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We arrived in New Zealand on 17th September and spent a week with Sam's half-brother, Guy, his wife Kate and the three kids; Eleanor, Hugo and William. It was lovely to meet them and for Sam to see them again as it has been a few years since the last time. They live in a nice town called Waiuku, about 45 minutes outside of Auckland.
We flew from Auckland down to Christchurch on the south island where we picked up another camper van. We decided to go for a bigger one this time as the one we hired in Australia was too small really. We didn't stay in Christchurch as it's still very damaged from the earthquake in February. Our first stop was further down the east coast of the south island at a place called Oamaru. Every evening here two different types of penguin colonies come into shore - one much larger than the other. We decided to look for the less-seen yellow headed penguins as you had to pay to see the larger colony. We saw about 3 penguins coming into shelter from the sea, which was pretty cool as the most usually seen is 5 penguins. In the evening we found ourselves a nice little pub to settle into to watch the England v Romania and New Zealand v France Rugby World Cup Games! England and New Zealand won easily and it was a great night. The next day we drove further down the east coast to Dunedin. The weather was miserable so we went on a Speight's brewery tour, which I found really interesting but I'm not sure if Sam agreed! After the brewery tour we went to the Speight's pub next door to watch yet more rugby!
After a flying visit to Dunedin it was time to head to Queenstown, which was just amazing! We spent 3 days here doing lots of activities and enjoying the buzz of the town. On the first day here we even went skiing and for the first time I can honestly say that I loved it! In the morning I had a lesson whilst Sam went on all the black runs. In the afternoon Sam and I met up and went down the 'big easy' lots of times, which was the longest and steepest of the easy runs. By the end of the day I even did one run down a blue run (although admittedly I did snow plough most of the way down!) The next day we went up the mountains in a gondola (cable car), which gave us spectacular views of Queenstown, with the town huddled around the lake under the mountains. We then had 5 runs at lugeing, where we drove go kart type things down tracks, which was so much fun! In the afternoon we zip wired ourselves down the mountain on 6 lines, again very fun! Sam was braver than me by going upside down but I was quite happy to stay upright, especially as the last zip took us to speeds of 70kph! The next day was even more adrenaline fuelled (for Sam!) as he did the Nevis Bungy jump, the biggest in New Zealand at 134m. That evening we went out for a well needed drink and met some Welsh boys who were over for the rugby and had a great night!
After our wonderful time in Queenstown, we were sad to leave but had much more to see and do yet! Our next stop was at Milford Sound, a very long and difficult drive away on the West coast. After a never ending windy road through the mountains we had arrived and it was stunning. However, we were shocked to find that there was literally nothing there other than a group of car parks as you usually take a boat trip for the day. You weren't allowed to camp in the car parks overnight so we had no choice but to turn around and head back to find somewhere to spend the night! We ended up staying at a DOC (Department of Conservation) camping area for the night, which is just an open area of woodland with one port-a-loo in it! But it was an experience! The next day we drove to a place called Wanaka, which is on a beautiful lake with more mountains and just stunning. We watched the England v Scotland game here, which was great as we won by the skin of our teeth! We had planned to go to the Fox Glaciers afterwards but when we arrived the weather was awful and due to the fog we couldn't see anything so we decided to give it a miss. On the way to Fox Glacier, we stopped for petrol at the last petrol station en route. We had a bit of difficulty however as the town had a power cut and the card machine wasn't working so we couldn't pay for it! Luckily we managed to scrape together some change and the lady very kindly took some money out of her tip jar to help us pay for it otherwise we'd have been a bit stuck!
After passing through Fox Glacier, we drove quite a long way to Greymouth, which is the biggest town on the west coast. Therefore, we expected it to be good but there was nothing to do, although the bad weather didn't help! We really did spend 2 days here doing nothing but relaxing and watching lots of films, which was quite nice and suited our bank balances well after Queenstown! After we left Greymouth, we stopped at the Pancake Rocks, which were a group of layered rocks, which was amazing. In high tide the water blows through the holes of the rocks but unfortunately we didn't see that. We then went to the next big town called Westport. We did some walking and went to a seal colony, where they all congregate on the rocks to get out of the rough sea. It was amazing as we must have seen about 20 of them, including pups.
