EnZed

Land of the sheep, shiiiit scary activities and schmeeedle, we're in New Zealand! We flew into Christchurch on the south island to kick off our four and a bit weeks here (we fly out on Jan 5th). Accommodation in Christchurch was in a B&B called 'Wish' which was recommended in the Lonely Planet guide, it turned out to be a good choice as the couple running it, Ngarie (Pronounced Nerrie) and Gary were top people and laid on superb organic breakfasts and home made bread, cheese an other nice stuff. They were hooked into the NZ music scene and their daughter is in a band called 'Bang Bang Eche' who are apparently doing pretty well, their latest album has got an interesting name....

Christchurch is a fairly small place and, as lots of people have said before, has a very English feel about it. We walked around the place, took the old tram and even went for a punt on the river - all very civilised! There is visible damage from the recent earthquake but not much considering its size, apparently there is far more damage which cannot be seen and loads of people are still not able to return to their homes. Because of the earthquake risk, part of every building insurance premium goes to the government who cover the first 100k of any claim (they are up to about 200,000 building insurance claims so far and it will take years for them all to be processed).

Gary is the greenkeeper at one of the local golf courses in Christchurch and he organised a round of golf for the second day we were there, i hadn't played in a while but didn't disgrace myself (He plays off a 4 handicap so is pretty handy).

We hired a car in Christchurch and drove to Akoroa on the coast which has a strong French influence to it - the story is that it was the French who first landed in this region and then went back to France to collect more people to start a colony. On their return they found that we (The British) had signed an agreement to place NZ under our control only days earlier. They had to agree to be British citizens in order to stay, which they did and hence the French influence.

We took a boat trip out to the mouth of the inlet and swam with some of the local wild dolphins (yeah man!), they are called Hector dolphins and are the smallest dolphins found anywhere, according to the guide they may not even be around in 20 years from now.  We were told that rather than us being entertained, we had to entertain the dolphins in order for them to be interested in us and stick around so there was a bunch of us in the water making some ridiculous sounds, singing and generally trying to attract them to swim with us.

Next up was Lake Takepo (that name didn't get boring for a while!) where we kayaked and climbed the local peak to the Mt John Observatory. By this time we were getting the point that NZ is all about the scenery, everywhere you look it is stunning.

The lake itself is a very bright blue colour due to finely ground rock in the glacial melt water (There's three lakes like it) and it almost glows when the sun shines on it.

The following day we drove to Mt Cook which is NZ's highest mountain and I think the highest in all Australasia. There was a fair bit of cloud around when we got there so we couldn't see the mountain but the next morning it had cleared luckily so when we walked the track up to the glacial lake we had blue skies and towering mountains all around......that'll be another 100 photos....

Onwards to Wanaka but first we stop in Queenstown for lunch as we have some time spare. Queenstown is the adventure sports capital of NZ which means you've got a big menu of activities on offer and you've just got to find the stones to do the biggest one you can handle.......i couldn't find extreme lawn bowls on offer anywhere.....

Wanaka is about an hours drive north of Queenstown, we had been in contact with a uni friend of Nina's sister who lives just outside and found our way to their place that afternoon. Ben's place is on a big piece of land in the hawea flat area and he has spent the last year renovating his place and just moved back in a couple of days ago.  Ben and Robyn his wife were kind enough to let us stay and they have a Woofing hut (woofing is a scheme for travellers etc who get to stay on organic farms in return for some work each day) on their land, which we slept in.  It is very rustic and candles light the inside, with animals outside in the morning and the most amazing stars at night, as the area is known for astronomy.  We even got up in the middle of the night around 3am and just stood outside the hut in amazement of the sky which was lit up with stars.


Whilst we were in Wanaka we went Canyoning which basically involves getting in a super thick wetsuit, abseil harness and helmet then walking up a hill and coming back down via a thin and steep water canyon by a combination of abseiling, sliding, jumping, crawling and zip-wiring. It was great fun!

From Wanaka we returned to Queenstown to stay for a few nights and try some more activities. We booked into a small backpackers place which was right on the lake with really nice views and a pretty good social area. It made a change to meet some other travellers & get some info on other places in NZ we want to visit.

I'd been looking for a place to get out on a motorbike since back in Oz and we found a company in QT that had them so we booked on. After a quick practice and assessment they took us out into trails with jumps and then up into the hills and really let you ride as hard as you want and except for bike boots and helmet they don't bother with any protective stuff.

