Soooooo, last time we were just waving goodbye to Steven and Dee and good bye to the land of Koalas and Kangaroos on our way to New Zealand. We took off in Sydney for a pretty unspectacular flight until you reach the central mountains of Middle Earth...ummm....I mean New Zealand. From up high coming into Christchurch they looked spectacular. Upon landing we were greeted by many sheep staring inquisitively at this strange herd of people following one another, being shepherded out of our flying machine and into the big barn at the end of their field. I don't know if you know this about New Zealand, but there are a lot of sheep.
Sheep...but you probably knew that.
Immigration was a bit quicker than Australia but no less stressful. We passed through passport control and got to a man at declarations. It seems New Zealand is pretty strict on the fruit and sandwich smuggling trade as a lot of lunch boxes were being swiftly disposed of before they could get busted. We managed to get a banana onto our flight but getting a bit fearful on the way out we decided to ingest it before customs. I know it can be a dangerous choice to make as if the skin splits inside of you you can die of a massive over dose but it was one we had to make. We reached a man who asked us three times very clearly if we had food to declare, he could probably see the panic on my face. Just the previous afternoon I was watching a show where a poor German guy got fined $400 for having a sandwich in his bag and not declaring it. It was found by a sniffer dog, his mum had made it and he forgot it was in there. I hope his mum re-embursed the fine. Anyway, this fresh in my mind we headed through and sure enough there was a sniffer dog. As our bags were on the way out of the scan the dog approached and put his paw on our bag...little shit I thought. But it was really cute so I couldn't hate it that much. The customs lady approached moved us to the side and asked "sir, do you have any food inside this bag you haven't declared?" I was sure I hadn't but maybe i'd forgotten something, I thought to myself, I'm too pretty for prison, especially when they find out I am on the inside for smuggling bananas! Shaking in fear Kinga stepped in and confidently answered "no, have had bananas in there but we have eaten them already". The lady said she had to check our back as the dog had marked it a potentially lethal. She looked through and found the top of a banana stalk, I still wasn't sure if that is punishable but it turns out it's not. I guess it's like finding the needle with out the heroin or papers with no canabis, a close call but we at away with it. We were off the hook and I was allowed to walk as a free man into New Zealand.
Our first day was in Christchurch, not much going on here apart from a lot of building work. In 2011 it was struck with 2 large earthquakes less than 6 months or so apart and it is still recovering. Wandering around you can see how the centre of the city has pretty much been destroyed, I think they have only just finished clearing the rubble and finally things are starting to be built again. 185 people lost their lives in those two earthquakes, I am amazed it wasn't more.
From there we headed down to Queenstown "the adrenaline capital of NZ!" Sadly it seems adrenaline comes at a hefty price so no bungee jumping or canyon swinging for us, just a bit of wine tasting and mountain hiking. The Pinot Noir down there is lovely! The hostel we were staying in had quite a party element to it. It's quite strange how that in my head I am still young and can hang with the kids but when it comes to it I can't be bothered, I just moan about the noise they make and go to bed. If you are wondering if you are getting old then backpack around New Zealand for a couple of weeks and you will probably work out that you are! The other thing that stands out about the area is just how many Germans there are, I think there are more young German here than are left in Germany. In quite a surprising turn of events it turns out I quite like the Germans I have been meeting. I am British, I am born to not like the Germans be it through history or football but here I am, on the other side of the world finding out that Germans are people too.
Hiking views and drinking wine
While in Queenstown we managed a day trip to Milford Sounds, wrongly named as it is in fact a Fiord. If you are wondering about the difference, a Fiord or Fjord in Norway is a bunch of water at the bottom of mountains formed by the ocean filling up valleys left behind from glacial movement back in the day. A sound, however, is a bunch or water filled up by the ocean caused by river erosion and natural water movement. Generally meaning fiords will have deeper lakes with steeper sides where as sounds have gentle slopes into the water. Smart huh? Want to know the difference between a Creek and a stream? Well a Creek....Just kidding, look it up yourself. Point being it should be Millford Fiords, not Sound. Any hoo, the trip was 5 hours in a bus there, 2 hours on a boat and 5 hours on a bus back again. That a lot of bus but it was worth it, spectacularly beautiful, we even met someone famous, she played a refugee in Lord of The Rings! She was pretty funny, she said there were loads of locals rounded up to play the extras and the only instructions they were given is "Do not smile". Now having been told that and having a man on a horse with a big beard ride past you shouting "The orcs are coming" well...everyone was in hysterics.
Milton Sound and a hike at Fox Glacier
Without bungee jumping or throwing myself off a mountain Queenstown was still very enjoyable, the hiking was spectacular and the town had a cool little ski town vibe. Our next stop was Nelson but as it is a good 14 hours or so on a bus we had one night at the Fox Glacier. Sadly the weather was awful so we wandered a bit then went to bed, didn't get a chance to see the Glacier but it's just a bit of ice isn't it? I can see that in the freezer every day.
Nelson was a nice little town, we hired a car for the day and asked some people in our hostel to join us for a day of driving around the top part of the South Island which is when we met Mia, our first Japanese traveller friend. We trekked to a waterfall, learnt Japanese and eat lots of Jelly Babies. Well, that last one was just me, I can't be trusted with sweets.
After Nelson cam Blenheim, centre of the Marlborough wine region. We had a day on bikes drinking lots of free wine tasting. Thanks to a friend in a wine company we were able to have a full behind the scenes tour of the Whitehaven Vineyard. From grapes being delivered to drinking plenty of their range in the barrel room with stuff to take home too. Needless to say by the end we were pretty happy, it was my perfect day, apart from the weather. The weather has been a bit of an issue since Queenstown, grey skies and rain all the way which is far from ideal.
Our last two stops were Picton and Kaikoura. Picton was amazing, we borrowed bikes from our hostel and they were probably two of the worst bikes available to use, they should have been condemned. Kinga's gears were stuck so she only had the use of two and my little rust bucket had an issue with the handle bars, as in if you were going too fast they turn but the wheel doesn't. Somehow before we found all this out we were at the top of a pretty tricky mountain bike path. And that is the story of how Kinga's mountain biking career started and finished in one glorious 30 minute ride, needless to say it was probably Kinga's worst moment of the whole trip. Well...worst part until the rain came pouring down and we still had another 30 minutes or so to peddle home.
Kaikoura was where we paid to go on a dolphin encounter to swim with hundreds of wild dolphins. To find out how we got on with the dolphins I guess you will have to wait as our plane is arriving into Auckland and once again I have written far too much to keep your attention.
Keep an eye out for the next update, until then...much love
No comments:
Post a Comment