NZ to Australia. 24 hours of cock-ups.

Our last night in our little tent was surprisingly quite warm; as if it knew this was our last night together. We got up nice and early to pack the tent away. We agreed that it would be too heavy to take the tent and the airbed and our sleeping bags with us so we decided that we would head back to Christchurch and try to sell our camping equipment at Cash Converters. So we took ages packing the tent away, making sure it was all nicely folded, completely dry and free of grass and beetles. Then we spent a few hours in the internet room at the campsite doing internet jobs. When we left the internet room we felt really pleased with our incredibly productive start to the day and very positive about the day ahead.

Then a mean old man decided to ruin things for us.

As we were walking back to the car we saw him emptying the bins so we just smiled and he shouted “Are you leaving today?” and we said “Yes” he said “You know you’re supposed to leave by 10am!!” we said “Sorry, we did pack our tent away but we’d already paid for some internet time and we wanted to use it” he said “You do that at some sites and they’ll charge you for an extra night!”. It’s worth pointing out that we never left any of our campsites by the official check-out time of 10am and nobody else ever gave a monkeys. This made us feel cross (especially Jen) so we drove away from Akaroa feeling not quite as positive.

When we arrived in Christchurch we carried all of our camping equipment across town to Cash Converters and despite the fact that their sign said “We Buy Anything”, as soon as we walked in the door the man took one look at us and said “We’re not buying camping equipment. It’s the end of the summer”. Feeling slightly less positive. So then we walked further across town to a place called “The Pawn Shop” only to be told “We don’t buy camping equipment. Ever.” By this point we felt like our awesome start to the day had been completely shit on. So we took the camping equipment back to the car and went for a Big Mac to cheer ourselves up. It didn’t really work and we felt a bit rank.

Jen: Why didn't we just drive to the shops? Or call them beforehand...?

Chris: Because we like to make things difficult for ourselves.

We had a few hours to kill before we needed to be at the airport so we tried to think of fun things to do. We ended up going bowling and spending some time in the arcade. We love bowling and arcades so our mood started to pick up again.

Not for long…

We were convinced that our drop-off time for returning the hire car was 8pm and we knew this was classed as “Out of hours” so we assumed that we’d just park the car and there’d be some kind of drop box for the keys. This was not the case. We arrived at a deserted car hire office which was in the middle of nowhere, to find no drop box and all of the cars safely locked away behind gates with barbed wire on them. We checked our paperwork and discovered we were actually supposed to drop the car off at 7pm and that now all of their offices were closed and would not re-open until the following morning. Jen started hyper-ventilating at this point. Luckily Chris is well-known for his craftiness in questionable situations so he decided that we would park the car by the office, put the car keys inside a plastic bag full of clothes pegs from camping, throw said bag over the gates with the barbed wire and leave them an apologetic note under the door explaining the whole thing. Jen was unconvinced but we had no other option so we called a cab, wrote a note, threw the keys and essentially did a runner, leaving all of our camping equipment in the boot of the car.

By the time we got to the airport Jen’s face was no longer grey and we laughed about the whole thing. We flew to Auckland with Jetstar - Qantas’s budget airline. It was a lot bloody nicer than Ryanair. When we arrived at Auckland we had to walk from the domestic terminal to the international terminal and we discovered that having a car for 4 weeks had thoroughly spoilt us and actually carrying backpacks that weight 15kg and more is bloody hard work. When we got to the international terminal we headed for the observation deck which sleepinginairports.net had helpfully informed us was the quietest and comfiest place in the airport to sleep. We found some long benches that were padded and laid down for the night. Chris slept like a baby and said it “wasn’t all that bad really”. Jen woke up on the hour, every hour, panicking that we’d missed our flight.

When 6am came we had a quick wash and cleaned our teeth and checked in for our flight to Sydney. Only to be told we needed visas for Australia and we didn’t have them. Jen’s face turned a familiar shade of grey… Luckily we were able to buy the visas at the airport for $30 each. We took ourselves for some breakfast and when 8am rolled around we agreed that Chris should phone the car hire office back in Christchurch to make sure that the car had not been stolen and that we were not leaving the country as wanted men. Somehow Chris managed to convince the guy on the end of the phone that it was all their fault and that we had definitely arranged to drop the car off at 8 and not 7. The conversation ended with the bloke apologising for their dodgy website. I don’t know how he does it.

Chris: It’s because I’m crafty.

We boarded the plane feeling weary but pleased to be on our way. Qantas flights are awesome and we had a tasty breakfast in a tray (Jen loves food in a tray) and watched The Blind Side starring recent Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock. We liked it.

When we arrived in Sydney the pilot handily told us it was 24 degrees and this made us really pleased. We got a train from the airport to Sydney Central and our hostel was just round the corner. We dumped our bags and headed straight for the showers. We also had our first look at our 6-bed dorm room. It smelt like a teenager's bedroom but was not too bad.

Due to some more time travelling we’d gained 2 hours so we headed out into Sydney for some lunch and to walk around and look at stuff. Before we left NZ we did a few sums and realised that all of our hilarious escapades had cost us a small fortune so we agreed that in Australia we would definitely do more walking around and looking at stuff.

