South Island

THE PHOTOS ARE NOW ON THE BLOG! SORRY TOOK SO LONG GUYS!!

Sorry there hasn't been anything posted on the blog for a while, we wanted to put all of the South Island adventures on in one go like we did with the North Island!

We arrived in Picton around 4.30pm and drove straight to the hostel which was about 2 minutes away. It was called the Villa and was an old house that has been done up. It was really nice and the owners were lovely, very relaxing. We were only staying there for one night so we read most of the night (they didn't have a TV!!!) and rang the families as we do every Sunday.
We set off for Nelson the next day and drove down the Queen Charlotte Road, which was a scenic drive. We headed for a hostel called the Green Monkey as it had been recommended in the lonely planet guide, plus the owners were English so we decided on there. They never had any dorm beds left so we stayed in our own room, plus they had free internet (which is rare in NZ) so we settled in. The place was full of German people! That's one thing we have noticed since being in NZ that most of the travelers are German and in this hostel everyone except me, Brian and a Canadian everyone was German!! Not that I'm racist or anything but they are all very rude!! The owners even made everyone a home-made cake every night! We found a pub across the road that had its own brewery and it done all sorts of ales and even ciders!
The following day we walked to the geographical centre of NZ which was pretty cool and it was not too far from the hostel! The following day we headed for the Abel Tasman National Park. We drove to the Split Apple Rock first which was really good, it's basically just a massive rock the shape of an apple that has split in two (see pics) just off the beach. When we left Nelson we headed for a place called Punakaiki (I will not miss the spellings of these crazy words!!). We had to make sure that we had food and drink with us because the nearest supermarket was 47km away from the hostel! It was in the middle of the bush not too far from the beach and was really lovely. We were staying in a 6 person dorm but when we got to the room, there were 6 mattresses set out in a semi-circle in the loft of the building-so cute! When we asked the owner if we needed a key for the room, she replied "We're in the bush, why would you need a key?!?" We only stayed there for one night and the next day we headed for Greymouth.
We stayed in the most amazing hostel here called Global Village backpackers. The owner had done lots of travelling and picked up little pieces from all over the world and displayed them around the hostel. They even had little things that you could buy and all of the money went back to the place where they brought it from. There wasn't that much to do in Greymouth but it was a lovely place to hang out in for a few days so we weren't on the road everyday! They had bikes that you could take out so we went for a bike ride to the sea wall and around town which was really nice and because it was clear, you could see right down the coast and see all of the snow-capped mountains!
Once we left there we headed for Fox Galcier. It was a few hours drive and was starting to get a little chillier as we headed south. We stopped off at the Franz Josef glacier on the way down (they are only about half an hour away from each other) and walked to the terminal face across the old lake bed. It was amazing and we couldn't wait to walk on one!!
When we got to the hostel we booked a full day hike on the actual Fox Glacier which was pretty cool!! (Lame joke, sorry!!)We booked it for the next day and claimed the last 2 places on the 12 strong trip. So we got everything ready, made our packed lunch and had an early night in preparation for our 9am start. During the night we were woken up by the rain but we rolled over as we were sure it would have stopped by the morning. We were badly mistaken! Morning arrived and the rain was still pouring down! We reluctantly got out of bed considering cancelling but we thought, what the hell-let's just do it! We got dressed and made our way over to the meeting point where we would get kitted out with everything.
When we arrived and signed in, there were only 4 of us going ahead with it-everyone else had dropped out! This was much better we thought as it was a lot more personal and we were able to do a lot more than if there was 12 of us in the group. We got kitted out in full waterproof gear and hats and mittens and got in the van to drive to the foot of the glacier. Pete, our tour guide, was lovely and it was his Mum and Dad who used to own the business so we knew we had got a good leader! The other people on the tour were a German brother and sister who were some of the nicer Germans we met in NZ!! The first part of the hike was to walk up the side of the glacier through the rainforest and we had to climb 700 steps!! Not so good when your sweating, its raining and you've got waterproofs on!!
