19th July – 7th August – Brisbane to Cairns

On route to Brisbane, we passed the concrete jungle that is the Gold Coast-so glad we didn’t stop there. We did however stop at DreamWorld- one of their theme parks (the Aussie equivalent of Alton Towers.) There were very few queues-so not quite like Alton Towers!! A few good rides, one that sent you from 0-60 m.p.h. in 2 seconds.

We spent five days in the quiet Moreton Bay area before a great night out in the city of Brisbane with Charlie Cank-on her birthday too! Whilst in the Bay we attended a jazz/blues music festival on the harbour which was a nice day and we also attempted to swim the 50m Olympic pool, but failed and reverted back to 25m! Two brilliant things happened while we were in Brisbane. 1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released and 2. We got a phone call from Ben to say that he was now the proud father to Harriet Beth. Great stuff!

Our next stop was Noosa, this is one of our favourite towns so far. Cracking beaches, good surf and funny little exercise machines along the shore that we attempted to give us a break from our running in the heat! It is now a lovely temperature and the Fiji tan is starting to reappear. Jonty had his first taste of body boarding in Oz, and we both had a taste of pineapple at the BIG pineapple! Well done Noosa.

 We ventured to Rainbow Beach which was our gateway to Fraser Island. Here we stayed at a hostel that ran self-drive 4×4 tours to the island. We were put into a group of 11 and had a fantastic time. Fraser island is made up entirely of sand and is one of the few places in the world where rainforest grows directly out of the sand, no soil at all. Driving on the dry, heavy duty sand was a bit of a mission, but also great fun when we got stuck and had 10 people and shovels digging and pushing to try and free us. We spent 2 nights, 3 days there. Camping on the beach and washing up in the sea made this memorable.  Our group and the other 11 Irish mad group that we spent our time with were heaps of fun. One of the highlights on Fraser is Lake McKenzie-it is your ideal blue lagoon, pituresque and hidden from view by sand dunes and forest-lovely. Whilst on the island we also witnessed a pod of 5 whales migrating past, a group of sharks swimming round the headland and a manta ray. We have been so lucky to see such a vast amount of wildlife since being away.  You can’t beat 4 wheel driving on sand-outstanding!

We rushed up the coast to Airlie Beach for our next outing to the Whitsundays. We were booked on a boat for another 3 day, 2 night adventure. This one was to be a little more relaxing from Fraser, but still awesome.  Jonty was in his element, pulling up the sails and learning knots, and also reading Harry Potter!! We tried our hand at a bit more snorkelling too, but the fish here were slightly larger than in Fiji, Jonts jumped in and soon popped back up gasping at the size of the fish right next to his nose, nearly 2 metres long! Life on board the boat was a totally different experience to those we have experienced so far. The food was delicious and plentiful, the sunsets were impressive, as was watching the stars come out (we saw Venus and Jupiter too-not that we could tell them apart!). The sleeping cabin was small but had porthole with the moon shining through and the gentle rock of the boat meant that you had a great night’s sleep. An unusually relaxing time amidst our hectic schedule to get up to Cairns.

Our final venture before embarking on Cairns and a 2 week stop over in one place-a real rareity- was Magnetic Island. A small place 20km off the mainland, but full of Australian wildlife. It was a chance to see Koalas and Kangaroos in the wild-much better than in a zoo. After a 5 hour walk, we had seen 1 koala and the heads of a few rock wallabies as they hopped away from us. Still, better than a kick in the shins! The hostel was not so great and stole 6 beers from us-we will not be staying in a X-BASE hostel again. The funny thing was, that on our final journey to Cairns, we stopped at a wetlands park for lunch and there were about 200 kangaroos sitting and hopping around the rugby pitch there. No walking required!

Onto Cairns to meet Lou’s mum and Steve.

