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