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We have now been in New Zealand for just over two weeks,
making our way across the South Island on the Kiwi Experience – a hop on,
hop off bus service, that takes you to the major cities and towns across New
Zealand, stopping at points of interest along the way. We started our time here in Christchurch, where I met up with the girls
for the first time. We spent the day in
the gorgeous sunshine wandering round the city, which we were surprisingly fond
of given that we hadn’t heard the best things about it.
Having spent just the one night in Christchurch, we decided to head straight off
to commence our Kiwi Experience. We met
up with our driver, Morrie, who, it turns out, is renowned for being one of the
two worst drivers (just generally not a nice guy) out of the 30 or so Kiwi
Experience drivers. So unfortunately he
slightly tainted our first week or so on the Kiwi Experience. But we still had an amazing time – stopping off
quite often to see the amazing scenery, visiting local places of interest etc. From Christchurch,
we moved to Westport
– a godforsaken town, where luckily we only stayed for one night, which we just
spent at a local pub. From there, we
went for an overnight stop at a hostel in Lake Mahipau (can’t really remember
what it’s called), where every Kiwi Experience bus stops for a fancy dress
night, which was pretty good Franz Josef, which is a small township named after
the glacier it neighbours. We spent an
amazing day there hiking across the glacier, which is the main activity to do
in Wanaka. The weather continued to
worsen whilst we were in Franz Josef, and the 2 days before we went on our
hike, all other hikes had been cancelled due to severe weather conditions. Luckily, ours still managed to go ahead, even
though our guide told us that she was convinced it wouldn’t as it was the worst
weather she’d ever climbed the glacier in. Great.
Nonetheless, we had an amazing day, battling the severe winds and heavy
rain. Our guide even managed to lose her
axe, which she was using to carve out steps in the ice for us to climb on. So we were in a slightly worse situation then,
but we still persevered, and at least the ice looked more amazing than usual as
all the blue ice had been exposed, so it was pretty spectacular.
Onwards to Wanaka, which is a really lovely town on the edge
of a big lake (we have seen a lot of these!). Unfortunately it rained (as it has done a lot
of since we got here) for our entire time there, so we didn’t get much of a
chance to see the town, other than from our hostel window.
After Wanaka we moved onto Queenstown, via a local
attraction called Puzzling World (lots of optical illusions etc). On the way, we stopped off at one of the bungy
jumping sites, where I signed up for my jump for two days later. We then spent 5 nights in Queenstown, which
has definitely been our favourite place so far, needless to say this has been
partially due to it being the best place in New Zealand for nightlife. The town there is really lovely, with good
shops, cafes etc, and it also borders a big lake, which we wandered around. In Queenstown we were joined by Nick (another
friend from uni) and his friend Greg, so it was lovely to spend a few days with
them.
On our second day in Queenstown, I went off to do my Nevis bungy jump (the third highest bungy in the world,
at 134m). Safe to say it was probably
the scariest thing I’ve ever done. The
bungy is done from a stationary cable car, suspended in the middle of a valley
over a river. A small moving cage takes
you across to the cable car pod, where the bungy team strap two ankle cuffs
onto your legs, from which the bungy chord is later attached. Annoyingly, the jumping is done in reverse
weight order, and so not only was I last out of the 13 people from my Kiwi bus
who were jumping, but I then also had to wait for a further 6 people who
arrived in the pod when the penultimate person from our group was about to jump
to bungy before I was able to go. When
it was finally my turn (the last jump of the day!), I was put into a
dentist-type chair, where one of the team attached the bungy rope to my feet,
and gave a few instructions. Then the
nerves really set in, as I pigeon-stepped to the very edge of the pod, where
there is a tiny platform sticking out into mid-air from which you jump. You have to put your toes on the very edge of
the platform, whilst the crew member holds onto the back of your harness. Then he gives you a count down and you dive
off – absolutely heart-stopping. The
sensation of jumping was insane, as the floor hurtles towards you. After reaching the bottom of the jump, you are
then pushed back up, where, at the very top of the jump, there is a 3 second
feeling of complete weightlessness, which is very odd. After a few more up and down bounces, a weight
then comes down and you are pulled back up to the pod. It was an amazing experience, but one that I
certainly will not be doing again!
Having left Queenstown, we are now in Kaikoura, where
tomorrow we will be swimming with dolphins.
Then onto the North Island, where we will spend a few days in Wellington, and hopefully
continue our journey with a better bus driver!
