Advertisement
Published: August 17th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Hello!! Sorry there hasn't been a blog for a while but trying to find an internet connection in New Zealand is easier said than done!
So we arrived in Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand...nice little city but far quieter than Australia...the accents in New Zealand take a few days to get used to... they tend to exaggerate their words, so there has been a lot of confusion along our way!
The flight from Oz only took 2.5hours so easy done. stayed over night just outside of Christchurch...which is funnily enough full of churches! and somehow found ourselves sitting in the far tamer red light district of the city!
We picked up our campervan the next day and settled in to our lovely small home on wheels for the next 3 weeks...our mate Ollie decided to keep us company which worked out really well...apart from the petrol being split 3 ways...we kept eachother warm on the cold nights as the double bed in the back was just big enough for 3!
So we set off on our grand adventure first stop...small french town of Akaroa. lovely little bay and fab view from our campsite....then the next
day we drove down the whole of the east coast to Dunedin...famous for its seals (apparently)...unfortunately the drive took longer than expected and we arrived in the dark. A few things are different here in NZ...there are far more sheep than people, if it doesn't rain once a week they think there is a draught, you can drive at night because there are no kangaroos to jump infront of the car!
The bouncers are really nice here aswell...massive Mauri men ask very nicely "hey mate would it be ok if i saw some ID?" ...a far cry from the English version "ID" lol.
Anyway the flooding on the way down to Dunedin was like nothing iv ever seen before..there were a few times we thought we would have to turn back cos it was too deep for our cute little van...but Steve (thats what we called him) did us proud..and of course Ant was showed some spectacular driving skills! A lot of the main roads were shutting as we were passing them and we think it might of been close to the view of the English counryside...however it was not such a disaster cos there are hardly any houses...anywhere...some
of the biggest country towns only have 10 houses!
So from Dunedin we drove all the way accross to the west coast to the very famous Milfors Sound National Park... where a lot of the Lord of the Rings was filmed! Ant was very excited to see where Gandolf rode his horse between the valleys... and we did an amazing ferry tour through the magnificent scenery and saw where the Elf land was filmed. The scenery at Milford and around the South Island is so hard to describe...and its so hard when the camers cannot do it justice. After Milford Sound we drove to Queenstown and we arrived just as the sun was setting over the fantastic lake...get the camera out again!
We ended up spending a whole week in the beautiful Queenstown... we loved the place staright away... apart from the skiing in August, countless adrenaline pumping activities and the backdrop of the huge snow dusted mountains....the waterfront looked like Bowness on Windermere...but without swans and the millions of tourists!
We did 3days of great skiing exploring the 2 ski resorts around Queenstown The Remarkables (which are remarkable) and Cornet Peak...however the skiing is better in
Europe the views are the most spectacular from the top! just like a Hollywood background it looked like it was painted on, including views of the town!
Another day in Queenstown Ant decided to jump of a gondala 134m above a valley floor with just a bit of rope attatched to his feet!..crazy boy! in fact i was more nervous for him then he was..especially when he was told to jump off the platform and not fall, incase the wind blew the other bungee ropes underneath.
After Queenstown we drove through the mountains to the West coast and to the tiny town Franz Josef... where we had a little night out in the 2 pubs with Ollie's family who were over here on a family holiday. We also did a fantastic, but wet day hike up and around the Glacier. we spent the whole day with ice clamp ons attatched to our boots walking on the ice...brilliant experience!
After Franz Josef we headed right up on the longest days driving up to the top tip on the South Island to Picton where we catch the fery over to Wellington.
So the two weeks went extremely fast...but we
were chuffed we managed to fit in so much, we loved New Zealand and would highly recommend the South Island especially...wish we had longer here...so the next day we caught the car ferry like the Dover to France ferry...and sadly said goodbye to the south island and excitedly said hello to the north!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.045s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0227s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Glenn B.
non-member comment
WOW!
Awsome views! Great pics! It must run in the genes. Not sure about you doing 3 in a bed though Emma! TaKe care, Lotsa love, Glenn xx