Next up in QT was a day out on some mountain bikes, we rode out to a spot where the local club look after a load of trails which anyone can use. We had been told it was a 30 min ride to the trails but it took over an hour, i found out when we got there that my bike had it's brakes on the opposite sides so almost went over the front on the first downhill!  Even so we still got a some good runs in and even managed some of the woodwork, albeit the small stuff.

By this point we noticed that we were using the word 'awesome' an awesome number of times......

From Queenstown we did an overnight trip to Milford Sound where we went out on a boat, as it is the thing to do there. There are cliffs, waterfalls, dolphins, seals and penguins to be seen so it's a great looking place and we lucked in with a sunny day but of all the places we've seen so far in NZ i think it's just slightly overhyped.

The drive to it from Te Anau is amazing however.

On the way back we picked up a couple of tired Israeli hitchhikers (a lot of people hitchhike in NZ) and dropped them to their campsite in Te Anua, just before dropping them off i almost mowed down a sheep that had wandered onto the road, that woke them up....

We drove back into Queenstown on fumes (in neutral on the downhills) and booked back into the same backpackers for one night before we head off to the west coast which is where we are now......

Australia.....

The Deep Blue Aussie Ocean...

Our five weeks in Australia ended and we're now in New Zealand, the last time we 'spoke' we were in Airley Beach and about to go out on a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands.......

Airley is a proper backpacker place with lots of hostels, bars and places selling tours. The main area is pretty much a single street, some might call it tacky but it was lively and we enjoyed it (despite the rain). Our time there also coincided with 'Schoolies Week' which is a bit like the Australian version of spring break. This meant there were shed loads of 17-18 yr olds descending on the place to basically go mental! Apparently schoolies week is mainly centred on the gold coast so we got off pretty lightly. We saw them all arrive and then lucky for us left for the Whitsundays. Although before our departure I decided the 'mo' had to go!! Was starting to look like a cross between 'magnum' (as Jen pointed out!) and someone in zee German army..

Our boat for the sailing trip was a catamaran and we shared it with six other passengers and two crew. All of the other passengers were German, an older couple and four 20-something friends, but we managed to avoid any Fawlty Towers moments! The weather wasn't brilliant so we didn't get to see the islands as you see them in the pictures but it was still a great trip. We snorkeled over the reef and saw some awesone fish, it was stinger season (Stingers are deadly jellyfish - nice! The whole Queensland coast is affected at this time of year) so we were wearing wetsuits but no-one was stung. I was going to do my first scuba dive but the visibility wasn't great because of the weather (both the lack of sun and the run-off water from the islands) and it wasn't cheap so i stuck to the snorkelling.

After the sailing trip we left Airley and headed up towards Cairns. We stopped in Port Douglas for a couple of nights which is just north of Cairns and spent a day driving around the tablelands visiting waterfalls.

In Cairns we booked onto a boat out to the great barrier reef, the trip we booked took us out to a set of reefs called 'Agincourt' which are right out on the edge of the reef next to the continental shelf and supposedly one of the best areas to go to. The weather was forecast to be pretty average (again!) but we lucked in with a blue sky day and hardly any wind which meant the boat could go to the best dive spots on the outside of the reef. I decided to do my intro dive at the first spot, we went down to about 11m and looked down over the first drop of the continental shelf which went down about another 50m. The water was super clear compared to the Whitsundays, and the reef itself far more interesting, also we only needed to wear lycra stinger suits rather than wetsuits which was a bonus. On the way back up i bumped into 'Wally' the resident giant Maori wrasse fish which is about 3ft long with a massive head and huge lips, a right looker!

At the other two dive spots we snorkeled and saw loads more fish, a turtle and a small reef shark. One of the guys from the boat came out and gave a snorkel safari, he'd basically see stuff we couldn't notice like a sea cucumber and then free dive down about 30ft to the bottom and grab it for us to look at.

Back in Cairns we checked out the night life and had a few beers in a local micro brewery. That's when we noticed the bats, Cairns has a resident population of giant fruit bats that live in the trees in the town centre, their wingspan must be about 3 feet. We left the following morning and flew back down to Sydney - you get a great view of the reef when you fly out of Cairns airport. We were in Sydney for one night, had drinks and food with Christel and Adam in Kings Cross which is where we were staying and then left the next day for New Zealand.. A bit of a shock from the 33 degrees we left in Cairns, to 16 degrees in Christchurch.....brass monkeys!