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Hi all!
Just a wee update to let you know that we're OK and still having a great time in NZ.
We left the glaciers last week and drove further south to Wanaka, a lovely holiday town on the shores of Lake Wanaka (of course!) and surrounded by snow-capped hills. Wanaka was by far the coldest place we've been by far, which wasn't helped by the lack of central heating in our otherwise great backpackers. They did have spare blankets I'm happy to say! We spent most of our time in Wanaka chilling out (in both senses of the word!), except for spending one morning at the fantastic Puzzling World, a one man creation of weird illusions and the most fantastic maze. We spent a happy hour trying to complete the maze, which meant finding the way to the four corners, then back to the exit. We had a competition - I thought I had beaten Graeme till I looked up from my moment of glory in the blue corner, only to see him smugly standing in the opposite corner with the camera ready to take a photo of my defeat!! Oh well!
After Wanaka we tried to
drive to Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook (NZ's highest mountain) but were defeated by the weather and NZ's primitive road-maintenace. About 30k out of Wanaka we passed a road sign that said 'Lindis Pass - snow and ice, only accessible to vehicles with snow chains'. They don't seem to plough or grit their roads here, they have the police sitting at the side of the road checking for snow chains and turning you back if you don't have them... We didn't have any, so found ourselves back in Wanaka an hour after we left it. We had a coffee (of course!) and had a look at the road atlas, and decided to head for Queenstown instead.
Queenstown is the world capital of mad, crazy adrenaline activities, which means that they're way more expensive here than elsewhere in NZ. Given that between us we've done bungy jumping, zorbing, canyoning, white water rafting and sledging while we've been in NZ, we haven't felt compelled to do any more here. Until that is, we went up the gondola yesterday (just to look at the view) and discovered a company which takes people para-gliding off the top of the mountain. It took a
bit of persuasion, but eventually I was talked into giving it a go - and how glad I was!! It spent a short 15 minutes flying - from the top of the mountain, out over the lake, then back into town for a gentle landing on a football field. It was very gentle, like parachuting but without having to jump out of a plane! It was brilliant!
Back down on earth, we spent the evening in the pub watching the first Lions game, and have spent today nursing sore heads and visiting an historic gold-mining town called Arrowtown, where unbelievably Graeme found another source of irn bru. We're heading off tomorrow, but we may be back in Queenstown next week when the first of the ski areas opens. Watch this space!
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