We reached the side of the glacier about 45 minutes later and picked up our walking sticks and prepared for climbing onto the glacier. It really was an amazing sight even though it was raining and the clouds were really low (see the pics towards the beginning). There were snow capped mountains all around us, I've never been anywhere like this, it really was a once in a lifetime experience. Due to the heavy rainfall the day and night before (and as we were walking!) the mountains had a fresh dumping of snow on them. We step onto the glacier for the first time and put our crampons on over our boots. They really are weird to walk in but essential as it is so slippy!!
We were on the glacier for 3 hours in total and because it was such a small group, he was able to take us to more places that he wouldn't be able to with a bigger group. We went right down to the terminal face (the end of the glacier) and down all these crevices and into caves. It was so surreal! Around 1pm, the clouds started to clear and the sun came out-just for us!! We even cracked our shades out!! Looking up the glacier you could see a lot more cos the clouds had cleared, but beyond what we could see, there was another 6km that you couldn't! We left the glacier about 2.30pm and it took us 2 hours to get back to the van to make our way back.
This is one of the best experiences we have ever done, amazing! We had a well deserved shower when we got back to the hostel and another early night-it really takes it out of you doing all that walking!! We left Fox Glacier (that's what the town was called too!) the following morning and headed for Wanaka.
The views over Lake Wanaka were so pretty as you can see from the pictures! We stayed there for a few days and went on a few drives around the lake-there were the most amazing houses around the lakeside, really big and posh! Our next stop was Te Anau where we drove to Milford Sound from. We did a boat trip here and it was so beautiful, we saw dolphins, seals and yellow eyed penguins which are really rare! We seen loads too cos it was their mating season!
This was a really amazing trip, so picturesque! Plus it was a present as it was my birthday the next day! The boat trip was about 2 and a half hours and then we had the drive back to the hostel. This was also the hostel where we had our first experience of bed bugs! We were sharing a room with people who had been in another hostel where there had been bed bugs so we had to wash every item of clothing we owned (the hostel paid for it but it was a pain in the bum!!).
We had to wait up til about 1.30am until all of our drying had finished too so we were awake to see my 24th birthday in!! Depressing!! We then had THE worst night's sleep ever-this big fat old guy that was sharing the room with us and this Irish couple snored so loud ALL night. I was awake from 3am until 6.30am and after that only got another half an hours sleep!! One of the lads in the room went and slept downstairs in the TV lounge! So we were up bright and early, Brian made me a birthday breakfast and we headed for Queenstown. Brian had also sneaked out and bought me a card and put it on my seat in the car so I seen it when we left!! Aww so cute!
We arrived in Queenstown and went out to explore the town. We went for some lunch and a drink and then came back to the hostel and finally drank our expensive bottle of wine that we had bought on the North Island! It was B-E-A-utiful!!! Brian also made me a delish tea and we settled in for the night and watched a few movies.
The next day we went on the gondola ride up the mountain and seen some gorgeous views! Brian went lugeing when we were at the top (basically a go-kart without an engine!), I was the designated photographer!
The following day we went to Dunedin where we stayed in a hostel called Hogwartz! It used to be a bishop's house and the owner bought it and turned it into a hostel, we even stayed in the bishop's room which had been recommended in the Lonely Planet guide, it was massive! The ceilings were so tall and everything was so grand! We visited the world's steepest street, although we thought that some of them in San Francisco were just as steep! We also went to Cadbury's World and went on the tour but the factory wasn't open so it wasn't as long as a normal one.
Our last stop in New Zealand was Christchurch and where we had to part with our beloved car, Jonathon, J-Bomb, we had many names for him!! We stayed in an old prison that had been decommissioned in 1999. They had some cells like they were when the prison had closed, with all artwork on the walls that the prisoners had done. All of the rooms you stayed in where behind the original cell doors but had obviously been done up a bit!! We found out where we had to drop Jonathon off and had an emotional goodbye! We had a walk round the city and got ready to say hello to Australia! We got a shuttle from prison to the airport but we were tempted to get a ride on the Chinese 'was $5….now $7' bus, we had to take a picture cos it was such a bargain!! We had a really good time in New Zealand but we were ready to move on! When we were in the airport we got charged $25 each to leave the country-something about not paying a tax or something in the ticket price! Scandalous!! But besides that we were sorry to leave New Zealand….hello Australia!!

Thanks for all of our messages, hope you enjoy the blog!! Love you all! xxxx