4th-18th July Sydney-Byron Bay

Sydney. Cold. Hats back on then. We spent three days seeing the Sydney sights. (You can see the bridge from everywhere!) Doesn’t matter how often you’ve seen the harbour, it’s still cool to meander. We did a brilliant walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach. It took us much longer than it should have done because the nice man at the hostel gave us 15 free drinks vouchers and Jonty kept stopping to marvel at the size of the waves. They were 20 feet. I know this because he told me 20 times!!  We packed our days full of sightseeing and thoroughly enjoyed the beaches and markets alike. A highlight was watching the Wallabies play the Springboks in the tri-nation tournament at the Telstra Stadium.

After a slight hiccup with the campervan, we ended up hiring a car to start our east coast trip to Cairns.

First stop, the blue mountains. Bloody freezing! You could see your breath! It didn’t help that our hostel did not have heating. We warmed up by hiking for 4 hours through a canyon filled with rain forest. The views from the lookouts in the blue mountains are long. You can actually see the blue vapour lingering over them. The three sisters are a famous landmark that appear on postcards everywhere. Actually seeing them put into perspective their sheer size.  I think it’s the size of the drop into the canyon, whatever it is, it’s a great view. We liked the blue mountains.

The next stop was Hunter Valley, this was slightly warmer, largely due to the amount of wine we drank on the hostel’s wine tour! This wine tour was brilliant.  It was led by Gordo who had that unbelievable Aussie trait of being able to talk non-stop for hours on end. Despite this, he was funny and informative, which just added to the day. We tasted far more wine than we did in NZ, (good job that we weren’t on bikes this time!). Plus we got to sample different cheeses, olives, olive oils and chocolates-all in all a good day! Later that day we gained a new roommate in our dorm. Mark the German was a secret rock diva, we invited him for one, he stayed on with the locals! The Germans and Australians love their rock. Unfortunately, all of this fun-packed night made him snore louder than Dan Baker. And Jonty spent a long time going mad, shining the torch in his eyes and setting off our alarm, amongst other tactics to try and wake him from his slumber. Thus, to no avail. We left Hunter Valley for the coastal route to Port Macquarie, tired.

 Sunshine, dolphins and whales awaited us. We went to the lighthouse and saw a pod of about 30 dolphins surfing the waves, only 10 metres away,  it was quite a sight. In the distance we could also see humpback whales migrating north. In the afternoon we visited the hospital. But never fear-we are okay-it was a koala hospital!! Koalas are brilliant-we hope to see more of them. One of them had a joey in its pouch too. We also hope to see some ‘roos, the closest we have got is eating one. We saw our best sunset so far on our whole trip whilst running along the harbour. Nice.

On our way to Byron Bay we had two pit stops. One at the Big Banana where we ate a banana! And the other at the Giant Prawn. Australia loves their BIG things and these are 40ft long models. Random. Next up, we are looking forward to the delights of the big pineapple. Guess what we’ll be eating there!

Byron Bay is a cracking place. It’s not often you can sit on a beach and watch whales and dolphins swim past metres away. The temperature has finally reached shorts and t-shirts point too. We borrowed some bikes from our hostel and had a good day cycling. The rest of the day was spent on the beach.

Fiji – BULA! 20th June- 4th July

We stepped off the plane and were hit by 26.C of heat, a good start. (It was 9pm by the way.) We headed to Nadi where we stayed for 2 nights and made our plans for the next 2 weeks. 12 days worth of island hopping in the Yasawas was the outcome.

The Yasawas are made up of 20 islands, on each island is a resort that the local villagers run. You are catered for 3 times a day and entertained with traditional activities. We soon adapted to “Fiji time.” Our daily routine consisted of: a run for Lou, followed by an early breakfast (7am), then a lay on the beach whilst it was still coolish, then suddenly you would hear the beating of drums or the sound of the conch being blown and it would be lunch. Our afternoons were made up of swinging in a hammock in the shade, snorkelling, swimming, beach volleyball, weaving and eating coconuts. Its a hard life, but someone’s got to do it! Dinner was around 6 followed by dancing in traditional fijian style. One resort that we stayed at had only just learnt the fijian fire dance and performed inside a thatched hut. We were not worried until they squeezed five of them in there and then kept dropping the lighted fugal sticks they had. One of them managed to burn Jonty’s foot by dropping the flames on him! It was all good though, the guy just laughed and said it was Fiji time!