We went to the Botanical Gardens which were beautiful and bizarrely saw loads of massive bats in the trees. They were making a bloody racket too. We also saw some very nice colourful birds and a few massive spiders. Then we walked around to the Sydney Opera House which was very impressive and beautiful. We were going to walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge but it was very hot and we’d walked a long way so instead we went in a pub and had a beer.

Back at the hostel they have a nice bar which also does food so we had steak and chips for the bargain price of $8 each followed by a few beers. We also actually talked to some people which was a new experience for us.

Chris: Only because all of the people at campsites are old or weird. Or both.

The following day we walked back to the Harbour Bridge and enjoyed the awesome views, then we had lunch in a pub and caught the ferry over to Manly Beach. We sat on the beach for a bit and Chris dug a hole.

Chris: I was building a base. I was going to guard it and keep all my stuff in it. Then I remembered I’m not 5.

Jen: Are you sure?

We headed back to the hostel and once again enjoyed their bargainous food before retiring to our dorm where we met two new american guys who asked us “So why do all Brits hate the French?” and “Are all Londoners racist?”. They seemed almost disappointed when we told them that we didn’t really mind French people and most people we know aren’t racist. I think they were hoping we’d entertain them with hilarious talk of how we thought the French were massive bastards and how we hated black people.

On our third day we woke up to find the two American guys had left and a different American bloke called John had arrived. He was interesting... he talked to us about wilderness camping whilst carrying 21 books around with him, and "the transitory nature of travellers" and how he'd lost his American passport but he didn't want a new one because he hated America and had "had some bad times there". He was also very twitchy.

We were thinking about going to the Blue Mountains but we decided it would be better to use the day to plan what we were going to do for the next 5 weeks. We’d seen a few trips advertised in different travel agents around Sydney but we weren’t sure whether they were dodge pots or if the trips were any good. We discovered a nice lady called Emily at the travel desk in our hostel who spent a few hours with us talking about awesome trips that we could do and helping us finalise our plans. She doesn’t work on commission and it was nice to get help from someone who wasn’t trying to sell us stuff. She also found some really good diving trips for us. We went back to see her this morning and she booked everything for us and helped us sort out our coach tickets for the whole trip. We like her very much.

Last night we went to the hostel bar again as there was a quiz on and Jen is awesome at pub quizzes. We saw an Italian guy called Gabriel that we met on the first night. He was very impressed to find out that Chris worked in the film industry and said that he was hoping to study a Masters in Film as he wanted to work in the film industry too. Chris promptly told him that studying was a massive waste of time. But then they had lots of chats about special effects and lighting and Chris was in his element. We also made friends with a guy from Belgium and one from Sweden. Although they all spoke English it made for an interesting quiz team and somehow we ended up with the team name “Botly Bodly”. Which means nothing. But the guy from Belgium wrote it on our sheet and then defended it fiercely. Even though he admitted it meant nothing. We didn’t win but it was a lot of fun and afterwards there was a live band so we stayed quite late and had quite a lot of drinks which was really nice. Although it did make Jen feel very nostalgic for high-heeled shoes and lipstick.

Today we’re going to the Sydney Aquarium and up the Sydney tower - we love Sydney. We leave tonight to get the overnight bus to Byron Bay which is part of our awesome money-saving plan by getting the bus overnight we don’t have to pay for accommodation.

Not many photos in today's entry. I think we've been a bit shell-shocked by the move to a new country and have forgotten what we're doing. We will take more and report back!

Franz Josef. The betrayal of the icy bastard.

So once we had thrown ourselves off a cliff for fun we set off for Franz Josef. The map said it would take around 4 and a half hours so we knew it was going to be a hefty journey but we had packed our trusty tuna sandwiches and apple bars so we were ready.

We stopped in Wanaka to eat our lunch by the lake and stock up on food and beers at the local supermarket. We also had a few other little stops to look at beautiful things and take pictures of them. In the end it took us around 6 hours to get to Franz Josef and the last bit was really windy and Chris felt a bit like he was going mad. We finally got there and set up the tent, cooked some dinner, watched some telly and went to bed. The following morning we had a fairly late start and after a good old-fashioned shouty argument about packed lunches and showers we were ready for our awesome glacier hike.

Now, most people's photos of their glacier hike at Franz Josef look like this:

Our photos look like this:

Let me explain... the minibus picked us up from the campsite at 12:30, at which point it was a little bit grey but not too bad. They took us to their main building where we were given waterproof trousers, waterproof jacket, hiking boots and crampons (spiky things to help your boots grip the ice) and wooly hat and gloves. We were already wearing about 3 layers of our own clothes so at the time it all seemed a bit much but we took all the stuff they gave us and went and got on the bus.

