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NEW ZEALAND!!!
so since i last wrote we have arrived in new zealand. we ended up sleeping at brisbane airport to save money. it was eerily empty from about 5. maybe because of the volcano? but yer that wasn't too bad! we then arrived in christchurch and met this candian guy called greg on the bus. we keep bumping into candians and they all end up being top blokes!! christchurch itself was kind of boring. with nothing going on and it looked like a cross between a modern yet old styled european town. very strange hard to describe. had a very european feel to it with trams and little carts selling food. very cold compared to aus! greg ended up winning a kiwi bus ticket and so we waited for him at our first stop. KAIKOURA! very nice small fishing village on the east coast, north of christchurch. we decided to go whale watching which was amazing! i was a bit sceptical at first but we saw 2 sperm whales! got some awesome shots. we also saw 2 very rare hector dolphins (the smallest kind in the world!), some albatros's which were HUGE and a pod of about 100 standard dolphins! the boat was really fun and made my stomach go a bit! got some amazing photos and videos of the dolphins! we had a good night with the people off the kiwi experience. good laughs!
the next day we said goodbye to that bus load as we will see them again and we had to wait for greg to arrive. we went on a fishing trip which was so good! we went far out and had long lines which went about 80m down?? i ended up catching 8 fish which the boat guy filleted infront of us. he was such a cliched fisherman. all he needed was a beard. he had one leg and about 3 fingers and 2 thumbs left?!?! crazy. very funny guy. we also got a cray fish from a pot as well as seeing dolphins and a crap load of albatros's! they are so big and the fisherman was telling us he has one he can feed from his hand! we also saw a load of seals on the rocks. very territorial on the rocks! we then got to keep the fish and cray fish. we cooked and ate them straight away. battered the fish and fried it, steamed the cray fish. lemon. mayonnaise. perfection!!!
we spent the rest of the day going to see a seal colony, i skate boarded there as im trying to get into that now. good fun. only fell off right at the end. I'm cool.
the next day we got on the bus and headed to nelson!! there was not much going on so i went for a skate board around town and mucked about in the hostel. if we had more time we could have gone for walks in the national park there. next day we headed to westport. the west of nz is SO empty and as our bus driver said, they are all inbred which is kinda funny but way past the line! our next few stops were very small towns. westport was ok but it was raining ( and still hasnt stopped a good few days later). here we sat around playing guitar. on the way we stopped off by the sea and some of the scenery has been amazing. jaw dropping cliffs and dense temperate rainforest!!! nothing really to do in the small towns though. very interesting to see though!
next day we headed for lake mahinapua and on the way we stopped off by a light house. some of the erosional features along the coast are ridiculous, i'm also dieing to get back into the waves! a bit to cold. we also jumped into a lake which was FREEEZING. its the lake off the front of the kiwi experience pages so we had to do it! only a few braved it! we also stopped at the punakaiki pancake rocks which are so strange. so many features in the rocks and wierd... pancake shaped rocks on top of each other. only pictures can describe so i took a few! we are in dense temperate rainforest terratory which means lots of green and LOTS of rain. pretty cool though! we stayed at the "poo" pub that night. which has another name but ive forgotten it. fancy dress in the theme of p. i went as a poo. good fun! lots of guys dressed as girls. charlie included. slightly disturbing how convincing he looked... except for the bum fluff on his face!
the next day we headed for franz josef and no mum not franz ferdinand. :-) we stayed here 2 nights so it was nice to settle in... well for a bit! they had a free spa and free pool in the bar. very nice!!! its surrounded by rainforest and the motto of the bar is "it rains, we pour". we signed up for the glacier walk which started early. it was amazing! walked about 3 kilometres up the ice which was an odd experience. we walked throuigh caves, over cracks and crevices and other features beginning with c. good fun! one part was so sketchy. crawled through an ice cave and it came out to about a ten metre drop which we had to jump over into another small hole. scary. some of the ice was SO BLUE and it actually stopped raining for a bit! very interesting and long walk! 8 hours. my legs felt good the next day!
today im in wanaka and tommorrow ill be in queenstown. i have my skydive booked as well as my bungie... i will tell you how that goes!
new zealand is going to drain my money as THERE IS SO MANY THINGS TO DO! I am loving it though!
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