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Wow! Its been a while since the last blog, we've been meaning to write one for about a week so here we go...
Last Sunday we started early, driving back from Franz Josef village to Fox Glacier, ready for our 9am flight on a helicopter up to the glacier. we had about a 10 minute flight up with a scenic fly around some caves and a waterfall. We landed about 650m above sea level, and after fitting crampons to make the walking so much easier off we headed to explore with our guide and 2 other couples. Within about 10 minutes we had found our first ice caves, beautiful and blue ice, but because we wore a lot of layers didnt feel cold. Also on our tour we saw crevasses, cracks and frozen pools of water, one of which you could see had buckled by the movement of the ice (moving at 2m per day towards the sea). There was one part where a very thin cave had formed, which Tom just about squeezed through with the other guys, but Yvette chickened out for fear of getting stuck and having to wait 150 years to come out the bottom of the glacier!!!! In all we had about 2 and a half hours hiking on the ice, before another flight back down to the village. The last half hour/40 minutes the sun came over the mountain and we were soooo warm - even broke into a sweat! Just before we left for the flight we also bumped into two girls (Suzie and Theresa) that we had met in Fiji, quite a coincidence since they were travelling the other way around the country to us, just happened to pass in that village!
On monday we drove north up the west coast, before starting the drive down through Arthurs Pass - the highest of the 4 alpine passes across the country - a very windy road! After passing over a viaduct only put in a few years ago because the old road got too windy, we arrived in Arthurs Pass village, the highest settlement in New Zealand.
On Tuesday we took a little walk up to the Devil's Punchbowl.... a waterfall over 100m high, which was very spectacular as when we were there half of the water was frozen - it looked very magical! Then we drove the rest of the pass road to Hanmer Springs - a town that we can only think has been built around its thermal spa, there doesnt seem to be much else there!
On Wednesday we tried out these pools, spending about 4 and a half hours in pools between 35 and 41 degrees, some with minerals in, the hottest having sulphur in which stinks of egg! We even got a private pool for half an hour (thanks to a voucher we found somewhere this cost no extra!) but as it was inside we got far too hot in there. Unfortunately the snow promised for the day didnt happen, apparently thats the best time to be in a hot open air pool! Then we went for a spot of minigolf, which incase you were wondering ended up as a tie!
on thursday we explored the maze in hanmer, not very challenging, especially after the one in wanaka. then drove up to picton. Picton has nothing to offer so we wont waste time writing about it (apart from a friendly irish pub).
On friday we left picton on the ferry, and waved goodbye to the south island, and hello to the north, arriving in Wellington just in time for dinner.
Saturday we took a guided tour around the parliament buildings - beautiful inside and some of the outside, the new 70's 'beehive' looked like it should be in slough or luton not the nations capital. then we took the famous red cable car up to a great view of the city and yvette decided she must look around the enthralling cable car museum - which gave lots of interesting history of the cable cars.
On sunday we looked around the national museum Te Papa, which we both felt disappointed with, cos some of the attractions weren't working or cost too much money and it was just too big without that much content (one of the attractions was a camera mounted on a sheeps head - enough said), and we much preferred the christchurch museum. Wellington was a nice city though with a nice relaxed atmosphere
On monday we drove to napier to look at some art deco buildings, quite intersting little town.
Tuesday we walked out onto the beach front in napier, then drove to Bluff hill lookout over Hawkes bay, the drove on to Taupo, based on the biggest lake in the country
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Today we walked along the river Waikato to Huka falls then the hydro dam at Aratiatia which every two hours opens its gates to allow people to view the river rapids there - great to see. walked over 20km today - quite tiring, but made it home before dark!
tomorrow off to see volcanoes!!!
Love to all
Y&Txxx
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