NZ South Island - Picton to Queenstown

After hanging around in Wellington til 3 in the morning to catch the 3-hour ferry journey to the South Island, followed by a drive from Picton to Pohara in the Abel Tasman National Park, it'd be fair to say that we were all knackered... so we crashed for the entire day. The next day however we thought we'd get out and explore a bit of the park, which based on photos we'd seen seemed pretty spectacular. We drove for quite a while along gravel roads and through a forest that was used for filming in Lord Of The Rings, until we parked and mooched off to a place called Harwood's Hole... which obviously prompted numerous childish jokes regarding Marlon Harewood.

Gandalf

Harwood's Hole

The 'hole' itself is "New Zealand's deepest vertical shaft" at 176m, and it looks seriously deep, especially when you clamber over a load of rocks to peer over the edge. Where we were standing was on a big pile of rocks on the edge of the forest, with the 50m round hole in front of us and massive cliffs encircling us, with the only gap being where we came out of the forest. This was followed by a hill climb through the forest to a limestone paving lookout, with amazing views down a valley.

We booked 2 nights in a holiday park in Motueka, going for a walk the next day along the coastline of the Park, which had some ridiculous beaches to rival those in Thailand. Unfortunately, due to us being lazy and sleeping in, we ended up walking back for 2 hours in the dark, with the situation becoming more frustrating when the torch light started dimming. We had spare batteries, but managed to only just make it back to the car without having to change them. Apart from nearly falling off a few cliffs the walk was pretty good.

Next day we left Abel Tasman and journeyed south west along the coast to the world heritage site of Franz Josef, designated so because the area is home to the Franz Josef Glacier, which looks like a gigantic river of ice flowing down through the valley towards you. The again, thats basically what it is. We could have booked a hike up the glacier but opted against it considering they were asking for silly amounts of money, and so made our way to the bottom of it ourselves. The good weather was a blessing otherwise we'd easily have been risking our lives doing it, cos ice can collapse and the river levels can change rapidly at any time, which isn't good when you're walking (or stone-stepping) through a huge river basin with water all around you. The glacier was obviously impressive, although the bottom of it was stained black by the rock around it, which spoiled it a little, but never mind. It's still strange standing next to a glacier on what was a pretty hot day!

A waterfall nr the glacier. Notice the size of Ryan.

Considering we'd opted out of the glacial hike we headed towards Queenstown a day earlier than expected, and so stopped for a night in Wanaka, a picturesque lakeside town on the way. This was a pleasant stop-off, but to do some activities we moved on to Queenstown. Its the tourist hub of NZ, a small town with a big city feel, but it has never once seemed crowded. The first day in the town we spent having a look around and eating at the world famous "Fergburger", which is famous, as you may have already guessed, for its huge (and very sloppy) burgers. We all bought a burger and considered buying chips afterwards, but considering the burger turned out to be more than an entire meals worth of food none of us did. This was followed by a round at an indoor mini golf course complete with buildings and golf ball cable cars and rollercoasters. You can't help being entertained by stuff like this! Spontaneously entered a pool competition on the night, and even though we were playing against a few seasoned pros Ryan managed to make the semi-finals but he lost to, in his own words, a "genuine Maori brute".

A random raging river where we stopped for a spot of free running

Lake Wanaka

A big boig

Went up the hill on the gondola the next day, which seemed like a rip off at $20 return, but considering the view at the top and the fact we bought it along with 5 rides on the luge, it turned out to be a good investment. The luge was just good old-fashioned banter, hurtling down a track alongside each other at dangerous speeds always makes for good fun. After making the return journey and leaving the gondola station (minus our eyes) we did a bit of shopping for hiking goods, etc in preparation for the Milford Track before booking Tom and I onto the Nevis bungy jump for the next day.

Going up the gondola

Chairlift to the luge - overlooking Queenstown

Following a night of nervous sleep, Ryan dropped the two of us off at the bungy centre this morning, where we waited around for 45 mins before we boarded a bus and spent the same amount of time driving through some rugged hills, up steep gravel banks and through sheep stations to the location of AJ Hackett's Nevis Jump. Which we did. All 134m of it. The pod that you jump out of is suspended above the middle of a deep gorge with a nice-looking but also very shallow river running along the bottom. In other words, not the type of river you'd pay to plough in to from a great height... at great speed. You travel to the pod in a small open-air cage, get strapped in, then freefall for 8.5 seconds. The feeling you get when sat in a chair with your back to the edge, the guy making the final adjustments as you contemplate your life over the past 20 years, turns your legs to jelly. However, after you've waddled to the edge it actually ain't that bad, or it wasn't for us, even when we looked down. To be fair, this was probably because we'd already done one in Thailand, albeit a third of the height, but we still had. So we leapt off and after a brief scream/swear we enjoyed it, got winched back up and started wondering what all this nervousness lark was about. At this time Ryan was in the room enjoying Wedding Crashers on sky movies, and we met back up after the trip back and drove back into the town centre which is where we are now.

