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Published: January 16th 2010
Waking up at Lake Tekapo I looked out of the window and was amazed to see that beneath all of yesterdays cloud, there was a brand new layer of snow on the top of the mountains! This may sound boring to all of you in England, but to me it was still exciting! Dave and I ventured out to walk into town, me wearing two jumpers, which I have not done since Chengdu, and visited the Church of the good Shepard and the local bakery. We then returned to Lakeside Backpackers and made use of the quiet time in the common room, planning the next stages of our trip, before the next bus load of Magic people arrived! (Magic is one of the hop-on hop-off buses that tour the island)
Next morning we left Lake Tekapo bright and early and headed onto Dunedin, the Edinburgh of the South Island. During the drive we stopped off at the Makouri boulders, which for some reason I thought were going to be much bigger in size than they actually are! Dave and I parked up and started the 10 minute walk across the beach to find them. Slowly as we started approaching I
mumbled to Dave “Oh, I thought they were a bit bigger!” as we saw these very circular but rather small boulders protruding out of the beach. Dave had just started saying how he was going to say how shit they were in his blog but as we got closer and started taking a few photos posing with them, we realised that even though they are quite small, they are still good fun!
Carrying on to Dunedin, we managed to find Manor House backpackers after a slight detour via Pak n Save, to stock up on more food supplies and settled into our lovely and spacious double room. It was so nice after so many dorms to be able to leave my stuff spread out everywhere and not have to worry about disturbing other people! Manor House was a great place to stay as the kitchen was well equipped and never too full and there was a large lounge with comfortable sofas and a Friends DVD which made me feel just like I was at home!
The next morning we walked into town and so I could get my chocolate fix, did the Cadbury factory tour! Unfortunately England certainly
beats New Zealand on this occasion but I still enjoyed the 1 tonne fall of melted chocolate and laughed at the handrail, steps and cleaning signs, absolutely covered in splashed chocolate! The freebies were also disgusting and consisted of a Perky Nana - a banana kind of chomp which I kindly gave to Dave! A Chocolate fish which was marshmallow covered in chocolate, which I gave to the free food cupboard after discovering how gross marshmallows are in Australia and then a caramel chew which I thought would be great but wasn't!
In the afternoon, we drove to Baldwin Street which is the steepest street in the world with a gradient of 19° and very slowly drove up and back down it! It reminded me of a roller-coaster and I was certainly praying that our breaks would stand up to the challenge! After this, Dave went and visited the Speight's Brewery for a tour and lots of tastings and I snuggled up with the heater in the lounge and read the new Lee Child book we managed to pick up from the hostel in Christchurch.
Our next destination was Queenstown, the adrenalin capital of New Zealand, and we were
booked in to stay at Reavers Lodge. For $55 a night we have our own bedroom, bathroom and fridge and there is also a hot tub on site! During the first day we walked into town and I booked to go Paragliding on the next day. After the trouble that Adam had in Sydney with the weather, I booked it as early as possible so that I would have another day available should the weather be unsuitable.
Luckily for us our first days weather was gorgeous and we ambled round the town, bought a few souvenirs and then had the most amazing ice cream from Patagonia Chocolates.
The next morning I was booked to go horse riding with High Country Horses. Unfortunately the sun was not shining like the day before but the rain held off and my 7.30am weather check phone call confirmed that the ride would go ahead. Dave drove me to Glenorchy for my 9am ride and when we pulled in I was excited to see not only loads of horses, but also dogs and two very cute kittens! As Dave put it - I had arrived at my version of Thruxton and I could not
wait to get going on my mount Danny! The group consisted of a family of 5, two older men and a girl about my age who had never ridden before! We set of into the countryside, which is where some of The Lord of the Rings was filmed, and after a gentle trek arrived at a large river. The horses were luckily not afraid of this and dutifully crossed it, getting my shoes rather wet in the process! We then managed a quick trot and reached our halfway point for some photos. Mark, one of the guides, then took me and 2 others for a fast canter and we met up with the rest of the group 5 minutes later! Although the ride was good, I would have preferred it if we had more time for trotting and cantering as my horse Danny was a pleasure to ride.
We returned back to Queenstown about midday and I had a few hours to kill before my paraglide. Reassuringly, on the walk into town I saw other gliders floating down from the hills so hoped that the weather would remain constant until my turn. At 3pm I was picked up by
Coronet Peak Tandems and driven up Coronet Peak which is about 700m high. I was then matched with my pilot, a very friendly guy from Turkey who reminded me a little of George Cloony (Mum - would this get you up there!!?) and strapped into my harness. We then stood at the top of the hill and I ran as hard as I could down it while my pilot lifted the glider into the air and we took off! It was very surreal floating so high up in the sky but also quiet relaxing as I just sat and looked at the view and smiled for some photographs while my pilot did all the hard work. As we began to near solid ground again my pilot said “Do you want to do that?” while pointing at the glider below us doing tight turns and dropping through the sky! “Sure” I said, and the next thing I knew we were falling through the sky at about 15m a second! It was a great rush to end the flight and all too soon we were touching down on the ground, thankfully a lot more gracefully than the man following me, who landed
firmly on his bottom! After the flight my pilot took a victory photo of us both and burned all the images onto a disk for me. Unfortunately Dave does not have a CD player in this laptop so I will have to wait until I find an internet café and can view the images.
Today is our final day in Queenstown and we started the morning with a ride on the Shotover Jet. This hurtles through Shotover river at speeds of up to 80km and performs 360 spins in water of depths as low as 10cm! This was a great way to wake up but was not nearly as scary as I had anticipated and Dave managed to get some great photos and video while holding on with just one hand!
We have spent the afternoon enjoying the glorious sunshine, eating a FergBurger - a must do in Queenstown and strolling round the Saturday craft market where goods ranged from woolly hats and creative jewellery to stunning art work and clocks made out of beer bottles! Queenstown is the first place I could imagine living in, due to its beautiful scenery, wide range of activities available and is
neither too small nor too large as a town. It also has the best ice cream I've tasted so far and some great fudge too! (I really need to control this fudge eating!)
Our next stop is Te Anau which is mainly just a base to rest before we continue onto Milford Sound. I imagine it will also have stunning scenery though, as everywhere in New Zealand seems to! I will be slightly sad to leave Queenstown as I could quiet happily go and get a job in one of the local stables but I think Dave might notice I was missing when there was no-one to read the map for him!
Hope the snow has started to melt now as everyone seems to be fed up of it!
Lots of love,
Katie
p.s. Special mention to Beth who commented on my last blog that she was sorry that she had not left any comments for a while. In fact Beth, I think you have left me the most comments out of everyone! Keep it up :D xxx
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Mum
non-member comment
George Clooney
Hi Katie, New Zealand sounds wonderful. When can I come out and book my paraglide with George? Glad you are having a great time. Your photos look good and I guess Dave is happier now he has a car to drive! Looking forward to the next blog. Love Mum