well, i think you all deserve a full blog now. however, we are now in Dubai so most of this page is in Arabic and the writing starts on the right which is really weird. and really confusing me. anyhow, before i start telling you about our fantastic time i should probably explain the blog name. fleas: there are millions of sheep in nz. and i mean millions. as in about 10 times as many sheep as people. from a distance the hills with sheep on look like hills with fleas. musical gang sheep: we drove past some sheep that looked like they were facing each other off, a bit like gangs, but they didn't look like real violent gangs (as much as sheep can) but more like the pathetic kind you get in musicals such as West Side Story. you'd get this crazy if spent as much time in a small space with Sarah as i have!
so from the beginning of New Zealand. we spent a few days hanging out with Sam and Fran in Auckland. they are Sarah's cousin and uncle. we started with a tour of Auckland before spending a couple of days chilling with Fran. in that time we also saw a rugby game as the rugby 15s were on in Auckland. rugby in totally different in NZ to England. as in they shut streets and thousands of people turn up. someone managed to get a mexican wave going and it went around the stadium literally 7 times! that lasted about 20 minutes! that didn't even happen at the world cup.
we also went to Waiheke Island which is a cute island about an hour ferry ride away from Auckland. its mainly wine country but we did a lovely country walk and got completely lost. it was weird in that it felt like we could be walking in the english countryside. quite nice though. we then went up the sky tower which is something like the tallest building in the NZ. i think but i cant remember and i didn't write it down. ooops. anyhow you could see for 86km in every direction which was pretty awesome and there were people jumping off the building. they were attached to harnesses not committing suicide. do not worry.
we then went to stay with Bill and Irene in Tutukaka. they are Fran's aunt and uncle. understand? they literally lived on the beach. well there was a road in the way but practically on the beach. it was amazing. and we got our own rooms!!!!!!! sarah's was quite big but included the study but mine was a quite small mezzanine floor. it was quite small but absolutely amaizng. i would have taken the room home in my suitcase if i could! while we were there we went for some beach walks which were lovely, swam in the sea, and went scuba diving at the Poor Knights. this is one of the top dive sights in the world, like top 5 or something and was sarah's first cold dive. you actually were 12 mm of wetsuit. for people that have never experienced this let me tell you: its a lot. that includes a hood and everyhting. it can make movement hard but was quite good here. the diving was awesome. we dived in the worlds biggest natural sea cave and it was just amazing. there were loads of fish and everything.
by then Fran and Denise (Fran's mum) joined us. this meant the start of our road trip! we drove up north, and went to Paihia which is where the treaty of Waitaingi was first signed (i had to mention that because Sam gave me grief cause i said we didn't go to Piahia i just didn't realise Waitangi was in Piahia). so that is fundamental NZ version of the roman invasion type thing so they are taught it every 2 weeks or so at school. however, Fran had never been there either and she found it actually interesting. it was very cool. they let Kiwis in free so we shut up and Fran blagged us in. although i did master "I'm from Whangerai" quite well in Kiwi. we spent the night in the Bay of Islands which was quite cool. we then drive to Cape Reinga which is about as far north as you can get in NZ and is where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean and you could actually see whirlppols. pretty cool. it is also where the Maori believe their dead depart this world for the afterlife. sadly we couldn't hear any spirits as it was blowing about a force 5 gale!
we then drive to 90 mile beach which is, shock of all shocks, a 75 (ish) mile long beach! i will tell you something: they are really unimaginative when it comes to naming things in Australia and NZ. examples: grey reef shark. it is a shark. it is grey. it lives on coral reefs. 90 mile beach: enough said really. 75 mile beach: a totally different beach to 90 mile beach. we also saw creeks named no. 128 creeek. its like they ran out of names of started naming them. anyway: 90 mile beach was fun. so we took some great photos ad left. on the way south we went to Kauri kingdom. for ignorant people like me that don't know kauri are trees and from what i understand they are millions of years old but can also be cut young. i think there are both. anyway they make furniture out of the trees and kauri kingdom is basically a museum. it has a kauri stair case. whats so impressive about that i hear you cry. well it wasn't a staircase where the steps are made of kauri it was inside the tree!!!!! i was awesome and actually ginormous. and it was a really generous staircase and then there was a bit at the top where you could see how big the entire tree was. i think it was as big as my room!
