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Published: March 13th 2007
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queenstown
We arrived late at night and slept on the side of the road. This was the view when we looked out our windows in the morning. Up until 3 weeks ago I thought Australia was the most amazing place I'd been. Then I went to New Zealand which absolutely blew me away. We figured since we were already on this side of the world we may aswell check it out and I'm so glad we did! This trip was a bit of a different experience from our travels in OZ. It was kind of a holiday away from our actual holiday. Instead of taking buses everywhere and staying in hostels we hired a spaceship. Yes that's right a spaceship - it's like a campervan and has everything you could possibly need in it. The back popped up into a tent so we could sleep in it, it had a stove, a chiller (ie fridge), and even a dvd player! Oh and it's name was Orbita - she was good to us. lol We flew into Christchurch in the South Island and checked out the city for a few days before we picked up Jessie Willox from the airport who came on this crazy adventure with us. As most of you know, they drive on the left side of the road in NZ so that was interesting to
say the least! You get used to it really quickly but the second your mind wanders and you stop concentrating on driving you automatically go back to what you're used to and like me end up driving head on towards oncoming traffic... don't worry we had no accidents and surprisingly only ran over one possum! Anyone who's been to NZ knows that it is overrun with two animals - sheep and possums. There are 14 sheep to every person in NZ and probably even more possums. Any kiwi you talk to will tell you to go out of your way to run them over.
Once we picked up Jess we drove to Queenstown which is a cute little resort town surrounded by mountains and a beautiful lake. It reminded me of Banff for any of you who have been there. We walked around the town and just enjoyed the amazing scenery oh and Dayna got a tatoo!! She won't let me put a picture of it on here though b/c she wants it to be a surprise. So you can all wait in suspense until she gets home! After that we drove up to a small town called Fox and
hiked on the Fox glacier. Picture the scene from Jurasic Park when the helicoptor is flying to the island and then place a massive glacier with snowcapped mountains in the middle and that was what it was like. The hike itself was really fun except that we went through a massive change in temperature. It's an hour and a half hike up the mountain before you actually reach the glacier so we were sweating on the hike up and then when we actually got on the ice we froze! But it was well worth it. Next we drove up to Abel Tasman National Park which was absolutely beautiful. We went sea kayaking along the coast stopping at little coves with the most amazing beaches I've ever seen. We kayaked out to this little island where a colony of seals live and the baby ones were swimming right beside our kayaks putting on a show for us. It was so adorable! We camped over night in the park and then hiked back through the rainforest to our spaceship the next day.. it was my favourite trip we've done so far.
The next morning we crossed the ferry to the North Island
and drove up to Lake Taupo. The lake was formed by the largest recorded volcanic explosion on Earth and surrounding the bright blue lake are a bunch of extinct volcanos. It was a really cool place but our main reason for going there was because it was the cheapest place to go skydiving! The day we had booked it for it was cancelled b/c of the weather so we stuck around for an extra day and thank god we did. I'm not going to lie I was freaking out a bit when we were in the plane strapped to our tandom partners and it actually kicked in that I was about to jump out of it. The door to the plane opened and we made our way to the edge. The ground seemed a long way down - 12 000 feet to be exact. I looked over to Dayna and said "hopefully I'll see you at the botom" and then we were sucked out of the plane flying towards the ground at 200 km/hr. The freefall lasted for 45 seconds and there are no words to describe the feeling. It was the biggest rush of my life. At 5000 feet
skydiving
getting ready to go... and yeah freaking out a bit my tandom partner pulled the parachute and we slowed down dramatically. It seemed so quiet up there floating towards the ground enjoying the amazing view. Dayna jumped out of the plane right after me and we were spinning around eachother both having the time of our lives.
After that was over we headed for Rotorua where we relaxed in natural hot springs, checked out boiling mud pools and impressive gysers. Our last stop before Aukland was the Waitomo caves where we went black water rafting. We absailed down 30 metres into the caves and then went rafting through them. Only the water wasn't flowing at all so we were basically paddleing the whole way along. There were millions of glowworms on the roof of the caves and when you looked up it was as though you were staring at the stars on a clear night. It was pretty amazing but we were freezing in there. Once we were done exploring the caves we rock climbed our way out. It was quite an eventful day...
We had to part ways with Orbita and were sad to let her go but I think also a little glad to have our own beds
skydiving
loving my life again and showers! We spent our last 2 nights of our trip at a hostel in Aukland where we partied pretty hard before flying back to OZ.
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Mom & Dad P.
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Tattoo ???
We have such fun reading the diary! It often gives us details that Dayna's emails don't mention! But this was not detailed enough. Where and what and how big??? Oh ya, what is up with the giant golf balls? Can't wait to have you home. Enjoy the remainder of your adventure!