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After a long 7 months in Australia we finally left for New Zealand, after saying a tearful goodbye. We have had such an excellent adventure there, we left from Brisbane where we started our trip and even though it was still about 17-18 degrees everyone had their scarves and big coats on and outdoor heaters for the pub gardens!! We flew into Chistchurch and it was a very cold -1, we haven't been that cold in a very very long time. But we were well prepared with our hats and gloves. As we only have 3 weeks here (nothing at all) we are going as fast as we can so we can fit loads in. We didn't do too much in Christchurch as we were eager to get out into the mountains. We hired ourselves a car as it is actually cheaper than us both buying a bus pass and we were on our way to Hanmer Springs. It is north of Christchurch, up in the hills, the scenery was amazing (you'll find me saying this about most places in NZ, as it just is!). Mist hung low over all the hills and I really felt like I was in Lord of the Rings. Hanmer Spings as I'm sure you would have guessed has hot springs outside. We found ourselves a nice little wooden backpacker lodge, which I was worried would be cold but in fact with it's log fire it was actually boiling. The hot springs were about 38 degrees, our feet froze on the ground before we jumped in, although it was only 9 degrees outside. We were hoping it would have been snowing outside. We could see all the snow capped mountains in the background, and I eventually dragged myself out of the springs when I couldn't take anymore of the heat. The next day we drove to Kaikoura round the windy mountain roads to do a whale watching trip, we got all the way there, paid for our trip, and we were just about to get on the boat, when the trip got cancelled because of bad weather out on the sea. We were gutted but hope we can get on another trip while we are here. New Zealand seems so isolated even in the bigger towns, it just seems so empty, with huge vast mountain ranges and hills.
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