we stayed the night with one of Fran and Denise's friends and then the next day we went to the farmers market and on some walks with her. we ended at the stone store which is a shop full of tons of odds and bods. it was really cool. after another day chilling with Bill and Irene (who left to go camping in Spirits Bay mad people) we went back to Auckland.
the next day we picked up our camper van. her name was Catfish. she was purple and had a catfish on one side and hawk on the other. she was actually awesome. in the day there was a picnic table on the inside which converted to a bed at the end of the day. a surprisingly comfortable bed. she had a kitchenette in the back with a camp stove, cutlery, crockery, everything! best of all she actually responded! no i am not insane. you would talk to her and she would respond. i spoke to her more than sarah!
so the first day we had her we drove to the coromandel to visit the hot water beach. what we didn't think about was the incoming cyclone due the next day (thats why Bill and Irene where mad as that was near where the cyclone was due to hit). surprisingly the beach was closed. we actually watched the waves carry half a tree scarily far up the beach. a lady told us that even if we where there at low tide (which is when you can normally find hot water) we wouldn't have found any as the tide wouldn't have gone out far enough! what a waste of 5 hours. after break we left and moved on: we got as far as Hamilton before i gave up and we found an adorable campsite for the night.
next day we went to the Waitomo caves. remember the shiny poo i mentioned? it was here. the Waitomo caves are an intricate series of caves people go black water rafting. like we did. naturally i would assume black water rafting is like white water rafting but scarier. no. it is going is a black rubber ring. also known as donuts. you get the picture. so we turned up and when our tour started we had to get kitted up in THE most attractive wetsuit equipment i have ever seen. so kitted up in 2 wetsuits, boots and helmets we squished onto a mini bus and were drive to a stream where we picked up our donuts and were given a demonstration of how to jump in with the donuts. sounds easy right? it was about 3 metres over the river which was about a foot deep! we were worried. luckily we jumped off the lower once which was about a metre above the water. the method is turn backwards and try to kick yourself in the head. we were promised drinks if we did manage to kick ourselves in the head! we then had to bundle back into the mini bus to get to the cave entracne. this was especially pleasant as we were now wet so movement was challenging and there was now a ton of rubber in the bus with us.
originally the tour entered through the cave's main entrance but that has now been declared tapu or sacred so we entered through a tine crack in the rock. the tour was fantastic, it involved jumping backward off waterfalls and we saw gloworms. which are actually the larvae's excretion. basically maggot poo. really nice. it was still fantastic.
we then drove to Taupo which is lovely city around a river. we had diner in the city then found a campsite. we started the day with a visit to Huka Falls which is a fantastic waterfall. the water is the most amazing icy blue green and really really turbulent. we then walked to the Spa Pools. this was an hour of walking down the Waikato River. at the end were naturally hot pools. this was really cool. we started with a shower in the a waterfall then sat in the water, after a few minutes i started to over heat. it was hotter than a bath!!!!!!! we had a chat with a guy for quite a long time. he then offered us a lift back to Catfish. as we have brains in our heads we did not accept.
we then drove to Rotarua which is an area of natural gysers. imagine: you have spent2 days non stopped driving, you are tired, you are lost and you cannot get away from the really really strong smell of really really bad eggs. i nearly had a break down. we visited the museum which used to be the bath house. so people travelled across the world to be treated here. they used really experimental treament such as electrolosis. essentially they electrocuted people. it was really creepy. we looked around some of the old treatment rooms then went into the basement. i admit i ran out! caves with no light i can cope with. flying: no problems. rats and snakes: absolutely fine. creepy haunted basements ? not enough money in the world to get me to stay in that basement! we then went to a video of how Rotarua was formed. the seats vibrated with the earthquake and eveyhting. not impressed. the rest of the museum was focused on Maori culture and was not creepy at all. clearly their culture helps appease the ghosts of all the electrocution victims!