We leave Queenstown tomorrow heading for Te Anu and the Milford Track, a 4-day trek which is supposedly one of the best in the world. Lets hope the weathers good, though considering its been perfect for the past week we're probably gonna struggle knowing our luck! Anyway, take care everyone...

Peter

North Island, NZ (the end of the world)

Flying from Sydney to Auckland, the time difference between us and the UK became 13 hours. The flight wasn't that bad considering, as Pete said, we had to be up at 5.30 am to catch the shuttle to the airport. When we arrived in New Zealand the weather was similar to that we left behind; warm, sunny and thong-wearing. We picked the car and headed for the city centre, through rush hour traffic which got Beast's blood pressure up. His road rage increased when torrential rain began to fall over the city of sails and we found it difficult to find somewhere to park. When we actually found somewhere to park, it was decided that it would be impossible to search for a place to eat and stay the night in such a downpour so we got back in the car and drove up the coast to the Northland region of New Zealand. On the way we found a motel at the side of the road with cheap rooms and crashed.

The next day we continued our journey up the coast to the Paihia in the Bay of Islands. On the way we stopped off at one of the many sign-posted natural beauty spots which are just off the main highways in New Zealand. Here we stretched our legs with a walk to a pretty awesome waterfall which was remote and best of all not tourist: we were the only people there. When we arrived in Paihia we realised that motels appeared to be the best option for our needs compared to backpackers hostels, as we could get a room for three generally with en-suite, TV and cooking facilities for between $65 and $105, instead of paying $25 each for a dorm, so throughout New Zealand we've been in motels/holiday parks.

Look for the jumping fish

Anyway, in Paihia we choose not to do one of the over priced dolphin swimming or cruises around the bays, but instead drove around the edges of the mainland taking photos and relaxing. The next day we went to Waiora Valley Adventure Park, which claimed to have one of the most difficult 18 hole mini golf courses in the Southern hemi-sphere. After a close round on the course which came down to the final hole, we tested our metal on the acrobatic activities. First we tried a sort of moving monkey bars which you had to swing over an inflatable wall at the end. Next was the high wire, which was way harder than it looked. Neither Ryan or I managed to get across from one platform to the next, but Pete the did the impossible, finishing with a frog splash. There was also inflatable slides and a fighting beam on which we had great fun playing Gladiators. The highlight however was the trapeze. Tutition was free and we were taught how to make the controlled leap from one swinging bar to the next, all very impressive although Pete had to retire before completing the feat because he had ripped many layers of skin of one patch of his hand and eventually so did I after over-gripping on one of the catchs on the second bar. It stung like a bitch.

The next day we headed even furthur up the pinnacle of the North Island along Highway 1, which turned into a gravel track quite a distance from Cape Reinga. The views from the hill top above the oceans, South Pacific and Tasman were spectacular, and had a real 'end of the world' type feel to them. The place was so isolated that only a few tourists and Moari's make the journey so the sound of the endless crashing waves onto empty beaches is very surreal. At the very edge of Cape Reinga is a tree whose roots are said in Moari folklore to be the entrance to the underworld. On the way back we saw some of the biggest sand dunes imaginable, really sand mountains, which were located at one end of Ninety Mile beach, which is really just a very long desolate beach. We then headed South to Kaitaia where we stopped overnight.

Forest, Grass, Swamp, Lake, Desert, Sea. Its a strange country.

The next day we woke early and spent all day driving down the North Island to Waitomo Caves, a very small village which has grown up around the tourist business brough in by the glow worm caves situated there. That night we booked into a Top 10 Holiday park, which is a chain throughout New Zealand that has cabins for silly cheap prices, the first of many. We also booked a tour of one of the many glow worm caves for the next day with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company.

