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Published: April 3rd 2015
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Hello from daaannn saaaffff in New Zealand! What an eventful couple of weeks we've had! Now for those of you who don't know, we've hired a car as our mode of transport. We were recommended by fellow travellers to get a car as the country is too beautiful to experience it by bus! So we did just this. His name is Eldaho. I'm sure you'd all like him! We thought this was a name but turns out we were thinking of Eldorado! However, we became attached to eldaho so it's stuck! Along with the car, we got a GPS which is great because you get to choose a name and voice (a highlight so far) and ours is called simon for obvious reasons. So simon gets the occasional (a lot of) abuse, as does Eldy when he makes mistakes!
Driving yourself is a must but has it's pros and cons. It's amazing because you can stop wherever you like. However, you can stop wherever you like. Yeah, it's taking us a lot longer than simon tells us! Blooming Simon!!! Despite Beth's best efforts of revving poor Eldy into exhaustion and mine of skipping red lights we've managed to get by
and travel a fair few km's!
After landing in Christchurch, we didn't stay long. Having not recovered from the massive earthquake in 2010/2011 the city just hasn't recovered and there really is not much to see or do there. So we swiftly began our road trip heading to Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula which started off the crazy love for the country! It was beautiful with mountains and lakes blending together. However, eager to move onto my favourite place so far we stayed only one night and moved on to Wanaka!
Now I know I do keep saying a new favourite place every blog but this one really will take some beating! I have never been so speechless and so in love with a viewpoint. Our campsite was just 50metres from Lake Hawea which was great because we had our own quiet non touristy spot with peace and tranquility! We walked a lot with circuits around both lakes and mountains to view them from above and doing the obvious thing- puzzling world! Every back packers dream right?
From Wanaka we sadly moved on to Queenstown. We weren't sad for long. Queenstown is just a more buzzing, larger
Wanaka and once again is so beautiful. Here, we did a Milford Sound tour. I've now just remembered that this place might be my favourite... So forget it. I don't have a favourite! It's too difficult. Stop asking!
We had a glass roof bus which allowed us not to be restricted in viewing these MASSIVE mountains and then we had a cruise. The mountains overlooking the sound were so huge that if they were buildings they would be the second tallest building in the world! Apparently it takes 12 seconds to cliff dive. We decided to save that for a rainy day! On this cruise we saw wild seals and then also a couple of pods of wild dolphins. They sometimes come in to teach their young tricks or for more romantic reasons hehe.
Now when in Queenstown, it's almost law to do some wild crazy adrenaline madness activity such as canyon swings... We passed. Or skydiving... Nah. Or bungeying... No thankyou. So we jet-boated. This was a lot more scarier than it might sound. To get there we had to go along a road that is in the top ten deadliest/most dangerous roads in the world. We thankfully
were on a mini bus, poor Eldy wouldn't have made it! This was an adventure in itself, but en route we saw a lot of lord of the rings places for all you Gollum fans to get jealous about! Once there we were on a jet boat, in a river canyon that was really quite shallow. He took us for an adventure narrowly avoiding the cliffs. I'm not sure if he knew how close we were to be honest and on the way back we reached 100kph/60mph. He was skidding and sliding and turning all over the place and we finished pretty soaked!
Other than this in Queenstown we walked the skyline gondola walkway which was tough but had amazing panoramic views and went to an ice bar which was -5. I now know how everyone at home feels like mwa ha ha. We've also visited cute little neighbouring towns of arrow town and glenorchy which has involved scenic drives!
A final highlight of Queenstown has to be the world famous ferg burger. We were told it would be rude not too, so we didn't want to be rude. However, we did mistake the size of the burgers. The
owner of where we were staying was amazed we had finished it but not only that, we had chips each too! Safe to say the food coma arrived just hours later and we lost unconsciousness at approximately 8:30pm.
The driving can sometimes be time consuming (when simon plays up) nah due to the mountain ranges and the roads but it's by no means a chore! They don't have motorways in this country and the mountains and beauty doesn't seem to stop with one spectacular view after another.
I would love to follow us thou as all the gadgets are on the other side so instead of indicating right, the windscreen wipers are going full blast, I hope that's indication enough!
Anyways I will leave it here for Beth to tell you about our second weeks road trip of Gem, Beth, Eldy and Simon. Ciao for now!
Oh heyyyy! So from Queenstown we drove to Twizel which apparently is said like 'twyzel' not 'twizzle' - we thought twizzle sounded much better. From here we went to Mount Cook and did the Hooker Valley walk along some swing bridges to a lake that has real blocks of ice in
it that have fallen off the glacier. Plus the view of Mt Cook was awesome! You have to be a superstar rock climber to properly walk on it so we narrowly missed out 😉
What's annoying about New Zealand is that to get to somewhere about 60km away you often have to drive in an enormous loop around mountains to get there. This is what happened with getting to Fox Glacier which is a 5 hour drive away but annoyingly, when we got to Fox you could see Mount Cook!
You can walk on Fox Glacier and Franz Josef glacier if you're willing to part with your life savings (which we weren't). So, we did the base walk to each of them stepping over streams and rocks to get there, oo and we also saw a rock fall/mini landslide, bit scary. On the way we hotly discussed the retreating of the glaciers which are such a large part of global history but are melting at such a fast pace; I won't get into a full rant about it now but basically the glaciers were formed in the ice age and have seen dinosaurs and all sorts and they
carved out the mountains and now there's only a tiny bit left that'll be gone in ten years so it's very sad!
After glacial fun we relaxed in the hot pools at Franz Josef! These are pools of 36, 38 and 40 degrees and they actually felt really different even though they were tiny changes. The 40* was boiling and made the 36* feel really cold! Did the job on our aching muscles though.
We're now at Kaikoura where we've been whale watching. No giggling now but...we saw a sperm whale (cheeky!) hehehe he was massive - they are the 4th biggest whales in the world and live off the coast here in a canyon which is formed where two tectonic plates meet and is therefore full of yummy stuff for the whales to munch on. We also saw literally hundreds of dusky dolphins who swam alongside the boat and played in the distance. So we've been there, done that, gem got the photo and I got the tshirt (literally).
Later today we're going kayaking with fur seals! There are hundreds that live here so we're pretty excited for that - hopefully we won't fall in and
get eaten.
We're off to Picton next to get the ferry to the North Island - can't believe we are halfway through this beautiful country! So we'll have another blog at the end of New Zealand or after Fiji where we'll be for a week. See ya later!
Gem and Bef x
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Mother Bear
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Having a Whale of a Time in Hobbit Land!
Hey Gems and Bef, we are loving these blogs it all sounds as if you are having some great fun. The scenery looks immense and now you even have a Simon there to abuse what could be more fun! Meanwhile back home we have the distinct feeling that Spring may have sprung we had a beautiful Easter Sunday with tea being eaten out in the garden!! Who would have thought it and today looks as if it may be as good - probs shouldn't get too used to it though! Hope your trip over to the North Island was not to stressful for Jelly Legs (Bef!) and you have as much fun there. Just think you will be able to rest up when you get to Fiji!! Miss you loads, take care, have fun, big hugs xxxx