next day (after spending the night in a campsite without the sulphur smell (whoop) we spent a good half hour airing catfish so she didn't stink) we went to the living village. this was a village where Maori still live and use the geysers to cook, wash themselves, everything. it was pretty awesome seeing their way of life although i could not handle the smell. the ground we stood on was approx. 30cm thick. real encouraging. the geyser pools were bottomless and were a stunning blue and smoked. while we were in the tour someone was cooking corn in one of the pools and there were several things ing the geyser pressure cookers. they still use them and they work as pressure cookers, microwaves, ovens, everyhing. at the end of the tour (which was by given by a Maori woman who actually lives in the village) was a cultral show wich included a traditional welcoming ritual, blowing of the conch shell, an action song (the Maori version of head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes) a traditional love song (about their actual ancestors) poipoi (balls swung to represent birds in flight), stick games and a haka which is war dance. pretty damn cool.
this was the day we were meant to be joined by Fran and Denise but due to the cyclone Denise couldnt get down to Auckland. instead we went to Napier. we arrived just as everything was closing. we did a driving tour of the city then found a campsite and called it a night. next day we went on a wine tour in Napier as i wanted to and Fran and Denise don't drink. we went to a lovely vineyard and got a tour of the winery and were told about the wine making processes. it was really interesting. we then went to a honey experience thing. NZ is the home of manuka honey. this told us about how bees make honey, about bees and the hives and we tried 9 different types of honey, mild medium and strong. we both preferred mild. for lack of anything better to do we went to Cape Kidnappers which was pretty awesome.
that evening Fran and Denise showed up. next morning they did a tour of Napier so we visited the, lacking, farmers market before driving on to Wellington. we detoured to Castle point, which was a really cool lighthouse. that night we got as far a Carterton.
we finished the drive to Wellington the next morning and had an hour at Te Papa (which is one of the coolest museums ever) before we had to leave for the ferry. the ferry took about 3 hours as it had to meander through loads of islands. it went through the Queen Charlotte Sound which is part of the Marlborough Sound. this was pretty cool. the sounds are absolutely stunning. i will go into more detail. we spent the night with distant family Tim and Lisa and their daughters. literally we arrived and got jumped on my 3 girls aged 7- 12. the 14 year old was more reseverd. eventually we escaped to actual beds. heaven! except we then had to put up with Denise's snoring!
the next day we spent in the Abel Tasman National Park. we got there too late to go canoeing, thats a whole other story, so we drove to another town. on the way we walked down to split apple rock which is a beach with what looks like, shock horror, a split apple. another example of a really imaginative name! in the end we took a water taxi to a beach and did the costal walk back to the vans. this took a good 3 hours but the views were astounding. as in words cannot describe but the water is a stunning blue and there are really tall green hills. stunning. cameras cannot capture.
we spent that night at Tim and Lisa's again which was some really nice downtime and their daughters were great fun. that night though Sarah hid from Denise's snoring in the downstairs bathroom as one door just wasn't enough to block out her snoring!!!!!!!
next day we drove past the Buller Gorge, which is where loads of people bungee jump from and Punakaiki also known as Pancake Rocks and Blow Holes. these are layers of limestone which are really defined layers which is a geological mystery. tres cools. and the pressure caused by the water at high tide (when we were there) causes blow holes. there were a few which went about 20 feet above the rocks, after a funnel about 30 feet high. awesome.
that night we got to Franz Josef and spent the night in a really horrible campsite but visited some hot springs which really helped us all relax.
next day we walked to the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. sadly we couldn't walk on them as the tours were booked to the end of the month. these were really cool. its really hard to tell where the ice ends and the rock begins. there were massive torrential meltwater rivers and snow on the glaciers even though it was only April.
next stop was the blue pools which were, you guessed it, really blue pools. although it was more like a river. which you got to by crossing a spring bridge. i had great fun jumping up and down which scared sarah who is normally the one jumping up and down. gives it but cant take it much? they were really cool. on the river side was a pebble beach which loads of people had built little stone towers on. i would've but we were in a rush. that night we got to Queenstown and went out for dinner.
next morning we quickly looked around Queenstown and bought some warm clothes, it was really cold. we left quite early as we wanted to get to Milford Sound and the drive was really long. we had a look around Te Anau on the way (yes, that was just a place drop). we got as far as Lake Gunn that night which was the DOC campsite closest to the Sound. we got there really early so chilled then made dinner before the sun went down as the only things there were some basic basic toilets and a stream. so we used our gas stoves for the first time. this involved asking some big tough men to get Fran and Denise's to work.
