the magnificent south island of new zealand

We arrived in New Zealand 2 weeks ago and it's been an amazing ride since then! We flew into Christchurch and arrived a day late due to a 5 hour delay leaving Melbourne. No bother to us though b/c Qantas had to pay for our meals and put us up in a nice hotel for the night in Auckland, which kept us spoiled for one more night after all of our nice stays with friends.

Our first impressions of Christchurch were excellent. It's a beautiful little town with lots of restaurants and shops, pubs and travel agents ready to book any adventure you can think of. New Zealand is all about adventure and we quickly realized that you could easily drop a ton of money on anything from white water rafting, sea kayaking, bungy jumping, helicoptor rides, glacier climbing, hiking tours, paragliding, sky diving, etc. You name it, they have it here, and the more dangerous and life-threatening, the better!

We spent 3 days in Christchurch and we were able to meet up with our new friends Michael and Helene who we met on our Fraser Island tour in Australia and are from the Netherlands. We had dinner together a couple of nights and found out we'd be following a similar path while touring around NZ so we hoped to meet up again later down the road. We did a bit of sightseeing around Christchurch including the Botanic Gardens which had a beautiful rose garden and the Christchurch Cathedral. We also went out to the suburb of Sumner which had a nice beach to visit for the day.

On the 6th we picked up our Escape campervan to begin our driving tour of the South and North Islands. We must have gotten one of the oldest vans in the Escape fleet but she's been good to us and we now have a soft spot in our hearts for her. Her name is Taniwha (pronounced Tan-ee-fa) which means good spirit in the Maori language. She's big and brown and therefore we've fondly given her the nickname, "The Big Poo". We think it's fitting, would you agree??

The first day we set off towards Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ standing at 3754 metres high. We stopped that night at beautiful Lake Tekapo and camped right on the shore of the lake. The water in Lake Tekapo and it's sister lake, Lake Pukaki is crystal clear blue because of microscopic rock particles that reflect the sun. They are gorgeous lakes and our first night of camping went off without a hitch. And what a beautiful sight we had waking up the next morning to a view of the Southern Alps over Lake Tekapo! From there we drove on up to Mt. Cook but unfortunately it was a bit rainy and overcast that day so we couldn't actually see the peak. It was a very pretty drive though and a good way to pass some time on our way to Queenstown.

Before I go any further in our journey, I should mention the in the spirit of being hippies and living out of a van for 2 weeks, Chuck has decided to express himself in a fairly unusual way. Well, normally it would be considered unusual but in Chuck's case, this is not the first time he has done it. As you may have noticed, he grew out a goatee before we left Dublin. The idea was to slowly dismantle it along the trip (mainly in NZ once we had the campervan) and so the dismantling has begun (see picture). Be on the lookout for Future Facial Hair (FFH) updates! :) (Oh yeah, and we thought the bandana was quite apropriate for this look.)

Our next major stop was Queenstown, home to every adventure activity imaginable, most prominent is bungy jumping. This is basically where commercial bungy jumping was invented and perfected by a guy named AJ Hackett and as our Rough Guide says, "Even visitors who never had any intention of parting with a huge wad of cash to dangle on the end of a thick strand of latex rubber find themselves bungy jumping in Queenstown". And so... we jumped! We jumped at the Kawarau, AJ Hackett's original jumping location with a 43 metre fall. Chuck was all go and I was a bit hesitant, not because of fear, bungy jumping has just never been an interest of mine. But I was talked into it and let me just say, it was awesome!!! More of a rush than sky diving and so thrilling! The Kawarau site is located on a bridge so you jump over a crystal clear blue river and you can even opt to dip your head in the water for a more refreshing experience. We both opted for the water option but didnt' get all too wet. Unfortunately we jumped right after each other so we didn't get any pictures of us jumping, we bought the DVD though so you all can join in on the fun when we get home. It was an awesome experience and one I would definitely do again. The only down side would be that our eyes felt like they were going to pop out and were even sore the next day, but no pain, no gain, right??? :)

Moving on from Queenstown, we headed for Te Anau for a guided tour out to the Milford Sound. This was our first real experience driving through the Southern Alps and seeing glaciers. It was a really good day out and our tour guide was full of interesting information about the area and scenery so we learned quite a bit too. One interesting fact is that Milford Sound was incorrectly named because it's actually a fjiord, not a sound. Also, the mountainous area you drive through to get to Milford is one of the most avalanche prone areas in the world and they have an average of 6 big avalanches a year during the winter season. Glad we are here in the summer! You can see the avalanche damage though which is quite interesting. It's hard to imagine the power and sound of a full force avalanche, it must be quite amazing! Our tour included a boat ride around the sound, including "encounter" experiences with nature and the wildlife. This basically meant that they stuck the nose of the boat into two waterfalls so we could "encounter" the wetness. Quite cool!

After Milford Sound, we made out way up to Franz Josef. We were lucky enough to coordinate with our friends Helene and Michael and we both booked to do the Franz Josef Glacier full day hike the following day. So, it was an early morning for us as we got kitted out with our glacier hiking gear. The company provided basically everything we needed from coats, mittens and hats, to hiking boots, wool socks and crampons. It was a pretty neat set-up. We hiked to the bottom or Terminal Base of the glacier before donning our crampons for the icy part of the hike. We spent a whole day doing this hike, with about 4 hours on the ice exploring cravases, wiggling through caves and using our ice axes to poke, chip and generally demolish anything we saw. It was a very memorable experience and one of the coolest things we've done on this trip. It's just such a different environment up there and so amazing to see.

From Franz Josef, we drove up the coast to Punakaiki and the Pancake Rocks. The Pancake Rocks are a strange rock formation where they look layerd, like pancakes. Over time they have formed these huge hollowed out areas and during high tide and with a strong southerly wind, waves crash up through them making massive blow holes. Unfortunately we got there too late in the day and it was past high tide so we missed out on seeing the blow holes. The rocks were still cool to see though.

We made out way up to Nelson after that and camped just outside the town that night. We spent some time in Nelson the following day and did an afternoon sea kayaking trip in Cable Bay. I'm glad it was only a half-day trip, my arms felt like they were about to fall off! Apparently I need to buff up a bit!! It was a fun experience and we were the only two on the tour so we were able to have one-on-one attention from our guide and it was a really cruisy trip. A great way to spend the afternoon.

Today is the 14th and we took the ferry from Picton on the South Island to Wellington (the capital) on the North Island. We've got about 5 days here before we have to return Taniwha and then fly on to Fiji. Still need to plan what we're doing in Fiji... hmmm, should get working on that soon! Then we'll be home in a short 2 1/2 weeks! We can hardly believe it's almost time for us to come home! The time has flown so fast and we've enjoyed every minute of this once-in-a-lifetime experience! We're looking forward to seeing everyone back home soon!

Love,

Renee & Chuck

(Photos from top to bottom: Christchurch Cathedral, us in the Rose Garden of the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, Taniwha, sunset at Lake Tekapo, FFH Phase II, Kuwarau bungy jumping site, our view as we jumped, us at the Southern Alps on the drive to Milford Sound, Milford Sound, Chuck making his way through a cave on Franz Josef Glacier, us with Helene and Michael on Franz Josef Glacier)