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Published: November 8th 2006
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I'm so excited, I've been swimming with seals!!! on the way to christchurch we stopped of in a little village called Kaikura. There were 3 activities we could do and I wanted to do all of them! one was whale watching, one swimming with dolphins (which was dead expensive, but those who did it said it was amazing as the dolphins were wild!) and swimming with seals. It's an adolescent seal area, which means they're not aggressive and on heat, so it's safer to swim with them. There was only two of us doing it, so we had the whole area to ourselves. We got kitted up in the delightful wetsuits, get fitted for flippers and face masks and headed out in the jeep to the colony. There was a bit of a walk over to the sea as the tide was out, and once we were at the waters edge our instructor put our flippers on. Then I dipped my foot in the sea... IT WAS FREEZING!!!!! I thought 'how am I going to get in this?! I'm never going to keep warm!!' but luckily the wetsuit did it's job and the only part of me that was cold was
Hiking up Fox
Check out the sexy shoes and trousers tucked into socks combo! my nose. (it's taking quite a battering, first sunburn then the freezing sea! I look like rudolph!) We swam out to colony and they were so close! Janine and I bought a waterproof camera between us, and when we get to christchurch hupefully we'll get it develped. I took some cool pictures of fish and the sea floor, but when the seal came over I was in too much awe to get a photo! Oh well, I think maybe I got one, it was quite murky with plankton and seaweed so I dont know how it'll come out! It was awesometo see them up so close, I peeked over a rock and saw them all playing in a little pool too! The highlight was definately getting back to a long hot shower at the base though!
We rolled into Christchurch with enough time to dump our stuff before we shot out for dinner at a little restaurant aroung the street. The, due to the fact I wanted to get up at 4.30am to watch the England vs All Blacks rugby, I had a bath and turned in early. After all it was a sunday night and I need my
beauty sleep! The rugby, I'm sorry to say, was a disappointment! Although in a way I'm a little pleased we lost, otherwise Cam and Fleur (the tour guides) would have been in foul moods all day!! As it was there was only a little bit of taking the mick! The newbies, all 14 of them, joined us in christchurch, (including a korean couple on their honeymoon!) and we headed off for a very long day in the coach to get over to Franz Jospeh. This is the region in the Southern Alps where all the Glaciers are and I was about to walk on one!!! It was a very long day, spent mostly with Cam rubbishing the music on my iPod (it's been one of the official music players of the tour - they have an adapter in the coach) and always stopping the bus just as we'd started to doze off, resulting in no-one getting any sleep! But eventually we reached the Glacial region, at about 5pm. Cam took us to the base of the Franz Joseph glacier in preperation for the glacier treks next day. It just made me more excited! That night Fleur took us in little
groups to see a little glow worm field. There was thousnads of them! and did you know that it's thier poo that makes them glow?! comments on that please, Fleur wasn't exactly sure why it happened!
The next day we got up at the crack of dawn to go for our Glacier walk on Fox's Glacier. We were meant to be going helihiking, which is where they drop you on the top of the glacier and you hike roung for a couple of hours. Unfortunately the weather wasn't so good, too cloudy for the helicopter to go up, so we couldn't do that, but we were able to hike up the mountain covered in rainforest for an hour to the top of the bottom of the glacier. (if that makes any sense!) We then hiked around on the ice for an hour or so. As you can see from my pictures it was an awesome sight. Absolutlely amazing. Well worth the pain in getting up there! We had cool little crampons that we had to attach to the bottom of out boots and a spiked stick for support. Off the track that the guides had carved out fot us,
it was really slippery and there were little rivers flowing through the glacier. Plus it meant we were starving when we got back to the bottom!
Then off in the coach again to Queenstown, adventure capital of the world! I'm not sorry to say, however, that I have no intention of EVER bungy jumping!!! We got in at about 6pm, and after a little stress with the rooms (the hotel we were meant to be staying in is being refurbished) we hit the town!! The night life here is amazing (I'm writing this from an internet cafe in the centre) and we had an awesome time last night. Mets loads of backpackers from everywhere, had a boogie and generally drank too much! (sorry mummy!) Also convinced Cam of the benifits of man bags after I was too lazy to carry my bag, bus driver and pack horse - sweet as! Although I swear it's the altitude that gave me a headache this morning! However, got up early to go horse riding with Claire (different one, a Malteser!) in Lord-of-the-rings-ville, near a place called Glenorchy. It was beautiful and my horse was so sweet! He was called Harry, and was
What a view!
I did actually take this photo! WOW! more interested in ambling along eating the grass than keeping up with the others! I got the hang of the steering and after I'd settled into the rhythm I loved it!! next thing on my list of things to do is have horse riding lessons. Got up a bit of a trot, but the canter was a bit scary for me, was convinced I was going to fall off. The only downside was at the halfway point it started to hail and my tousers were soaked through. It;s so cold here today that my trousers felt like ice. Inface it's snowing as I write this! I'm going to go so I can play in it! plus I think thtats way too much for you to all read!!
Love to all, Sxx
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