next morning we drove to Milford Sound. this started by going through the Homer tunnel which is a tunnel through a mountain. sounds alright. we waited outside for the traffic lights to turn green then when you go in its a quite small tunnel with like no light. it looks like someone went in with dynamite and blew it up. nothing sophisticated. at all. every few feet there was plastic sheeting on the ceiling and walls which stopped water dribbling on the cars.
we eventually got to the village and made it onto the cruise. Milford Sound is a fjord. this means it is surrounded by mountains and the water is a stunning blue. we had sunshine, dolphins playing on the blow waves twice, we had some otters splashing around. it could not have been more perfect. basically it was a dream come true. if you get a chance do not miss it.
on the way back we had time to stop at all the look outs. the first was ominously named The Chasm. essentially a river which had formed a chasm in the mountain. Fran and Denise went for a swim at the campsite. we thought they were crazy. apparently you went numb on 3 seconds. and why would we want to swim n that?
the next morning we split up with Fran and Denise who wanted to go to Christchurch to "volunteer" but we wanted to go to Mt Cook/Aoraki. after a look around the township we went to the Hooker valley and did the walk. this was quite nice but really really hard work. we then stopped in Lake Tekapo where we had coffee, a nice chat with a guy from Coventry, looked at an adorable church and a historical monument which was a bronze collie. i thought that was hysterical.
next day we spent the morning looking around Christchurch so we went around the red zone, the area roped off and being rebuilt after the earthquakes. we also visited the Canterbury Museum which had exhibitions on early Maori focusing on trends, such as greenstone, and the birds they drove to extintion. an exhibition on nature photography and, most importantly, an exhibition on the earthquakes including actual monument knocked over during the quakes and equipment used by policemen and sniffer dogs. there were also videos b people in the quakes a few nearly made me cry but there was one of an awesome policeman who held a court on the side of the river. he was awesome.
by then we had to drop Catfish back at the depot :( before we went to the airport to fly back to Auckland where we spent 2 day chilling. Fran and Denise looked at their mileage; they drove 4,500 km in 9 days. i think we did more kms in that time and started earlier. no longer i felt so drained!
we have now been in Dubai 2 days. Izzy is going home tomroow so we went shopping yesturday and went to brunch today (basically 3 and a half hours of drinking wine, spirits, cocktails, everything and eating amazing food from sushi to extravagant puddings. awesome. don't think i will be eating for a week though.
lots of love
Amy and Sarah
xxxxxx
so from the beginning of New Zealand. we spent a few days hanging out with Sam and Fran in Auckland. they are Sarah's cousin and uncle. we started with a tour of Auckland before spending a couple of days chilling with Fran. in that time we also saw a rugby game as the rugby 15s were on in Auckland. rugby in totally different in NZ to England. as in they shut streets and thousands of people turn up. someone managed to get a mexican wave going and it went around the stadium literally 7 times! that lasted about 20 minutes! that didn't even happen at the world cup.
we also went to Waiheke Island which is a cute island about an hour ferry ride away from Auckland. its mainly wine country but we did a lovely country walk and got completely lost. it was weird in that it felt like we could be walking in the english countryside. quite nice though. we then went up the sky tower which is something like the tallest building in the NZ. i think but i cant remember and i didn't write it down. ooops. anyhow you could see for 86km in every direction which was pretty awesome and there were people jumping off the building. they were attached to harnesses not committing suicide. do not worry.
we then went to stay with Bill and Irene in Tutukaka. they are Fran's aunt and uncle. understand? they literally lived on the beach. well there was a road in the way but practically on the beach. it was amazing. and we got our own rooms!!!!!!! sarah's was quite big but included the study but mine was a quite small mezzanine floor. it was quite small but absolutely amaizng. i would have taken the room home in my suitcase if i could! while we were there we went for some beach walks which were lovely, swam in the sea, and went scuba diving at the Poor Knights. this is one of the top dive sights in the world, like top 5 or something and was sarah's first cold dive. you actually were 12 mm of wetsuit. for people that have never experienced this let me tell you: its a lot. that includes a hood and everyhting. it can make movement hard but was quite good here. the diving was awesome. we dived in the worlds biggest natural sea cave and it was just amazing. there were loads of fish and everything.
