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This entry will be a bit more like it after the last frustrating addition! We have come to love this country and the freedom we have gained from getting our lovely car which we have named sunny.
After leaving Kaikoura we left for sunnier realms northwards to the city of Nelson. The drive was sweet, even sweeter that we weren't on a bus full of drunken 18 yr olds but we could take wee detours and stop at opportune moments to take snaps.
When we got to Nelson we had a dander around the town and visited a little jewellers. This was not just any old jewellers, this was the guy that made the ring, oh yes the one ring from the Lord of the Rings, along with a few others from the film. Needless to say they cost the earth (or middle earth for geeks like Claire) and for some reason we somehow forgot to take a photo of the display! That evening back at out hostel there was free hot chocolate pudding and ice cream which was a nightly occurrence (NZ hostels know how to do it much better than in oz).
The following day we got up at stupid o'clock and got picked up and taken to Abel Tasman National Park (or as Claire keeps mistakenly calling it - Able Tamsin - sorry Tamsin!!) We checked in and got a water taxi up the coast to another part of the park and did a bit of a hike for a few hours. Now the photographs may look all nice and sunny but the weather was pretty chilly, maybe the coldest we had felt so far in the trip, and strangely one of the German fellas in our group stripped down to his speedos and went for a dip while on one of the beaches - I don't know how he did it, I was wearing 4-5 layers at this point. After the walk we were picked up by water taxi again and taken to another point in the park to a small little beach where lunch was waiting for us on a picnic rug.
After lunch we put on lots of gear and took on for a kayak down the coastline for the rest of the afternoon, hugging the rocks around all the little bays on the way back. This was much better than the kayaking in Thailand - for one we had life jackets. This was a fun wee afternoon but by the end our shoulders were feeling it a little and we were happy to be getting in from the cold.
The next day back in Nelson we did a popular walk up an unnecessarily steep slope to the geographical centre of New Zealand which just happened to have great views over the city which were particularly nice at sunset. Chris was up at 5 the next morning to go to a sports bar in town for the Champions League Final. Needless to say, the result had a knock on effect on his mood for the drive that morning.
The drive to our next destination - Punakaiki - took us along a beautiful coastline to a place famous for its Pancake rocks. Along the journey we were both excited to see road signs to beware of penguins and we were able to make a little detour to Cape Foulwind (no fart jokes) to a seal colony. The scenery was amazing too, with beaches and ocean one our right and literally the other side of the road, rainforest creeping up slopes to high snow-topped mountain peaks. This place is incredible... We arrived in Punakaiki to find not so much a town - more just a hostel and a pub. The grocery store only opened when the owners felt like it. Up bright and breezy the next morning we went for a tramp (tramp is New Zealandish for hike - not picking up a bum). The walk was tough enough up slippy rocks but at the end was a cave full of all kinds of cool karst for us geography geeks to swoon over. We were able to investigate the cave with our torches and although we were allowed to there was something spooky about being in complete darkness with only the sound of dripping water when we had semi dodgy torches so our visit was a bit brief!
After a quick lunch we went to see the famous pancake rocks. They are basically piles of limestone formed by uplift and erosion in such a way that they resemble stacks of pancakes. And basically the pair of us spent the entire time coming up with long winded (and probably weird, wacky and wonderfully wrong) theories on how they formed (gotta love it!). They were impressive and well worth the look.
After Punakaiki (and after stopping to get Claire a new camera (woop woop)), our next stop glacier country. We stayed in Franz Josef under the shadow of more huge snow topped mountains (oh and Mark - the lighting of the beacons in return of the king was apparently filmed there). We took a drive the next day to the nearby Fox Glacier. We did a walk to a viewpoint of the glacier in all its glory. We were watching a group of tourists (tiny specks) on the glacier disappear then reappear through the gaps in ice. Later and after a coffee and hot choc (Claire was amused to see they sold Fox's Glacier Mints) we did another walk around Lake Matheson - famous for some stunning photographs as the lake is so clear and still that on a good day you can get the perfect snap of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman reflected in the water.
The following day was a stunner (I'd say the best so far in New Zealand), and it just so happened to be the day we did a full day hike of the Franz Josef glacier. We got suited and booted and walked to the gigantic face of the glacier, put on our crampons (ice spikes for your boots) and began our walk through the ice. This walk took us up, up and up showing us lots of different areas on the ice from flat stretches to big spiky bits. We crawled through ice caves, walked sideways through very tight crevices (sometimes having to breathe in to squeeze through) and saw beautiful blue ice at the higher sections. This was a fantastic trip and I would recommend it to anyone. After 5 ½ hours on the ice and 7 ½ hours walked in total, we arrived back to the hostel totally wrecked and stinky but having loved every minute of it.
A sleepy start the next day and we made the stunningly beautiful drive through Mt Aspiring National Park, over the Haast Pass to the town of Wanaka stopping all too often to take photographs of the beautiful scenery of mountains and glacial lakes. We spent our first day in Wanaka in a place called Puzzling World where they have all sorts of strange illusions including a tilting room and a room that is designed to create the same effect as that used for the hobbits in Lord of the Rings. There was also a two level maze where you had to reach the four tower corners then make your way out. So we set off in competition with each other to see who could get the 5 things first. Chris won 5-2. Claire huffed her way out through emergency exits when she heard this so a nice young man from Belfast who is not at all a bad winner bought her a hot chocolate and a cookie to cheer her up!
The one thing we really wanted to do here though was skydive. We had planned to do it on our first day but cloud had grounded all planned dives that day. So instead we did it today. And holy s**t it was unreal! It cost about a week's wages but it was worth every penny (or cent), and we've got DVDs and photos as evidence! We checked in, got geared up, then took off in a nippy little plane ascending to our jump height of 15,000 ft. The flight up was incredible with unbelievable views of the Southern Alps mountains. We could see the highest mountain, Mt. Cook, in the distance and it stands at around 11,000 ft which put a bit of perspective on how far we jumped. So when the time came, the little door slid open and we were positioned at the edge of the plane and forced out by our dive masters. We free fell 13,000 ft in 60 seconds! 60 metres per second! It was windy. It was freezing. It was loud. And it was awesome! We spun round and round like a spiral staircase going down, and twirled and plummeted and it's all on DVD! So you can all have a laugh at us when we get home. It was amazing. We'll try to get some of the photos on the blog but if not, the DVD will be worth the wait. 13,000 ft in 60 seconds! Come on!
We also had 5 minutes of gentle gliding once the parachute was out and the perspective this gave you of the mountains was unreal. We both really, really want to do it again, but we don't have another spare week's wages. If anyone would like to donate to the newly established 'Skydive Junky Fund', please email us your details, including credit card details, and we'll happily send you a copy of any further DVDs we acquire!
This country is just beautiful. We'll probably keep saying that over the next 5-6 weeks but really, it can't be explained. Every mountain is a high snow covered peak that slopes right down to the sea. The sun is amazingly bright when it shines and lights the whole thing up incredibly, and there's so much here to keep geography geeks like us excited on every corner! There's rainforest, alpine mountains, beautiful coast, wide open plains, and over 3000 glaciers. Who couldn't love this place? We're gushing...
Anyway, the photos will say more than we can really so we hope you enjoy them as much as we have!
Unbelievably it's less than 10 weeks until we're home now, so we're trying to keep moving as much as possible to get the most out of the time we have left. This might slow down blog entries etc. but keep in touch with us!
Hope you're all well.
Love Claire and Chris xx
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