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Published: December 24th 2006
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Waterfall
Henley finally saved an image from his big camera as a JPEG so we can actually publish it, he says he will publish a full set of photos when he gets back. The colour of the water is pure vibrant blue as it's run off water from the glaciers. Pretty amazing. Greetings from the South Island!
Shortly after writing the last entry, we rang the Ferry that travels between the North and South islands to book our slot for 21st December. I think everyone in New Zealand is planning Christmas in the South as the only slot available was the following day at 8am, or 27th December. We booked the 8am slot on the 19th, and then raced from Waitomo all the way down to Wellington. That's a distance of 300 miles and 7 hours over the terrain straight after already driving all day. This sadly meant that we would have to miss out on the wine tour in Hastings, and do hot air ballooning in the South Island instead of over the vineyards in the north as planned. :-(
We arrived at Wellington fairly late, headed straight for the campsite and straight to bed. Getting up early the next day to jump on the ferry, Henley was still knackered from all the driving the previous day and fell asleep in the Ferry cafe. As we approached Picton the South Islands scenery was already revealing itself, with huge imposing mountainous islands. We arrived and began to head straight out of
Laura Skydives!
Laura jumping from the plane! Her face says it all, haha! Picton but only moments later we were quickly diverted by a big sign saying Skydiving!
The skydiving place looked old and consisted of a single hut - very dodgy but then skydiving is never going to be totally safe is it? The place was closed so we rang them and found they were opening later but they would come early for us to jump. We were both fairly nervous but after the skyjump in Auckland nothing could be that bad.. We met the guys, all radical dudes - one even talked and looked exactly like Steve-o from Jackass. This was enough to convince us that throwing ourselves out of a perfectly good plane strapped to a completely mentalist stranger from 12,000 feet would be a great idea so off we went. Laura went first (only fair as Henley was first off the sky tower) and was followed not far behind by Henley. The plane was basically a single engine plane they had decided to strip out and allow a 21 year old to fly, he seemed more nervous than us at times - nice chap though. Steve-o was the radical camera guy with the video recording and still camera
Henley Skydives!
Henley jumping from the plane! Laura forced Henley to put this pic up as it makes her laugh. :/ strapped to his head. Then there was the guy we were strapped too, sat between his legs all the way up to to the top. Henley thought he could feel the guys buckle in his back, at least he hopes it was a buckle but the guy did say how much he
loves to sky dive...
At 12,000 feet they opened the plane door, the 21 year old throttled the plane back and then we had to shuffle to the door, look out with our feet on a step and Steve-o hanging on to the wing filming. Then buckle man pushed forward throwing us out the plane with Steve-o right next to us. The freefall was pretty amazing, doesn't feel like falling at all - Steve-o actually bumped in to Henley at one point (can be seen in the film - yes, we have films!) When the parachute finally opened around 5000 ft the descent was nice although the guy (buckle man) got his kicks from pirouetting 900 degrees with us strapped to the front, which made Henley feel pretty ill. Laura however felt absolutely fine apparently..
Skydiving is awesome and highly recommended should you ever get the
Queen Charlottes Sounds
Typical view whilst driving along the Queen Charlottes Drive. opportunity!
We continued down South, taking the scenic windy roads around the queen Charlottes sounds all the way towards Nelson where we congratulated ourselves on still being alive by having a nice meal on the sea front in a nice posh resturant.
The next day we embarked on a guided wine tour around the Nelson region to make up for not doing it in the North. We visited 6 vineyards and tried about 40 different wines. Henley didn't drink much being that he was driving later on but Laura was straight in there, downing everything that was put in front of her. At the fifth vineyard she discovered a Feijoa chutney (kind of like an advacado but is only grown in New Zealand and Peru) which she "really loved" only to find out after buying an expensive pot of the stuff she didn't actually, it was just the drink talking. :/
After the wine tour, we drove to the Abel Tasman National Park and stayed over night, the next day we embarked on a kayaking trip, paddling up to a colony of seals and seeing them right up close. They didn't seem too bothered with us being
Okky the Kayaking dude!
Okky was our totally primo dude who showed us around Abel Tasman in the Kayaks. there and our guide (a most totally radical dude, "SWEET AS BRO! THIS IS TOTALLY PRIMO!!" being his most common saying) talked us through how Abel Tasman and his crew first met the natives. All very historic and interesting to everyone except for Laura who just constantly moaned about hurting her fingers on the paddle and feeling sea sick. Henley was sympathetic by rocking the boat (literally) and making sick noises. :P
We continued South West, racing to get to the Pancake rocks for some photography time as the conditions and lighting were perfect for some great shots. Henley raced all the way there, just missing the sunset by a matter of minutes. By the time he had set up all the gear the sun had gone. 😞 Still we saw the pancake rocks so no need to spend time there the next day as previously planned. We returned to Westport to camp up for the night and the next day we had a leisurely drive down along the West coast and saw some amazing beaches which were completely out of this world, there were these gorgeous tropical beaches with signs urging drivers to 'watch out for penguins'. The
Lake Rotoiti
Our rockin van and lake Rotoiti. roads are very windy and are perfect for moutainside drifting (this could explain why every third car in New Zealand seems to be either a Nissan 200sx or Skyline - Henley driving a campervan was not his ideal scenario). We drove all the way to Franz Josef ready for our 'Helihike' up the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers which we did this morning.
A helihike is basically where we get into a helicopter and Henley grins insanely while we fly around the mountains and Glaciers and then a 10 minute snow landing at the top to walk about on the glacier. Much to Henley's delight, after landing and then taking off again from the glacier, a batch of clouds flowed up the glacier valley where we should have been going down. The pilot had to do some evasive flying to keep clear of the approaching clouds and get us all back down to safety. This ended up with us getting an extra 20 minutes of flight time and the theme tune to Airwolf getting stuck in Henleys head. The views from the helicopter were fantastic, and really put into perspective how huge the glaciers and mountains are.
We
A seal!
A wonky picture by Laura of a seal, arf arf. Nice but they stink. are now currently in a beautiful lakeside town called Wanaka, just outside Queenstown hailed as 'the adventure capital of New Zealand' due to the amount of crazy extreme sports available there, which I think Henley is already starting to worry about.... Especially
this Tomorrow being Christmas Day, we are celebrating in true form by going to
Stuart Landsboroughs Puzzling World which should be fun!
Anyway, we have written enough and need to go eat! (Congratulations if you got this far by the way)
Just remember we are eleven hours ahead of the UK so whatever day it is there, it's our dirty used castoff.
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Seany
non-member comment
Arrrggh!!
Struggling to... find words... to describe.... how envious I am!!! ..may.. just.. pop! Arggh!!!!..