by then Fran and Denise (Fran's mum) joined us. this meant the start of our road trip! we drove up north, and went to Paihia which is where the treaty of Waitaingi was first signed (i had to mention that because Sam gave me grief cause i said we didn't go to Piahia i just didn't realise Waitangi was in Piahia). so that is fundamental NZ version of the roman invasion type thing so they are taught it every 2 weeks or so at school. however, Fran had never been there either and she found it actually interesting. it was very cool. they let Kiwis in free so we shut up and Fran blagged us in. although i did master "I'm from Whangerai" quite well in Kiwi. we spent the night in the Bay of Islands which was quite cool. we then drive to Cape Reinga which is about as far north as you can get in NZ and is where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean and you could actually see whirlppols. pretty cool. it is also where the Maori believe their dead depart this world for the afterlife. sadly we couldn't hear any spirits as it was blowing about a force 5 gale!
we then drive to 90 mile beach which is, shock of all shocks, a 75 (ish) mile long beach! i will tell you something: they are really unimaginative when it comes to naming things in Australia and NZ. examples: grey reef shark. it is a shark. it is grey. it lives on coral reefs. 90 mile beach: enough said really. 75 mile beach: a totally different beach to 90 mile beach. we also saw creeks named no. 128 creeek. its like they ran out of names of started naming them. anyway: 90 mile beach was fun. so we took some great photos ad left. on the way south we went to Kauri kingdom. for ignorant people like me that don't know kauri are trees and from what i understand they are millions of years old but can also be cut young. i think there are both. anyway they make furniture out of the trees and kauri kingdom is basically a museum. it has a kauri stair case. whats so impressive about that i hear you cry. well it wasn't a staircase where the steps are made of kauri it was inside the tree!!!!! i was awesome and actually ginormous. and it was a really generous staircase and then there was a bit at the top where you could see how big the entire tree was. i think it was as big as my room!
we stayed the night with one of Fran and Denise's friends and then the next day we went to the farmers market and on some walks with her. we ended at the stone store which is a shop full of tons of odds and bods. it was really cool. after another day chilling with Bill and Irene (who left to go camping in Spirits Bay mad people) we went back to Auckland.
the next day we picked up our camper van. her name was Catfish. she was purple and had a catfish on one side and hawk on the other. she was actually awesome. in the day there was a picnic table on the inside which converted to a bed at the end of the day. a surprisingly comfortable bed. she had a kitchenette in the back with a camp stove, cutlery, crockery, everything! best of all she actually responded! no i am not insane. you would talk to her and she would respond. i spoke to her more than sarah!
so the first day we had her we drove to the coromandel to visit the hot water beach. what we didn't think about was the incoming cyclone due the next day (thats why Bill and Irene where mad as that was near where the cyclone was due to hit). surprisingly the beach was closed. we actually watched the waves carry half a tree scarily far up the beach. a lady told us that even if we where there at low tide (which is when you can normally find hot water) we wouldn't have found any as the tide wouldn't have gone out far enough! what a waste of 5 hours. after break we left and moved on: we got as far as Hamilton before i gave up and we found an adorable campsite for the night.
next day we went to the Waitomo caves. remember the shiny poo i mentioned? it was here. the Waitomo caves are an intricate series of caves people go black water rafting. like we did. naturally i would assume black water rafting is like white water rafting but scarier. no. it is going is a black rubber ring. also known as donuts. you get the picture. so we turned up and when our tour started we had to get kitted up in THE most attractive wetsuit equipment i have ever seen. so kitted up in 2 wetsuits, boots and helmets we squished onto a mini bus and were drive to a stream where we picked up our donuts and were given a demonstration of how to jump in with the donuts. sounds easy right? it was about 3 metres over the river which was about a foot deep! we were worried. luckily we jumped off the lower once which was about a metre above the water. the method is turn backwards and try to kick yourself in the head. we were promised drinks if we did manage to kick ourselves in the head! we then had to bundle back into the mini bus to get to the cave entracne. this was especially pleasant as we were now wet so movement was challenging and there was now a ton of rubber in the bus with us.
originally the tour entered through the cave's main entrance but that has now been declared tapu or sacred so we entered through a tine crack in the rock. the tour was fantastic, it involved jumping backward off waterfalls and we saw gloworms. which are actually the larvae's excretion. basically maggot poo. really nice. it was still fantastic.
