Sep
3
2010
Unfortunately the past few days have been in patchy internet areas, so here’s a synopsis (big word, hey?!!) . . .
Sunday Sug 29th:
Our second day in chilly Franz Joseph was a full day…Hiking the FJ Glacier!
Not cold; not cold!!
We literally got kitted out in snow boot + crampons, chunky socks, waterproof trousers and jacket, hat and shades. The walk to the base of the glacier was just under a mile, followed by some serious hiking and squeezing!!
The glacier changes quite swiftly from ’smooth fresh’ ice to heavily compacted ice formed into crevices – some were about 12 times our height and we had to go through them sideways with backpack over one shoulder! Oh yeah, and it was cold the ice!!
From the base we hiked up to almost 2500ft above sea level where there was a great view of white: white ice, white snow, white clouds!!
Some of the ice-steps were a good knee-height which meant plenty of acheing limbs for the next couple of days; and in fact one of the crevices was so low we had to go through on hands and knees, which sounds easy enough, but ice also has a tendancy to be wet and slippery, meaning one foot forward, one foot back in some places!
That was one amazing day, esp as Jane is not that mad on heights!
Aug 30th – Wanaka on a Monday >>
Now this was one beautiful little town, right on a lake side. Even better if one was a skiier, as thats all this town exists for! The hostel was a good one with some seriously dodgy karaoke that night (fortunately Mike didnt get a
How many animals, y'all?
song!!), although it was an early night as we had a 4hour drive south the next day.
31st August, Tuesday… this was a fairly long journey day, with us both being able to smirk somewhat at those with hangovers!! First stop was the Wanaka Puzzling World! A rather quirky, yet amusing, one-off place with all sorts of visual effects, trickery, optical illusions, games, puzzles and a 2-storey maze!!
A lot of 3D stuff and a really bizarre tilted room where water went uphill, you stood upright but at an angle etc etc!!, and a room where you were tall at one end and small the other! Apparently Peter Jackson used these effects in “Lord of the bloody Rings” ( we call it that because practically everything on South Island has something to do with that boring film!! )
From there it was a straight drive to Queenstown: “Adventure Capital of the World” . . .
. . . arrived here with enough time to check in (took about 3/4hr!) and get settled in. Settling-In started in the hostel bar at 830pm with cheap drinks and ‘pub-games’!! From there up to the ‘world-famous’ World Bar, which serves cocktails in teapots for sharing!! We all got 100 free drinks to get us started – about 4 each!!
Wednesday First of September: As expected plenty of hangovers for
..with salt AND vinegar?!!
another long day ahead! A full 12hour trip to the country’s best beauty spot, Milford Sound and Mitre Peak. Well it would have beautiful had it not been raining and covered with clouds! So the coach journey was long and the boat trip on the Sound (actually a flooded fjord) was wet…but we did get to an underwater observatory where we could see the sealoife up close…was a bit wierd though as we both realized that we were the ones in the “Human-arium” as the fish were free to swim around, and it was us behind perspex!!
Second of September, a Thursday. A slow day. Well, for Mike anywho!
Like awesome; dudette!!
As snow-sports and Mike don’t mix, and Jane has always wanted to give snowboarding a try, it is Jane today being the adventurous one, taking snowboarding lessons and having a ‘day on the slopes’ !! That has given Me, Mike, a day at the laptop getting Facebook and our website updated!! As it turned out the server was having a wash and brush-up so was offline. Went for a walk instead!
Tonight was spent on the hostel’s locally-famous Big Night Out pub crawl… 10 bars, 6 drinks, pizza and all for $20 each.! Deal, or what?!!
Aug
27
2010
Arrived here at 2pm in the solid rain! We are staying here for 2 nights and most of us are doing the 8-hour glacier hike tomorrow! And the guides say take sunscreen!!
We’ll post pictures of it tomorrow night!
Aug
27
2010
And its five days since the last blog already!!
The last blog we were in Wellington; today we are in Franz Joseph on the west coast.
The last few days have all been one-nighters. In as much as Wednesday was in Nelson on the north of South Island, where there was actually some sunshine! But not a lot else!! Although we did stop by a vineyard and winery for a tasting!
Thursday Aug 26th was a very small town called Westport, top left of the South Island. A former gold mining town, most people now work in dairy farming. A small home-run hostel called “Bazils”!!
Last night, Friday 27th, was in a well known venue called The Poo Pub!! A cheap’n'cheerful hostel at Lake Minhapua. And it was Fancy Dress Night!!
Where men are....?!!
So we stopped by a charity shop and the blokes got kitted out in womens clothing, and the girls in bin liners!!
Aug
23
2010
Having spent the last hour and a half writing the Catch-Up blogs, most of the
Wellington Harbour
daylight is gone! So we’re going to grab some fodder and then watch the Liverpool v Man City on delayed Sky TV at a local bar; then a quiz at same bar!!
Tomorrow, Wednesday, we say goodbye to the North and head off to South Island via the Interislander Ferry – 3hours on potentially choppy waters…oh well, we’ve been caving and jumped out of planes!
Then we start heading down the west coast towards meccas such as Wanaka, Franz Josepth and Queenstown.
