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Kia Ora...that means hello in Maori (I googled it there now!)
It feels like an age since we wrote our last blog so since we finally have a few hours to ourselves we thought we would keep you updated!!! We flew from Australia last Monday from Sydney to Christchurch and initially we thought we had brought the beautiful weather with us. However this proved to be a false dawn and after a few days of sunshine in Christchurch and Mount Cook, it has been absolutely baltic!!!! One minute it can be warm and sunny and then the next the wind is whipping in from the Antartic and its trousers and coats all round! It is spring after all and I think we were spoiled by the amazing weather on the Gold Coast. Sadly the tans are slowly being eroded by the cold We will have to don the speedos and bikinis (Laura anyway) once more in Fiji in January.
We spent 3 days in Christchurch getting our bearings and pretty much relaxing after some hardcore travelling in Australia. 3 weeks to cover the East Coast made for a pretty hectic schedule so some R&R was required in Christchurch. We did nothing but walk around, sleep and eat. We did manage to fit in a punt on the river Avon which was 'quaint'! Christchurch is a pretty place, very Englishy (yes I made that up) but there isn't a great deal to do. We did do something of worth in Christchurch and that was booking a car!! We booked a Toyota Corolla for 2 weeks for the equivalent of 270 squid. Bargain or what?! We chose this as it would allow us to go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted and stop as we pleased. The bus tours are full of skanky Gap year English 18 year olds so that made our minds up on that one!
We set off after our down time and headed for Aoraki/Mount Cook, a 5 hour journey into the Southern Alps. The scenery is just as you would imagine in....stunning!!! We stopped far too many times and took far too many photos!! Ha ha. We passed through beautiful places such as Lake Tekapo and past Lake Pukaki and arriving at Mount Cook we were blown away. It is the highest mountain in NZ and the setting is like a scene from Lord of the Rings. We ran one of the treks (we needed to do a bit of exercise after 6 weeks of inactivity) and relaxed in our log cabin hostel. The next morning we took a boat tour of the Tasman Glacier lake just ten minutes away. We saw icebergs cracking and bits falling off the actual glacier. Hopefully the photos will do it justice! The guy made us put our hands in the water for ten seconds....pain!!! It was fffffffreeeezzzzing!
We left Mt Cook after our tour and made our way back to the East Coast to a town called Oamaru. The drive was pretty scenic and we took another pile of photos. Oamaru was very quiet but we went to see some Blue penguins. They are tiny wee things, only about 30 cm high. Being the stupid Irish we are we went along in our shorts thinking the weather was ok....we nearly froze watching the wee b*****s. Nice and all as they were, we had to hurry back to the hostel to thaw our legs!
The plan at the minute is to travel round the South Island in a general clockwise direction, stopping off at the famous places and do as much as we can. We have booked a bungy in Queenstown (not for Laura obviously), a heli-hike on Fox Glacier, an overnight cruise on Milford Sound and we hope to squeeze in some white water rafting. Already we can tell that NZ is more for us than OZ...not taking anything away from Oz, it was amazing too, but the scenery and amount of outdoor activities on offer here are mindblowing!
Ray & P....keep us posted on natal matters.
Dad (Laura)...look after yourself.
Folks (Brian)...keep the football scores coming
Everybody...hope you are well. Missing you all,
Love,
Brian & Laura
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