Finishing the North and starting the South
Trip Start
Jan 25, 2008
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13
17
Trip End
Jan 25, 2009
Queenstown,
New Zealand
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
"Moving house??"
. Pretty cool. After hanging about in the water for 3 hours we eventually got out very cold and got a hot shower and hot soup as well which was good. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos down there incase your wondering. Once back at the hostel I decided to take a walk for to a view point over the valley, I didn't realise it would be through fields and stuff as I was in my flip flops so ended up doing a bit of it in bare feet. Got to the main view point and got a very good view, reminded me of Scotland again. Then at night there was more super 14 rugby on so watched that.The next day was driving again and it was about a 8 hour drive to Wellington and more long empty roads. Once we arrived in Wellington and even about 60km outside the rain started and was torrential rain , it eased off once into Wellington but still raining. After a lot of driving around we found the hostel which was massive but they didn't have a car park so parked on the street and managed to get free parking cause it was the weekend. There was more Super 14 rugby on so that kept us busy at night.
The following day there was more rain but after I got up early to watch the Liverpool vs. Arsenal game we went for a wander around the town and headed first to the Museum of New Zealand. Some very good things about New Zealand and it's history and all it's volcanoes etc. It also had a Scotland exhibit
A bit of a tight squeez
. Now for the size of the museum it was tiny, about the size of my room back home. We still managed to spend a lot of time in it though, very interesting as it was about Scottish people immigrating to New Zealand a lot of other videos as well. After a wander round the rest of the museum we headed up the waterfront to see what was there and came across the Greenpeace boat , The Rainbow Warrior 2, which was in the port and doing free tours of the boat and they tell you a load of facts and what they are doing at the moment, very interesting stuff. At the end though they inevitably tried to get us to sign up to Greenpeace, maybe once im home but don't really have the funds at the moment. Not a lot on that night as had a big drive the next day.The drive the next day was to firstly the ferry in Wellington as we were crossing into the south island, This ferry went through some amazing scenery again so I spent a lot of the time outside on the deck watching all the hills go by. Once into Picton which was the port we headed to Christchurch which was a 5 hour drive and the first of many scenic drives in the south island. We were only going to go there for a night as it was just a stop off because the drive would have been too long without it, So we got there in the evening and left early the next day (we are going back though). The next day the drive was to Franz Josef, a town named after the Glacier which was right next to it. This car ride was amazing and we stopped loads of times to take a load of photos, we eventually had to decide not to stop anymore as it was happening to often and I wanted to get there. The main bit of the drive was through Arthur's pass where it was very distracting to drive through as trying not to look at all these huge mountains either side of me. We were forced to stop at one point when we were ushered off the road as there was a lorry coming that had a house on the back of it, very funny, but in the course of al l the traffic having to get off the road a coach had gone of the wrong bit and was stuck so the house couldn't actually get by it
Almost at the highest bit we got to
. You'll see what I mean by the pictures. Anyway as they were figuring out what to do with the coach we jumped back in the car and sneaked round as I wasn't waiting there all day! We got there finally late afternoon and the weather was great, really clear and sunny. Once into out hostel we just had a walk around although the town was tiny and I booked into do an all day glacier hike the next day so an early night was required!The glacier hike the next day I did alone as kev thought it was too expensive for him. Im very glad I forked out for it. It started at 9.15am and a bus load of about 50 people headed to the glacier. It started with a 3km walk to the glacier and then we split into groups depending on what you wanted to do. Starting at 1 which was the hardest walk to 4 the least hardest. Me and the guy I met on the bus decided that we would go for number 1. Once onto the glacier we were wearing crampons on our boots and having to take on some pretty steep parts but it is surprising the grip you get from the crampons. It was also strange to be on the glacier as I thought when I had looked at them they would be very flat and you just walked over them but I was very wrong as there were tunnels to go through and we had to work our way through this big maze of ice. Also as the landscape is changing so often no tour is the same the guide basically takes you were he wants to. I finally got back to the town at around 6pm after covering about 15km so I was pretty tired and there was a free sauna in the hostel so lay in there for a bit. At night I was too tired to do anything so we sat with some others in the TV room watching DVD's. Will leave it there as I have actually almost caught up with myself on these blogs so will stop now, speak soon, p.
