New Zealand in 12 days!
Trip Start
Feb 19, 2007
1
20
28
Trip End
Sep 04, 2007
Christchurch,
South Island,
New Zealand
Friday, May 23, 2008
Geyser!
. I was well happy to see nice american-esque shops where I knew what my size was. After a few hours we landed in Rotarua, completely wrecked. We parked up our camper and surprisingly it was quite comfortable. We got our first taste of the gap year english on tour (en masse) , that being very immature and generally ignorant, but kind of entertaining at the same time! Next morning we checked out Wai-o-taipu geyser and its surrounding park, it was really impressive. The only bad thing about Rotarua is the stink - nice rotten egg smell that I'll never forget. We also stopped off at the famous Waitomo caves to check out the glow-worms. To make it more interesting we decided to go blackwater rafting, which is an exciting way of saying floating along in a tube in a cave. The water was quite chilly but we weren't too bad with the wet suits. However, there was a lovely eel waiting for me when I entered the cave, so I had to get the guide to shoo him away before I got in. EEK! However, it was quite fun really, and the glowworms were class, even if the glow is actually caused by their poo! After this it was straight onto Tongario, where we were hoping to do a 7 hours hike at the famous tongario crossing. However, the weather gods were unkind so we weren't able to hike that day. We decided to head on to South Island seeing as our time was short, overnighting it in Porirua, just outside wellington. Of course, not having insured the van, I managed to get a nice chip on the windscreen, which we had to get repaired in case the rental company decided to take a chunk out of our 1000 dollar bond we had to pay them! The next day we caught the ferry to South Island, and it was great to be able to boil some tea and make sandwiches in our camper van while we were waiting to board the ferries. I'm turning into more of an itinerant every day now!!! Do you like dags I say! After arriving in South Island we headed to Abel Tasman Park which was amazing, it was like some part of asia. We did meet a few interesting Kiwi characters in the campsite, one of them who was trying to bum some dinner and kept telling us how much he hated Australians and wanted to nuke them all
Bertie our trusty van
. Turns out his ex-wife was an Aussie - hmmm! Next day it was onto Franz Josef glacier where we did a glacier hike! To make the hike a bit more challenging our guide decided we should squeeze through a crevasse! Now I'm not claustrophic but it was a slightly stressful moment, being squeezed by two walls of ice! That night we stayed in haast, where we met a french couple who were cycling around new zealand (nutters!). Wasn't envious of them the next day, seeing all the nasty hills and empty stretches of road we had already been though! For some reason, I decided it was finally time I did a skydive, so we stopped off in lake wanaka to see if we could do it that day. After much humming and hawing, and seeing a few people go up in the plane and come back down in one piece with a smile on their face, I finally decided that I would go for it. Mind you I was having second thoughts on the plane, but out I went, attached to my tandem dive expert and what a buzz it was! It was surprisingly enjoyable and by the time the parachute opened I had a nice dry mouth from keeping it open during the free fall! Well worth it and I even have the dvd to boot! That night we stayed in lovely queenstown. Ferg wanted to do a bungee so we heading to Kawaru Bridge the next day. I decided I didn't really need to do that after the skydive the previous day! So after surviving the bungee (although he did flash his chest to everyone during the bungee) we headed jetboating, which I have to say wasn't all that exciting after the previous events
Rotarua
. After this it was onto the famous Milford Sound, which in one word was amazing! We were lucky with the weather too, the next day, it had a snow storm so we just got to see it. Did my mandatory horse-riding in Te Anu, some of the horses at the horse farm had been featured in lord of the rings so I was well amused by that! Next stop was Dunedin, which is a nice town, and the best thing to do there is to visit the Cadbury's factory, which of course we did. And they gave us a nice load of chocolate to chew on as we toured around! Irish cadburys is still better though - I think, but I'm biased! We decided to abandon bertie for one night, and stayed in a hostel as it was a bit wet and miserable outside! Next day, was our final stop in NZ, Christchurch. I still hadn't seen a Kiwi bird, so we headed to a reserve, where we got a private night tour and got to see some! Of course none of my pics came out because it was so dark (they are nocturnal - after all) and we weren't allowed to use our flash! So after an action-packed trip in NZ it was onwards to Australia to rest up for three weeks before we hit Asia! 
