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Well guys, its been a while since my last entry and a lot has happened since then. I am currently in Brisbane staying with my family before heading down to the Gold Coast later today.
The last time I left you was in Queenstown, having been river surfing (did anyone see the news report about the 21 year old girl who sadly died the week after us river surfing?) That really shocked us guys, an awful story!!
Anyway - the following day we spent the morning in Queenstown before driving the 3 hours to Mt Cook, NZ's highest peak. The drive was, as usual in this country, amazing and we stayed in a campsite below the mountains. The following day we decided to go for a hike from our campsite along the Hooker Valley towards Mt Cook and the terminal end of the glacier at the base of the mountain. It was a 3 hour walk, across swing bridges underneath these beautiful mountains surrounding us. When we reached the end we came to the glacier lake, where the meltwater from the glacier collects. There were ice bergs floating around in it and we sat on a rock and sunbathed for an hour. That evening we drove to Lake Tekapo, as a stop over on our way to Christchurch.
The following morning we decided to drive to Christchurch, which was where we needed to drop off the van. We still had 2 days left so we drove past the city and out to a place called Banks Peninsula, which was at one time an island but is now joined to the main land. The area reminded me a lot of Cornwall. It was very quiet and peaceful. We spent the time playing football and relaxing, as we had no money and there was nothing much else to do. We did find a good pub for happy hour at around 5pm and so we decided to stay there for the evening. We were starting to feel a bit down as we had to take the van back the following day.
We spent the following morning cleaning the van and made it back to the drop off centre by 1pm. We got a taxi into Christchurch and booked into a youth hostel for 2 nights. We then decided that we wanted to go to the Crusaders v Blues Super 14 rugby game that evening. The Blues are from Auckland and the Crusaders are from Christchurch, and also top of the table so it was a huge game. We got tickets and made our way to the ground for around 7pm. The pre-game antics were brilliant. They had a marines helicopter fly in the match balls and there were cheerleaders and horseman riding around the ground. It was some entertainment. The game itself was great. It was a high scoring affair with plenty of tries and it moved at such a fast pace. It was totally different to the English game and a much higher standard. Overall it was a wicked evening.
April 26th, our last full day in NZ, and we decided to go have a game of golf. We found a cheap course by the sea where we could hire a half set of golf clubs and play 18 holes for about $30. The weather was perfect, and the round was great fun. In the evening we went for a good bye NZ curry.
We really enjoyed New Zealand - in fact that is an under statement - we loved the place. The landscape is incredible, please tell my cousin Matt that his idea of NZ being a bit like Wales so why bother going, is pretty funny and I hope he comes to his senses and realises it could not be more different. I have every intention of coming back one day soon and spending more time here, as a month, while it may seem a long time, is no where near long enough to explore the shear beauty of this place.
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