 One of the many brilliant things about Fiji is the singing. As you arrive at or leave a resort the whole staff and family gather to play instruments and sing you a welcome/farewell song. This made you feel welcomed, relaxed and also part of the family. Our first island stay greeted us with “welcome home” and they really made us feel as if we were. It was nice to lay on the beach and hear people singing.

The Fijians are rugby mad. In our time there we were lucky enough to watch the local team in a tournament. They played on rock hard grass and loved their contact. (It was always carried out with a smile!) Jonty joined in with beach tag rugby and was impressed with the side stepping and pace of the locals. These boys can move and have the six packs to go with it! Lou enjoyed watching!

Whilst in Fiji we decided to try out the snorkelling. All the islands are surrounded by coral and so snorkelling is popular. Lou had never done this before and it took some persuading to get her head in the water. We snorkelled hand in hand. Not to be romantic, but because Lou was too scared to let go. The ocean floor kept disappearing and when it did, it became pitch black. There could have been anything lurking about to get me. Once mastered though, we enjoyed seeing the many different coloured corals and fish.

Every morning (for Lou anyway) and evening, we watched the sunrise and sunset. We will miss this about Fiji, there was a certain quiet quality. We will also miss the overwhelmingly friendly people and the coconuts.  We had a good 2 weeks and got a nice tan too!

BULA 

Next stop Sydney.

Jonty’s Birthday ’til the end of NZ 12-20th June

The coromandel peninsula is stunning. White beaches, clear water and a nice climate. Jonty had been claiming for days that it never rains on his birthday and sure enough, we awoke to sunshine and a shorts and t-shirt day! We then experienced a crazy conference call from the Taylors, it was a bit like being round the dinner table at christmas apart from the fact that it ended with “Nefar…has gone!” We headed straight for a beach and launched the aerobie around. After an ice cream we headed to Cathedral Cove. This beach has an impressive arch/cave that links two beaches. We had a good stroll and then bumped into one of our mates from the glacier (again!) we have now bumped into him 3 times even though we are travelling in opposite directions. We then had a short drive stopping off at a few other beaches before we camped up for the night and received a few more birthday greetings before bed time- a great day.

Disaster! We’ve broken our camera! Enough said. 

Our next stop was Northland, we drove straight through the busy roads of Auckland until we reached the bay of islands. Pretty. We had the chance to go on a boat cruise to see the islands and dolphins but we declined the offer and headed for some 40 metre high sand dunes instead. We encountered 2 beach-bum Maoris who rented boogie boards from their van. After a quick demonstration of which way up to use the board we left them to start our climb up the sand, (very hard on the calves-not the cow variety!) The view from the top showed the sand dunes heading on for miles and it looked a long, steep slope down. The only other advice they had given us was to keep our mouths closed, but typical Jonty, he smiled all the way down and had sand all over his teeth!! Jonty has discovered Lou loves speed and whilst pretending to be really scared at the top actually flew past him on the way down and kept going way after he had stopped.  We had several goes trying differing techniques before we attempted the double. The two of us on one board. Our first attempt ended in us being thrown and flipped 20 metres down the dune, both now covered in sand and eating the stuff! But we mastered it. The whole dune surfing experience was one of the highlights of New Zealand for us, we abosolutely loved it and having broken our second watch of the trip, totally overran the hour’s hire we had of the boards. The Maoris, being typical of the Kiwis we’ve met, were chilled out, not even slightly bothered and just glad that we’d had a good time!

On our return to Auckland we had a look at 90 mile beach. Pretty long, but actually only 90 km!

We drove through the rainforest to Lindsey and Sid’s house. Although technically Auckland, it is an actual rainforest. We had good fun finding it and a nice stay with the whole family who were there visiting-which was funny as we haven’t seen them in the UK for ages!!

Then a sad day. We had to return the camper van. It had been our home for the last 53 days and smelt like it too! Jimma, a friend from Uni who now lives here, picked us up and took us to the city for a 4 day stay and a few beers on the town.

