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After our night flight here to New Zealand we arrived into glorious sunshine. We spent the day sightseeing in Christchurch, which looks just like cambridge in England. We woke up the following morning to freezing weather. we were still thinking flip flops and shorts, but on no.... straight to the New Zealand version of matalan to buy fleeses, hats, gloves etc.
We left Christchurch on day 3 and headed over land towards a place called Westport. Once we were outside of Christchurch everywhere was covered in snow and really cold. just 4 dats earlier we were in 33 degrees and now we were in snow. Some people on our trip had yet to buy warm clothes. Our driver told us he had never seen snow in march before in this area, it was not due to snow until June. It could only happen to us....we brought over the english weather. on the way to west port we stopped off and went on a jet boat. This is a boat that speeds down the river doing 360 degree spins etc.
We only spent one night in Westport, after meeting the locals,that was enough! We made friends with 3 girls on the bus and the rest of our south island trip was to be spent with them and one girls parter and his friend who were a day ahead on the bus to start with and then we caught them up.
The next morning we set off to Lake Mahinapua for an overnight stay at a historic west coast pub. On the way we stopped at Cape Foulwinds where we got to go and see one of NZ's largest seal colonys.
That night waa fancy dress party. the theme was green and bling. we had only 1 and a half hours to get all the stuff we needed to make our costume. Andy dressed as a $20 note, with his head as the queens head and he won second prize, which was a day trip river boarding. ( we will explaine a bit later what this is)
The following morning a little worse for wares we set off to Franz josef. Franz Josef is a hugh glacier and we were there to spend a day hiking up it. So we had a good nights sleep in preperation. The following day we set off for our 8 hour hike. It was really cold so we had to ditch all the OZ clothes and opt for hats gloves etc. At first the hike was quite hard on the old legs. The climb was really steep. Once we climed up for a few hours we got to see and walk through the most amazing crevasses and caves. we both had the odd slip and slide but all in all it was a really great day and we both had a real sense of achievement.
The next day (bright and early) with our muscles a little sore we caught the bus to a place called Wanaka. On the way we stopped at Lake Matheson. This is a lake that has great views of the southern alps and mount cook reflecting on it. That night we stayed in a hostel right by the waterfront of lake wanaka.
Again bright and early we got up and on the bus. this time heading for queenstown. Queenstown is know as the adventure capital of new zealand and oh my god did we do some adrenalin activities (but not all in queensland). On our first full day we went and did the river boarding. (This was the trip andy won) Basically river boarding is going down grade 3+ white water rapids, but instead of doing it in a raft you just have a body board that you must hold on to very tightly. Basically to cut a long story short Andy loved it. Lisa on the other hand was s***ting herself and cant exactly say she enjoyed it. I know now that this is one activity i will never ever ever do again!!!!!!! To make matters slightly worse we also got to be pulled along by a jet ski and go down a really steep slide into the water. This was really good but Lisa hit her ancle off of the silde and ended up with a hugh lump and buise on her foot. Lastly it was a glacier fed river so it was COLD!!!
Another activity was fly by wire, which andy did. This was a little wingless plane that got winched up the side of a big hill and then he got to fly it around solo for 5 mins, going higher and higher, suspended by a wire in the centre of a valley. Andy really really enjoyed this. Lastly we did luguing (like go karting) with the group we had made friends with on the bus. this was a really good laught.
The next morning we headed off to geraldine for white water rafting on grade 5 rapids. Grade 5 rapids are the highest rapids you can raft on. We both really enjoyed this and again the water was really cold only 6 degrees. We managed not to tip the raft, but came close. After another night in Christchurch (back where we started from ) we headed off to the north island.........
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