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Published: March 31st 2008
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Hi everyone, we've made it to the South Island and were having a fantastic time so far. It really is so different from the North as it feels much more remote (only 30% of NZ's live here) and the landscape is much more how you imagine NZ to be with huge mountains etc.
Our first stop here was Nelson where we stayed over Easter which meant it was very quiet with everything closed but the Saturday market is definetly worth seeing. It has so much quality local produce, arts, crafts and everything you can think of really so we spent the whole morning wandering around in awe. There's also a Sunday flea market but without explanation it wasn't there, probably as it was Easter Sunday but sad all the same, we made up for it by treating oursleves to a real roast (first in months!) sitting in the sun, can't believe about SNOW in England!
After Nelson we drove west to Golden Bay which is stunning, so many empty beaches with crystal clear waters. We stayed a couple of nights in Takaka which is a sweet little hippyish town and was a great base. We spent a day kayaking
around Abel Tasman National Park which has the most amazing seals, we sat and watched for a ridiculous amount of time as they come right up to you and are simply fascinating. Also there we wen to Pupu springs which are apparently the clearest in the world and the only other water with such clarity is under the Antarctic ice shelf! And they did look pretty clear!
We left the lovely Golden Bay and headed south and were lucky enough to find an eco-retreat in the middle of nowhere which had been done so well. They had managed to make it sustainable yet comfortable and the owner had made a tiny track down to a river but made it feel like you were discovering this sublime spot for the first time. It was a great experience and we got the best nights sleep we'd had in a long time!
Our next stop, on the way to Hokitika, was Pancake Rocks where a patch of the coastline inexplicably looks like stacks of pancakes, no-one knows how the limestone came to be like this but it was pretty cool to look at. Not a great deal in Hokitika except for
a lovely hostel and a glow worm dell where after dark you can see millions of glow worms like little stars for free! The town is well known for being the place to buy jade but we didn't bother as we've heard some shops import it from Asia so we didn't want to risk it.
We then drove on to Franz Josef which feels just like a ski town in the alps or somewhere and we did a few walks around here including one up to the face of the glacier which the town is famous for. We also saw Fox Glacier and although everyone says you should do a hike on at least one of them we want to save money so we can come back and have a helicopter ride onto the ice and do a hike from there, there's so much we want to do one day when we have money!! It was such a beautiful area with incredible panoramic views with Mt. Cook and we just had to keep stopping when driving because it's just so breathtaking.
We're now in Wanaka which is a small town set on the beautiful lake with mountains behind
which looks fantastic when the sun's out (which is fairly rarely) but we've had a good time here, mainly because of the cinema. Paradiso cinema is the best cinema in the world. FACT. It's really small with sofas instead of seats with an interval (where can you find those in England??) where you can buy ginormous cookies, homemade ice cream and enjoy a glass of wine. One of our top evenings so far and we got see Atonement, still fantastic even though we'd already seen it. Another highlight of Wanaka is Puzzling World which has a horribly difficult maze on two levels, I don't know why we out ourselves through it again as we had been to the equally fiendish one in Rotorua. The illusion rooms there are also ace as one room is set on a tilt which really messes with your head.
Today we're setting off for Queenstown, the adrenalin capital but we'll tell you now we are definetly not going to be doing any bungy/sky diving things- mazes and the cinema are more our style! All in all, the South island has been so great so far, we've done quite a few walks, nothing like the
5 day tramps everyone seems to love but we're still enjoying ourselves!
We hope you're all well and happy April fools day! Lots and lots of love Cordy and Issie X
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