Auckland is massive a population of 1.2 million, it has the footprint of greater London. We viewed it from Mount Eden, one of the ancient volcanoes in the city, and from the sky tower, the giant concrete mass, that looms above it.

With Jimma and Gemma (both sound the same with a Kiwi accent) we visited a black volcanic sand beach, made famous by the film ‘The Piano’ which neither if us have seen. We also bought some beach stuff for Fiji and had a great evening at ‘Clip and Climb.’ You put on a harness and clamber up the rock climbing walls of varying degrees of fun and difficulty. This included a giant slide where you had to hold onto a set of handlebars and be hoisted up for as long as you could maintain your grip. Then you dropped and slid down in until you were thrown into a crash mat wall at the end. (The video from our new and improved camera is hilarious!) It was a good stay with them. 

Packing our bags to get to Fiji is going to be interesting. But the warm weather will be heaven.

Taupo, Waitomo and Rotorua 6th – 11th June

Taupo is a relatively big town on the shores of Lake Taupo which is the size of Essex. It is known as the outdoor adventure capital of the north island, but as we had already done the majority of our activities in the south island, we did not linger for long. Here we visited some rapids that are controlled by a dam. Three times a day the dam opens to allow the rapids to ‘come alive.’ It was an impressive sight seeing the small trickle of water turn into a strong current and a high water level, creating the rapids.  After this, we viewed the Huka falls, worth a look, but we won’t bore you with any more photos of waterfalls!!

From Taupo, we headed to Waitomo where there are infamous glow worm caves and the chance to do black water rafting. This is not as exciting as white water rafting, but was really enjoyable and something we had never done before. We donned wetsuits and picked up a rubber tyre which you floated on. We initially walked through the caves before jumping into the river below off a waterfall and then floated along in the pitch black admiring the glow worms overhead. An enjoyable day.

After this we drove back across to Rotorua. This region is full of volcanic activity and so there are natural hot springs and geysers everywhere. It smells! (Largely due to the sulphur coming out of the numerous hot pools.) We spent our first day there in an oversized hamster ball, rolling down a 200 metre hill. This is known as Zorbing. You climb into the ball, they throw some hot water in for good measure and then you try to run for as long as you can, (in our case about 3 seconds) before you then elbow each other in the head and back and slide upside down, back to front, all the way to the bottom. The best way to describe it is probably like being inside a washing machine with you as the clothes!! It was a lot of fun!

To dry off we ventured up to the top of a hill in the Rotorua gondola for some more luging. It was Jonty’s chance to gain vengeance from Queenstown, but to no avail-he lost the races 5-0!! He even reverted to cheating by trying to ram me off the side of the track!! Here, there was a choice of 3 really good tracks ranging between 1-2km long. The advanced one was very quick with some extremely sharp turns. Another great activity.

In the evening we drove to find a camping spot and was flagged down by a kiwi-version of Hagrid. He told us of a natural hot water pool just under a bridge, which they had just vacated for us. So we parked up and climbed in. The water was a perfect temperature, especially as it was freezing outside! We sat alone drinking a cold beer watching the stars come out- ahh….

The next day we visited Wai-o-tapu thermal wonderland! It contained hot pools of a variety of colours (the artists palette as it said in the brochure!) and a nice walk around the smelly site! Jonty was really impressed by the colours. The piece-de resistance was the lady knox geyser (not to be pronounced geezer apparently!) this erupts daily at 10:15 and shoots water 10 metres into the air. A pleasant morning.

We are now off to explore some more beaches.

South to North. 29th May to 5th June.

Whilst in the Marlborough Sounds we ventured along to the Queen Charlotte Track for 2 days. 1 to amble safely along the track and the other to try and throw ourselves over the edge of it on our mountain bikes! This was scary, yet exciting when going downhill, but also very hard work going uphill. At the end of our 4 hour cycle we were rewarded with a water taxi back to our starting point, (this only took 15 minutes!) The sounds are very pretty and we enjoyed taking in the views at a slower pace on our hike. We also enjoyed drinking the wine we had bought on our earlier wineries tour-apparently they sell it in Sainsbury’s. Brilliant!

