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Published: July 12th 2006
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Well then, its that time again, blog-o-clock so here we go. The title of this blog will hopefully give away the fact that for this leg of the adventure we have headed south which in this part of the world means that things generally getting colder rather than warmer - although as we will see there are exceptions to this rule, especially around the top of the south island where is easily warm enough to make wine. I am writing this from a frightening 45 degrees south of the equator and there is snow on the hills outside. I hope this puts things to context for you as you all sun yourselves in blighty?!
We left Wellington for our mid-winter holiday on Saturday morning after a rather late night at a party with work people. I managed to get a head start for the skiing trip by injuring myself before we left, thus saving me the effort for later, so it was that I fell off a wall that we had been dancing on in the garden and collected a rather impressive bruise for my troubles. The ferry across to Picton in the south island was amazing. Tom was
delighted to discover that we were travelling on the Pride of Le Harve, a ferry which he had used many times before from Portsmouth to France, more than delighted I would say, all his christmases and birthdays at once would be more accurate and he spent the whole journey reminiscing about the ferry canteen, those were the days.
At Picton we decided to make only a very short journey on our first day down to the near by town of Blenheim because a) this is in Marlborough home of wine b) we needed to stay somewhere we could guarantee to watch the footie so called up a hotel to make sure that we could get sky, sad no? So we arrived in Blenheim and set off around a couple of vinyards. We are pretty much experts at drinking, ahem I mean tasting, wine after our Hawkes Bay trip a month ago so we expertly sampled some of the worlds finest, though particularly famous for their Sauvignon Blancs (or 'Savs' as the kiwis would say) Tom was rather loving the St Clair Riesling and their 'Chards' pretty yummy too. Not wanting the reds to feel left out I purchased a
rather lovely bottle of Pinotage from another winery, um that I can't remember the name of, apparently they usually only use it for blending but this time it had been of such a high quality that they used it on their own, and only available from the cellar door no less, I told you, experts.
After a day in the sunshine, yes sunshine! defiantly not in Wellington anymore! We went back to the hotel ate pizza and waited for the football to start. and waited and waited as it was not on until the wee small hours (kick off was about 3am) good game apart from the obvious fact that we lost, but we both decided that no longer being in the running at least allows us to concentrate on other things! The next morning after rather less sleep that we would have liked we headed southwest. The west coast is a rather rugged stretch of the country trapped between the high peaks of the souther alps and the sea, the drive down was rather special although we had to stop a couple of times as I was feeling rather delicate after a few glasses of wine the pervious
night.. We drove on to eventually pulled into Hokitika where we decided to stay the night and checked into the worlds coolest holiday accommodation, it was a sort of log cabin thing with two floors, sheep in the front garden and a llama in the back, what more can you ask for?
The next day we hopped back into the car and zoomed south along the coast. We stopped just once at the famous Franz Josef glacier and walked a little way to get a peek. The glacier and the mountains are certainly impressive although undobtably 100 times more magnificent from the top, this would have been a day trip though so we just looked on from ground level. The glacier is currently shrinking (this is what glaciers do they expand and shrink depending on the snow/water ratio) and it is really interesting to see how big it was only recently.
and then onto Wanaka, a pretty little mountain town on a lake and in winter it is a mecca for skiiers and boarders because of its proximity to the Cardrona and Triple Cone Ski fields. It was also super busy because it was the school holidays, but
who are we to complain as it was these very holidays that meant that we could have a couple of weeks off work 😊 In fact about 2 hours after we got to Wanaka we decided that we liked it so much down here that we changed out flights back so that we could stay another 5 nights down in the cold country.
The b and b/hotel thing that we had booked into was a little more flash than the usual hostel on the basis that the trip was tom's bday pressie from me - aren't i nice? - at the best thing about it (apart from the breakfast of course) was the outdoor hotub which was just what we needed after a day on the slopes, particularly in the first few days as most of the aches can be attributed to major falls, in my case at least.
The next day we went up to the mountain to Cardrona and i learnt two things that day, firstly the basics of snowboarding and secondly the complexities of using snow chains which are necessary when the weather means poor driving conditions in the south island, these are especially
scary because the roads up to the resorts resemble former goat tracks full of hairpin bends with no barriers and crazy impatient people in 4x4 cars overtaking on blind corners.. Strangely boarding turned out to be not as diffiuclt as it first looks putting the snow chains on is pretty much impossible, also a cold and dirty job when you are half way up the mountain so we ummm paid a man $10 to do it for us. Luckily it was the only time that we needed to to use the chains during our stay as most of the days were sunny and bright. And even thought the drive up the mountain was pretty terrifying it was worth it to be at the top and even more so when we were let loose on the snow. I basically spent the first 2 days on the baby slopes learning to snowboard, how to turn and change direction and most importantly how to stand up again when it all goes horribly wrong and you fall in a big heap on the floor. Meanwhile Tom was skiing all over the place, athough he did take a couple of lessons to improve his technique
- they made him ski backwards and bizarre things like that. He is a good skiier and really confident which I think is actually half the battle.! On the 3rd and 4th days I abandoned the lessons and went off around the green (beginner) slopes with tom as my mountain rescue in case it all went wrong. It was fantastic! The resort is basically three different peaks with loads of different runs (green blue and black). There are three chair lifts which are great fun, especially when novice snowboarders like me are trying to get off without knocking everyone over, chaos!
After 4 days on the slopes I feel reasonably accomplished at snowboarding and I can't wait to get some more practice in, going to have another go when we arrive in Q town. NZ seems like a great place to learn and it is certainly the best snow in the world at this time of year ha ha ha. All in all it looks like I now have another new expensive hobby, boarding as well as sailing. Am now the proud owner of; ski gloves, ski goggles, thermal trousers a snow boarding jacket and a pair of waterproof
trousers (well ok they are dungarees) which thankfully can be used for both! Not sure how useful all this stuff is going to be when we arrive in Asia going to have to get it shipped home...
So on Saturday the day that we were due to fly back to Wellington we headed out of Wanaka to Queenstown, NZ's adventure capital where I am writing this blogarooooo.
Love to you all
x
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Ebony
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Wonderful Wanaka!
Hey guys, have been following your trip - pea green with a healthy dose of envy and nostalgia, we did a similar trip to you but during the NZ summer - absolutely loved Wanaka and the Cinema Paradiso there, also check out doing the heli hike to Franz Josef if you can afford it, and it may be a bit cold, but the dolphin swimming in Kaikoura is a once in lifetime experience - just don't hyperventilate like I did! You can also fly from Kaikoura to Wello for approx £30 with a company called Sounds Air, well cheap and amazing scenic flight, you can see dolphins and whales as you fly home! Oh, and try a Ferg Burger when you get to Q.Town, they're shooge and yummy. Later bro, Ebs xxx