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Two weeks ago we begun our trip around New Zealand's South Island with the Kiwi Experience; leaving Christchurch behind after a great experience watching the All Blacks beat (well, thrash) England.
Things didn't start well, as we were soon greated by our driver for the first section of the trip-Ginny. Ginny was a lovely girl, who decided to welcome us all on to the 'fuck truck' , telling us that we didn't entertain HER enough, and also that one of the accomodation options-'The Lazy Shag' in Kaikoura, that we could possibly get one ourselves! How lovely.
Kaikoura was the first stop on the bus, a small town of about 7,000 people, north of Christchurch. The name Kaikoura literally means 'to eat Crayfish' in Maori, and is a peninsular surrounded by the snow capped Kaikoura mountains and seal colonies. Apart from a lovely walk we went on, there isn't too much to do here, but it was nice to spend the night any how.
Next up was on to Nelson, at the top of the South Island, just about on the West Coast. Earlier that day we had got rid of Ginny when she took the people going to
Wellington on to the ferry, we were lucky enough to get a guy called Coru, who was actually really cool. He settled our fears about the Kiwi bus...we had even been contemplating getting a camper van for quite a while, even though we had already paid for the Kiwi bus and couldn't get a refund.
We stayed in Nelson for two nights, in a quiet YHA with pretty good facilities, we also only paid for a 3 bed dorm but didnt get anyone else in our room for both nights so we were quids in for privacy. Nelson is quite a big town by New Zealand standards, I think its the 3rd biggest place in the South Island after Christchurch and Dunedin. Here we went on a nice walk to the 'Centre of New Zealand' which had really good views over Nelson and the Abel Tasman National Park.
Next we were on to Westport...on a much better bus with a good bunch of people, our driver was Guido Papadopoulos-a Kiwi (no, really) or GP for short. He was really cool, and we had him the rest of the time, we still have him now so thats all good. Nothing
really to say about Westport so it was on to Lake Mahinapua to stay in the 'legendary' Poo Pub owned by the oldest landlord in New Zealand called Les. He takes no crap, but cooks an amazing Steak dinner with venison stew and all the trimmings for just $10...all good.
That night a Kiwi Experience tradition is the 'Poo Party' where everyone dresses up as something...our theme was the letter 'P' so we came in Pyjamas...after we bought our stuff we realised there were so many better things we could have come as but never mind! We got through 5 jugs of Speights-the local ale-which was really nice.
Its worth saying that all the way down the West Coast there is some amazing scenery and actually on the first day we stopped at an amazing lake with stunning views, and we stopped at quite a lot of them on the way for some amazing picture moments, which are on this blog. Also, for the weather fans out there, Its cold, really cold. Its close to freezing a lot of the time and it snowed quite a bit.
From the 'Poo Pub' we went on to Franz Josef...the home
of one of the most famous glaciers in the world. For some reason I seemed to have found it a good idea to get ill on the first night, and the next day we went off for our Full Day Glacier Hike and I was not in a good way! The hike itself though was amazing, we learnt a lot about the way the glaciers formed and climed through some amazing cravases (thats really probably not spelt like that), and also climbed through a lot of the 'blue ice' which is especially amazing visually and for photos, its blue because of an optical illusion caused by the sun. Look at the photos--it was awesome!
Nethertheless I just got worse on the flu front...we went on to Wanaka where I had to go almost straight to bed following a viewing of Billy Elliot--in Wanaka we were staying in a twin room for dorm room prices, which is good cos I really didnt have a good night! I was up ill all night, and in the morning Claire tried to ask the receptionist if we could stay another night so I could stay in bed and recover but it wasn't to
Me at the Glacier!
I was very ill at this point! Putting on a bit of a brave face be, she was very rude to Claire and made her very teary and angry, so I had to rush myself out of bed to catch our bus, and we were on to Queenstown and I felt awful!!
We got to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand, the Party capital of New Zealand...but we paid the extra money and stayed in a twin room with ensuite in case of any other mishaps, and went to bed to try and sleep off whatever I had.
Mostly, it worked. The next day we had our first day's skiing at Coronet Peak and I felt much better. Which is good cos' I've never skied before and I was about to have my first lesson. The package we were on was really good and quite affordable, and included all equipment and clothing hire and unlimited lift passes and lessons. We had three really good days or skiing, I even moved up from the baby slopes to a proper beginner one and I think I almost mastered it!
Almost forgot to tell you about FERGBURGER!!! Fergburger is pretty famous, with huge fillings and properly made gourmet burgers, I had one with so
much stuff in, was amazing!
We were due to leave Queenstown on the Saturday, but we woke up to snow. Lots and lots of snow. Our bus was due to leave at 8am but GP came over and told us the roads were closed around the whole Otago region and so the bus would have to leave the next day instead. Now bear in mind that the Winter Festival was on-a very popular event in Queenstown where people come from all over the world-and the 50 people who didnt have anywhere to stay, and there was a rush on. Base where we were staying had 6 beds left, which were snapped up straight away, and the two YHA's had nothing. We went straight to the Tourist Information office who phoned around ALL of the hostels....nothing but over-priced twin rooms at about $150. Turned out that Novotel Hotel had a offer on to celebrate its birthday of releasing hundreds of rooms for $100 so we snapped one of those up straight away. However, it was a lot more money than we were used to spending and hit us hard!
Finally we left on the Sunday, thoguh GP was never
sure that we were ever going to get to Christchurch (our pass means we have to do Christchurch and Kaikoura again to get up to the North Island) as the roads were all closed and we had to go a ridiculously long way round, getting into Christchurch about 6pm. Having left at 8am we were all very tired, not to mention our driver.
Now we're in Kaikoura and tomorrow we finally get to the North Island. We have to get the ferry over to Wellington tomorrow afternoon and then we're staying there for 2 nights before going up to Taupo, Rotorua and finally Auckland before we fly out to Fiji.
Other news- I've managed to get through all seven Harry Potter books...after being quite a cynic about them I loved reading them in the end...if people haven't read them and are as cynical as I was, get into them, cos they're amazzziiing!!!
Thats about all for now I think, apart from that we were told we have Ginny as our driver again tomorrow when we get to Wellington, but we don't have her for the rest of the way up cos we are staying an extra night
in the capital--THANK GOD!!
Will update you all again very soon...at the end of our trip in the North Island before we go off to Fiji.
Hope you're all well...
Rich and Claire xxx
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