When we arrived at the beginning of the hike we were given the option to choose what group we wanted to go in - Group 1, for hardcore keeno's who think they are awesome, Group 2, for normal people or Group 3, for oldies and cripples. We chose group 2. We set off with our tour guide, who was also called Chris, and made our way towards the glacier which was about 2.5km away. It was still a bit grey but the closer we got, the colder it got and then it started to rain. And then it rained a bit more. And then it didn't stop raining for the rest of the day. Like really hard rain that soaks you right down to your pants. Even though you're wearing your alledgedly waterproof clothing provided by Franz Josef Glacier Guides. 

Nonetheless the hike was still very cool and once again we were impressed by our stamina and new-found outdoorsy ways. Some people in our group were clearly lying to themselves and should have gone in Group 3 with the oldies and the cripples but we did really well and didn't cry or nothing. When we got to the top of the hike the guide said "we'll just stop here for a bit and have a rest before we go back down again" - but it was still pouring with rain. And then everyone proceeded to get out their sandwiches and eat them IN THE POURING RAIN! We felt a bit like saying "Less talky, more walky!" but instead we just kept quiet, safe in the knowledge that our precious corned beed sandwiches were tucked away in Chris's rucksack and we would eat them once we were back on the dry coach.

Luckily we didn't hang about for long and coming back down was a lot quicker, but also a lot slippier. When we got near to the bottom some rather large rocks started tumbling down because it was raining so much and we definitely felt like it was time to leave. When we got back to the coach it was 5pm and we hadn't eaten since breakfast so we inhaled our sandwiches and other stuff despite the fact our hands were actually wrinkly from the rain. By the time we got back to the campsite we were going a little bit mental with cold, and it was still raining so we grabbed dry clothes and ran to hot showers, where we stayed for about the next half an hour. 

We spent the rest of the evening in the camp kitchen eating a hearty dinner and looking at the rain through the window, feeling a bit terrified. When it finally stopped we went to bed.

The next morning we woke up to glorious sunshine. What a bastard.

We set off for Greymouth which was only 2 and a half hours away. When we got there the campsite was right on the beach and whilst it was still windy it was quite sunny and we felt a bit happier. We put up the tent, did some washing, had some lunch and found an awesome games room with old-school arcade games like Streetfighter 2 Turbo. In the evening we headed to Monteith's Brewery for a tour and beer tasting.

When we arrived, there were a few people in stupid big green hats and we remembered it was St. Patrick's Day so we agreed to head out into Greymouth for a few drinks afterwards. The brewery tour was fairly interesting but it was pretty obvious that we were all there for the free beer. Although not technically free as we paid for the tour... But we tasted the beers and poured ourselves a pint and then walked into Greymouth in search of Irish festivities. When we got there, there seemed to be nobody around but then we found a bar called Danny Doolan's and discovered where everybody was. We then made the slightly foolish decision to get some food before we started drinking and ended up at a pizza place eating massive bready pizzas and feeling a bit full and sleepy. But we still headed back to Danny Doolan's and had a few pints as well as joining in the singing of such Celtic classics as "Danny Boy", "Belle of Belfast City", "The Wild Rover" and "London Calling" (??).

The next morning we decided to leave Greymouth and go back to Christchurch a day earlier than we had planned. We had been reading the news about Cyclone Tomas in Fiji and were a little bit unsure about what to do as we were due to fly there in a couple of days. We emailed STA travel in London for some advice but the nice lady who normally helped us was away and the person who replied instead was a bit shit - so we thought we'd go to the STA office in Christchurch and get some advice there. Unfortunately they were a bit shit too. They basically said it was entirely our decision and that meant they could in no way be helpful at all. She looked at us like we were idiots and then handed us a phone number to call British Airways if we decided we wanted to change our flights. The phone number turned out to be a number for a security company and we later discovered that our ticked is with Qantas and not with BA. Good work STA.

We did a bit of internet researching and whilst the cyclone has ended now there is still quite a bit of damage in some areas and the weather for the next few weeks is still likely to be very wet and windy. As you can imagine we are ready for a bit of sunshine and the thought of more rain made Jen nearly cry. So we phoned up Qantas and managed to speak to a lovely helpful lady who helped us to switch our itinerary round so we can go to Australia first, give Fiji a bit of time to calm down and then we'll head there in 5 weeks time.

We didn't really like Christchurch last time, especially the campsite with the big black flies, so we headed further out along the Banks Peninsula to a small place called Akaroa and set up on a campsite here. It's very lovely with nice views of the sea and last night we had fish and chips to celebrate sorting everything out.

Today (after another freezing cold night in the tent - the novelty value of camping is well and truly wearing off now) we had a nice lazy morning and then went down to the docks to go on a boat trip to go swimming with dolphins! They are Hector's dolphins and they are very small and the rarest breed of dolphin so it was exciting to be able to get in the water with them. They gave us wetsuits and all that business and took us out on a tiny boat - when we saw some dolphins we got in the (freezing!) water and they swam around us. A few came really close to Jen and we saw about 10 or 12 dolphins in total. Chris had his underwater camera again but they're quick little buggers so he didn't manage to get any photos this time.

