Gads & Hads Top Trip!
5th Oct 2006 - 18th Oct 2006South Island, NZ continued We left the glaciers for the activity centres of NZ, Wanaka and Queenstown. The weather at Wanaka was not good on arrival so skiing was not possible. However on the last day of the season (7th Oct) we went to Cardrona ski resort...skiing was great considering it the time of year but unfortunately there was a long steep hill up to the resort...and we realised we were nearly out of fuel, with the nearest petrol station back in Wanaka, 30km away! We made it to the top so decided to enjoy the snow and worry about that later! Fortunately the ski resort sold us the most expensive 5 litres of diesel I have ever purchased! By the time we reached Queenstown, it was snowing! This meant most of our activities got cancelled (paragliding, rafting, hanggliding) but Rich and I were still able to go river boarding in the coldest water I have ever experienced! This involved going down a fast river (maybe grade3?) using a body board - great fun! Then when the river flattened out we got a ride by hanging onto a foam board that was attached to the back of the jet ski, crazy!!! At the end we thought we were being told to hold on tight but in fact we were being told to get off under the trees - on the second circle i just couldnt hold on anymore and dropped off after the eddy - had to sprint upstream to get into it!! Our next stop was Doubtful Sound where Mark and I took a two day cruise. The weather was dark and misty which gave the fiords a fantastic atmosphere. The rain meant that we saw lots of waterfalls. We cruised out to the sea where we saw some fur seals - they had ears! Then we anchored in a cove and went sea kayaking around the cove - Mark got really close to a seal! The highlight of the trip had to be when some dolphins swam alongside the boat, next to where we were eating - talking of which the food was gorgeous (homemade soup, buffet dinner, cooked breakfast!) We drove up to Milford Sound in the evening so we could get the cheaper cruise at 9am. We saw Mitre Peak which is the tallest mountain where the base is underwater - the base of the mountain is 300m underwater as the fiord was carved out by glaciers. We stopped over night at Dunedin, where we walked up the steepest street in the world. We were going to drive but decided Betty wouldn`t make it (the signs confirmed this). We also went to the gardens of Lanarch Castle, which is the only castle in NZ. From here there were beautiful views of the bay and lovely gardens. We played boules, dodging the showers. Next we drove up to Christchurch, stopped at some strange places along the way. First we saw boulders called giant marbles, which were about 1m in diameter and nearly perfectly spherical. Then we stopped half an hour up the road in Omaru. This town was quite creepy - it was a take off of Victorian times, with Victorian shops and people dressed in Victorian clothes, but the boys were quite spooked out by how empty and eerie the place was. We escaped into a cafe where Mark and I shared the most amazing hot chocolate pudding! After this we drove up to see some yellow eyed penguins which are very rare - they were coming into the beach from the sea and looked funny waddling up the beach! A man who is fanatical about the penguins was at the lookout place and he told me how the penguins look after their young and knew where to spot them on the beach. He even walked like a penguin! I really liked Christchurch - it seemed like only a small amount of it was city, most of it was leafy subburbs! We visited the Antartica centre where we experienced an Antartica replica storm - Neil you have my full respect! The best part of the centre was seeing their little blue penguins who had only arrived at the centre recently and had only been on show to the public for two weeks. Their feeder was very friendly and told us all about the penguins` injuries and social habits. They thought that one penguin was anorexic as it wouldn`t eat anything. Mysteriously it put on lots of weight - it was eating all the fish off the floor of the pool when the feeders left! It was in Christchurch that I finally managed to go paragliding. I went on a solo course so learnt to fly myself in the morning. This was mostly successful with me getting off the ground and being able to turn and land properly, except for the first flight where I nose dived the landing and hurt my hand and ruined my trousers! Maybe this wasnt the best activity to do before a beach holiday as Im bruised all over! Oops I forgot to mention that Mark took a crazily long journey back to the UK from here, with his luggage arriving a week later than him!
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