The next day we boarded our ferry to the North Island, this promised to be a scenic trip, however we couldn’t see a thing because of the rain! Nevermind. Wellington is known as the windy city and they weren’t wrong! We spent a day in the capital before heading up to Carterton where we stayed with the old Canvey-ites The Kirkhams. They gave us a most friendly greeting, especially as we came mid-house move and we felt very much at home. We spent 3 enjoyable days with them and it felt as if we were at home doing ‘normal’ things.  Carterton is in the Wairarapa region, a flat plain surrounded by mountains. We borrowed the Kirkham’s bikes and had a nice flat ride to a couple of nearby towns. This was on the Queen’s (unofficial) birthday, which is a Bank Holiday in NZ and the Kiwis all celebrate it.

Back in the campervan we headed towards Taupo…

Whales, Wine and Walking. 21st – 28th May

Kaikoura is famous for its Whales, however we were unsure whether to do a whale watching trip or not as we had heard of some extremely rough seas, with lots of seasickness. Luckily for us, the weather was perfect and the sea was flat. We ventured 6 miles from shore and immediately found a sperm whale, about 20 metres long! He swam around for a while before lifting his tail and diving under. So we went in search of another. At this time of year, you are only expecting to see sperm whales, so when we found a hump back, the guide was excited. The hump back was surrounded by hundreds of dolphins splashing around and doing somersaults. This was a great sight. At one point the whale swam directly towards our boat, came within touching distance, dove underneath us and resurfaced at the front – amazing. We stayed and watched for what seemed a long time before going in search of more whales. We found two more sperm whales and another hump back, they were all huge. We felt really lucky and impressed.

The next day we went to Blenheim, which is the centre of the New Zealand wine region. We had heard that the next day’s forecast was for rain, so we quickly hired ourselves some bikes and went on a cycle tour of the local wineries. This was a most enjoyable day, netiher of us had ever been to vineyards for wine tasting, let alone on bikes. All of the wineries are set up for wine tasting and all seemed to be expecting us. At each winery we tasted between 4 and 8 different wines, before jumping back on our bike and heading off to the next one. What a brilliant idea! We loved it. We had met some folks earlier who owned the local golf course and insisted that we stay in their car park and they opened up the facilities for us to use for free, very nice!

True to form it was chucking it down the next day and we were glad to have done the wineries the previous day.  We spent the day travelling to Motueka, the gateway to Abel Tasman National Park and the location of our skydive. Once we arrived here, we rang up to enquire about the skydiving but ended up booking for the very next day! Cool.

Skydive. We drove to the airfield and saw a plane taking off with two scared looking beings. We wrote our name on a piece of paper, put on some jumpsuits and went outside. The two beings we had just seen were now falling through the air and in a matter of minutes were back on the ground again. “Right, you two now!” we were told and as simple as that we had been introduced to our tandem instructors and were getting on the plane. Jonty’s bloke looked the part, exactly like biggles! My guy was from Essex!! The plane was smaller than our camper inside and the 6 of us (2 tandemers and 2 cameramen) squashed in together. The plane rose quickly and within 15 minutes we were at 13,000 feet and the door had opened! The view was amazing although we were not really taking much in. Jonty was nearest the door, so was booted out first! You have to shuffle your bum towards the edge and then swing your legs so that they hang outside. At which point you are told to smile at a camera and you are not allowed to hang onto anything! With a couple of rocks forward and back Jonty was gone and Lou was left staring at the open door! Jonty however was somersaulting forwards through the air before leveling out. Lou was told to shuffle forwards and was then also hovering 13,000 feet above ground. Her instructor did her a treat by rocking forwards just once and then toppling out, she was expecting the same as Jonty!

With 55 seconds of freefall at 125 mph the power of the air is immense and you can’t help but enjoy every second. Once the ripcord is pulled it is like someone putting the brakes on and you finally have the time to relax and look at the views around you. We floated around for a while before accelerating into a landing, Jonty on his feet and Lou sliding in on her bum! Brilliant!! The DVDs are quite funny to watch. It was a fantastic experience.