Tonight is our last night camping, and our last proper night in New Zealand. Tomorrow we have to drive back to Christchurch to drop off the car and fly to Auckland, where will catch our plane to Sydney the following morning. This means a night in the airport which will be a real treat (!) but sleepinginairports.net rates Auckland airport quite highly so maybe it will be ok. As long as it's warmer than the tent we'll be pleased.

Te Anau & Queenstown. You snooze, you luge.

On our first night in Te Anau we went out for some dinner at a local pub because we had a voucher that got us a free pint with a main meal. But when we paid the bill they told us that we had drunk the wrong kind of beer. So we just paid for a meal and 2 beers that we shouldn’t really have had.

The next day we woke up nice and early in Te Anau and watched the sun rise… this is a lie. We woke up at the dawn of time and watched a grey Te Anau get rained on. This was not too pleasing at 6:30am but as we were getting picked up at 7:20am we had little choice in the matter. As we mentioned in the previous post, we had heard that the sandflies at Milford Sound were the size of sparrows and could kill a man at 50 paces so we slathered ourselves in our 80% deet cream (taking care to let it dry before getting dressed so it didn’t melt our clothes) and went to get on our coach.

After we picked up a load of oldies, our bus driver Alex informed us that his official title was coach driver and nature guide, but that he was in no way qualified to be a nature guide and that actually he was a retired telecoms engineer. This didn’t really fill us with hope as we had specifically booked a “Nature Tour”. Alex then proceeded to narrate the entire drive to Milford with the level of enthusiasm you would expect from a retired telecoms engineer so Jen had a little sleep and Chris watched Terminator Salvation on his iPod. When we started paying attention again Alex was saying something about beech trees (or was it birch trees?) but luckily from then on the drive got a lot more interesting. The Milford highway was very scenic with lots of cool mountains and rainforests and waterfalls to look at on the way.

When we arrived at Milford Sound Alex told us our boat was boarding in 2 minutes time so we were pleased that we wouldn’t have to spend much time on the dock with the sandflies of doom. But Jen wasn’t taking any chances…

Once we had boarded the boat we quickly went below decks and waited for us to reach a safe distance from the docks before emerging onto the viewing deck. Milford Sound was very beautiful and by this time the sun had decided to put in an appearance so the views were lovely. We had a different nature guide for the boat trip (Alex stayed behind on the coach) and he was much more interesting and told us lots of stuff about nature and that. The only animals that we saw were some seals and as we’ve seen like a million of these by now it meant that whilst the other people were pushing to try and get photos of them we were a bit like “Seals? SEEN IT” and enjoyed the sunshine and clear views on the other side of the boat.

They were handing out the free picnic lunches from the moment we got on the boat and despite Chris’s best efforts we waited until after midday to go and collect ours - and as free lunches go it was pretty good.

Chris: It was bloody delicious.

Jen: You love lunch.

We realised as we were heading back towards the docks that the tour we had booked included a trip to the Milford Sound Underwater Observatory, but we appeared to be heading straight back to the docks, and we knew Alex would be waiting for us - so we went to ask a man when we would be able to do this. He then helpfully told us that this boat was too big to go to the underwater observatory and that the boat that does go there was not running today. He said we should talk to the people back at the office at the docks as we might be able to get some money back. When we went to the office a really unhelpful woman said that the observatory was “an OPTIONAL element not an INCLUDED element” and despite the fact that no-one ever gave us the option to do it there was nothing we could do so we had to go and get back on the coach with Alex feeling a bit cross. So even though we paid for a “Nature Tour” which was more money than the standard “Scenic Tour” what we actually got was a few seals, no underwater observatory and a retired telecoms engineer. We don’t like “Real Journeys” tours.

However we had still had a beautiful day at Milford Sound (which is actually a fiord and not a sound - see? We learnt something!) and on the drive home Alex narrated a lot less which meant that Jen could do more napping whilst Chris played games on his phone. Occasionally Alex stopped at picturesque spots so we could take some photos - at which point we would all pile off the coach for a bit of a look. We quickly realised that one of the pitfalls of being on a coach full of oldies is that when it’s time to go home, they want to go home. And they don’t really like it when a man tells them to get off the coach. So most of them stayed put in their seats with arms crossed. And those that did get off the coach with us were back on it before we could take more than 2 photos.

When we got back to Te Anau we said thanks to Alex, who we’d grown bizarrely fond of, and headed off to buy fish and chips for dinner. There was a caravan set up on the street outside the campsite and their fish and chips were both a bargain - $8.50 for cod and chips (£4!) - and delicious. We ate them in the camp kitchen so all the people cooking their rubbish dinners felt dead jealous of us. We then spent the rest of the night in the camp kitchen watching the nice big telly and drinking obscene amounts of Coke Zero. We love caffeine but caffeine does not love us.

The following day we packed up the tent and set of for Queenstown which was only two and a half hours away which is like a quick trip down the road in comparison with other mammoth journeys we’ve done in NZ. Jen decided it was such a short journey that Chris didn’t really need a navigator so slept pretty much the entire way there.

