Ice ice baby

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The road to Milford Sound was described by loads of locals as amazing. At first it looked well impressive, but not stunning. It was only after navigating the bottleneck corners and spending a night wild camping that we saw the road's full glory. The next day, after a night's heavy rain, the road was transformed. Water gushed down from the top of the mountains, through which pre-Giro, tough locals carved the amazing route when there was no other paying work. As we drove along, a barcode of waterfalls rolled past our windows. Every couple of seconds a new waterfall fell, helping the road live up to its rep.

Milford Sound itself was also very cool and much better than we'd expected. Yes, the place was crawling with tourist tools, much like us I guess, but they clogged the views with their coach tour numbers. But once we got on our boat trip the mountains that you cruise past before hitting the Tasman Sea are spectacular. But not as spectacular as the dolphins that came to play. Unexpectedly they just swam up next to the boat, playing beside the hull. They swim amazingly fast and we got awesomely close to them, mainly by hanging our heads over the side and risking drowning.

The next place we stopped at was Queenstown, It's the adrenalin-jacked capital of New Zealand, and you can't turn your head without seeing some dreadlocked soap-dodger jump off a mountain with only a sheet of silk between him and a gruesome end, or his mate risk death off a bridge with knicker elastic as an insurance policy. Despite all the thrill-junkies the place itself is beautiful - a small town beside a huge lake, surrounded by New Zealand's trademark mountains. Em wanted to do a bungee jump but I bottled it, so instead we took a 4x4 tour which was less exhilerating but more interesting too. Our guide took us to places that would be impossible to reach in the van, such as Skipper's Canyon and its fantastically dangerous road.

After Queenstown and the famous, enormous, delicious Ferg Burgers, we stopped at Franz Josef Glacier. I'll probably get some of the details wrong if I try to explain the exact geology so I won't embarass us all. Instead I'll just say that the huge glacier, which for some reason forms in a huge valley, is stunning. It's constantly melting and freezing and so moves up and down the valley as the years roll by. We took a 4-hour guided tour, which had 2 hours on the ice. We got to wear crampons and stomp about the ice feeling intrepid. It was one of our favourite things on the whole trip and I only hope the photos do it justice.

That pretty much wraps up the South Island. Before we took our ferry to the North Island, we stopped at some pretty mundane places that don't fit in with the picture I've tried to paint of this place being paradise. If you go, I'd encourage you to miss out Nelson and Blenheim, before getting the ferry from Picton. The highlight was meeting up with our friend from Ealing, Em's old friend Olivia who's in New Zealand for the next few months.

Just one more island to go, which I promise will be more brief than the South Island entries. Then it's onto the USA and then Canada, where we are now.

Hope you can bear with us!
Love you,
Bye!
x

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Photos

A New Zealand walk
The route went up the mountain, through waterfalls! We quickly gave up, respecting the ancient bond between our ankles and their surrounding cartilege

Panning for gold!
On our 4x4 trip, Queenstown

Em emerging from a hole in the ice
The guides find holes and attach lines so that you can crawl through them. As long as you don't mind the thought of being crushed by falling ice, it's awesome

Pancake Rocks
Weird rock formations that no-one can explain. Spooky

Comments

[anonymous]

It looks stunning. Can't wait for the next instalment xx