we then drove to Taupo which is lovely city around a river. we had diner in the city then found a campsite. we started the day with a visit to Huka Falls which is a fantastic waterfall. the water is the most amazing icy blue green and really really turbulent. we then walked to the Spa Pools. this was an hour of walking down the Waikato River. at the end were naturally hot pools. this was really cool. we started with a shower in the a waterfall then sat in the water, after a few minutes i started to over heat. it was hotter than a bath!!!!!!! we had a chat with a guy for quite a long time. he then offered us a lift back to Catfish. as we have brains in our heads we did not accept.
we then drove to Rotarua which is an area of natural gysers. imagine: you have spent2 days non stopped driving, you are tired, you are lost and you cannot get away from the really really strong smell of really really bad eggs. i nearly had a break down. we visited the museum which used to be the bath house. so people travelled across the world to be treated here. they used really experimental treament such as electrolosis. essentially they electrocuted people. it was really creepy. we looked around some of the old treatment rooms then went into the basement. i admit i ran out! caves with no light i can cope with. flying: no problems. rats and snakes: absolutely fine. creepy haunted basements ? not enough money in the world to get me to stay in that basement! we then went to a video of how Rotarua was formed. the seats vibrated with the earthquake and eveyhting. not impressed. the rest of the museum was focused on Maori culture and was not creepy at all. clearly their culture helps appease the ghosts of all the electrocution victims!
next day (after spending the night in a campsite without the sulphur smell (whoop) we spent a good half hour airing catfish so she didn't stink) we went to the living village. this was a village where Maori still live and use the geysers to cook, wash themselves, everything. it was pretty awesome seeing their way of life although i could not handle the smell. the ground we stood on was approx. 30cm thick. real encouraging. the geyser pools were bottomless and were a stunning blue and smoked. while we were in the tour someone was cooking corn in one of the pools and there were several things ing the geyser pressure cookers. they still use them and they work as pressure cookers, microwaves, ovens, everyhing. at the end of the tour (which was by given by a Maori woman who actually lives in the village) was a cultral show wich included a traditional welcoming ritual, blowing of the conch shell, an action song (the Maori version of head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes) a traditional love song (about their actual ancestors) poipoi (balls swung to represent birds in flight), stick games and a haka which is war dance. pretty damn cool.
this was the day we were meant to be joined by Fran and Denise but due to the cyclone Denise couldnt get down to Auckland. instead we went to Napier. we arrived just as everything was closing. we did a driving tour of the city then found a campsite and called it a night. next day we went on a wine tour in Napier as i wanted to and Fran and Denise don't drink. we went to a lovely vineyard and got a tour of the winery and were told about the wine making processes. it was really interesting. we then went to a honey experience thing. NZ is the home of manuka honey. this told us about how bees make honey, about bees and the hives and we tried 9 different types of honey, mild medium and strong. we both preferred mild. for lack of anything better to do we went to Cape Kidnappers which was pretty awesome.
that evening Fran and Denise showed up. next morning they did a tour of Napier so we visited the, lacking, farmers market before driving on to Wellington. we detoured to Castle point, which was a really cool lighthouse. that night we got as far a Carterton.
we finished the drive to Wellington the next morning and had an hour at Te Papa (which is one of the coolest museums ever) before we had to leave for the ferry. the ferry took about 3 hours as it had to meander through loads of islands. it went through the Queen Charlotte Sound which is part of the Marlborough Sound. this was pretty cool. the sounds are absolutely stunning. i will go into more detail. we spent the night with distant family Tim and Lisa and their daughters. literally we arrived and got jumped on my 3 girls aged 7- 12. the 14 year old was more reseverd. eventually we escaped to actual beds. heaven! except we then had to put up with Denise's snoring!
the next day we spent in the Abel Tasman National Park. we got there too late to go canoeing, thats a whole other story, so we drove to another town. on the way we walked down to split apple rock which is a beach with what looks like, shock horror, a split apple. another example of a really imaginative name! in the end we took a water taxi to a beach and did the costal walk back to the vans. this took a good 3 hours but the views were astounding. as in words cannot describe but the water is a stunning blue and there are really tall green hills. stunning. cameras cannot capture.