We all woke with a sense of excitement as the brochure had described the caving experiecne as a mix between extreme and wonder. We got "rubberized" into wet suits and collected our tubes which we would raft underground in after we had climbed down into the cave. Although the tour was very informative and enjoyable, with the many thousands of glow worms on every wall and ceiling lighting the way, we all felt a little disappionted by the rafting as it was rather slow, lacking the speed and thrill that we were expecting. During the underground adventure, we all had to jump of a waterfall which was definately the highlight. One of the instructors demostrated that it was vital to stick to a ledge on the left of the cavern as we approached the waterfall as to the right the fast moving water sucked you into a deep freezing pool, which one of the original explorers of the cave have died falling into. As we inched along the edge and one by one made the jump off the end of the waterfall, the guide turned around and shouted stay on the left just as Ryan lost his footing and was dragged into the freezing water. In a flash our guide had grabbed him and with my help pulled him back to the safety of the ledge. It all happened in an instant, and left Ryan with ice cold water down the gap in the back of his wet suit, unlucky. After warm showers and soup and bagels, we got in the car and headed further South for Whanganui. The drive along the edge of Tongariro National Park and the Whanganui River towards the city of Whanganui was superb, with twisting mountain roads and pituresque views. Again we stopped overnight in a motel and in the morning headed for Wellington to catch the ferry to Picton and the South Island. In Wellington, we spent time mooching around the shops in the city centre, and up the hill top overlooking the bay and the Botanic gardens. From the top we took the famous old cable car down and back to the car to catch the 3am Blueridge ferry to Picton.

Pics and the South Island adventures so far coming soon....

Hope everyone is alright back home, Tom.

Wellington

Beautiful Soul

We arrived in Brisbane off the back of Mardi Gras and with no sleep in 24 hours, the plane journey added to the misery. Took a taxi from the Airport straight to a YHA hostel and proceeded to book 2 nights, due to a late check out time we had to cruise round the city for a while waiting for the room to be cleaned, sleep deprivation ensued. After sleeping for nearly a whole 24 hours, we contacted the Aussie lads and met up for lunch with Nick and Marcus that day. Pete and Tom met with their friend Chris while i gained valuable sleep that evening.

The following day we travelled up the coast with Tim to experience his beach house for a few days, stopping at KFC on the way was a bad shout due to the fact that aussies KFC's are poor in comparison to ours, albeit cheaper, Tim's dad infact is the head of KFC Australia so we geared some constructive criticism his way. First impressions of the beach house were "that's bigger than my house", inside was pretty spectacular aswell due to a balcony overlooking the sea and a huge TV with sky. We barbecued that night before the rain followed us once more, we then retreated inside for a comedy session before bed. The beach called in the morning so we left with towell's, football and body board's and within 5 minutes walk were there, the surf looked pretty hairy and the call was given by the lifeguard for us to leave the water as soon as we got in, there was allway's tomorrow.

The Beach House

Phillipe Albert

Tim and Tom

On the beach nr Tims

We were due to leave today due to a university party back in Brisbane, we mooched to the beach once more though in the morning in search of the sun before we left. On the way back we decided to check out the Steve Irwin zoo but with less than 2 hours to spare and a $46 price tag we decided against it. Instead we headed up to see the Glass House Mountains for some spectacular views before our rental car began leaking brake fluid, under the hood we could see a tank of fluid where the water was boiling, the call was given to use lemonade to cool it down, and we then left with no further problems.

One of the Glasshouse Mountains (named so 'cos "Captain Cook said they looked like glass furnaces in his hometown in Yorkshire, England")

Back in Brisbane we met with Tim once again and went back to his house outside the city, which i must say was pretty damn spectacular. His sister drove us in to Brisbane, picking Poida up on the way. When we got to the destination we payed $10 to get in to this bar where the party was being held, we were greeted with a $10,000 bar tab. Not shortly after a fashion parade, Jesse Mc'Cartney(as the aussies called him), AKA Tom was thrown out due to being smashed. After some abuse was thrown his way for getting us all kicked out a free drinks bar, we mooched to another bar and entered using our Sects card's. After buying the first round, the question was raised "Where is Jesse?", the night then went even further down hill as our squadron began searching for the smashed youth. Several hours later he was found mugged, but uninjured, he didn't look happy, but neither were we, abuse followed once more, all privilages were then revoked.

The Day after that could be considered a Rugby sesh, we basically sat in Poida's house and watched it all day. Myself, and Peter, not being huge fans of watching the sport were pretty engaged as one match of the Super 14's league came to and end spectacularly as Western Force produced a last minute try to win the win the game. We stayed at Tim's that night after a pizza hut takeaway.

