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Published: October 31st 2005
Hello all,
We're now in Melbourne, Australia and enjoying the warmer weather, but we'll tell you about that another time.
We spent our first couple of days in the South Island travelling between Picton and Franz Josef, stopping at Nelson and Westport as well as a few short stops in between. Driving here is so easy, even though the speed limit is only 100kph, you get about so quickly as there is no traffic. We did a few walks, our favourite being at Cape Foulwind which was a 4k walk along coastline leading to a seal colony.
We were blessed with decent weather for our first day in Franz Josef so did a Glacier hike which was awesome. They gave you boots, hat and gloves and a warm jacket, but it was such a lovely day we only needed the boots. Katy struggled a bit on the Glacier because she was too small! They have to cut steps into it so you can walk up the face, but the steps were like giants ones to Katy and to boot, in the particularly dangerous places they had fitted hand ropes some of which she couldn't reach. Poor ol' girl! The next day it rained all day, heavily, so we stayed in and had a film marathon with some other guys in our hostel, watching 6 films back to back!!!
After doing a couple of walks near the glacier we drove on south the Wanaka. We decided to give our tent another go here, but both nights we adjourned to the car for a bit of warmth. Our main reaon for wanting to go to Wanaka was not the skiing, oh no, we wanted to go to the 'Puzzling World of Stuart Landsborough'. There was a giant maze, with 1.5k of passage way, which on average takes one and a half hours to complete. I think we did it a bit quicker than that, but not much. We then had a wonder around the illussion rooms, before spending the rainy afternoon sat in the cafe drinking coffee and hot chocolate and having a great time trying to master some of the puzzles. We walked by the lake and took the 'gentle' climb to the top of Mt Iron.
Next to Queenstown, where it rained alot (again), but we had kinda got used to it by now. Queenstown is a very busy place, totally geared towards the tourist and as a result it is a bit more expensive. We didn't do any of the 'extreme' stuff here, the most extreme it got was the Gondola ride to the top of the mountain over looking Queenstown which provides wonderful scenes. We spent most of our time walking and drinking in cafes. We also took a drive to Arrowtown which is a community built on the riches of the old gold fields. We visted the museum, bought fudge and admired the street that looked like a set from an old Wild West movie. We went to see Cinderella Man at the cinema, which we would recommend, it was excellent! We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Queenstown though, there is a really good atmosphere about the place and it is very beautiful, just a shame most of the activities were a little out of our price range.
Next stop was Te Anau, the Gateway to Fiordland, we stopped here for just one night to book our trip to Milford Sound. We were booked onto the 11am cruise the next morning, so set off early so we could take our time over the 120k drive there. The drive was unreal, it is reckoned to be one of the top 5 scenic drives in the world (as well as a top 5 avalanche prone road). Words can not describe it and the cruise when we got there was unreal too. We got a good day for it, the sun was out and the sky completely clear, so no chance of rain. The cruise on the Sound was 2 hours long and very good value for money. We took approx. 100 pictures and loads of film to bore everyone with. We saw waterfalls, seals and pengiuns and were told much of the history of the Sound. We stopped a couple of times on the way back too, but unfortunately the Mirror Lakes were closed, so we didn't get to see them which was a bit dissapointing.
We took the Southern Scenic Route to Invercargill. The drive was very good, along the south coast, so we again stopped a few times to have a look around and take more photos. Invercargill is a fairly average city, there isn't a great deal there, so we didn't stay long, just used it as a stop over on our way to Dunedin. We again took the Southern Scenic Route, which takes you onto unmade roads for 20ks at a time, but it was worth it when you got the destinations. We stopped at a couple of places and saw seals lying on the beach, we then went to Curio Bay where there is a fossil forest, which was really weird. There were tree stumps on the beach which had been encased in the sea bed for millions of years, but the casing was now being eroded away to expose the wood again. They are meant to confirm that New Zealand was once part of the 'Super Continent'!
Dunedin is a pretty cool city, where we stayed in our favourite hostel. It was an old hospital, which was meant to be haunted. The whole building had windy walk ways around it and it was a little creepy, not least that we watched a film in what was the morgue! We did a fair bit here; went to the steepest street in the world (well steep!), the Cadbury's factory (had a chocolate waterfall), Albatros colony (well big bird), museums, wandered around a bit, NZ Sports Hall of Fame among other things.
Then we were on to Christchurch to stay with Rita and Fred (Katy's family) for 4 days. We had a great time here, it was wonderful to meet them and they made us very welcome, not to mention spoilt us. We went to Akaroa to the see the Hectors Dolphins, but unfortunately didn't get to swim with them as they didn't want to play, although I (Tim) got very wet and cold trying! We had a look round the city, art galleries, museum, did the Gondola ride which over looks the city and Lyttleton Harbour, went to the International Antarctica Centre (which had a room that you could go into where they simulated Antarctic conditions), went to the Botanical Gardens and generally walked as we had to drop the car back.
Rita and Fred took us out for dinner on Monday night to a place called Sequoia, which was a n eat all you can buffet kinda place, where we also met their daughter Crenza (hopefully spelt right). It was excellent, they served all sorts of food and plenty of it! Then on Wednesday it was time to go. We spent the morning with Rita and her daugher Suzanne and grandson Dillon, before going to the airport. Thank you so much to Rita and Fred for having us we are very grateful and thoroughly enjoyed staying with you.
So, we are now in Australia, but we shan't write too much about it yet, apart from that we're going to Neighbours Night tonight - Awesome!!!!!
Hope everyone is well back at home,
Take Care and see you at Christmas,
Katy and Tim x
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Lucy
non-member comment
Sounds great
Hello Hope you are still having a good time in Oz. Thanks for updating us on the South Island, sounds amazing. Take care, have fun, lots of love Lucy and Jamesxxx