we spent that night at Tim and Lisa's again which was some really nice downtime and their daughters were great fun. that night though Sarah hid from Denise's snoring in the downstairs bathroom as one door just wasn't enough to block out her snoring!!!!!!!
next day we drove past the Buller Gorge, which is where loads of people bungee jump from and Punakaiki also known as Pancake Rocks and Blow Holes. these are layers of limestone which are really defined layers which is a geological mystery. tres cools. and the pressure caused by the water at high tide (when we were there) causes blow holes. there were a few which went about 20 feet above the rocks, after a funnel about 30 feet high. awesome.
that night we got to Franz Josef and spent the night in a really horrible campsite but visited some hot springs which really helped us all relax.
next day we walked to the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. sadly we couldn't walk on them as the tours were booked to the end of the month. these were really cool. its really hard to tell where the ice ends and the rock begins. there were massive torrential meltwater rivers and snow on the glaciers even though it was only April.
next stop was the blue pools which were, you guessed it, really blue pools. although it was more like a river. which you got to by crossing a spring bridge. i had great fun jumping up and down which scared sarah who is normally the one jumping up and down. gives it but cant take it much? they were really cool. on the river side was a pebble beach which loads of people had built little stone towers on. i would've but we were in a rush. that night we got to Queenstown and went out for dinner.
next morning we quickly looked around Queenstown and bought some warm clothes, it was really cold. we left quite early as we wanted to get to Milford Sound and the drive was really long. we had a look around Te Anau on the way (yes, that was just a place drop). we got as far as Lake Gunn that night which was the DOC campsite closest to the Sound. we got there really early so chilled then made dinner before the sun went down as the only things there were some basic basic toilets and a stream. so we used our gas stoves for the first time. this involved asking some big tough men to get Fran and Denise's to work.
next morning we drove to Milford Sound. this started by going through the Homer tunnel which is a tunnel through a mountain. sounds alright. we waited outside for the traffic lights to turn green then when you go in its a quite small tunnel with like no light. it looks like someone went in with dynamite and blew it up. nothing sophisticated. at all. every few feet there was plastic sheeting on the ceiling and walls which stopped water dribbling on the cars.
we eventually got to the village and made it onto the cruise. Milford Sound is a fjord. this means it is surrounded by mountains and the water is a stunning blue. we had sunshine, dolphins playing on the blow waves twice, we had some otters splashing around. it could not have been more perfect. basically it was a dream come true. if you get a chance do not miss it.
on the way back we had time to stop at all the look outs. the first was ominously named The Chasm. essentially a river which had formed a chasm in the mountain. Fran and Denise went for a swim at the campsite. we thought they were crazy. apparently you went numb on 3 seconds. and why would we want to swim n that?
the next morning we split up with Fran and Denise who wanted to go to Christchurch to "volunteer" but we wanted to go to Mt Cook/Aoraki. after a look around the township we went to the Hooker valley and did the walk. this was quite nice but really really hard work. we then stopped in Lake Tekapo where we had coffee, a nice chat with a guy from Coventry, looked at an adorable church and a historical monument which was a bronze collie. i thought that was hysterical.
next day we spent the morning looking around Christchurch so we went around the red zone, the area roped off and being rebuilt after the earthquakes. we also visited the Canterbury Museum which had exhibitions on early Maori focusing on trends, such as greenstone, and the birds they drove to extintion. an exhibition on nature photography and, most importantly, an exhibition on the earthquakes including actual monument knocked over during the quakes and equipment used by policemen and sniffer dogs. there were also videos b people in the quakes a few nearly made me cry but there was one of an awesome policeman who held a court on the side of the river. he was awesome.
by then we had to drop Catfish back at the depot :( before we went to the airport to fly back to Auckland where we spent 2 day chilling. Fran and Denise looked at their mileage; they drove 4,500 km in 9 days. i think we did more kms in that time and started earlier. no longer i felt so drained!
we have now been in Dubai 2 days. Izzy is going home tomroow so we went shopping yesturday and went to brunch today (basically 3 and a half hours of drinking wine, spirits, cocktails, everything and eating amazing food from sushi to extravagant puddings. awesome. don't think i will be eating for a week though.
lots of love
Amy and Sarah
xxxxxx
