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We arrived in Picton of the ferry around midday and we hit the road and drove straight to Kaikoura where we saw lots of sea lions and a lovely beach with snowy mountains in the background. We then drove to Christchurch from here and spent three days in Christchurch visiting the city centre and in the early hours of the morning we felt one of the thousands of aftershocks that they are experiencing at the moment which was a strange feeling. We also arranged for a geordie couple who we met in Bolivia to come over to our camper for the night and we cooked fajitas with a few drinks which was a really nice evening. On our last day in Christchurch we visited the antarctic centre which was so much fun! We went into a room which portrayed a real life antarctic storm and the temperature got as low as -18! They also had igloos, ice slides, penguins and dressing up gear so we were big kids for the day! Before you leave you get a ride on a swedish machine type truck we can't remember the name of it but it's built for Antarctic travel and it drove us up huge hills and even through a lake it was a very bumpy and scary ride but lots of fun. We also went to see the globe master which was parked up next door having flown in from The South Pole that morning.
Whilst driving Luke was dancing away and a camper van thought he was waving at them so he waved at us. So we thought maybe camper vans wave at each other like truck drivers do so from that day we wave at other campers and till this day we have not had one wave back so we got that wrong. Lol
We then drove the inland scenic route past Mt Hutt and lots of amazing lakes and mountains into a town called Oamaru which is a Victorian town complete with lots of penny farthings and a steam train.
The next day we went to Dunedin and walked through the city and checked out the worlds steepest road. First we walked up it and then Luke drove up it and back down I stood at the bottom and could hear him screaming at the top was so funny but the camper made it. We then went to see Purakauni falls and that evening we found and stayed on Purakauni bay which was a tiny beach in the middle of nowhere it was heaven!
The next day we drove to Bluff to see the lands end sign but there wasn't much else to see here so we drove and stayed in Invarcagill.
Luke really wants to stroke a baby lamb so throughout our drives he is constantly pulling over and running towards them whilst they are running away from him. He is adamant though so I will let you know if he does!
On our way to Milford Sound we visited little towns on our way like Colac bay which was a little surf town and we also went hunting on gem stone beach for some gems with no luck. We then stayed on Lake Gunn for the night and hit the Milford road which was amazing! Everywhere we looked we saw waterfalls, streams, lakes and mountains. We kept stopping to take photos on the way and this is when we met the Kea bird and we were taking pictures of it on top of our van but it wasn't until we got on our boat we got told these birds can write your car off in 1 day they have the intelligence of a five year old and stupid tourists shouldn't take photos of them on the van but should kick them off. We stood in silence lol and on the way back we soon shouted at them as we have a blooming big excess! We went on a boat trip up the Milford Sound and out to the Tasmanian Sea where we saw again lots of waterfalls, sea lions and lots of rainbows. The boat also took us through a waterfall so we got soaked! We also met a cool couple from Philadelphia and exchanged facebook details on the boat. We drove back up the Milford road to Queenstown where we saw around 3 cars and one of the cars happened to be a police car and we got done for speeding 112kmh in a 100kmh and he was a horrible police man and he gave us a 80 dollar fine!
We then got to Queenstown and I somehow persuaded Luke to jump tandem with me on the AJ Hacket bungy and I quickly paid before he could change his mind as it was non refundable. When we turned up at the bridge he seemed cool but as soon as they tied us on Luke freaked out and started panicking the three adrenaline junkys at the top couldn't stop laughing at him and telling him to calm down and then not sure how, what and when but we both just kind of fell of the edge. I loved it but Luke said he will never do one again but at least he gave it a go. The next day we went on shotover jet which is a jet boat that consists of 522bhp with 2x 3.6 litre v8 engines and pours out 800 litres of water a second whilst darting through the shotover river through the canyons. It was so scary our heads were cm's away from rocks and it was spinning 360•
We then headed for Wanaka which was where most of Lord of the rings was filmed. The first night there we went to see a film in a cinema called Paradiso were you can sit in a Morris Minor and watch the film of you can sit on sofas it was a really cool place. The next day we went to Puzzle World and went through the illusion rooms and the maze which took us a good hour to complete. We then hit the road and went through Haast but didn't stop over due to the mass amount of sandflies. (worst things ever!!) We spent the night in a place called pleasant flat and then headed for the glaciers.
First glacier was Fox and we did the walk to it until the sign read warning only guided tours behind this point but we were nowhere near the glacier so we ignored that sign and got up close to glacier. The tour guides just said you can do it on your own just don't go on the ice. So we did and it was amazing not only that we saved ourself £200.
When we got to Frans Josef we did the same and this is where we met Krissy and Nathaniel from Washington, DC as they accompanied us on our own personal tour again lol we got even closer on this one and got to touch the ice and amazing views.
That evening all four of us went to Hokitika and cooked and played lots of drinking games but around midnight two Irish girls so drunk opened our campervan door and got in smoking we asked them politely to leave but they were so drunk. In the end we quickly got them out and quickly locked the door to find both of them had left there bags in our van and they were nowhere to be seen. They were so lucky we were nice people as they had left hundreds of dollars in there bags, iPods etc so we went looking for them to give it back to them and found two girls staggering around and we just gave it to them and went back and we never saw them again. Stupid girls!
The next day we all went into Greymouth and went on a Monteith brewery tour which was surprisingly interesting and we got lots of tasters. We then went swimming as we were staying on free campsites which have no showers so this was the cheapest way to get clean and shower. Krissy was Harry Potter mad so we then had to go and watch HP 7 at the cinema. After the film we went to a glow worm dell which was so pretty it was a dark cave with hundreds of them lit up like stars in the sky, unfortunately the camera wouldn't pick it up but it was amazing. We also then got a text to let us know about the minors being stuck where we were.
The next morning Nathaniel and Luke were making knifes at 9:30am and we got a knock at our window around 9am to say Nate and Krissy had locked there keys in there car. So we drove into town for help and the locals gave us packaging tape to slip through the door and yank the handle but it was pouring down with rain and after several attempts we gave up and went back into town to pay someone to come out. The mechanic did it in 2 seconds! So we missed the knife
making so we decided to camp near a river and hire gold pans and go digging for gold. So we went down the river with wine, beer and gold pans and sat panning for gold all afternoon, it was a good crack but we found nothing! That evening we cooked whitebait for dinner and played more drinking games. We then went for a walk in the dark to find a forest cave it was so scary but we found it and again the glow worms lit it up! Was well worth being scared for!
The next day Luke and Nathaniel got to eventually make there knifes and me and Krissy watched but we were allowed to join in on the axe throwing, giant swing and eating lol. This took all day and was a long process but we left around 5pm and went on the hunt for Jade stone on a famous Jade beach but yet again we had no luck. We then went to see the pancake rocks and found another cave which was again very scary we went in as far as possible and it was pitch black!
We then said goodbye to our DC friends as we had to get on the ferry. So we headed to Nelson to book us on a ferry and the sat nav told us it was only 40 minutes to the ferry port so we chilled in nelson for a few hours it wasn't until we started our drive to Picton the ferry port the sat nav changed it's mind to 2 hours so 40 minutes into the journey we missed our ferry! So we chilled in Picton for 9 hours till the next ferry and got the night crossing across to Wellington back to the north island.
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aggie sounds great! i want to go to NZ!!!