From Westport, we drove to Motueka, just outside of the Abel Tasman National Park. En route we stopped at Bullers Gorge where we crossed New Zealand's longest swingbridge over the river, which was a little scary but not as much as what we did next - jet boating! We all squashed into this fairly small boat and the driver thrashed us around the river for 45 minutes! He drove so fast really close to the rock edge, which was the scariest part although the huge tight spins he did came a close second. We spent the night at Motueka before going to the Abel Tasman National Park the next day. We did a 12.4km walk in 3 hours, which we were very proud of ourselves for! It was a nice walk with great views of the sea and we passed through many lovely bays with bright yellow sand against the green/aqua waters. The next stop was at Nelson, further along the north coast from Motueka. There was an Arts Festival on so we went out and joined in the celebrations. We only stayed here a night as we had to get to Picton the next day to catch our ferry to Wellington.
Wellington was a pretty cool city although rather small, especially considering it's the capital. On the ferry I asked the man at the i-site (information) where the nearest camp site to the city is but he said because it was the Rugby World Cup Quarter Finals, it was $167 to stay the night!! However, in Petone, 10 minutes drive from town, the local rugby club was letting people park in their car park and use their changing rooms etc for $40; so this is what we decided to do. It was great as inside the club they had set up a huge cinema screen to watch the rugby on. Australia beat South Africa and New Zealand beat Argentina. The next morning after a communal shower (!) we dropped the car off at the camp site nearest town (which had been reduced to $50 for the night) and walked into the city centre. We went up the cable car to get a look of the city and walked back down through the botanic gardens. We then went to a pretty cool museum where the Rugby World Cup was on display so we got a photo next to that. We then went for dinner and drinks and met more lovely people (everyone's so friendly here!) The next day we began the 300km+ trip to Napier.
Napier was destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt completely in art-deco style. We spent 2 days here and the highlight was an afternoon's wine tasting tour. We visited 3 wineries and got to try about 6 wines at each. Surprisingly I always preferred the reds. It's a shame that we weren't able to buy lots as there was one very delicious red! Our next stop was Taupo, which sits on New Zealand's biggest lake, Lake Taupo, in a huge volcanic crater. Whilst in Taupo, we drove to a natural hot spring next to a river but it was very crowded so we took a 2.3km walk to Huaka falls, which were ridiculously fast rapids and were pretty amazing. We then went to a man-made series of geothermal pools, which were lovely. Our next, and final stop, was at Rotorua, where we spent 3 days. Rotorua is a huge geothermal area so we spent most of our time doing geothermal activities. We went to Te Puia where there's gysers and mud pools and we took a guided tour of the park, which was great and we learnt a lot about Maori culture and beginnings. Our guide was really funny and she said how a lot of Maori are now mixed-blood and her grandmother had a very Maori name like Te ana muk and her grandfather was called Frank! We also went to a Maori Village where we watched traditional dances and performances and afterwards had a hangi, which is a meal cooked on hot stones in the ground covered by earth. We had roast lamb and chicken with lots of side bits and it was delicious. We also went to some more hot springs although these ones were better as they were shallower so we could sit in them and relax. We did an eco trail here where we walked along a river that was 98 degrees Celsius and so much steam was coming out of it due to the heat.
We went back to Guy and Kate's a day earlier than planned as we had finished everything we wanted to do and were pretty tired from all the travelling! We had a trip up to Auckland with Kate and the kids which was great. We leave for Fiji on Friday 21st October and then head to Santiago, Chile on 29th, which is all very exciting!
Lots of love to you all,
Kirsty & Sam
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