Wellington - Laka Wanaka

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We have been travelling around the South Island for a week now and I must saw it is AMAZING!. I can't believe how fantastic the senery is and it is much more laid back then the North Island too. All in all this week has been pretty great!

We got the ferry from Wellington to Picton. It is quite a nice ferry, huge which means it is a smooth experience. When you get near the South it starts to look pretty straight away which also makes the jourey more fun. From Picton we went straight to Nelson. Here we did a one day boat ride through the Abel Tasman. It is so pretty! The beaches are amazing and it has the nicest coastline. We stopped off at Arawoa Beach (I think) and had a picnic and a swim. It was very idyllic but OMG so hot! I can't cope with the heat here and keep getting getting burnt even though I'm wearing at least factor 30. It has been so bad that I am now wearing factor 70 on my face to stop me looking like a tomato at the end of the day!

After our boat ride we had a lovely BBQ. It was Ian's parents first NZ BBQ and hopefully we did NZ proud! Ian is getting quite good at his BBQ skills and we will def be getting one back in the UK, even though we know that we will probably be eatting it in the rain!

After Nelson we went to Murchison via the Nelson Lakes. The Nelson Lakes are really nice and it is where the famous shot of the pier going into the lake with the mountains in the background was shot. We now have about a million pictures of that! At the lakes there were lots of ducks and sandflies. The ducks would come really close to try and steal the food from your hand while the sandflies would just be trying to eat you! There was also one black swan. We haven't seen any swans here so it is very strange to see one black one. The swan also tried to steal food from us and was scary!

We had a really cool campsite at Murchison which had emus, sheep (of course) and other farmyard animals. We got to feed them which was fun, although the emus get very excited and their beaks hurt a lot!

From Murchison we went along the west coast to Greymouth via the Pancake Rocks. The West Coast drive is fantastic and is all alone the coast. It is much better then the Great Ocean Road as you actually drive along the coast for all of the road and it is practically empty. We stopped to look at the Pancake Rocks which are lots of layered rocks which are supposed to look like pancakes. They were pretty cool, but again the heat did me in! Although we were by the coast there was no breeze and I felt like I was going to die after our hour walk.

The next day we said goodbye to Ian's parents as they were slowly heading back towards Picton to get the ferry in the next few days, while we have continued South. Before we left Greymouth we did a beer tour of the Mointeiths brewery which was fun. They apparently sell their beers in Waitrose at home so we will def be purchasing some when we are back. Although I'm sad they don't export the cider yet as that is fab!

After Greymouth we went to the Franz Joseph glacier. The town here is so cute and clearly just around for the glacier. We opted for a full day glacier walk which was tiring but good fun! It is mianly tiring cause the cramptons are so heavy on your feet. The glacier was amazing and it was so good to get to be able to climb it. We have never seen one before so it was extra cool to us!

From here we went to Lake Wanaka where we have been for 3 nights. It is so nice here, I don't want to leave but Ian keeps telling me we have to tomorrow! The scenery is amazing and it is really laidback. It is a huge lake surrounded by mountains. As it is so beautifal here Ian decided he should do his skydive here, which he did yesterday. I decided at the last minute I should do one too and so we jumped the 15,000ft together (well seperatly of course but from the same plane!). When it was my turn to jump I was completly freaking out and REALLY didn't want to do it. I was practically in tears when my skydiver took my fingers off the railings of the plane and jumped with me saying 'I don't want to do this anymore'!! It was a good experience and I'm glad I did it but I will never EVER do it again! It was the scariest thing I have ever done. Free falling was just strange and then when we were parachutting I still felt very uneasy and kept screaming whenever we moved around! Ian loved it off course.

Other things we have done here are a walk up Mount Iron and we went to Puzzleworld. That was really good fun, although it is like walking back in time with all the illusions they have!

Tomorrow we are off to Queenstown. I'm a bit worried it will be really touristy but I have heard it is beautifal so it should be good. Hoepfully not too many adrelin things left to do as man they are expensive.

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Comments

[Miriam]

NZ
Loved every minute. Thank you.