Queenstown has a reputation as a bit of a party town and when we arrived there it was a Saturday so we decided that night we would head out “on the town”. Queenstown also has a reputation for being a bit “YEAH WOO EXTREME SPORTS!” so we begun to feel the pressure to do something a bit bonkers - despite the fact that Chris is scared of heights and Jen doesn’t really like getting her face wet.

We went to the Gondola (it’s a cable car) not really for the views but because they had a luge track at the top and we thought this would be a fun, but also cheap, way to ease ourselves into Queenstown. But when we got to the Gondola station the man told us that the luge track was closed because of the wind. So instead we decided to play mini golf. Indoors. Yeah woo extreme sports…

Chris: Don't forget to tell them I won!

Jen: And Chris won. By one point. And he didn't even want to play. Grrr.

That night we cooked ourselves some dinner and had a few beers to get our planned night of partying in Queenstown underway. But then some people came into the kitchen and put a film on the telly and we felt sleepy after a few beers so we abandoned all plans for a night on the town in favour of 3 bottles of beer and The Skeleton Key. It was not good. We should have gone out.

The following morning we had booked onto a jet boat trip on Lake Wakatipu and the Kawarau river. It promised speeds of up to 85kmph and 360 degree spins so we thought this was suitably extreme. It was wicked. Chris loved it and now wants to be a jet boat driver when he grows up.

That afternoon we had booked to do some hangliding. Extreme enough for you Queenstown? YEAH. Except no. We had to call them half an hour before to confirm and they told us it was too windy. We thought that wind was a crucial part of hangliding but apparently too much wind can lead to death. And this is not good. So they asked if we could come the following day instead. We felt a bit deflated, Chris especially as he had paid for us to have a hearty lunch in preparation. So we headed back to the Gondola station to console ourselves and luckily the luge was open again so we had a few rides on there and felt a bit better.

Then we went back to the campsite feeling slightly lost with nothing to do for a whole afternoon. Mainly we just lay about in the tent and went on the internet. Jen really liked it. That evening we headed out into Queenstown, slightly nervous as it was now Sunday and we have a tendency to go out in towns when nobody else is there, but Queenstown did not let us down. We went to a bar called Winnie’s (we had a voucher) and it was ace - there were loads of people there, a live band, cheap drinks and Jen wore eye-liner. Everyone was pleased.

Unfortunately we could not stay out until dawn and get shanted on jagerbombs as we were aware that our hangliding had been moved to the following morning at 10 so we would have to get up dead early to pack the tent away before we went.

In the morning we called the hangliding company and they confirmed that the wind was good and they would come to fetch us. We suddenly felt a bit terrified and not very woo extreme sports. When we arrived at the spot where the gliders take off from, it was basically just a flat section near the top of Coronet Peak. We were introduced to the people we would be jumping with - Chris’s guy told him that he was near to the weight limit and there was a good chance they might die. Or something like that. Jen’s guy was old and Spanish and smelt of roll-up fags. They gave us our briefing that went something like this “so basically you hold on and run. Never stop running. If you stop running we might die. Ok? Good.”. Then they strapped us into all manner of gear and attached us to the gliders and the next thing we know we are standing on the edge of a very steep hill watching a wind sock and waiting. Jen went first - she did very good running but had slightly shorter legs than the instructor so stopped running actually on the ground before he did and mainly just did running in the air. Chris went second and managed to run so well that he didn’t die. Which was pleasing to everyone involved.

We loved the hangliding and once all the running was over it actually stopped being terrifying and started being awesome. It was a really clear day and the views were amazing and they let us steer the gliders for a bit which was really cool. We both managed to land without breaking anything (arms or gliders) and the café at the bottom served milkshakes. We love milkshakes. They filmed the flights on a little camcorder attached to the glider which also took photos so naturally we shelled out $60 each for copies. But our tiny laptop doesn’t have a disc drive so we can’t show you any of the photos yet. So here are some slightly less thrilling ones instead.

 This is the where we took off from. 

This is the view down. The landing field is somewhere on the left.

This is how Chris really felt about hangliding.

Jen wondering why they were dressing her as a butcher.

 

Chris and his helmet.

Chris points to where we took off from (kinda).

Mount Cook & Dunedin. Damn nature, you scary.

On our last night in Christchurch we decided to leave the city and drove to nearby Sumner for dinner as we’d read good things about it in the book. When we got there it was very small and quiet but we went to a nice place and had pizza (Chris), pasta (Jen) and shared a piece of the most tasty white chocolate and berry cheesecake that a person is ever likely to eat.

When we woke up on our last morning in Christchurch it was grey again. The kitchen was still full of flies (horrid big black ones) so we were definitely ready to leave. We got up nice and early because the map said it would be 4 hours and 40 minutes to Mount Cook National Park - after driving for about an hour and a half we stopped in a place called Ashburton to stock up on food as we knew there would be no supermarkets at Mt. Cook. Chris stayed in the car and played games on his iphone whilst Jen did the shopping - we’ve discovered this is the best plan when supermarket shopping. After paying for the shopping including some tasty looking frozen potato croquettes which were on special offer, Jen returned to the car only to realise we’d left our trusty freezer bag in the fridge on the campsite back at Christchurch. We were a bit gutted about some items - a few beers, bottle of ketchup, tub of garlic butter - but less bothered about an almost empty tub of Philadelphia, some tomato pickle we were really sick of and some tomatoes which were a bit squishy. We agreed it was not worth going back for so bought another freezer bag and went off on our way.

