New Zealand Trip Day 8 - Post by Stuart

January 18th

Friday January 18th Queenstown. It was another brilliant day to wake up to, NZ still amazes me, at every corner there is a postcard picture for the taking.

I wasn’t looking forward to today as it was the day we had the canyon swing booked it. I had failed to read the voucher correctly the night before and assumed we had between 9 – 12 to get the jump done. We were supposed to be at the jump pickup at 9.00am The phone with the navman failed again, it’s going in the bin when I get home, so we took a while to find the office for the canyon swing, we’d missed the bus, now those that understand vertigo may think I done this intentionally but I can assure you I didn’t. Anyway, after a bit of talking we managed to get the next bus out and we were on our way to the swing...... yay..... -___-

Before we go any further I have to tell you straight up I failed, it just simply terrified me, so I bailed, no if buts or maybe I just straight up said, no way, don’t even try to convince me otherwise, this ain’t happening. I’ll hand my man card in at customs next week, whatever just get me off this platform.

Now Jodi on the other hand just strapped up, clipped on and jumped off ....... twice... once forward and once backward, all this is on video and I will get it uploaded once we get some decent line speed. She screamed, swore and cursed so I’m not sure if Youtube will give the video an R rating or not but she seemed to really enjoy it...... She’s a legend ok, I’m not, I simply don’t give a f$%k ok. We cruised back into Queenstown around lunchtime and headed up to the gondola and luge and wasted a couple of hours luging up and down the mountain, this is way more up my alley than jumping off stuff, Jodi got sun burnt and had a continually bored look on her face but managed to find fear in the chair lift, it doesn’t figure to me, jump off a cliff Jodi, hell yeah, but ooo, arrrr the chair lift is so frightening it gives me pins and needles in the feet, seriously I find this women hard to figure out some days.

Jodi is looking to do a fair dinkum bungy the day before we head back, it will be this one

or Nevis. Apparently Nevis is the highest in the southern hemisphere. ( she just looked Nevis up on the net as I was typing, she’s not so sure now, we’ll see, she does appear to be a little deranged.. lol..). The harbour here at Queenstown is awesome, like everything else. We watched a bunch of 15lb rainbow trout getting fed and then jumped on a boat for a quick tout of the inner harbour, I’m pretty sure the local real estate agent sponsored this guy.

I saw the golf course you talked about Don, but I ran out of time to do a round today, maybe on Sunday or Monday after the jet boat ride. We are off to Te Anau tomorrow, we will book a heli tour for the morning and look at the Sounds and Glaziers and then take it easy tomorrow afternoon. Our lodgings.

New Zealand Trip Day 7 - Post by Stuart

January 17th 500ks in 10 hours

17th January 2013-01-17 Hokitika to Queenstown. It was the longest driving day today, about 480ks but it took us about 10 hours. We left Hokitika around 8am and headed south along the coast, it was looking a little cloudy after raining all night so I wasn’t expecting the scenery to be as good as I hoped. Lonely Planet had rated the drive from Hokitika to Haast as one of the top ten drives on earth, so I was really looking forward to it. It wasn’t long before we got into some mountains, these mountains over here are like nothing I’ve seen before and they really make you feel a little embarrassed about calling our humble termite mounds mountains at all.

We called into the Fanz Joseph Glazier on the way past, the weather was poor so we just went on a short walk. I have to tell you the cliffs either side of this glazier are amazing, photo’s just don’t do it justice.

About 30ks down the road was the Fox Glazier, we pulled up and jumped out off the car into an icy 10C gale, we quickly found a few jumpers and headed up the valley on what looked like a easy enough walk from the car park..........that soon changed.

After almost doing a lung we got to the general unguided viewing area, took some pics while we regained some breath and cruised back down to the car park. Back on the road we headed further south to Haast, fuelled up for NZ$2.52/ltr....mother of god fuel is dear here. We found a nice pub and grabbed a typical pub feed for lunch, I think we’d earned it after the glazier walk. A quick look in the car park made me a little envious, I’ve said it about 500 times since I got here but I give you my word I will make it back here with a bike one day.

The weather got much worse as we began to drive east into the mountains, I was bitterly disappointed as I’d really been looking forward to seeing the Haast Pass with the snow capped mountains either side, we grabbed a few pics but really nothing to write home about.

As we came out the eastern side the rain cleared up and the views were just postcard images everywhere you looked, I just can’t write words that do the scenery here justice so I’ll just post a few picks of the first and second lakes we came across. The mountains either side of these lakes make anything I’ve seen before look like ant hills, they are huge, rugged, rocky snow capped monsters.

We took the crown valley into Queenstown, there were a number of signs telling us the road was open, I was wondering what they were on about, it’s the middle of summer. Now this road was awesome, twisty smooth flowing corners gradually climbing higher and higher, then at the peak you are greeted with a sharp descending switchback to the bottom, beautiful stuff.

After getting lost in Queenstown, what a rat race, rabbit warren this place is, we found our room. I quickly headed out and walked 50mtrs down the lawn out the front of the room to snap a couple of pics. I like this one the most, this little house is surrounded by multi story resorts and million dollar houses.

Well it’s about 9.30pm here, I still can’t get used to this twilight, you could play a round of golf outside and not worry about losing a ball but all the same I’m shagged and after a few icy cold CC’s and a great feed I’m ready to hit the hay. Can’t wait to see what Jodi has me jumping off tomorrow.

New Zealand Trip Day 6 - Post by Stuart

Jan 16th Picton to Hokitika

16th Jan Picton to Hokitika I’d been looking forward to this drive and the one tomorrow from Hokitika to Queentown, the roads are a bit tiring as they seldom have straights for you to relax on but the jaunt from Blenhiem to Murchison was a blast today. Sunrise over Picton Port from the motel window, about all the Mercure at Picton had to offer.

I have no idea what these are, anyone ? They looked a little like agapanthus heads ?

There were wineries on both sides with irrigation fields where there were no grapes the scenery was amazing.

The further up the Wairau Valley we got the better the scenery become.

See the snow in the back ground. We’ll see a lot more of that tomorrow, hopefully the clouds will be gone by then too.

We eventually pulled up at Murchison and had a break.

Not far past Murchison was the Buller Gorge swing bridge, we stretched our legs here for half and hour and then got back on the road.

Hey Steve, found you a new excavator and truck while we were there.

The lodging at Hokatika are ok, it would be better if it wasn’t 13C and windy, it really is like winter here today.