New Zealand, South island

Hi again, and sorry it's been so long since the last blog. We've been out in the wilderness quite a bit, with limited internet access!
So we're now in New Zealand. It was a bit of a sudden decision to come here which is why we rushed through Thailand so quickly. The reason for the sudden change of plan was that we realised we'd arrive in New Zealand in the middle of winter if we'd carried on travelling south at our current rate. Plus, we found a super-cheap flight from Bangkok to New Zealand and we didn't want to miss out on the offer.

So, we took that flight. There was a small hitch at Bangkok airport when they asked to see our return flight out of New Zealand. We didn't have one (because we didn't know we needed one) but fortunately we had a good hour before check-in closed, and so we went to an internet cafe and found ourselves yet another bargain flight from Auckland to Melbourne! Problem solved. Then we took our first flight of this entire trip and within 24 hours arrived in Christchurch.

New Zealand is a fantastic country. It is a complete change from Asia. Asia was excellent, exotic, beautiful but after 4 months there we needed a change and a rest, and New Zealand seems to be the perfect place to wind down. It's so easy to be in a place where everyone speaks your language, where they eat food you can identify and where you don't have to haggle for everything you buy. It's a home from home.

We had a day exploring Christchurch, which was a nice enough town, but we were eager to get on the road and explore the countryside. So on our second day we went to pick up the van we had reserved. She's a great little van. We named her Kylie (she just looked like a Kylie!), and she will be our transport and our accommodation for the six weeks we spend in New Zealand.




From Christchurch we drove south through the Banks peninsular, inland to Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook, down to Dunedin, along the south coast, through Fiordland and up to Queenstown where we are now. All the way the scenery has been absolutely stunning, from snow-capped mountains to clear blue lakes to alpine forest to fields of deer and sheep to golden surfing beaches.







We've been staying in campsites, most of which have been in really beautiful locations, and have a campers kitchen where you can make your own food. It's been really nice to cook our own meals again and make the things that we craving when we were in Asia. Our first meal was spaghetti on toast with cheddar cheese on top. Strange what you miss when you can't get it!

Fiordland was especially wonderful. We arrived in the village of Te Anau and booked one of the hikes (or "tramps" as they're called here). We originally wanted to do the Milford track which is supposed to be one the most scenic walks in the world, but it seemed that everyone else wanted to do it too and there was no space for us, so we settled for the Kepler track, which is a 4 day (3 night) 65km hike. I found it quite hard going, since we have done very little in the way of exercise in the last few months, and rather too much drinking! On the way from Christchurch to Te Anau we did several day-walks to prepare ourselves but in retrospect it was probably not enough. Still, when we emerged from the forest after an all-day uphill climb and saw the views for the first time we realised it was worth the pain in our calves and shoulders.






The excellent views continued all through the second day as we walked along a ridge between peaks. We met some great people on the walk too, and when we finished on the fourth day, even though I was absolutely knackered and was walking like a penguin, I was sad that it came to an end. I did cheer up in the evening though, when we enjoyed a beer in the campsite jacuzzi!

After Kepler we drove up to Milford Sound. Since we couldn't get on that trek we decided to take a boat trip. The scenery there is undescribable. Mountains rise up on either side of you, into the clouds, and the sun shines through the clouds... it was magical. If we ever come back to New Zealand we are definitely going to book the trek well in advance!





Now we're in Queenstown. Most people come here to do some kind of extreme sport like bungy jumping or skydiving; they have everything here. I didn't really think we'd be doing anything like that but now I'm here I'm a bit tempted by paragliding and Mikko is even thinking about doing a skydive. If nothing else, we will climb the Coronet peak tomorrow and take the luge/ toboggan down. But that's for the next post :-)