Day 6 or 7, cant remember which was going to be a house party but ended up being a night out in Toowonga. A stop at the bottle-o for some piss(as they say over there), and a short food stop began the night. Nick's house was our base for a few hours before we hit the town. The whole night took place in a club in toowonga, after a few drinks we took to the dancefloor/club area for some dancing lessons from Nick, allready pretty smashed by that point we left him to impress the ladies with his magic. He had his eye on a black girl and shortly after was chatting to her, the follow up went like this: Nick lifts girl's skirt, hand's girl his phone and then goes to get her a beverage, return's with a glass of water. After we watched his attempt's to woo the girl she approaches Marcus, "You're T-shirt is cool, you're friend is not" she bellows as she hands Marcus Nick's phone. After leaving the club and going in search of food, we found a kebab shop where kebab's come wrapped in a tortilla like bread and is so much easier to eat than home's offering.
After a reconaissance mission to find a Maxi taxi(you can work that one out), i was left with Nick lying flat on the pavement, and after 3 passes from the law, decided i needed to get him up, using a bottle of water i proceeded to pour it on his face, still he would not get up, i then decided to pour it on his trousers which got him moving. We returned to Nick's house for bed and woke up for a Hungry Jack's before departing Brisbane for the coast and then to Sydney.
Many thank's to the boys for putting us up while in Brisbane.

Ryan

P.S. Hired a car for our trip down the coast which took a couple of days. Stopped at Byron Bay, and when you're there its pretty understandable as to why its classed as one of the best beaches in OZ. Also stopped over in a place called South West Rocks, a nice small town with a quality beach. Visited the Blue Mountains before heading back to Sydney, where we met back up with Geoff, Alex and Sam, but opted against having a big night out considering we needed to be up at daft o'clock to catch the plane to New Zealand.

Postcard pic of Byron Bay (and that guy is blatantly a spy)

Pete at Byron

Byron Bay

Tom - South West Rocks

Sydney... and Mardi Gras

Ok then, now we get to Sydney, the most famous stop-point on our short tour of Oz. Yeah, we're only here for a month, that's seriously short! We've met people who spend a year in certain cities before moving to the next. Couldn't be arsed with that like, but it would be nice to spend a bit longer and be less pressed for time. But to do that you need the money or you need to work. We don't have the money and we don't have a work visa. So it ain't an option. Anyway, less of that rambling. After exploring Perth and Melbourne we were aware that they were both nice cities but to be honest, and i'm putting this down to just how good the city is, i'd rather spend the day (or night) in Newcastle any day of the week.

Sydney is totally different. You get here, walk through the park and into town, down by the marinas, the harbour bridge, the opera house, and even if its clouded over you think 'Christ, Sydney's awesome'. It totally deserves to be the most famous city in Australia, and god knows why it ain't the capital. Yeah, maybe we haven't visited Canberra but come on! Who ever recommends going there??

We got there after flying from Melbourne with Jetstar, the easyjet of the southern hemisphere. Got to the hostel around 10pm and before we'd got in our room I got a text from Shelley saying 'Where are you? We're waiting'. So we had quick showers n got changed before heading out with Shell and Ben, her boyfriend who she's travelling round Oz with. Headed to World Bar in the Kings Cross area of Sydney where everyone from the hostel was gatherin and got quality deals on drinks, which ensured a pretty awesome night.

Ben & Shell

In the mornin we did the traditional sightseeing you have to do while you're in Sydney, and our hostel was in a great place to do it. We could literally walk out the door, through the park and botanic gardens and we were at the Sydney Opera House. We actually didn't go straight there, it was boiling so we stopped off for lunch at Circular Quay, a marina overlooking the Harbour Bridge, which was a pretty spectacular place to have a meal. When we eventually got to the Opera House (which is when you finally realise how far you are from home) we got some snaps before the clouds rolled over and Britain's traditional weather began. It always bloody rains when we go to tourist sights. This was a thunderstorm though, which was actually pretty impressive over the harbour. After getting bored with that we mooched back to the hostel for a siesta and suddenly the sun was out again, full heat! Maybe it ain't like Britain afterall. That night was a quiet one, started watching a couple of dvds that we bought while pissed on Koh Tao (anyone for Retrograde - starring Dolph Lundgren? Or Savage Planet? Ambulance 2? Or a documentary about the Thai King's dog that was murdered by the Thai Prince?). The bad doo was that they were in Thai, so that film-watchin sesh ended pretty quickly and we resorted to watching trash TV.

In the morning we got up 'early' (10am) and caught the bus with Ben and Shell to Bondi Beach. Was expecting a massive, long amazing beach but when we got there it was just a bay surrounded by the town. The sand was quality though and the waves were huge. Met a guy called John who Shell knows from home and he took us out surfing. We all opted not to wear wetsuits or rash vests. Why oh why. We could have been told before that if we didn't we'd all end up with red raw chests and searing pain in our nipples! Anyhow, surfing was fun albeit hard, all of us nearly drowned a few times and it didn't help that the surfboards were huge. We had a couple of bodyboards as well though, which are a hundred times more fun and require a hundred times less effort. We had a quality time though, and went for a drink afterwards in some members club where you needed an ID for temporary menbership... I'd left my valubles in a locker in the hostel so didn't have my driving licence. Instead had to blag it with a temporary PADI licence thats on a ragged piece of pink paper! John had none either but apparently doesnt have a proper ID other than his passport and has perfected the art of blagging in Australia.

