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Hi everyone,
Hope everyones ok and enjoyed all the long weekends you've been having recently! Also hope exams went well for everyone and you're now enjoying your freedom! Once again I have left it far too long to update this and now face the daunting task of reaching into my memory of what I've been up to! Far to much strenuous activity! Still I shall try my hardest!
Byron Bay cont... - Woke up to brilliant sunshine hurrah! So literally spent the whole time sunbathing! V strenuous it was aswell!
Sydney - where to start?? I loved it and we did so much fun stuff (and spent far too much money!). We went on the sightseeing bus, to Bondi Beach, Sydney Observatory and Musuem of Contempory Art, Up Sydney Tower and also to the revolving restaurant at the top for a meal, spent lots of time around Darling Harbour (mainly with a glass of white wine!), went to the Imax cinema, to the Maritime museum, to the shrek 3 premier and met Cameron Diaz (I shook her hand aswell!!), round the Opera House and to a Dance performance in the Opera Theatre, round the Botanical Gardens, to the Hunter Valley on a wine tasting tour (it also involved homemade cheese - I was in heaven!), to Manley, to the Quantas Wallabies v Wales Rugby game at Telstra Stadium and to Paddys Market and the Domain. We even won a pub quiz! So as you can see we had a fantastic fun filled week and we really enjoyed everything bar staying in Kings Cross (the red light district) which was very dodgey and lets just say provided some very bizzare sights!
Melbourne - was a really fun city. We spent lots of time just wandering around and sight seeing. We went to the Museum, wartime shrine and botanical gardens, Museum of Moving image, Queen Victoria Market and St Kilda. We also (ahem) spent alot of our time doing Neighbours themed activities. We went to the Neighbours night at a pub and met Libby, Dr Karl, Connor and Dylan aswell as hearing Libbys and Dr Karls band play! We also went on the Neighbours tour to Erinsborough High, the studios and the sets for Greasemonkeys etc and to "Ramsey Street" (which is very small actually!) We also met Janelle! Was great fun apart from the fact that we have not watched it for a year and therefore have no idea whats going on in the show! Luckily all old characters turned up so we were saved. We also went to Miss Saigon which was amazing and we both loved it.
NEW ZEALAND
Christchurch - is so lovely and very English! Was practically like being home! After sorting out our sexy campervan (called Keith - a very attractive Ford Transit!) we had a general wander around and also went to the Botanical Gardens,Bottle Lake Forest Park and the Cathedral. We also met up with Heather and Tom which was great fun! (Hi Heather!)
Akorea - was really quaint and is a small french settlement. We literally went here to swim with dolphins which was amazing! We swam with these really rare dolphins called Hectors dolphins. Admittedly the water was so cold it took your breath away (11 degrees!!) but once you got used to it/numb it wasn't too bad. And it was so incredible having the dolphins swimming right next to you and around you! Really and amazing experience!
Mount Cook - was very chilly indeed!! We walked through Hooker Valley (yes thats why!) and over 2 swing bridges in very windy and snowy conditions until we reached the lake at the foot of Hooker Glacier which had bits of glacier ice in it. Was very picturesque and actually quite fun bar the time I put my foot in a glacier water river! Chilly indeed!
Queenstown - a really activity area (really suited us hey!) We managed to resist Bungy jumping (!) and instead went up the cable car for amazing views of the area. We also went on a trip to Milford Sounds as you couldn't drive the roads unless you had snow chains and it was really pretty. Very scenic and informative visit of the Fiords - was great fun.
Fox Glacier - on our way here we stopped off in Wanaka and went into an activity centre called The Puzzling World which was sooo cool. It was full of things which seemed to defy gravity and lots of weird illusions. It also had a maze outside which you had to navigate your way round, reach all 4 towers and then get back to the entrance. Needless to say we rose to the challenge (who says were not adventurous??) and spent the best part of an hour getting very annoyed and retracing our steps watching people do it far quicker than us!!! We did it in the end though! We then got to Fox Glacier and went on a Helicopter ride to the top of the glacier which was so amazing! The views were spectacular and I have never been in snow that deep! Definitely worth it!
Hanmer Springs - was very lovely and relaxing! Its a spa full of thermal and sulphur pools which are so warm - some of them go up to 42 degrees. A bit of pampering was definitely called for! However the air itself was freezing and that was definitely the worst night in the van - woke up and not only could we see our breath but we had frozen up on the inside!!
Kaikora - drove all the way over there to do a wale watching boat trip only to have it cancelled on us at the last minute! What a pity. We then went straight to Picton ready to catch the ferry to Wellington.
Wellington - is a very bizzare city! Still not that big at all and we kept walking around looking for the centre which apparently it does not have. Still enjoyed ourselves wandering around and may have strayed into a pub, although thats not been confirmed.
Tongario National Park - which is where the active volcanoes are and the area they filmed Mordor in Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately it was very cloudy so you couldnt see that much and because of the snow we couldnt walk to the top so we settled for taking some photos (of the cloud) and being told all about it by a very helpful lady in the information building!
Waitomo Caves - were amazing. They are filled with glowworms and when you sail through the caves its like being under the milky way. So so beautiful and really amazing! Even the cave was pretty with lots of stalacTITES (hooray I got it right!)
Rotorua - was incredible but unfortunately very smelly due to it being a geothermal area. We went to Hells Gate (named by George Bernard Shaw as he thought thats exactly what it looked like. Its full of steaming fumeroles and boiling mud pools etc its incredible but like I said incredibly smelly. We also had a mud bath and spa pool experience while we were there which was great fun and left us very smooth indeed! We then went to Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland to see a geyser erruption and again lots of smelly collapsed craters, boiling mud pools etc. We then went to Whakarewarewa Thermal Village which is a Mouri village still lived in even though its on a geothermal area. So bizzare to see back gardens with steam rising from them. We also saw a traditional Maouri show which was very good. We finished off our time in Rotorua with a trip to the Buried village - a village covered by the erruption in 1886 which was very interesting but also very sad.
Matamata - we visited purely beacuse it was the set of The Shire in Lord of The Rings (yes we know we're losers) and it was incredibly good fun. OUr guide was really sweet and had loads of information about the filming etc. And its so picturesque and yet bizzare to see all these hobbit holes in these fields - we really enjoyed it.
Auckland - literally just got here and are spending the next four days here before we fly to Fiji to work on the fading tans! Hooray.
So that brings you uptodate in a very lengthly way! Only a month and half to go and then were back! Sure that will please you all if for no other reason than you will no longer receive essays about what I'm up to! No seriously were really looking forward to seeing you all and think about you all the time! Hope everyone is really good and we look forward to updates as to what you are all up to!
Lots of love,
Laura xx
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