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hi!
i could write a whole lot of excuses as to why im not managing to keep up with this but you know how i am when it comes to computers! having said that we have been rushed off our feet in the south island! i'll start where i finished off last though.
so after rotorua was waitomo. we werent here very long because the place is tiny, the main attraction being the caves that are filled with glowworms. let me tell u about glowworms. theyre actually pretty disgusting. the light is them burning off their excrement and that attracts other insects which get stcuk in strands like a web. the worms eventually turn into flies but as flies they have no mouths, so at this stage they only have time to reproduce and then they die. anyway its best not to think of excrement when you go into the caves. they were truly awesome, ive been in nz over a month now and this is still one of my favourite experiences. we abseiled, did the flying fox, black water rafted and climbed through waterfalls in a 5 hour exploration of the caves. i would recommend it to anyone.
after waitomo was taupo, where the weather took a turn for the worse. i think because of this i maybe didnt enjoy the place as much as other people had done, but we did skydive here which was another fantastic experience and one i wont really begin to explain. it was just a reallu simple pleasure of the wind rushing past and u feeling completely free. have u ever looked out of the window of the plane and wished u could float through the clouds? taupo was also where we did the tongararo alpine crossing, said to be one of the top 10 one day walks in the world. now i knew kiwis were tough. but the tongariro crossing? they made it out to be a stroll in the park! my god it is not. the views were amazing though, i loved the emerald lakes the best, made due to some chemical inbalance. this is where mount doom is too, rob and naomi climbed all the way to the top, then had to run the rest of the crossing to get back for the bus.
river valley was a really nice hostel in the middle of nowhere. here we had a bit of a chill and a swim in the river and got bitten to death by sandflies.
wellington - really friendly little city. the te papa museum was amazing, so well designed, interactive, fun, interesting, everything a museum should be. needed far longer in there than we had available. here i met my friend james who i went to college with and who emigrated to nz years ago. was really good to see him, he showed us round the city a bit too. also went to the weta workshops, the production guys behing lord of the rings and came out more than ever wanting to work with sets and models. or costumes. infact anything would do really. went to the botanical gardens too, me and anna went on a sunday and felt like old women lunching. was brilliant though. decided we should do that sort of thing every sunday.
then on to the south island! we took the ferry from wellington to picton and tried to see dolphins in the water. then went to the abel tasman national park and really did see a dolphin. was beautiful and really close, jumping in the wake of a nearby boat. made my day.
went on to westport where we went jet boating, really good fun lots of spray and high speed! on to lake mahinapua where we had a fancy dress party incorporating plastic bags and with the theme of cops and robbers. it was definately the best night out weve had. we went dressed as a chain gang and were chained together all night. lots of fun.
on to franz josef where we climbed the glacier. so beautiful, bright blue and white swirled ice, looked so crisp and pure. the scale of it aswell...felt so tiny in comparison to that glacier, it aparently takes 65 years for the ice to travel down it! i loved the little pools that had been eroded in the ice creating varying shapes and tones of blue.
then wanaka which was i think the most livable place id seen so far. it was like taupo, growing up on the edge of a lake but smaller and much less touristy.
so now we are in queenstown. there are so many adventure activities here u could very easily spend a fortune. today is my first full day here, went on the canyon swing this morning, dont know how to describe it. was so amazing. just like a giant swing, but think of the 190m freefall. swinging over the view of that canyon too, with the relief that u still have attached eyeballs...that really makes you appreciate a site.
lots of love
xx
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