We stopped a while later in a lovely little place called Fairlie to fill up on petrol (no petrol stations in Mt. Cook) and lunch (we like lunch). After setting off from there for the last leg of our journey everything got ridiculously beautiful and we got very excited. We stopped at a Lake Tekapo - we didn’t need to but the water was bright turquoise and we were drawn to it’s beauty!

Our campsite was 25km away from Mt. Cook National Park but close enough that we could see the bugger. It was awesome. We were on the shores of Lake Pukaki and it was all bloody lovely. We can’t really tell you in words so here are some photos.

We pitched our tent on the edge of the site feeling quite smug about our unobscured views of Mt. Cook but not really thinking about shelter from the elements. We had some chicken and salad for tea and enjoyed a sunset over the mountains. Then it got dark. Like really dark. Like countryside dark. So we got in the tent at about 9pm. Started to feel gutted again about leaving the beers in Christchurch.

As we were getting off to sleep we could hear goats in the mountains. And then we heard some barking, followed by howling. Jen was convinced it was wolves and started to enjoy the great outdoors a little less. Chris felt confident(ish) that it was dogs so we eventually fell asleep. Only to wake up in the night for two reasons 1.) it was completely bloody freezing and 2.) we needed a wee. We’ve discovered that something about camping makes us need to wee in the middle of the night ALL THE TIME but when it’s freezing cold the idea of weeing in your sleeping bag for warmth seems much more appealing. After returning from our jaunt to the toilet block in we put on as many layers of thermal clothing as possible and disappeared inside our sleeping bags, faces and all.

When we woke up in the morning the world had started to warm up again and by the time we’d had breakfast it was really sunny and nice. We packed our sandwiches and other picnic bits (Ritz crackers - classic) and drove up to Mt Cook village where we began the Hooker Valley trek. Jen had read that it was 3-4 hours walking there and back  with excellent views of Mt. Cook, and that it was fairly easy. With the benefit of hindsight we can now confirm that they meant fairly easy for people who are used to walking around and not really that easy for people who are used to sitting on their arses. However despite Chris twisting his ankle and Jen having stubby legs we did pretty bloody well and even though it was our hottest day in NZ so far (sod’s law?) we made it all the way to the Hooker lake, which is fed by the Hooker Glacier, so is beautiful but very cold with big chunks of glacial ice floating in it. We sat by the lake and ate our picnic. Corned beef never tasted so good. We also climbed over some rocks to some places you weren’t really supposed to go but we were pretty sure there wouldn’t be an avalanche and there were other stupid people doing it too. The walk back was much harder mainly because we were dead tired and very hot. We were very happy to get back in the car and turn on the air conditioning. The whole thing took us 3hrs 40mins so we felt quite proud of ourselves and our new-found outdoorsy ways.

When we got back to the campsite we felt a bit like our legs didn’t belong to us so we had a drink and Chris had an ice-cream. He tried to have 2 ice-creams but Jen helped him with the second one. Then cooked ourselves a hearty dinner of sausages, potato croquettes (totally worth it) and beans and had another early night. A large coach load of what can only be described as “youths” had arrived on our campsite and they stayed up making a lot of noise till at least midnight which made Jen very cross. Chris managed to deal with his anger by sleeping.

After another night in the freezing cold we packed up our tent ready to head off to Dunedin. As we were packing the tent away we were confronted by this little bugger.

After some wikipedia research we discovered it is a Mountain Stone Weta. Chris wanted to take lots of photos of it but Jen just wanted to run around flapping her arms.

We arrived in Dunedin later that afternoon, just in time for rain and grey clouds. Boo. We speedily put the tent up and headed out for supplies. After a thrilling trip to Pak N Save and a depressing chicken stir fry we decided it was time to hit the town. Dunedin is home to 27,000 students (so the taxi driver said) so we thought it must be “kickin“. Unfortunately for us - it was Tuesday. So we wandered around an almost empty Dunedin and went to a few pubs. After not really drinking properly for a few weeks we can no longer really handle our booze so after 2 pints it was time to head home.

Chris: I can handle my booze fine. You’re the one that turns into a silly-arse after 2 pints.

The following day we had booked a wildlife tour but it didn’t start until 3pm so we had a nice lazy morning and did some jobs like laundry and buying athletes foot cream. We also made some chicken risotto (out of a packet) to take with us on our wildlife tour as it wouldn’t finish until 9:30pm. They picked us up in a minibus at our campsite and while the bus drove us around they gave us binoculars so we could do bird-spotting out of the windows. The tour headed to an albatross breeding ground first of all. They were Royal Albatross’ with 3 metre wingspans and we saw quite a lot of them flying around which was pretty cool. We though that this would be a bit “yeah, yeah albatross, whatever” but we quite enjoyed it. And the visitor centre served milkshakes. So we were pleased.

