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Published: June 30th 2007
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Hey again everyone, hope evrythings good back home!
From Sydney, we flew into Christchurch, which is on the east coast of the South Island, just over halfway up. We found a hostel pretty easily, and went for a wander about. Sadly, there was very little to see. In the end, and bearing in mind that it was a Friday night, we got bored of the empty streets and Pubs, and decided to go to the cinema. It was that quiet! Saw Ocean's 13, incidently, which is pretty good.
Tried to book a bus down to Queenstown that night, for the following morning, but were told that the roads were closed due to snow and ice. This seemed like a bit of a disaster, since we had exausted Christchurch's possibilities, but when we asked the next morning, they said the roads were clear again, so off we set. We should have proboably known it was going to go wrong when the driver said 'we'll just see how far we can get - think of it as a roadtrip'.
Was fine for a while, until we hit the mountians, where we discovered that the snowchains for the bus were
Jumpstarting the bus on the way to Queenstown
Forgot to mention it in the text - the battery was also knackered throughout the whole trip. too small for the tires - some gentle adjustment was made using a screwdriver and a hammer, and they eventually fit. Not that they did much good - the bus was still skidding all over the place, and when darkness fell we had to sit about for a while in the hope that a gritter would come back. Amazingly it did, and we followed it down the the bottom of the hill, where we stayed overnight in a tiny place called Ramfurly.
Stayed in a pub, with the most hilarious staff - the woman on the bar was the meanest, least helpful woman I have ever met. She was so rude to everyone that in the end we couldn't help laughing. She made Ro eat her chicken nugets outside in the snow and wind, because she got them 'to go' to save a dollar. Anyway, got to know everyone on the bus, and when we eventually made it to Queenstown the next day, we all met up and went out together.
Queenstown is a really nice place, set by a big lake, and with mountains all around. After talking about snowboarding with people for more or less the
Me and Ro post Skydive
You can't see my legs shaking... whole bus journey, I was desperate to get out and do some, so we looked into that, and also decided to do a skydive.
The skydive was amazing - we did the middle one, which meant jumping from 12000 feet, giving us 45 seconds of free fall, which didn't seems anywhere enough, but it was great. You sort of backflip out of the plane, so you can see it falling away from you, and then you face downwards for a bit, do a few spins, then the instructor strapped to you pulls the parachute, and you drift down to earth. It was odd actually, because I wasn't at all nervous - I did give the bungie jumps a miss though, cos they scare the hell out of me.
Anyway, the following day we went snowboarding, to a resort called Correnet Peaks. Tiny little resort, with only three lifts, but it was good to get back into it. There wasn't a huge amount of snow, and certainly no back country stuff, but there was a small snowpark and a few runs to get down. Ro had some ski lessons when she was there too, because she's only done a
On the way back down to Earth
OK, so it isn't me or Ro, but you don't know that... weeks skiiing before, so she had fun doing that.
Oh, I did manage to snap the binding on the board, as well as give it some massive gouges on the base - don't think it had ever been ridden before either, it was brand new. Ah well, they didn't moan too much when I returned it...
The following day, we made the trip to Milford Sound, a big fyord (?) where we took a two hour boat trip to look at some of the amazing scenery. Whilst we were there, we saw a load of dolphins splashing about in the water and some of them were racing the boat and generally messing around. Was a nice suprise, because no-one had mentioned the fact that we might see them there.
That was about it for the activities in Queenstown - we eventually left the town because we couldn't find anywhere to sleep - all the hostels are booked up for the 'Winter Snow Festival', which is a annual event involving lots of live bands and drinking, as well as some snowbard and ski rail and big air contests. Sadly we missed most of it.
Headed off to
Ro on a Ski Slope
See that snow on her? Thats cos she just slid on her arse all the way down a run, whilst I carried her skis. Some bloke at the bottom asked her: "Erm, did you meant to do that?". Ha! a place called Wanaka after that, a tiny town about 2 hours north of Queenstown. We were going to do some more snow-related activities there, but the weather was due to be really bad, so we left after a day, and got a bus to a place called Franz Josef, on the west coast.
Franz Josef is famous for having a glacier, which you can get guided walks and climbs on, as well as having loads of hiking trails scattered about. Ro and I opted to do some ice climbing here. Had a great day - involved hiking for about 2 hours up the glacier (which was as you would imagine a glacier to be - massive block of ice and snow 12km long), followed by the donning of crash helmet, crampons and ice-picks, and climbing up near vertical slopes of ice. Reminded us a lot of the rock climbing we did in Thailand, but was much easier, as you don't have to find natural handholds , you just hammer your feet and axes in, and pull yourself up.
We have also done a load of walking round the area - we got up early to do an
Milford Sound
It was cold on the boat, by the way. Did I mention that its more than a bit chilly in New Zealand? 8 hour trail this morning, only to find that there had been a massive rock clide during the night, and that it had taken the path with it - and the forest round here is fairly impenetrable, as it's a rain forest. So, we had to turn back, but have done a load of smaller walks, so all is well.
Tomorrow, we are heading up to a place called Kiakora (or thats how its pronounced anyway), to maybe swim with dolphins; go on a whale watching boat; and to meet up with one of Ro's friends. Speaking of which, I bumped into someone else I was at uni with at the hostel last night - very strange.
Anyway, back in two weeks. Hope everyone is OK, and looking forward to seeing you all soon.
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