New Zealand - week 3

Franz Josef

Here we are again, we picked up the car and headed on our road trip!!!!! woop!!!! :)

But the rain started to pour :( So we booked the Glacier Hike for the Monday as we arrived late Saturday and was told that the trip would not be taking place on the Sunday due to the weather oh dear, not a great start.

So Sunday we had a movie day got some goodies and just chilled in the hostel :(

Monday came, and we got up and ready and headed to the Glacier place and guess what..... the weather was even worse so the trip was yet again cancelled, So we had drove all the way back up and it was cancelled and wouldn't be running again until the Wednesday, well wasn't that just great when we had to leave Tuesday. So we thought thats enough we will see the glacier even if we do not get to actually go on it. So we headed out on the road to Franz Josef Glacier, and started the walk down to the glacier...... the walk was closed due to flooding.... Fume!!!!! So we had to take pictures from far away and you could only just see the glacier. Then we thought why don't we try Fox Glacier which is only a short drive down the road, so we headed on down there and begun the walk again, now this one was closed due to water surges :( so we could just take pictures from afar again, However the pictures from the Fox Glacier are much better as there were hugh chunks of ice that had come off the glacier and was being carried along in the water. Drenched we returned to the hostel and jumped in the hot tub :)

Queenstown

We headed back to Queenstown to drop the car off and stay over one night to be collected by the Kiwi bus the next day. We had a McDonalds for tea mmm cheeseburger :) and we decided to stay awake until Midnight for Lukes birthday and he decided he would open up half of his presents then and the rest in the morning. We wanted to go to the Ice bar this night too but it was closed on a Tuesday :) surprise!

Christchurch

Back to Christchurch just for an overnight stop as we were now making our way to the North island. It was a long drive, but the scenery was amazing over the Lindis Pass, then we stopped at Lake Pukaki a glacial lake with a mirror reflection of Mt Cook, and then we stopped at the smallest church in New Zealand at Lake Tekapo.

We decided we would treat ourselves and not stay in a dorm, so we stayed in the 'love shack' in the hostel, we went our for tea too for Lukes birthday. Obviously the wrong place to go out for tea as there was nowhere to eat after the earthquakes destruction, but we managed to find an italian, but the food wasn't great, oh how we miss home food.

Kaikoura

Passing through again, an overnight stop, washing day :)

Wellington

Finally across to North island, lets hope we have better luck with trips up here as it is meant to be a tad warmer.

We had the chance to see the fur seal pups at the waterfall again and then headed to the ferry port in Picton.

The ferry left Picton and it was a very scenic journey as it passed through Marlborough Sound and the Tory Channel. The journey took about three hours which we slept for most of it on the reclining chairs looking out to the ocean with a tasty hot chocolate to warm us up :)

We only decided to stay one night in Wellington with not much time left and many activities that we wanted to do in Rotorua.

Speak soon x