!! we also went on a tour in the hostel owner's boat, and saw seals and heaps of pygmy dolphins which swam alongside us! it was really great, except the sea was pretty rough and bron was feeling seasick the entire time. we decided to go swimming after that, but did not realise how cold the sea is here even in the middle of summer. my legs were bright red from the cold after about 10 mins, so that was the end of our swim.
after akaroa we drove down to queenstown, which was absolutely stunning and what i had expected christchurch to look like. it is a town set on a blue lake, surrounded by mountains, and has such a relaxed feel to it (probably cos 99% of ppl there are tourists!). we spent 3 days there, the highlights of which were finding delicious fudge, doing a horse trail, and ellen and i paragliding from the top of a mountain above the city! i decided to try paragliding as a buildup to skydiving, which i'm doing when i get home (argh!!), but it was more just fun than scary. the views over queenstown were stunning and it was about the closest thing i reckon you can feel to flying 😊 horseriding was also pretty good, except for barely being able to walk afterwards and the pain that ensued for the next few days!
from queenstown we drove to fox glacier, where we did a walk up to the edge of the glacier. it was huge and quite impressive, though i would have loved to have had another day where we could have taken a guided walk onto the ice, because you couldn't really grasp its enormity from the ground. from fox, we continued up the west coast to punakiki, a place we chose for its hostel set in the rainforest. it was beautiful! we had to walk 5 mins through the rainforest to reach our house, and were surrounded by the sounds of birds chirping, waves crashing from the beach not far away, and the windchimes tinkling. aah, bliss! the only downside was we arrived to discover the nearest supermarket was 40 mins back on the road we'd come on, so had to turn around and go all the way back! we stocked up on books and spent a relaxing day reading and walking through the rainforest.
after that, we headed up to picton where the ferry goes back to the north island. we rushed our trip up to hamilton (a day and a half's driving) so i could make it to parachute, which is a christian music festival held once a year. i went there on australia day and was pleased to see a few aussies around the place wrapped in flags 😊 i cheered patriotically every time australia was mentioned but was thoroughly outnumbered by kiwis! i saw some new zealand bands, as well as leigh nash (lead singer of sixpence none the richer), jonezetta, and switchfoot, where i was in the front row, yeah!! they played an awesome set as usual, and i was really excited when they played 'only hope' as part of their encore. i've been hoping to hear that song live for years so it was great!! i was so glad i got to make it to the festival, definitely a highlight of the trip so far.
at the moment we are in raglan, a pretty little surfing town about an hour from hamilton. we are setting off today for the bay of islands where we'll spend our last week before coming home. hope you are all doing well and i'd love to hear from you! 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0711s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
ahadaway632
non-member comment
Bliss, indeed
That sounds like the most amazing trip! Where you were swimming, were there sharks if there were seals and dolphins??? Yikes.....scarey!