Aug
23
2010
Saturday night was spent at an eco-lodge in River Valley. Although Jane and I cooked a chilli-con-carne for 25peeps (who paid!!) it was rather relaxing and eventless, as we chose not to go either rafting (done it before!) nor horse-riding!
Sunday (22nd) we arrived in the capital about 7pm: just in time to check-in to the dorm then hit the basement bar for the free pubquiz!! We entered a team with 2 others from the bus and won! Got 2 free bevvies each, a beanie, and best of all a free night stay each!! Not bad ontop of the specials we got at Taupo for being NZ’s first to book online!!
The weather yesterday (Monday 23rd) was exceptionally good, so we made the most of it by buying a travel pass and going up Mt Victoria – great
What you looking at?!
360 views of Wellington harbour and bays; then down and up the other side to the Botanical Gardens (I say!) and the Carter Observatory. Spend a good 2hours there inc a Planetarium show. Got the classic Chinese takeaway you see on telly – the ones in the fold away cardboard containers, complete with chopsticks!!
Aug
23
2010
Thursday and Friday nights were spent at Lake Taupo – NZ’s largest lake, which is actually a crater full of H2O!! And this is the place of ‘One Small Edge-Out For Mike, 12000feet for Video-Kind’!!
Having wanted to do a skydive for years, I (Mike) finally got the chance to do it in one of the best setting poss: Lake Taupo is the size of Singapore, and to freefall for almost a minute over it then “slowly” decend for another 5mins was too much to miss!
Some pix have already been posted and more will follow, but summise to say it was one of the best experiences of my life. And coming the day after being
Not my best look: a bit Clarkson!!
hundreds of feet BELOW the earth made it even more surreal! Back on terra-firma was Jane and camera and sweaty palms! I was last into the flimsy little plane (sitting next to the seethrough perspex shutter door!!) and therefore first out!!
Needless to say that rest of that night and a considerable part of the Friday was spent Hi-Five-ing with the others that did it too!!
And on top of all this, the hostel company, BASE, launched their online booking for 10Night Saver Deals the day before and Jane and I turned out to be the first people in the whole of New Zealand to use it! So we got upgraded from dorm to private double en-suite; got $50 bar tab, cheese platter and bottle of fizz and our pix on their company website sometime soon!!!
Aug
23
2010
So after several very eventful and WiFi-free days, here’s a bit of a synopsis!
We stayed in Rotorua on Tuesday 17th in a dorm of 7: Mike and Jane plus
Chilli sauce mate?!!
5 other females!! Although the hostel was part of a chain and quite a good one, Jane’s middle name became BUFFET as she suffered an attack of the midnight munchies…by bed bugs! Took us back to they heady old days in Honkers in ‘94 when Mike got snacked heavily upon!! The hostel group paid for all our laundry though.
We spent most of the day at the famous Rotorua Hotsprings GeoThermal park where there are bubbling hotpools of mud (no bathing) and the world famous Geyser, which fortunately goes off whenever a tourist is watching!! We took loads of photos as Mike was there as a 1-year old, so needs mum to see if the place has changed much!!
Weds 18th – Fri 20thAug…a few monu-mental days! Literally!! We went from Rotorua southwards to a place called Waitomo on the Wednesday:
Do our bums look big in this?!!
home to some seriously awesome cave systems…! First ‘hardcore’ activity which we BOTH did was a 120ft abseil into the systems through an opening wide enough for me and a kebab!! From there, complete with miner’s helmets, we explored the underground caves and rivers systems for the next 3 hours!!! Cold, knackered and desiring a pint sum it up! It was exhausting but amazing.
On the 19th (Thu) we all headed to a place called Taupo: see next post…..
Aug
22
2010
Answer: Mike doing a skydive over Lake Taupo in North Island, NZ!
It was one of those things that I really wanted to do over here; and now its done. Also means I can tell mum as I wasnt going to tell her beforehand – I’m not stupid!!
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- Who’s the daddy? !!
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- Yeah, I was calm!
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- Shmoke n a Pancake?
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- Usain Bolt, who?
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- I wanna go over there!
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- Look at that!!
Aug
17
2010
A brief post to let you all know that the internet in NZ is not wifi so posts over the next few days will be brief with maybe no new photos! As soon as we find a cafe / bar hotspot, more blogs will be added. We are in Rotorua today, going to Waitomo (caves etc) tomorrow.
Stay Tooned please!
Aug
14
2010
So with the seasonal weather still dumping upon us we decided to go out and stay in!!
By that we mean we went to the local cinema to see Inception…Jane particularly liked it, Mike got a bit bored, but on the whole it was a clever film, blatantly leading to a sequel (which films dont do that?!!) with some seriously good zero-gravity effects!
After that, and a spot of supper, we got the local bus to Auckland’s Classic comedy club…one really good but crude compere, first performer was an 18year old student who did well; then some bloke from NZ telly called Jeremy Corbett who was ok but brill; then main act a Dunedin-born bloke named Simon McKinney who was bloody funny!! – good observational humour which gave us a bit of an insight into Kiwi life, esp as we hit the road for the next 3weeks on a countrywide bus trip.
So all-in-all a good day out!