New Zealand...South Island....

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We arrived in the south island around half 9 in the evening so we quickly found a campsite in Picton to crash at, the obvious choice again is the Kiwi sites as they are always cheaper and always a good standard.

We had a rough outline of our plan for the south island and with only 14 days in which to do it we are had pushed to get everything in. The first stop was to be at Lake Tekapo, now everyone that has picked up a NZ guidebook will have seen a picture with a guy standing at the end of a wooden dock facing out over a lake with mountains behind it, well this is that lake. So we cruised down there, was only about 2hrs from Picton and well worth the journey. We stayed for an hr or so and if you stand on the dock and look down you will see tonnes of eels comming out from under a concrete slab, aparently they are in excess of 90yrs old! so apart from the poxy sandflies bitting you there isnt much more to tell............oh apart from when we went to leave the town i stopped for fuel but the stupid old guy at the pump took so bloody long that i decided to risk it.........a move i turned out to regret as ten mins down the line i realised we wouldnt make it and had to turn around and go back, goddam him! After the lake we headed for Kaikora which was about a 3hr drive from the lake, when we were almost there we spotted this huge seal colony on the beach, we pulled over and went for a look. Me being me decided to climb down and get up close and personal.......NOT a good idea they did not like me being down there lol So when we picked a campsite and there was a hostel next door and after a bit of persuassion they agreed to letting us use their internet at 5 am!

We woke at 4:30 dazed and confused but knowing we had to get up, crawled out of bed threy some clothes on and snuck into the hostel next door. We had made an arrangement with our good friends Gary and Sam to speak to them on Skype at this time as it was their wedding day and they had bought a laptop to the wedding so we could hear all the speeches and get to say hello to them. After an hour and a half and almost contracting hypothermia we went back to bed for a few hrs. We headed into town to get the dreaded blog up to date the blog to which we had not contributed to for the whole of the north island.............4hrs later we emmerged 2 blogs completed and a little square eyed from the computer screens! We had a walk aroundand relaxed for the rest of the day making full use of the complimentary spas they had on site, and when your the only ones staying there it was even nicer to just chill in the spa with a beer ya babe and mountains in the background.

The next day we had to take Sheila.......OH GOD I NEVER EXPLAINED SHEILA!!! Ok so Sheila is the name of our campervan, Sheila's wheels and we are in Australsia etc. Anyway Sheila's auxillary battery had been playing up so we took her in the garage and the guys swapped it over and put a new one right in no worries mate! we headed on out of Kaikoura and cruised towards Hamner Springs which was to be our next destination, 2hrs or so later we arrived. The town is named after its award winning natural hot springs pool park, to which you can choose the temperature of your pool and relax.......altho..........they did have signs saying "beware of the honey bees" and anyone that knows me knows im not to keen on the old bees and wasps but we survived! The hot pools were a real chilled way to spend a few hours, all refreshed we headed to a capsite a top 10 site, booked in and after i had been told off for playing on the trampoline (showing off really) we went and played mini golf next door. Katie was a bit bitter because a kicked her b-hind last time so she was determined to give it a real go this time and she almost had me she finished only 2 shots off me! anyway after some internet and Katie beating me at foosball (yes i truly suck at this) we hit the hay.

Today we only had a stopover night to get through so we decided to make Greymouth that stopover. Now Greymouth doesnt have the best name to start with and to be honest doesnt have a lot to offer but was ok for a stopover, we had a beer in the local on the quay and took a wander through town before we decided to move out of town to south beach and stay there the night. After some lunch we were relaxing in the sun in our camp chairs when we make the aquaintance of a one Mr John Andrews, who to say the least can talk a lot. John was a really nice old boy had a story for everything, he had travelled 48 countries been there and seen that but was nice with it, anyway after 2hrs of chatting we went for a walk down the beach and had dinner. We had agreed to meet john for a drink later so we headed over there for a couple of beers and a lot more talking.......from him! lol

After Greymouth we stopped at Franz Joseph in order to do one of the glacier hikes, something we had both been looking forward to for a while. We found a campsite and had a wander into town and after some initial research it became aparant that only one company are allowed to opperate on the glaciers so you cannot shop around for cheaper deals, you can however for the helicopter trips. So we booked up for the half day treck the next day leaving at half 8 in the morning cost us about $97 each i think. So we had a whole afternoon to kill and no money to do it, plus the town is dead as everyone only uses it for one reason. So after some cards, well lots of cards and deciding to hit the beer and vodka in the campervan we had one very drunk Katie that just couldnt beat me at cards but refused to quit until she did so, however the end of her vodka bottle soon stopped that! what we do when we are bored hey!

