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Published: January 6th 2009
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Me on Franz Josef Glacier
This is where I nearly fell in with the pick axe. Look how clear the water is! In September 2007 my family and I went campervaning (
not my preferred mode of travel and accommodation with four people crammed in) along the western coast of New Zealand for two weeks. I was excited because I'd heard so much about the stunning landscape (I mean, who [i[hasn't seen 'Lord of the Rings'?). It was fascinating to see how similar and yet still different Australia is from it's most immediate neighbor. Not to mention I had some fabulous opportunities to play with my new Canon 400D SLR camera! *dances* (You can see in the attached photo's how awesome a toy that one is!).
Where to start...
Arrival We arrived in
Wellington after a very squishy Air New Zealand flight. I couldn't believe that Wellington was the capital of NZ. It reminded me of
Ballarat in Victoria but with a few more skyscrapers. It was surprisingly quiet too. Sadly, we didn't get much chance to explore the city itself.
First Stop - Te Papa The Museum of Te Papa was the first place we visited. It was fascinating. I loved the traditional Maori houses (not sure what they're called). We went on a one hour tour (with our sexy guide Phillip 😉) and
Te Papa
This was one of the Maori huts inside the Te Papa museum. then explored exhibits about earthquakes, immigration, art, silver, the treaty and a fun kids mystery poison 'whodunit' thing. There was even a simulator which told the story of how the earth and sky gods were forced to stop hugging so light could envelop the earth. I wish I'd had more time to explore!
Next we had a go on
The Wellington Cable Car which was a shorter trip than I expected but had quite a beautiful view at the top. The next day we caught a ferry across to the South Island.
Jade Country A couple of days later we were in
Hokitika otherwise known as
Jade Country. It's a town where Jade is mined and carved. I fell in love with many of the sculptures but they were worth hundreds of dollars (and alas I am not quite rich yet). I quite liked some black jade too, but it was Aussie! Hehe. This is a great town if you like shopping. Heaps of shops with crafts and gifts (mostly made of jade of course).
While there we found
Eco World where I got to see some live
kiwi's for the first time! (The birds, not the people. :p) They were
Glacial Art
I loved the shapes of the ice. The background is black because of the mountain behind. gorgeous. They make a funny snuffling noise as they stick their long thin beaks in the ground and their fat little butts in the air while they search for bugs. I was very in love. 😊
Franz Josef Glacier The drive down to Franz Josef was stunning. Lots of snow capped mountains (not a sight I'd ever seen before in such quantities). We stayed at a fabulous place called
Rainforest Retreat where they have cabins as well as campervan spaces. They cut
around the rainforest rather than flattening it. Very pretty.
There are a few different
hikes you can do on the Franz Josef Glacier. My Dad and brother went for the half day hike up to the face of the glacier. Mum and I knew we didn't have the stamina, so we went further up the glacier on a Heli Hike. It was one of the most glorious, magical and memorable things I have ever done. It's a completely different world up there (and I actually got
hot). The helicopter flight was a stunning way of seeing just how huge the glacier is. Then we spent two hours hiking through narrow crevasses and slithering through holes etc. It's
Reflections
Breathtaking. kind of hard to walk in those weird spiked crimpons. Nerve wracking at first. And I nearly fell into the ice lake when I jumped onto a piece of glacier in the middle, while holding a pick axe, which off balanced me! Fortunately, I had an equally heavy backpack on and was able to counter the weight or that would have been a very chilly trip back!
Tip: If you want to see the really clean blue glacial ice and it's beautiful shapes etc. then the Heli Hike or an all day hike is what you want. The boys on their half day hike didn't get to see any of that stuff, they just went up to the base of the glacier. Wanaka The next day we headed to
Wanaka. There's a fabulous restaurant there called The Trout by the lake. Great atmosphere and
really nice sizzlers. I also had mulled wine which was new for me. Yum!
Lake Wanaka itself is simply stunning (as you can see from my photo's) and well worth a visit. (It's fun to feed the ducks too).
Queenstown Ah
Queenstown. Truly a place for extreme tourism. Every second shop offered an
Queenstown
This was the view from the top of the Skyline Gondola. extreme sports service. So, of course who am I to resist the pull of such adventure? I'd always wanted to go
sky diving, and doing it in NZ seemed even better! My brother and I did a 12,000 foot tandem drop. 😊 The view on the way up in the plane was breathtaking. I was the first out of the plane and was amazed that I was only excited and not nervous at all! I need to do it again because I spent the whole free fall more focused on keeping my head up for my camera guy rather than paying attention to the experience. Alas the free fall was only 60 seconds. One of my friends said she couldn't breathe when she did it. I had no trouble at all but my ears did hurt from the pressure.
Tip: I suggest wearing jeans if you do this. I was wearing normal soft fabric pants and I spent most of the gentle float down trying not to focus on the pain of the harness cutting into my thighs. Despite the uncomfortable harness, the float down was amazing. It was hard to believe those tiny trees and cars etc. were real.
Queenstown By Night
I love this shot. There was a perfect little bay. I didn't actually feel like I was moving through the air at all. My guy Marcus made us do a few spins which was cool, but I made him stop because I felt a little ill.
Tip: Check your cheek for drool after the free fall. How embarrassment. 😊 Later that day we went on
The Skyline Gondola from which we had a stunning view of most of Queenstown. We also saw a 20 minute
Haka show at the top, which was fabulous! Mum even got called up and taught how to use poi.
Arrowtown Arrowtown is an old mining community. There are a number of historic houses (more like huts) which the Chinese built and lived in back when it was gold season. It was a fascinating place to visit but very sad to see how much the Chinese were discriminated against back then. There were also a lot of nice shops with crafts and things.
Mount Cook We parked the campervan at
Mount Cook, which is the tallest mountain in NZ (about 12,000 feet). We saw sunrise over it's peaks. Beautiful.
The End And
that is where I stopped bothering to write my journal! We were
Lake Wanaka
A very photogenic lake. in NZ 3 more days, though most of that time was spent driving back to where we had to drop off the campervan. Sadly, because of my laziness in failing to write about those days, I can't remember them at all.
It must be said that New Zealand is amazingly open and full of the most stunning countryside I've ever seen. The Maori culture is also fascinating and their art is very beautiful. This might sound wrong since I'm Aussie, but I'm more interested in them than I am in the Aboriginal culture.
Recommendations Go there. Go there, go there, go there. And make sure you take plenty of memory for your camera.
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atmrtwbike
Stephen
Oh wow!
Oh wow! Thanks for posting this! I'm becoming even more excited about starting my RTW trip in NZ! I love how the photographs have turned out, as well! I, also, will go skydiving! Thanks for sharing!