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Hey everybody. Thought it was about time that i updated u again on my travels. You wont believe how much i have done in the last month!! Have been in new Zealand as u know! It is such an amazing country! Full of beautiful landscape and loads of adventure activities!! More about these later!!
So i began my trip woith 2 nights in Christchurch. Spent the day walking around the botanical gardens here. Some of the best i have seen. Really really pretty! It was sunny too and as i had been told that new Zealand was having horrible weather i decided to make the most of the sun and pretty much spent the whole day just chillin in the gardens! Ended the day nicely with a nice thai dinner in a local restaurant – brought back some good memories, my chicken and vegetables in oyster sauce!! Yum yum!! The next day i had in Christchurch i decided to catch a bus to visit the nearby town of brighton!! Lol. Was a nice little surfing beach and seaside town!! Very windy tho and the sea was Freezin so no surfin for me as i didn’t have my wetsuit with me (believe it or not it didn’t fit in my backpack!!) lol.
From here i went up the east coast to a place called kaikora. The weather is still going strong with the sunshine so once again i sit around the pool at the hostel for half a day and then venture to do a 4 hour walk up the headland to see some amazing views!! And some seals sitting on rocks!! really lovely day out!! The following day here i did the most amazing thing – i swam with dolphins in the wild in the sea!! Wow there were so many of them swimming all around me and you had to swim in circles to get the dolphins attention and sing down ur snorkel at them!! Combine this with the freezing cold water and u get a very funny picture, but still it was worth every second!! Amazing experience!! While i was in kaikora i met 2 girls josie and lisa. I end up spending the best part of the next 2 weeks with these girls!!
Next stop off the magic bus is picton where we just spent the eve taking advantage of free interent in the hostel and a lovely hot spa (was actually burning hot!) the evenings here are now freexing sooooo cold! Although prob not as cold as what u hav had at home. But to me they are bitter!!
We then spent 3 nights in Nelson, where we spent a whole day trekking through the abel tasmen national park!! What a fab day out, but boy did my feet hurt after 6 hours of proper power walking to try and make it back in time for the bus. Putting flipflops on at the end of this day was th most blissful thing ever!! But also the swim in the hostel pool when we got back was pretty awesome too!! Amazing beautiful scenery seen!! Some great photos for the album!! We also climbed a really steep hill to tjhe centre of new Zealand while in nelson!! We had champagne on the top because it was lisa’s birthday, not because we made it to the top as some other tourists thought!! Hee hee.
After nelson things started to get really good. There was now a group of 6 of us girls all travelling together, what fun times we had!! We arrive in franz Josef which was freezing and the end of the good weather unfortunately. But then it is a glacier and you have snow instead so u cant really complain!!!
This is where i started to get brave and decided to do a sky dive!!! 12000ft over fox glacier next to franz Josef and mount cook!! Wow what an amazing feeling, spent the whole day deliberating whether to do it or not because the weather was sunny then cloudy then sunny then cloudy, but at the last min just decided to do it anyway!! So it was a tandem skydive so i didn’t really have to do anything except be a banana!! Lol. (the shape u have to make with ur body when u are freefalling!) i cant put into words how it felt but WOW!! I think i liked it cause i am smiling in every single photo, although at 1 point i thought i was going to lose my contact lenses!! Then when the parachute opens and u cruise down to the ground amazing views!! Again. Had a really small plane taking me up only 2 people in it and the pilot so the flight was an experience too!! The following day was the Day off the glacier hike! Us girls spent a day wearing warm clothes and crampons on our shoes to walak on ice and climb the glacier – 6 hours on the ice!! Great fun, most of the time!! Had beautiful weather so up until lunch and the top of the route they normally take u on a glacier was brilliant icy yet sunny and kinda warm, not really cold – YET!! After lunch the guides we had decided to cut a new route and things got kinda scary and cold and dark and wet and horrible – yes i nearly cried!! Lol. Some of the caves that they were taking us into were so small u had the ice touching u on both sides and no room for you feet only to be one in front of each other, and then u would get stuck between the ice and have to go back a bit. Yeah got a bit claustrophobic in there. Photos kinda show what i mean!! But very cold. Alos really steep steps to try and pull yourself up onto. Im making it sound bad and it wasn’t just that i got really cold and known as the blonde that couldn’t do anything, and would wait at every hard bit for a guides hand to help me up!! They also agreed that we couldn’t go back until someone cried!! They all had bets on that it was gonna be me!!
After franz Josef we went to the most boring town ever – greymouth, not even sure its worth the mention in my blog but only stayed there one night anyway!! From here we went to a beautiful town called Wanaka. Was absolutely beautiful, big lake and town. We chilled out here with the girls and had a few drinks at night, however i got asked for id and they wouldn’t accept my driving licence so i sat there drinking water!! While everyone else was getting merry on the beers and wine!! Lol
After Wanaka we made our way down to the place i had been waiting to get too – queenstown. Wow what a place. Adventure central!! Sooo good. Spent just shy of a week here. Did loads of crazy things – went on a gondola to the top of a mouthain and then a cable car even higher up to luge back down. For those who don’t no luging is a cross between gokarting, skateboarding and tobogganing down hill and round a course. Was sooo scared to start with but then it was sooo much fun. Me and Debbie had such a laugh racing around the track, screaming sooo loudly!!
