Bye bye Melbourne, hello Contiki New Zealand!

So Gillian and I have said fare well to Melbourne, Victoria and are now venturing around the amazing country that is New Zealand...the land where bad pictures are impossible!

So our final week in Melbourne since our last blog was uneventful and consisted of us packing, unpacking and repacking x 3 haha!We have accumulated quite a lot of junk (I mean souvenirs) in our 4 months that we have been away from home!

So we had a bit of a nervy flight up to Sydney where Claire freaked out at the turbulence...but other than that we survived!We met up with Kyle at the airport and made our way to our hostel for the night.We had a lovely dinner, followed by some very toxic cocktails.It wasn't a late one as we had to be up at 5 for our flight to Christchurch.Claire had the challenge of trying to wake up Kyle and did it with style...by telling them we missed our alarms and missed the plane!I am bad haha...but I have never seen anyone get up so fast in my life!

Christchurch is a lovely little town which so happens to be the base for Australia, America and Britain's Antarctic expeditions and we got to see all the navy planes at the airport which was cool.We headed to our hotel where we met up with Nelette.We didn't venture far that night and had a huge meal at the hotel restaurant, a few drinks and a big catch up before turning in for the night.The following day we spent the day being tourist around Christchurch where we climbed the 134 steps of the Cathedral tour to see the views of the town and sat in the botanical gardens.

Day 1 of Contiki:The day started at 8 when we boarded the great big advertisement that we were tourists...the Contiki bus!First part of the tour is in the South Island and our first stop was Lake Ohau.On our way to our first hotel we stop in at a place called Geraldine which so happens to be known for the world's biggest knitted jumper (it's a world record holder and pictures are to come hehe)!Next we stopped for our first photo shoot of Lake Tekapo ("to leave with haste") a glacial lake which was turquoise blue in colour and mountains with snow in the background...it was this lake that made us really feel we were in New Zealand.We stopped at few other photo points, Lake Pukaki and finally Lake Ohau which our hotel over looked.We also got to see the top of Mount Cook which is the highest peak in the South island.That night we all had a few drinks and got to know everyone on the tour.

Day 2 of Contiki:The first stop of the day was a place called Mrs Jones, a fruit and veg shop, where we were told to stock up on some vitamin C as people on Contiki always seem to get what is known as the Contiki cough cause we are party animals or something along that line!Today was the longest day we spent on the bus, heading towards Milford Sound where we would spend a day on a boat heading out towards the Tasman Sea.On our way there, we stopped at Te Anau for lunch; we also got to frolic around in the fields to the Sound of Music when we reached the Southern Alps.We reached the boat and got shown our very small cabins.We got to go sea kayaking and Gillian, Kyle and Nelette jumped of the top of the boat into the freezing cold glacial waters whereas Claire chickened out and jumped the lower deck of the ship!20 - 30 dusky dolphins also joined us that night.The night consisted of quite a few board games....what else is there to do on a boat!

Day 3 of Contiki:Waking up on the Milford Sound to dolphins and in among the misty eerie mountain's was actually quite cool.We got back to land and started our journey towards the adventure capital of New Zealand...Queenstown which is situated on Lake Wakatipu.On the way we stopped off at various photo hot spots.We stopped on the Devil's Staircase. Legend has it that a farmer was moving his cows to the other side of the mountain, the head cow became possessed by the Devil and led the heard over the edge of the cliff.We arrived in Queenstown and got all checked in to our spacious rooms. We hada little bit of time to relax and get dolled up before we headed out for our group photo and dinner at the Skyline restaurant.In order to get to the restaurant we had to take a gondola ride up the mountain side. The views were amazing and so was the food!Over 150 dishes to choose from, I can say we were truly stuffed!Then we all proceeded to the gondolas down the mountain and then walked down to The Buffalo Club for some drinks and then headed to The World Bar for a good old boogie.

Day 4 of Contiki: It was a very early start for all of us this morning as we had to be up, dressed and have breakfast before 7:45am.Some more groggy than others (Gillian is far too chirpy in the morning!!). We got picked up by the bus and taken to the canyon where the Shotover Jet was.It is basically a speed boat that drove super close to the cliff side making you think you're going to crash, the driver even threw in an occasional 360 spin, now that's what I call an extreme wakeup call and by far the best hangover cure Kyle says, lol!Then it was back to the hotel for a well needed nap for some of us. Then Gillian, Claire and Nelette headed back to town to head over to our horse riding at Walter Peak.We went on an old steam boat that took 40 minutes to get to the other side of the lake.Once there, we were met by Lloyd our instructor.We got to the stablesand Nelette was introduced to her house Millie, Claire was riding Molly and Gillian had Beauty.Once we were all on and sitting correctly we were off.Lloyd and his dog walked the whole way along the track and once we got to the highest point of our trek we stopped and took in the scenery, it was breath taking. We got a few photos of us and on our horses and headed back down to the stables.We had dinner with the whole group at Winnie's a Pizzeria.After Dinner we headed to the Cowboy Bar.It was tacky as anything, it had saddle seats, wooden swing doors and of course...a bucking bronco! While Claire and Nelette watched at the side lines.....Gillian and Kyle took on the untamed beast. Gillian managed to stay on longer than Kyle!!Our next stop was to the Minus 5 Ice Bar.We got supplied Eskimo jackets, boots and gloves (like being back home in Scotland) and we walked into the ice bar and as you can imagine, everything was made of ice...even our glasses was made of ice!It was a very cool place (pardon the pun)!We could only spend 45 minutes in this bar...I guess before all the Aussies freezed to death.The final stop of the night was across at Frasers for some dancing on the bar and a couple of drinks before heading back at a reasonable hour of midnight!

So as you can maybe see, it is only day 4 and we have done a lot!We have 9 more days of Contiki and each blog will probably end up being this long!We hope we haven't bored you or made you too jealous with all our adventure talk hehe!

We hope everyone is coping with the snow and if we don't write a blog in the next week or so...we hope you all have an amazing Christmas and Santa is good to everyone and have a happy New Year!We will see you in 2011!

Lots of Love

Claire and Gillian

xxx xxx