Since we flew over the Southern Alps of New Zealand, the place has proved to be more than absolutely beautiful! At literally EVERY turn in our Toyoto/Nissan (we had to swap half way through the rental) there has been a view even more beautiful than the last for me to snap away at! It really is an amaziny country...especially in the winter!
We started off our journey by flying into Christchurch, dubbed the most English of NZs cities, and with the River Avon flowing through it, it really is! The city is tiny (not a city at all really), friendly and just generally sweet! We met our friend from Germany there (Christian) and had a night out with him and consequently didn't see much of the surrounding area of Christchurch due to two massive hangovers and the need for a cooked breakfast (or spaghetti carbonara in my case!).
After our recovery we packed our things and headed onboard the 'TranzAlpine Railway', which is basically running on the coal track from the west coast (Greymouth) of the south island to Christchurch, and there is now a daily train which takes you through mountains, lakes, rain forest, beautiful scenery, you name it! Of course it was everything it promised to be...check out the pics!
On arrival at Greymouth we picked up our Toyota Corsa (weird eh?), a...ahem....lovely car, and started the longish drive down the coast to Franz Josef Glacier, on Highway 6 (which I might add is an absolutely amazig road, not for the smooth tarmac, but again, the incredible views the whole way along it!). We're in NZ so obviously need to do something a little extreme...helihiking is the answer, and it was well worth it (even if we did have to wait a day because the first one got cancelled due to bad weather)! We went up to the middle section of the massive glacier in a chopper, landed on a flatish part of land and then did a hike (crampons and waterproofs included!) throughout the ice formations, into ice caves and down ice crevasses! It was so so COOL!!! We got picked up in the smallest chopper known to man, which was a mixture of being AMAZING and scary as hell! hehe!
Glacier conquered, we literally jumped into our car and drove down to Queenstown for the evening. Another spectacular town, surrounded by snow-tipped peaks and a lake...very picturesque indeed! This is where we swapped Corsa for Nissan Sunny (squeaky brakes!).
Back on the road, this time town to a little town called Te Anau (the 'gateway' to Fjordland), which was again very peaceful and pretty! We took a cruise out along the river in the evening to some 'young' 12,000 year old caves which had glow worms living in (weird little things, but very stunning - cannibals you know?!). We also witnessed a lunar eclipse in the evening...how lucky are we?!
Today we were in Milford Sound, which is basically one of the Fjords and a magnificantly beautiful place (i'm really running out of words to describe NZ now, can only use 'beautiful' so many times!). We got up at 6am to catch the cruise at 9:30am, were doing REALLY well when it decided to start snowing on us as we entered the mountains, and of course they shut the road...this was 8:00am! Not happy! Whilst waiting for the gritter truck to arrive we also left our lights on so the battery in the car went flat (typical - it was only like an hour MAX)...at 9:10am the gritter went by, we got the car started with the help of a little push, and managed to get to the cruise 'terminal' by the skin of our teeth!
The cruise down Milford Sound was lush!! We saw wild South NZ Seals and penguins (well I did!), just like Norway! There were literally 25 or so waterfalls flowing down the mountains because of the rain on our drive back! It was incredible!!
We are now back in Queenstown, where James is doing a Bungy Jump tomorrow (the first one here, where you get dunked in water!)...i'm the official photographer! No way you'd get me up there I can tell you...thinking about a skydive though?! So if you're reading this today (weds) - wish him luck!!!