Went out after surfing to a bar/club called the Gaff, which the hostel had ties with which allowed you free drinks. Moved back to the World Bar later on, where we met Nick, the guy who organises all the nights out for people in the hostel in return for free rent. What a deal! Turns out he's a mackem, and referred to us as Geordie scum, although when he found out I was born in Hartlepool he said 'F*ck man, thats even worse that!' Banter. He's also played rugby recently in the Guinness Premiership for Northampton, before knacking his knee, so as the free jugs of beer kept coming the inevitable rugby drinking songs kicked in. Went back to the Gaff after where Tom had his falling-off-the-bar-and-hitting-a-stool-incident. I wasn't gonna catch him! No injuries were sustained so its all good.

Nick

Ben, Geoff, Tom, Ryan, Peter

Next day was spent sleeping, followed by a book-reading sesh in the park, whilst lying in the sun. Can't wait to get the pics up so you can all see what we're doing when you're at work/uni/college! Might have said this before but the internet cafes n that in Oz are pretty poor, no usb ports in sight! As opposed to Thailand where they were everywhere. Thought this was the advanced nation... Anyway, that night was pretty chilled, just went for a walk by the marina, had a BBQ on the roof of the hostel and a game of poker. That was our last night we had booked in the hostel, and as the following night was Mardi Gras they were fully booked. In fact, everywhere in Sydney was fully booked. We had no beds.

Shell and Ben were the same, so the next day they headed to Bondi to book a room there, while we went looking for a hire car before planning our next move. Turns out the only available car we could find (few companies rent to under-21s, the few that did had no cars!) was some banged-up Hyundai which looked like it had been built from scratch in the time of the cavemen. Considering they wanted over $900 to rent it for 11 days we politely turned the chance down and booked a flight to Brisbane at 8 the next mornin. That was when we made the decision to go without sleep for the night, instead leaving our bags in lockers in the previous hostel.

Went into town about 5, had dinner in Darling Harbour, which was beautiful by the way, and visited the aquarium. By 7 the city was starting to get busy, as a parade was starting at 8. Now, I knew Mardi Gras was pretty camp and featured a fair few gays and that, but there was no need in what we saw at that parade. It was minging. And we had a limited view. Put it this way, at one point in the parade a bus went past with a load of old men in it with MAG - Mature Age Gays written on the side. This was followed by a cage of 'Dreamboys'. Christ. It was quite an experience but one we'd rather not have again. It's just wrong. Behind closed doors, please.

When we tried to escape from the gays and meet Ben & Shell at the hostel we made the fatal decision of going up the street as opposed to down it. Oh dear. We knew were were on the wrong side of the parade but didn't expect to have to mooch a few kilometres outta town just to get to the other side!! We made it to the hostel just as the other were leaving and got the free drinks wristbands, etc. Got into the Gaff, which was absolutely heaving, understandable considering it was Mardi Gras and they were open from 6 til 6. Had a great time, but got out about half 12 in order to try and catch the Liverpool v Man U game. You should have seen the state of the street by the way, i've never seen so much litter, it was a river of rubbish. They had to clean it by leading a line of police horses up the street with cleaners following!

Sayid, Alex and Ryan

Saw the match in the hostel, followed by the Arsenal v Reading match. Said goodbye to Shell and Ben, though we're sure to meet up again in England. Shell's been an awesome mate and we'll miss her for sure and Ben was totally sound from the off, quality guy, it was great to meet the both of them and it was wierd leaving for probably the final time. During the Arsenal match was when we started feeling the tiredness, and we were gonna get to sleep before some nutters came in and decided it'd be a good idea to watch the Big Lebowski at daft o'clock in the mornin! Good film, but it wasn't the time. So that's how the brawl started, Jack Bauer style, windows smashed, blood flowing, the lot.

Joking, but it meant we hardly got any sleep so were already knackered when we got the plane. In Brisbane we couldn't get into our room til 11, so we walked around the city and down by the river for a bit, feelin and smelling pretty bad. Met Marcus and Nick for lunch today though (two of our aussie mates who we met in Thailand). We've also hired a car (a better one, for less than $900) and tomorrow we intend to drive up the Sunshine Coast (jealous?) to Tim's beach house where we'll probably stay for a few nights (jealous some more?).

Pictures coming when possible. Ciao.

Peter