Our adventures continued as we entered Abel Tasman National Park for some sea kayaking the very next day! Abel Tasman has a tropical coastline and we were lucky as the sun was out and we could really appreciate the clear water and sandy beaches. We kayaked for 7 and a half hours by the end of which we were very tired but had seen some great views and had fun playing hide and seek with some seals.

Next, we went for two days of walks. The first day we had two small walks broken up by some lunch in the sun. On the second day we decided to try one of the longer hikes and ended up walking for 6 hours, most of which was uphill and we were absolutely shattered by the end!  The walk took us along some outstanding beaches and we had a good clamber/hang on some rocks to get around the high tide that was rushing in! Wet feet all round. Abel Tasman is a beautiful place.

We have 4 days left in the south island before starting to explore the north.

West to East 12th-20th May

There are two glaciers on the west coast, Fox and Franz Josef. We arrived in Fox Glacier after another scenic drive and decided to do our glacier walk there. So, the following day we checked in and were given hiking boots and crampons. Our guides took us to the front of the glacier so we could appreciate the size of it. It is one of only a few glaciers to be accessible by land and is surrounded by rain forest.

We had a good hour hike to get to the foot of the ice, this was where it got interesting as we put on our crampons and started walking like John Wayne! You have to have a good stance otherwise you catch the picks on your shoes and fall over and slide off somewhere! (As one unfortunate girl in our group did!! We did try not to laugh-honest!) Our guides led the way by hacking at the ice with their axes, creating stairs for us to walk on. (An impressive skill. We attempted this, but not with much success.) We spent about 4 hours on the ice, marvelling at the colour, size and shape of the glacier. The sun was out as we sat and ate lunch on some huge ice-rocks and it was a pretty sight to see it glistening. We hiked our way up the glacier towards the top, which by the way is the size of Christchurch city-very big indeed! As we descended we walked through crevices and ice tunnels, these were often dark, cold and wet, but also good fun.

Our tour group were mainly English and as the day went on, we shared our experiences of NZ and had a good laugh. We decided to meet up in the local bar after our return for happy hour. This was indeed a happy hour, that turned into about 6 more hours and subsequently we had to stay in the car park opposite! But we were not alone as this seemed to happen to a few of our group and it became a make-shift campsite!

The next day we drove up the west coast stopping at Punakaki where there are numerous blow holes amongst rock stacks that look like piles of pancakes. We were lucky enough to encounter a rough sea which made the blow holes gusty, throwing sea and spray 30 foot in the air. Enthralling. After this we viewed a cave, accompanied by our headtorches. When they were extinguished the roof was covered in glow worms. An awesome sight.

During our drive we often had to cross railway tracks giving us the warning “Check for trains” as they were unmanned crossings. We never actually saw any trains, but always checked as you never know. We followed the track for quite a way but suddenly saw a bridge that we would have to cross. Unusually, this bridge also bore the sign “check for trains” and we discovered to our slight horror that the bridge was both road and rail and it was not straight so you could not see the end. How you could check for trains we were not quite sure. But we braved it and were ready to slam the van into reverse at any point!

We arrived at the isolated Karhurangi National Park where we walked to two rock arches over rivers. The first, was the highest arch in Australiasia at 43 metres. The second was more beautiful and equally impressive. We then entered another cave, but by now it was pitch black outside too. This area has the country’s biggest spiders at 15cm in diameter. We entered, Jonty wowing at the sheer size of it and Lou running out as the spiders were not only present, but jumping ones!! It wasn’t long until Jonty too exited!

The next day was wet and miserable. We do seem to time our travelling days well. We journeyed to Hanmer Springs, natural thermal pools surrounded by mountains. We seized the opportunity to relax in the pools that ranged from 29 to 43.c and had a free sauna too! We drove a little way on from here and started our return journey to Christchurch. We camped up overnight and awoke early the next morning to find that a building site had been erected around us!! We made a hasty retreat!

