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After meeting in Wellington, Josh and Stu got the ferry over to Picton.. The South Island. We recognised a couple from our hostel in Wellington named Liam and Charlotte and got chatting to them before and during the ferry before ending up sharing a dorm room with them in Picton and the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Afterwards they headed to Christchurch, whilst we headed west and went to Nelson. Nelson is a ncie pleasant place, easy on the eyeand there are many views of the Tasman Bay and the Abel Tasman National Park. Here was also the place of the most central point in New Zealand, after a nice steep walk up a hill! The next day we got bikes and cycled around the surrounding areas of Nelson for a few hours or so.. .a couple of active days I'm sure you'll agree.
After Nelson, there was the long bus journey to Fox Glacier. What no one told us though that there were no ATMs in Fox and it meant us having to get the 1/2 hour bus ride to Franz Josef and then come back to Fox but by then the full day walk we had planned to do had already left. So the next day eventually came after a day full of movies and slouching about using the hostels wide range of DVDs. After the first few hours of the full day walk we were encouraged after early on walking through an ice cave/arch thing but it turned out there were no more and infact we could have seen what we wanted on a half day walk, and could have made that walk the day before even after the ATM mess and not have wasted a day!
The next destination was the big one... Queenstown! Adventure Capital of New Zealand - I don't think you can turn around and not see some sort of extreme sport going on. Also in Queenstown is the legendary burger joint.. Fergburger! The place cooks up some mean burgers! They are huge and extremely high taste value! It gets you well full and it means you end up having to sit down or even lie down for a bit after. It was in a very convenient location just across the road from us too. hmmmm. Anyway back to a better story, it was here where we bumped into Liam again, who was also munching away at a burger. He was in Queenstown for the day with his new house/lodge mates who he is staying with in Wanaka. We all hung out for the rest of the day, even managing a gruelling 45 minute walk up very steep terrain to get some awesome views of Queenstown and have a go on the luge! Incidently, it could have cost us $20NZD to get a gondola up but we're truly skanky backpackers now and every penny counts! After the day was over we're invited to stay with them in Wanaka but we had paid for 2 more nights accommodation already in Queenstown, but did eventually make the trip 2 days later.
Free accommodation and some decent food due to the fact if theres more of you the less money you spend on putting money together to get bulk food but good food. The caretaker at the lodge did get quite suspicious of us crashing there but I guess we probably weren't meant to be there but got away with it as he had another job and had to go to bed early and wake up really early too! Which meant he never actually caught us sleeping anywhere. There were some really cool times in Wanaka, especially gulping down Export Gold Lager, the cheap standard lager of NZ. The time of us in Wanaka ended really well as we made a campfire by Lake Wanaka and melted marshmallows and sipped on some beers. But with so many occassions travelling, as soon as you get to make some good friends, you go again and this was one of them times! This time we were off to Christchurch. Not much to say about this place, smallish city of about 350,000 people. Its meant to be the most 'English' city in NZ, but I think its another way of trying to overcommericialise the area which has been a bit of an annoyance in NZ but i guess they got to promote their tourism! We're off to Fiji on Sunday and reallllly looking forward to getting into some sunshine and hot weather! The countdown til we come home is getting closer now less than 7 weeks.. we're sad i know that we want to keep travelling forever! take care!
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