Then the bus headed on to a remote farm on the Otago Peninsula where we saw fur seals like the ones we had swum with in Kaikoura - the pups were much bigger though. Then our guide took us down to another deserted beach where yellow-eyed penguins were returning from the sea to their nests on land. They are the world’s rarest penguins so it was awesome to see them. We had hoped to see blue penguins too which are very tiny but we only saw one peeping out of his burrow. Also on this beach were male sea-lions which were massive. And a bit growly. We got quite close to them at first as they didn’t really seem interested in us, mainly in biting one another. But later as we headed back across the beach one of the young sea-lions charged at us. Our guide quickly ushered us to one side and just stood there facing up to the sea-lion. Now when we say young, it was already 80 or 90 kg (13 stone) and could break a man’s leg with it’s bite so when it’s leaping towards you growling and snarling it’s kinda terrifying. Afterwards we asked our guide “how did you know it would stop when you just stood there?”, he said “I didn’t know” and we said “wooaaaahhh”.

Mmmm milkshakes.

Two male sea-lions. The one on the left is younger. And the other one's bitch.

Penguins coming home from a hard day's swimming and eating.

 A penguin in the grass on the way to his nest.

Chris took this whilst we were running away.

We really loved this tour and almost didn’t care when we got back to the campsite and it was raining. Almost. Luckily it stopped soon and we fell to sleep fairly quickly after coming crashing down from the adrenaline high of being chased by a sea-lion.

This morning we woke up and it was raining. We had breakfast and it stopped raining so we quickly threw the wet tent into the car and it started raining again. We head out from Dunedin for Te Anau which is where we are now at our favourite campsite so far. The fridge in the camp kitchen has an ice maker for crying out loud! Tomorrow we are booked on a Milford Sound coach and bus tour which includes a complementary lunch which we are particularly excited about. We have purchased some 80% deet insect repellent (it says on the bottle that it may melt plastic and painted surfaces) as we have heard that the sandflies are bastards. We will report back. Hopefully not munched to death.

Boats and hoes. Except no hoes. Just mainly boats.

We got up at the crack of dawn to get down to the ferry terminal for 7:30am. We waved goodbye to the North Island - well actually we slept pretty much all the way to the South Island so we didn’t wave. Nor did we witness “one of the most beautiful ferry rides in the world” - you win some, you lose some.

We docked in Picton at about 11:30 and set off straight away for the Marlborough Wine Region. We had read in the book that you could just rock up to vineyards and they would welcome you with open arms and give you loads of free wine. So we chose the one that the book said was best for inexperienced tasters and headed along there. We were kind of expecting a big warehouse full of bottles of wine that you could just pick up and swig, with loads of people all looking really pleased to see us - what we got instead was a very quiet place with only one man working there and a strong sense that we didn’t really belong. We almost chickened out and didn’t go in because it looked so quiet and posh but in the end our desire for free wine won over and we went in.

As it turned out, the man working there was very nice and we explained to him that we were novices when it came to wine and asked him if he had any jagermeister. Not really. He gave us some glasses with a little bit of sauvignon blanc in and showed us around the vineyard - it was dead interesting and we looked at all the vines for the different kinds of wine which had little boards by them explaining the different types of wine. We also did some kind of aroma test thing where you had to smell grass in a glass.

Chris pretending he knows about wine.

After we oohed and ahhed for a bit we successfully convinced him we were serious so we got to the good bit - the free wine. He gave us a taste of 5 of their wines and we talked about them without making twats of ourselves. Which is always a bonus. Then we bought a bottle of their Sauvignon Blanc and left feeling rather pleased.

Jen with our bottle of wine (and squinty eyes)

We headed on towards Kaikoura - we had been advised that you have to try the crayfish in Kaikoura as it is caught locally and is delicious. We stopped a few kilometres outside Kaikoura at a place we’d read about called Nin’s Bin. It is essentially a caravan by the side of the road but do not be fooled; this is no Mrs Munchies snack wagon. There was no-one there when we arrived but we waited a few minutes and a woman appeared carrying two big plastic boxes full of cooked crayfish - they were massive like lobsters and had the prices written on them. We chose one of the smallest ones which was still $37 - and as we wanted it heated up with garlic butter it was $41 all in. But it was totally worth it. We shared the tail and even though Chris doesn’t really like shellfish he thought it was bloody lovely. Then Jen made him go and get the pliers out of the car so she could crack the legs and the claws open and get every last morsel of meat out of them. Chris lost interest at this point but Jen made short work of it and there was little left in the end.

A few kilometres nearer to Kaikoura we pulled over as there were seals on the rocks by the beach and we wanted to get some photos - they were so close and really not bothered by us at all. This was just a taste of the marine delights that Kaikoura had in store!