 Back in Christchurch we were treated to 2 games of entertaining hockey and another excellent night at the Taylor’s.  We watched 1 local warm-up game and the international between NZ and Australia. The standard of the matches was outstanding. The power of the passes and the speed of the overall game was of a different class. The girls were very strong and at points it was a little like an ice-hockey match with all the dropping of shoulders and barging going on! There is definitely no love lost between NZ and Australia! The Kiwis lost 1-0.

We left the city for the final time of this trip and headed for the north east coastal town of Kaikoura. We were on the lookout for some whales!

Fiordland to Queenstown 6th-11th May

There are 10 different fiords in the south of New Zealand. Only two of these are accessible; Doubtful and Milford Sound. After much deliberation we decided to take a day trip to Doubtful Sound. This involved us getting two boats and a coach. The first boat took us across Lake Manapouri, a speedy crossing. We then jumped on a coach and visited the Power Station, this looked very much like a scene out of an old Bond movie or Austin Powers! We learnt all sorts of things about Power Stations that we have already forgotten! From here the coach took us to the start of our day cruise around Doubtful Sound.

Amazing scenery, mountains rose directly out of the sea and shot straight up. Waterfalls cascaded and we saw dolphins and seals jumping around. The cruise took us to the edge of the Tasman sea, which was very rough. An enjoyable day, our first ever fiord,

 We drove from Manapouri to Queenstown, stopping overnight under a tree!

We arrived in Queenstown and parked up in a campsite which had showers and everything! We chose not to shower, but instead climb up the hill close by to get to the luge ride. (There is a gondola up the side of the hill, but we thought that a 40 minute steep walk was the better option!) At the top we caught our breath and then grabbed some lids/helmets and raced down the track on our luges, (much like the old ones that Windsor Safari Park used to have-only much faster.) This was brillilant. Lou was the fastest as she didn’t brake on the corners, Jonty nearly tipped over from trying to catch her, whilst shouting out “You don’t brake, you lunatic!” Three times down the track was not enough, but a shower called… so to add to our unclean state, we ran back down the hill (30 mins down), thus saving the gondola fee and meaning that we would have a great night out in Queenstown, (after a shower first of course!)

 One bar in QT had an open fire and was toasty warm, but all of a sudden we were cold. We both looked around and then up. The roof had disappeared!! It was a peaked roof that opened out, a great gimic-would be brilliant in the summer,but a bit fresh for the winter, good stars though.

The next day we went on a jet boat along the skippers canyon. This included a ride in a tank/jeep. A huge 4 wheel drive vehicle that took us along skippers canyon road. There are only 5 roads in New Zealand that we are not allowed to drive on as that would make our insurance invalid-this is one of them! The road was really a track that hovered over giant drops deep into a canyon-a little bit hairy, but our driver loved it and told us tales of old times as we drove along. The jet boat was cool. An extremely fast boat that had a flat bottom and could drive over water only a couple of inches deep, we were only inches away from the side of the canyon as we went along the river. All this makes for an exciting ride. The driver threw in a few 360. turns every now and then to soak us with the ice cold water. Great fun! On the way back we stopped at an old bungy bridge and someone’s eyes lit up!!

So it was, Jon Taylor was booked on the next available bungy. A rope 134 metres long with his name on it. The jump, the highest in New Zealand, was called the Nevis bungy after the Nevis mountain it stood by. I say stood, but really it hovered. The bungy pod was reached via a cable car, which was more like a shopping trolley. The launch site hung over the canyon below suspended on cables from the mountains either side. We arrived at the scene and were told to harness up. Lou was asked if there was any chance she would jump and gave a swift reply of, “No chance!” Everyone put on their harnesses and someone else came and told Lou to harness up, and she quickly informed them that she wasn’t jumping, but was told that everyone needed one if they were going across to the pod. It soon became clear why. We had to board a shopping trolley style cable car across to the pod. We boarded it and were instantly able to look through the glass floor to the 134 metre drop below-very scary.

Jonty’s legs were bound together and hooked up to the bungy. He shuffled forwards to the edge and we’re not sure who was the more nervous!

