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The flight from Sydney to Christchurch was over very quickly and bought us to the unbelievably beautiful country of New Zealand, where we would be spending the next four weeks!
When we landed in Christchurch, Kerri's very kind auntie Donna and Andy put us up for 3 nights in a place called Sumner. Sumner is full of cool houses built on to the rocks up some very steep roads which Donna claimed "you get used to climbing" but we definitely needed more convincing! It was really good to chill out for a few days in a place where bed bugs weren't a continual annoyance! It was also fun to learn secrets about uncle Scotty, that have serious blackmail potential and will no doubt be used for financial gain when we are poor, returned ex-travellers!!
We had booked ourselves on the Kiwi Experience bus which was really helpful as we didn't have a lot of time to see all the amazing things in NZ and the Kiwi Experience bus moved on nearly every day to a new place. Our first stop after leaving Christchurch was a little town called Kaikora. It was a strange journey as we expected to see lots of traffic and people on the way, however there are only 4 million people in the whole of NZ and only 1 million on the south island so we made good time to Kaikora. After getting up close to a seal colony, and a quick scare when Kez got charged by a big, blubbery, halitosis ridden seal we went ocean fishing! This is unlike fishing in lake or river...as soon as our bait hit the bottom we had to reel it back in! We were only out there for 30 minutes, in which time Kerri had caught two fish (early retirement due to extreme sea-sickness stunted her yield) and Tom had managed about 20!! We were also given a crayfish, and cooked our catch on the BBQ that night. Despite its delusions of grandeur, it turned out crayfish isn't all that tasty, but the Sea Perch went down a treat!
From Kaikora we went to Nelson which is at the very centre of NZ, and after walking up the very steep hill that leads to this centre point, we shared some inhaler! We also had our first roast dinner since leaving England, but found the roast pumpkin odd, and the Yorkshire pudding only just passable!!
Our next stop in a town called Westport was of very little interest......however it did allow us to find our costumes for something called the "Pu" party (pronounced poo!), which would play out at Lake Mahinapua the following day! At Lake Mahinapua there is a hostel which is owned by a very old man called Les and the evening can be summarised in "Funnybones-esque" format:
In the dead, dead town,
There was a damp, damp hostel,
In the damp, damp hostel,
There was an old, old man,
And in the old, old man,
There was some foul, foul language,
But with the foul, foul language,
Came an all you can eat buffet, and some cheap, cheap drinks!!
Anyway, our theme for the party was the letter "P" and as this is a U-rated blog we can leave out the details, and won't spell out what Tom went as....We will say however, that it wasn't what you think (maybe!) and was actually Kerri's idea, so Tom can't be blamed (entirely). By chance Kez managed to find a pogo stick in the Salvation Army second hand shop and went as a pretty convincing pogo-champion! The party was sweet and there was a Canyon swing in Queenstown up for grabs. The Canyon swing is fairly self-explanatory, but involves a swing as well as a 60 metre free fall. Despite Tom's borderline offensive costume he only went and blooming won didn't he! (The Canyon swing was awesome by the way!).
In was a fairly unsympathetic departure of 7.45 the next morning, but the destination was well worth it. We arrived in Franz Josef and booked on to an eight hour glacier hike the next day. The hike was brilliant and included ice-slides, ice-caves and some pretty steep crevasses to navigate. Luckily there were some hot spa pools next to the hostel to relax in when we got back!
The next day we travelled along to Lake Wanaka where Tom (stupidly) decided to jump in, and due to his tiny, thimble-sized head stayed cold for a very long time. Wanaka had a really chilled out feel to it and if we had the time, would have liked to stay another night. In an unfortunate turn of events, Kerri was ill just in time for her 22nd birthday the next day. Despite being full of rhinovirus Kez put on a brave face and had a good day when we arrived in Queenstown, which is a place full of adventure!! We went for a curry for Kez's birthday as it was the only thing the poor dear could taste through th Great Wall of Snot!
The next day was racked with nerves from Tom's point of view as it was the day of the Nevis bungy! This is the third highest bungy in the world, at 134 metres, and takes eight seconds of free fall before the elastic brings you back form the canyon floor! The cable car which took Tom to the bungy ledge was decidedly suspect and the nerves that were oddly absent from the 45 minute bus journey to the site, were now very much present! When Tom's group got the ledge he found out that the heaviest person was to jump first, and upon realisation that the rest of the group were either small ladies, or small men, Tom was called to the edge! Tom was allowed to take his camera down, so decided to make a video of the big moment. At this point it would be nice to think that he thought of something funny and cool, or even a terrible cliche like "rock on!" to say before jumping. What was actually emitted at this once-in-a-lifetime moment was a quiet, nervous, monosyllabic laugh, accompanied by a sickly smile in to the camera! After a countdown by the sadistic bungy team, Tom dove off the ledge and would recommend this to everyone as it was breath-taking!
The next day we had a long bus journey back to Christchurch, but managed to sleep for most of it and arrived back to Donna's at around six 'o' clock.
The south island really is the most beautiful place we have been on our travels (and probably ever!) so will definitely be making a return visit! The next day we caught a flight to Auckland and before we knew it, we were travelling the north island!
Tim and Kezabel.
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