Our campsite was lovely and we had a great view of the mountains which are really close to the beach in Kaikoura. On our first day there we went whale-watching. When we arrived at the Whaleway Station (ha ha) we were told that they’d only seen one whale today and it was unlikely that we’d see anymore, but we were really lucky and saw two. Jen got a bit emotional; Chris was mainly trying to keep his lunch down. He’s not great with boats. After we’d seen the whales they also showed us a colony of dusky dolphins which was awesome as they swam alongside the boat and jumped out of the water and stuff. When we got back to the campsite we saw some girls get their dinner stolen by seagulls and laughed. Then we went out into Kaikoura for beer and ribs.

The following day we went on a snorkelling trip to swim with fur seals, like those we had seen on the drive into Kaikoura.

Chris: Aren’t you going to tell them about the night before when the fire siren went off and I couldn’t find you for ages because you were in the disabled toilet having a poo?

Jen: …no.

We had wanted to go swimming with the dolphins but left it too late to book and all the trips were full so settled for the seals instead. Jen was a little bit terrified but it said on their website that there had only been 2 bites in 21 years of trips and neither were serious. Despite Jen being convinced that she would be the third we went ahead. It was a very small trip on a tiny boat and there were only 7 of us in the group. They gave us wetsuits, snorkels, masks and fins and took us out to Barney’s Rock where a large colony of seals live - on the way there the guy told us that we might see some baby seal pups and we were not disappointed. There were loads of the little buggers but they’re only about 2 months old so they can’t swim yet and just splash about in little rock pools. Very cute.

The adult seals were very inquisitive and often swam really close to us. Jen was still a little bit terrified and did quite a lot of squealing into her snorkel but there was no biting and Chris managed to get some amazing photos and videos on his new camera with the fancy underwater housing.

When we got back to the campsite we had a few hours of lounging around which was well-needed. Jen lay by the pool working on her tan and Chris lay in the tent working on his snoozing. Later we cooked some fish that we’d bought from a local fishmonger, on the barbecue and drank our bottle of sauvignon blanc that we’d bought a few days before. Lovely.

The next day we sadly said goodbye to Kaikoura and headed further south to Christchurch. It rained for most of the drive there and it was still raining when we got to the campsite. We were not pleased and so we put tent up in record time and then sat in the car and watched a film on Chris’s ipod.

After dinner we decided that we would drive into Christchurch and have a wander round. It was still cold and a bit rainy though and we found Christchurch a bit grim - even though it was Friday night. We walked down some backstreets and found a few bars that looked very Shoreditch. We went into one as Jen had seen people with cocktails, but as we were standing at the bar some guy in a pork pie hat started playing the saxophone loudly and Chris decided it was time to leave. We later read in the Lonely Planet guide that it was “Christchurch’s coolest bar”. We are not cool.

Chris: No. It’s Christchurch that isn’t cool. We are awesome. Pork pie hats are for douchebags.

After a few drinks in another bar we went back to the campsite to bed. As we were lying in the tent we could hear some kind of snuffling noise - Jen was a bit worried but Chris laid any fears to rest by saying “Maybe it’s a possum…?” and then falling asleep. Thanks for that.

This morning it was still very grey and wet but not raining anymore. We made some breakfast in our least-favourite campsite kitchen so far (lots of flies) but then had showers in our favourite campsite bathroom so far (very clean. Jen: And there was a hairdryer!). Then we drove into Christchurch and went to a market near the Arts Centre. Whilst we were there it started to brighten up and the market was very nice so we started to feel a bit better about Christchurch.

We then drove out of the city centre to go up the Gondola (it’s a cable car). The views were lovely and by this time it was very sunny - Jen had read that you could get the gondola up the mountain and then do a nice hour-long walk back down. We thought this was a good chance to practice our hiking as in a matter of days we’re heading to Mount Cook National Park where we will do a four hour walk and we’re not exactly experts at that kind of caper. However, the bridle path walk that we did today was neither fun nor good practice for anything. Unless you wanted to practice walking down a really steep path that is really gravelly and therefore dead slippy all the bloody way down. Jen was not pleased. We’re not feeling hopeful about Mount Cook. There may be some kind of helicopter rescue involved.

                              Going up in the cable car.                                    Chris surveying the path ahead.

At the top.

                                                                                                             Jen is not pleased.

This afternoon we went back into Christchurch city centre to hire a row boat along the River Avon. Chris decided that he had done enough driving and nominated Jen to row the boat. Jen was awesome at rowing.

Chris: Yeah apart from that time when you crashed into the side because you couldn’t turn the boat around.

Jen: That’s because you weren’t helping me!

Chris: You kept telling me to shut up!

Jen: Shut up.

Photographic evidence of Jen being awesome at rowing.

Now we are sitting in a café just outside Christchurch enjoying lattes and using their free internet.

Chris: I used to think people in Starbucks were dicks but I bloody love coffee shops now.

Tune in next time to see how we get on at Mount Cook. (Jen’s mum and Chris’s mum - we are joking about the helicopter rescue and we will be taking plenty of water and corned beef sandwiches and sticking to the marked route. We are good children really.)