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Mountains and a bif of Eco-Tourism!
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We arrived in Christchurch late on 12 Jan, and then spent a day exploring this quite English-style town on 13th. It has a college/university on the banks of the river, a cathedral, and even some English style theme pubs (so we had a drink in "The Bard")& stocked up on warm and waterproof clothing for our planned outdoor activities.
We then picked up our bargain car ($29/day) and headed up to Mount Cook via some stunning bright blue lakes along the way reflecting snow-capped mountains in the distance. It is the highest mountain in NZ, and there is a little village at the bottom (i.e. the visitors centre, and different classes of lodgings - we stayed in the YHA of course!). As it was such a lovely evening we took in a couple of the walks at the bottom, and discovered that the glaciers on this side are so covered with morraine that they look like quarries, and you have to look up the glacier a couple of KMs to see any ice! The next day was our first experience of the dodgy weather (and so far the only rain believe it or not!) But we braved the cold and rain and did another walk. It brightened up later anyway, but we were still glad for the log fire when we treated ourselves to a glass of red in the expensive hotel. We used the sauna in our hostel later to warm ourselves up too!
Then it was down to Dunedin and then the Caitlins for a bit of eco-tourism. We were back along the coast, and found various points to see the local wildlife of rare yellow-eyed penguins, seals and even sea lions. The sea lions were huge but they just lie there on the beach - we thought the first one was dead! Somehow I don't think they were at all bothered by us wondering past. We also found the furthest south point of NZ, in a field full of sheep. So by 20th we arrived in Te Anau, on another of the huge lakes that they seem to specialise in. This was the base for our trip the next day to Milford Sound. MS is basically a fjord on the west coast of the South Island. It rains 300 days of the year, with an avg rainfall of 7metres per yr! Once again we got lucky and it was a clear (but v cold!) day. So we took a boat trip along the sound for some lovely views of waterfalls and mountain landscape. Again the wildlife did not let us down with dolphins swimming along side the boat (M was very impressed and speachless-a rare thing!) and seals chilling out on the rocks.
In the afternoon we headed for another one of our walks (3-4 hours is more than enough for us, although we are meeting lots of people walking for 3-4 days!). We spent a gruelling 1.5 hours walking constantly uphill but the views were spectacular and the quiet surroundings very peaceful. We then headed to the mirror lakes where we bumped into a Kiwi family who took great interest in us. But when we told them we were from London we thought we had said Iraq from their reaction! Their life on a farm in the middle of nowhere may have given them a somewhat different perspective on things. But they are welcome to it - we would choose city life over fields full of sheep any day!
We are still getting used to the fact this country is the size of the UK, with only 4million people and 47 million sheep! More thumbnails ...
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