Extremish

Queenstown was full of all kinds of extreme sport opportunities that you can think of. However, we decided to start it easy and went for a walk (can you smell the adrenaline?).

We ended up walking to the summit of the hill overlooking Queenstown and not only had nice views but also found a little kiosk offering paragliding. Julie had always wanted to try it, and it doesn't take that much to talk me into throwing myself off a mountain, so we decided to book ourselves in for a flight the next day.

The next morning we were picked up by the wrong paragliding company, then swapped from one van to another, with equally frightened looking people taking our places. After all this human trafficing we were finally on our way to the launch site up Coronet Peak.

Paragliding was great fun (despite the look of horror on my face in all the pictures), and the views over the mountains and lakes were spectacular. After the run down the mountain side and the leap into thin air the ride got really quite steady and comfortable. We even did a few sharp bends and spirals!





After Queenstown we drove up to Wanaka, a nice little town by a beautiful lake. We stopped there for lunch, considered doing another walk, but then decided to rent kayaks instead.



Next stop was Fox glacier. You can get almost to the glaciers edge by yourself, and we did a couple of walks around the glacier and got some nice views. Apart from the glacier there was not much in the town, and we headed off to the next glacier.



Franz Josef glacier was just 30 minutes drive away, and this time we decided to do a guided walk on the glacier. We opted for the full day walk, which included 6 hours on ice. The walk turned out to be one of the nicest experiences so far. The glacier is massive, and the guides managed to find some beautiful blue caves and nice viewpoints for us. I went in the "fast" group, which turned out to be somewhat slowed down by a chap who was afraid of heights (and he just had to put himself in the most adventurous group, didnt he?). We also had an American lady in our group who sang hymns as we plodded on and quoted glacier facts from "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown". Religion and cartoons can be a dangerous cocktail, it seems.

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 :-)