As you stand over the edge you have a brief moment of…what am I doing?! However, the instructor shouts 5,4,3,2,1 and you immediately become focused and dive off! What a feeling! The first 3 seconds of the fall are very scary as your whole body lurches and your stomach jerks. But then for the last 5 seconds (you had 8 seconds of freefall in total) is pure enjoyment. The wind flies past your face and the buzz is immense.

He returned to the top, having been winched up, with a great big grin on his face! Wanting to do it again!!

We spent the rest of the day slowing the pace a little. We drove to Glenorchy and went for a walk along the routeburn track. This is a track that you can hike for 4 days to reach Milford Sound. We lasted for about 3 hours and returned to the camper for some hot chocolate! (Well left Lindy!)

Wanaka was our next stop on the following day. We visited PuzzleWorld. A place with illusion rooms, a giant maze and a cafe with tables full of puzzles for you to do. It was just like christmas! We spent a happy 5 hours here. Quite an amazing place. After this we visited the cinema-it had been recommended to us by Laura and we were not disappointed. We were warmly greeted and were offered beers, wines and food; to eat now, at half time (a classic old school interval), or after the show. We saw Spiderman 3, but the choice of film was insignificant really as we just enjoyed being in the actual cinema. As we entered we saw that all of the seats were sofas, comfy armchairs and even an old morris minor! During the interval we bought hot, home-baked cookies that were large and had melting chocolate oozing out of them-delicious! The best cinema ever! We really like Wanaka-a great place.

We are off to explore some Glaciers now…

Lake Tekapo to Fiordland 28th April-5th May

Lake Tekapo is renowned for its scenery, colour and views. We enjoyed our first New Zealand hike (or tramp as they call it) up to Mount John. The views were obscured by thick cloud, but it was a good stretch of the legs after driving in the campervan. We took the classic postcard picture from the church overlooking Lake Tekapo. The colour of the lake is a stunning turquoise/ice blue. From here, we drove along the tourist canal route, which is literally along a canal, but has surrounding mountains and great views of Mount Cook. Today the sky was filled with sunshine so the drive was very enjoyable.

Mount Cook is the highest mountain in Australasia (or Oceania, as they call it). It is spectacular. We took Lindy’s advice and went to the Hermitage hotel for endless free refills of Hot Chocolate-very tasty indeed. This fuelled us for our tramp to Hooker Valley, to see our first glacier close up. It had iceburgs floating in it and you had to cross two Indiana Jones style bridges to get there-brilliant! We parked up overnight in a field, which overnight became filled with the noise of sheep! The surrounding mountains provided a beautiful backdrop.

We awoke full of energy and decided to go for a morning run along one of the tracks. This took us to another glacial lake which we had to ourselves and we spent a while there skimming stones over the frozen water. NZ has lots of good amenities for campers and Mount Cook has a shelter with hot showers and kitchen-the people are also extremely friendly and helpful, we have had lots of good advice and benefited from it. We left Mount Cook and the  great views behind us in our rear view mirror on another gorgeous day, a great drive ahead of us. We look forward to all of the changing scenery-NZ is a real adventure as a few kilometres changes everything.

We found ourselves on the east coast at a place called Moeraki where there are some unique and odd shaped boulders on the beach. These boulders are close to perfect spheres and just drop out of the cliff with the erosion. Pretty cool. A good lunch stop.

We drove onto Dunedin (apparently the 4th biggest city in the world-but we’re not sure about that claim) we immediately smelt Cadbury’s! (They have a factory here) It was miserable weather so we spent our two days here meandering around the Cadbury’s factory and surrounding bars! We also managed to watch the Champions league matches! We went to a great leisure centre with about 4 pools inside, so we moved from the wave pool, to playing volleyball, to swimming lengths, to the jacuzzi! They even had plugs for your hairdriers!!

The weather brightened up after our swim and we drove on to the Catlins (the far south of NZ). Another amazing drive encompassing stops at waterfalls, caves, beaches and forest walkways (great for hide and seek!). After a night on the cliff overlooking the sea, we started the long journey to Fiordland. Here we are going to spend a couple of days exploring the sounds.