I also had my most expensive day since being away while i was here. Spent about 250 pounds in one day!! Not bad going hey, but wait till u hear what i did with it!! I went jet boating which is a speedboat that does 360 turns and near skids into rock faces!! Fun but it was rainin soo coz the boat goes soso fast the rain was stinging our faces, we looked like right geeks with these plastic glasses they give u for eye protection and our hoods up all around the outside of them so nothing else was poking out!! Ha ha. Straight after this we went out for some lunch and then squeezed in a quick sauna to warm ourselves up from the cold jet boating experience. Then it was time for the biggun – the canyon swing!!! 109m freefall attatched by a pice of rope that then swings u across a valley and looks like ur gonna hit the wall on the other side. Best experience of my life soo far – absolutely amazing feeling the freefall was just awesome. Sooo much adrenalin. Was soooo scared before tho, also they suspend u over the valley and so ur just dangling there and they don’t tell u when but they just cut the bit of rope above ur head which makes u fall, so u have no idea when ur gonna fall!! Sooo good. Check out the dvd when i get back!! Everyone says its scarier than a bungy, which is why i did this instead of bungy jumping|!! Ha ha (couldn’t afford to do both!!, well thats my excuse its not that im scared of the bungy or anything like that!!) hee hee. So u would think that would be enough for one day but oh no us girlies are hardcore!! Well i am coz they all chickened out of the canyon swing, and none of them joined me for my body combat session which happened straight after either. But we did all go out for a lovely meal to celebrate a great day and took part in the big night organised bar crawl. That was a great laugh and also our last night together as a 6. lots of interesting stories to tell from that night!! Oh and we also won a 250 pound bar tab one night when we were in queenstown so that was another amazing night out!!! We ended up in the world famous ferg burger. Delicious massive burgers for only a fiver and its open till4am. Bargain!!! During our time in queenstown we got out first bit of rain!! It rained all day when we went to milford sound so we didn’t see the benefits of what a beautiful place this could be. Also on the way back the bus broke down – blew a tire so we had to wait 3 hours on the side of the road to be rescued, didn’t make it back to queenstown until 10pm, so guess where we went – ferg burger again!! Lol. Following this we had the fire alarm go off in the hostel at 2am and had to stand outside in shorts and t shirt pyjamas in freezing cold for an hour watching the firemen tell us it was ok to re enter the building!! Not impressed. 2 distasters within 24 hours!! Not good. So im guessing that u can tell that i loved queenstown although i swear it ate all my money!! So we had to move up the famous 6 is now down to 4
From here we went to the town Dunedin, freezing cold university town, i found a gym and a swimming pool and spent the day in here, was lovely, had to try and work off some of those ferg burgers!! Ha ha!!
Next stop was lake tekapo beautiful place but still freezing cold. Was meant to go horse riding here but it was too windy so the horses were wild and it got cancelled. Fab 4 is now down to 2
On the way to Christchurch i ventured into the land of white water rafting. Sooo much fun scary but i had a really good guide who luckily for me knew what he was doing (after 15 years of doing it i should think so!) so it was all pretty cruisy (as the new Zealanders say all the time) great drops where we were completely underwater tho!! Sooo cool, glad i didn’t actually fall out!! The water was freezxing. Sweet as!!
I then spent 6 days straight on a bus making my way back up to the north island. Thought i was gonna go crazy by the time i made it there. But i did and spent 2 days in wellington. Went to the museum where i learnt all about earthquakes and other stuff!! Then i was back on my own travelling again. I had said goodbye to all the girls.
Spent one night in napier last night which was nice went out played pool and cooked a lovely dinner. Then i arrived in taupo today!
Taupo is lovely, i hired a bike today and went proper off road to find a waterfall and after 4 hours of cycling over bumpy tracks with clear drops down the side and steep hills with sand on them, yeah was great but a little bit scary considering i was on my own!! Lovely weather tho, lets hope it is back to stay now!!
Tomorrow i have to wake up at 5am to go on a 7 hour hike up a mountain, well doesn’t sound like something i would normally spend my Sundays doing but hey im in new Zealand!!! Lol. Its just a pretty average normal day for me at the moment!! Ha ha. I now have just over a week left on north island and then im onto Fiji and final stop LA. See u all in less than a month! Hope i havnt bored u all too much with my stories. Am truely having an amazing time in new z, its such a cool country. Am loving it!!!
Hope ur all well and a bit happier now the sun is beginning to shine back home!!
Miss u all. Thanks again for all ur lovel messages on my message board. Big kisses to everyone xxxxxx
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