Hello everybody, since we last wrote we haven't really done all that much. We spent a really lovely 4 nights with Marianne, Jon and Hamilton and I found it quite hard to leave and got a little emotional, ah well.
Yesterday we picked up our rental car which is a little Dihatsu Sirion and its awesome. We managed to drive for 7 hours and it didn't even use a whole tank of petrol - awesome!!!!!!! So yesterday after some tea and after a good goodbye we headed to Queenstown in the sunshine. As it began to get dark the rain started and we arrived at the black sheep hostel in the dark and in the rain. I wasn't very impressed although the forecast had said sunshine for the next day so we went to sleep in hope. We woke up this morning at 7:30 to an overcast sky and a new forecast - rain. So we spent about 2 hours driving round deciding what to do and ended up going to the skyline gondola where we got a cable car up the mountain in hope of doing the luge but it was closed because the track was covered in snow. Then we we rearranged our time on south island so we got back in the car and headed for Arrowtown and the chinese gold mining settlement which i can imagine to be much more interesting when the sun is shining - a little like the open air museum. So we had a look round, got back in the car and headed on to Wanaka over the Crown mountain range. We had our snow chains ready in the boot should we need them but the road was nice and clear so it wasn't necessary. At the top of the pass it was very hard to see because everything was white - the sky the ground and our car, you couldn't make out where mountain ended and sky began. We parked up and got out to play in the snow which was knee deep and soooooooooooooo cool. I've never been in snow like that before. Toby was wearing his canvas shoes and so he got very snowy feet but it was ok. So now we are in Wanaka which is a beautiful town overlooking a lake surrounded by snowy topped mountains. We went to puzzle world which is the best place I have ever been to. Sadly pictures are on our instant camera as we forgot the digital one so you will all have to wait till we get back home to see its awesomeness.
Tomorrow we will head up to the Haast Pass and along the west coast to the glaciers and then on to Arthur's Pass which is supposed to be a lovely drive. I think we will probably then spend another night with Marianne and co and then move on to the hot Hamner Springs and up to Abel Tasman National Park for some hiking. We have booked our ferry to North Island for the 1st of June and we plan to meet Bex and Non in Rotorua. We are going to go to Hot Springs beach in Coromandel which is a beach and you take a big spade and dig out your own hot pool - amazing!!!
So yeh, thats about all we have done so far. A pity abotu the weather but the further north we go it should pick up a bit.
Lots of love to everybody
Tegan xxxx