New Zealand

We said goodbye to our new found home in Melbourne, leaving our new found friends and work colleges behind but most importantly, leaving Colin who couldn’t be dragged away from his concrete production. Craig and I spent a short time travelling down the gold coast before embarking on our voyage to New Zealand for a very busy two weeks trying cover both north and south islands.

Our first dentition was Auckland were we spent a couple of days investigating the city and checking out the quality of the quay side bar area, there we hired a trusty Nissan sunny and set sail to Whitianga, located to the east of Auckland to visit a family friend from our local area who had relocated to New Zealand thirty odd years ago for some agricultural work. To get there we drove over some mountain ranges that we later learned were not covered by any hire company’s insurance, great views though. After receiving some good route advice from John and his wife we headed down the coast road to Taupo, stopping of at some beautiful waterfalls on route. As we were on such a tight schedule only one night was spent here and with the addition of an American hitch hiker we set sail for Wellington to investigate the weekends night life, luckily Colin’s brother Peter lives there so we had the experience of a local tour guide to show us the best bars to visit.

With the weekends excitement over and a hefty dent in our wallets it was time to catch a ferry to the south island and start our many bus trips around the island, sailing into Picton we soon realised the quality difference in the scenery. Tree covered mountains surrounded endless valleys as we headed inland to our port. There we jumped onto an inter city bus destined for Christchurch for a one night stopover which was plenty in there current circumstances. As we walked around the non cordoned off areas of the city it was plane to see the destruction of the past earth quake, every third or forth house was nothing but a pile of rubble and the entire city centre was closed off an people could not even gain access to there left behind homes and businesses. The next day and another long bus journey we arrived in Queenstown which was a very popular ski resort village. Unfortunately the next day we were off again but not before visiting some quality live music bars and developing a likeness for the town, luckily we will fly from Queenstown to Auckland the following weekend so we will get the pleasure of another night there. The following morning we started the first of two day trips, this one was to Milford Sounds were we would travel through a fjord on a two hour cruise, there was plenty of spectacular scenery to take in and the captain steered the boat under several waterfalls which was very entertaining as a few smart asses got a lot wetter than they expected.

A night spent in a small town call Te Anau and another day trip on the cards, this one would take us along the very south coast called the Catlin coast and deliver us to Dunedin, the main shipping port in NZ and is home to the worlds steepest public street. This tour showed us along strip of coast line which was very similar to our own with the exception of getting close to some sea lions, seals and penguins. At the end of the tour we checked into a backpackers for the evening and went off for some city sight seeing not fully realising the size of this city. The next morning we were set for another bus ride, this time Back to Queenstown for some hiking, this was to be our last stop before flying the next morning to Auckland for one night before boarding our flight to Los Angles the following day.

Thanks for reading our latest adventure and we’ll be sure to update again before we leave America. I will upload some pictures if I can find decent wifi that doesn’t break the bank.