3/4 October 2015

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Since creating my list of things to do in New Zealand I thought i'd start crossing off some of the local ones!



I started the weekend off with a drive to Cave Stream National Park. This is where you can go caving and emjoy the scenery of the Alps at the same time!

The drive here was stunning. Mountains everywhere you look, however the majority of the snow has now disappeared! After 1.5hr drive later I had finally arrived and I was the only one there!



On the way down I purchased a selfie stick as I left both of mine behind in the UK! Oopsie! Definitely the best buy here so far!

The route to the cave was pathed off so it was easily accessible (one side was anyway). I took a few snaps and selfies and tried to head to the other side. There was NO CHANCE I was going through that 600m cave on my larry! To dark, wet and small!

I eventually found the other entrance to the cave but couldn't see a way down, except for the one that said no entry past this point due to limestone errosion. However, I REALLY wanted to see the cave and the river (and there were two other people down there) so I presumed that they must have used this route too! I made my way down, it was quite slippery but thanks to my hiking boots, I made it up and down in one piece! The views at Cave Stream were just fantastic! Surrounded by the snow, alps and other random cliffs I just had to take some more photos!

Once at the top and heading back to the car park I realised that had I have walked a little further whilst being at the top, there was also a pathway down to the cave where I went beyond the "no entry" sign! Oh well, I am still alive!

When returning to Christchurch I stopped off at another place on my list, The Groynes. It was just a walk around a boating lake really, nothing too interesting, but I had a good few snaps from it!



The following day I decided to cross another two places off of my list. Halswell Quarry and Bottle Lake Reserve. Both were nothing too spectacular, however I am glad I visited them and I had a decent 2/3hr walk out of both of them! Exercise if meant to be good for you right!



I have now decided that once a month, I will go away for a night/2days and travel further parts of the South Island, this way I can see a lot more of the hidden and not so hidden parts of New Zealand!

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