So the next morning we cruised down to the centre and got geared up, they give you woolen socks hiking boots, rain jacket, over trousers, gloves and hat the lot, you are all piled into a bus and they drive you up to the glacier. The guides are really good and they tell you anything you want to know about it, they show you where it was at different stages of its like and over 30years it has shrunk 2.8kms, and it takes roughly 70-80 years for the ice to reach the bottom from the top. They also explain why they have a glacier in the middle of a rain forrest, its to do with the roaring 40's winds that come up the alpine crest go cold and dump snow up the top however this particular point can recieve up to 80 mentres of snow a year! So we were taken up to the face of the glacier strapped on our crampons and started climbing, we went in the 1st group obviously because we are EXTREME! you climb through crevises up steps uner archways its a really good day out. Once we were finished we jusped straight in the camper and made it as far as Hasst before we gave up and camped for the night.

We made it to Wanaka the next day around 11am, we decided to stop at puzzle World, which is basically an attraction as it says, they have a huge maze that you have to complete in a certain order the average time is 1-1/12 hrs we did it in 35 mins i know we are quality lol they have this room with thousands of faces in that when you walk around it looks like the faces turn and follow you weird as! they also have a room that is tilted so you can do a micheal jackson lean in it. After all the puzzles we needed food so we hit up New World, made some lunch in the car park....yes we are tramps lol then went for a wander around town, this turned out to be a bad idea! as it is almost the end of the snow season out here all the end of season sales are on. As we are hitting canada for the snow season we ended up getting katie a pair of burton Lodi boots for about 80 pounds! and me a new pair of board pants for about 40 pounds sweet as bro! So after the shopping we went to the slope stores and did some research as to which mountain to go to the next day we were between cardrona and trebble cone. After talking to a few people we decided on cardrona.

So we arose proper early and was at the mountain for about half 8 its only a half hr drive from Wanaka, but 12ks are up an unsealed road right to the top of the mountain. We got all our hire gear and lift passes for $275 nice one bruvva! I gave katie some more lessons in her new boots lol She has started linking turns a lot better and looks a lot more confident however her bum can only take so many falls so she called it a day around 2pm. I stayed up there till half 3 on the terrain park hitting rails and kickers, then decided to give 1 of the 3 half pipes a go........NOT EASY! There is also an olympic sized 22 foot half pipe that we watched these pros going up and down they are amazing! We left the mountain about half 3 and headed for queenstown which took us about 40 mins to reach, we had to get katie some shoes, as she needed lace up shoes in which to do the bungy the next day, but after that we crashed for the night, knackered from snowboarding.

The Bungy was booked for half 9 so we were up early well katie hadnt slept for the last 2 nights out of fear for this day lol we got down to the centre and booked in. The bus picked us up and drove us out to the site which is about 40 mins away all the time you are stewing yourself over in the bus. When you finally get there and see it, it is just as scary as in the videos! but worse cos your there. They re-weigh you strap you up and then take you over in a little cable car to the "pod". The pod is a little box strung between canyon walls by some wires and stands 440 foot above the nevis river below. Now up until this point i hadnt been fazed at all but getting out there and looking through the glass floor i really started to feel it. I went second and when i stood at the edge of the platform i almost thought i wasnt going to be able to do it. but i executed a great dive and survived to tell the tale. Katie had been feeling it for days before and when we got to the pod she was really strung out, watching her being strapped to the bungy i really thought she wouldnt do it, but she got to the edge almost taking the guys arm off, and jumped..............well i call it a jump it was a fall stroke jump strok bomb! lol which i laughed hilariously at! So all limbs still in place we retruned to queenstown to purchase our souverniers and post everything home, from oz and nz we havnt made it to the post office yet but i reckon its a good 5- 7 kilos worth!

Anyway only a week left in NZ so we will have another instalment by then.

Ta Ta for now!

Scott & katie

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