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Published: January 8th 2007
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Balloons inflating
not much else happening here, move on. We are in Christchurch on the last day of our holiday, looking forward (well, Laura is anyway) to our 28 hours of flying back to London Heathrow as she loves plane food. We had a sad farewell this morning as we had to give back the van that had been our home for the past four weeks, will be weird not having to pack our bed up every morning back at home. :*(
In the last couple of days we have been up to quite a lot so thought we would send a final blog from NZ keeping you all updated.
The hot air ballooning over the Canterbury plains was fantastic, shame about the getting up at 4am part, but was most definitely worth it. It is a weird sensation being so high in the sky knowing there is just hot air and a danish pilot keeping you up there, and a wicker picnic basket keeping you from plummeting earthward but it really is a brilliant thing to do. We were in the sky for an hour, and then finished the flight off with a glass of champagne at 8.30am, hic.
From Christchurch we drove to Kaikoura to
Blowing up some balloons
Needs some serious hot air which is why Laura inflated all three single handedly. do some whale watching. We got there and found that all the boat tours were full so opted for (in our typical blase bond style) a flight to go see them, beating the boat n00bs. :P The flight was good, a 6 seater plane with a woman driver. We took a few wrong turns but got to see two whales, one which was asleep! Although you could tell they were massive, being in the air looking down meant it was difficult to see the real scale. We think the boat tour would have been a better option as you get closer and can probably appreciate the size of them a lot more. Still, we got to see some whales so another mission accomplished. 😊
We left Kaikoura to go to Hamner springs to use up our last day in the natural hot spas and having massages. First of all though, we needed to do a bungee!!
We found a place called thrill seekers canyon and went along to have a look, when we arrived we joined a lot of onlookers gawping at someone who was about to jump, the bridge was a lot higher than we both had
Up up and away!
Floating around. imagined but really, when you've jumped who cares how far you fall, right??
So anyway, after the guy had jumped and his girly screaming stopped reverberating around the canyon we walked up to the desk and put ourselves down for a tandem jump. This basically meant we got to hold on to each other for dear life and more importantly ensured each other wouldn't chicken out as when one goes the other has to follow!
We walked up to the bridge, met the bungee guy who used a single little harness around our ankles attached to the bungee cord which actually really did look like millions of little rubber bands all woven together. Standing at the edge of the bridge looking down in *another* image that will never leave us. The last thing we heard was '1...2...3...Bungee!' and both of us leant forward and just... fell... with Laura screaming F*C**NG HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!! we then bounced upwards again before plummeting again, this happened a few times before a jet boat came along and handed us a long pole to grab on to so they could fish us out of the air, very strange especially when it's all upside down!
Hanging around in a picnic basket
being a slave of the winds is concerning. After the bungee we went to book our massage, most of the massage places were booked but we found one leaflet with a dodgy picture on the front of one cat massaging another (Henley recognised the picture as being stolen off the internet..) We thought we would check it out and found the address was a dodgy mans house that had been converted with a front desk. Alarm bells rang when we saw a woman being "pampered" with a Boots foot spa next to a grotty fish tank and on an old brown computer chair. She didn't look too relaxed and the masseuse guy looked like a butcher so we made our excuses about something or other and drove off. Luckily we did come across a good massage place and booked appointments for later that afternoon.
After spending a few hours in the
hot springs whiling away the time with the outside temperature being so hot anyway we needed to get out, we stumbled across an inflatable theme park, complete with a 40ft inflatable titanic slide (only in NZ!). We paid up and ran like children to the top only to slide down and remove several layers of skin from
Whale watching
Whale watching from our plane, hard to get an idea how big the fella is. plastic friction burns! Still, we did it a few more times before we couldn't take the pain any longer and decided to play crazy golf instead, Henley won (and Laura even cheated) hah.
After all this excitement we went to get our massages. Laura felt she first needed to explain to the masseuse how she had several 'friction burns' to her body after seeing her worried expression at seeing the lacerations to her elbows, thigh and ankles, she is sure that the lady thought the old '40ft titanic slide' story was an excuse though. Laura got a relaxing full body massage complete with flute music and aromatherapy. Henley meanwhile wanted to get his shoulder, wrist and back looked at so opted for the therapeutic massage which didn't involve aromatherapy or nice plinky plonky music but did involve a lot of pain. He was pummeled by an over enthusiastic Kiwi girl who laughed at all his jokes (amazing!) thumbs were driven in to his muscles, some he didn't even know he had. He aches today and has internal bruising but says it was good. hah! Laura is feeling very refreshed and relaxed. After the massages we drove from Hamner Springs
40ft Titanic
See, it really does exist. back down to Christchurch, ready for the van handover, and the flight back to blighty.
Whilst wandering around Christchurch (which was the settlement town for early english settlers so is designed based on Oxford and Cambridge complete with the 'River Avon' running through the centre) we opted for a punt down the river Avon which was very relaxing. It is bizarre to be in a place more English than England itself, they even have a small clock tower in the centre of the city that is based on Big Ben. We also discovered a small craft market which also had a few street entertainers trying to make a few dollars. One we watched for a while was 'Polly' who was a little dog that had been made to wear a blouse and perform tricks for her one armed, spookily like Albert Steptoe, owner. This was fun to watch (the highlight being when she rides her little dogggy scooter and beeps the horn) but the poor dog was also made to do other tricks like pretend she had been shot by a clown gun, and balance a doggy treat on her nose until she was allowed to eat it which
Punting down the Avon
Slowly drifting along the Avon river in Christchurch, very English! seemed a bit cruel.
We are now off to have our final meal in New Zealand and hopefully get a bit too drunk so we will be refused entry to the plane and can stay on in NZ! :-P
See you all soon!
Love,
Hen and Loz
PS. We have uploaded our skydiving DVDs to YouTube so you can relive the full thing from taking off in the plane right through to seeing us land after the jump.
Lauras is:
Lauras Skydive vid Henleys is:
Henleys Skydive vid
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Aww shame to see it come to an end
It was like a really good (and gripping) soap... I really enjoyed reading it and looking at the photos too. Great stuff, I felt a little bit like I had a mini holiday too - fair play for getting so much shit done! I'm very jealous! Hopefully see you soon guys, but maybe leave you for a while to get over the monstrous jet lag your in for (Henley that is, I'm sure Laura will sleep while you chat up an old codger for his war stories)