Saturday afternoon I decided to look for a gym and to have a few days on a detox after a very alcoholic and expensive three weeks! I joined a local fight school for a week and from sat till wed I went there every day to train and also joined in with the boxing and jujitsu classes, the rest of the time I spent on the beach or doing more walks with a cheeky heavy night included on the sun!
On Wednesday I got on the bottom bus which takes you to the very southern points of NZ. We started off going down to Dunedin which was founded by the Scottish so has a very Scottish feel about it. On route we stopped off at NZ largest dam, which has been construced in such a way that it can move 4m in any direction and still stay in one peice due to the earthquake hazard NZ has being split across 2 plates. In Dunedin we visited the steepest street in the world which we walked up and then went on to have a look around the university sites. These were crazy as particular blocks of houses were used as student houses only, the students would decorate the outside of the houses and name them. All their couches were just out the front of the houses or in the streets where the students would be and they would just have massive street parties all the time, pretty cool!
That evening in Dunedin I booked myself on to a brewery tour. The biggest beer in NZ is Speights and this is the brewery I went to. After an entertaining tour we were taken to their bar. Here they had their 6 different drinks on tap, ranging from lager to ale to cider and we were left for 45 mins to try out as many as we liked. The majority of the people on the tour were Chinese so they just had a sip of each, where as I just stayed behind the bar and worked my way through all 6, 3 times over, so definitely got my monies worth!
The following day we worked our way down to Invercargill (the home of the worlds fastest indian!) stopping at the very southern point of NZ. A month previous to nearly the day I was at a lighthouse at the very northern point and now I was at the lighthouse at the very southern point! After this we saw a seal colony then went on to the Catlins where there is a 180 million year old fossilised Forrest. Here we also saw some yellow eyes penguins retuning home from a days fishing!
The next stop was at a beach to possibly see some sea lions. We were extremely lucky as when we got down on to the beach there was about 20 of them! They were all asleep but as we were heading back down the beach a male and a female had woken up and were having a play fight about 10 metres in front of us which was awesome to watch so close! A few beers and pool then followed that evening.
On the Friday we were up early to head up to Milford sounds. This took 4 hours on a coach to get to, but was well worth it! Milford sounds is regarded as one of the most beautiful places in the world and Its easy to see why. On the way in we passed through a rainforest with beautiful mountain scenery all around and mirror lakes reflecting these. We then got on to a boat that was taking us out to see the sights and it was truly stunning. A huge waterfall was there and just appeared out of no where, which the boat practically reversed under so we got a bit wet! After a further 4 hour coach journey we then arrived back in Queenstown. Friday evening saw a rather heavy night out, sat included a lie in, beach, gym, ferg burger and then another heavy night out as I was leaving queenstown on the mon! Sunday copied sat in every detail bar the night out as I was leaving at 7.30am the following day!
I got the coach on Monday that was heading up to Christchurch, but I jumped off half way at a tiny village called Twizel. I stopped off here as the following day I was getting a bus up to Mount Cook to complete one of the walks.
I got picked up at 8.30 Tuesday morning and headed up to Mount Cook with a few scenic camera shot stops on the way. When we got to Mount Cook we were advised on the different walks available. The two toughest were the sealy track and the mueller hut track. Recommended times for these were 5 hours return and 8 hours returns, with the mueller track carrying on from the end of the sealy track. I only had 6 hours before the bus left back to twizel, so decided to go as far as I could up to the mueller hut. It was a baking hot day and the walk was a killer! The sealy track included 1,810 steep steps and then the mueller track was just rocks with posts in the ground advising the direction you needed to go. Everyone else I passed walking had big old hiking boots on with sticks and all the gear, where as I had my 5 pound primark pumps on and just chicken and water in my bag! I managed to make the 1800 metres Climb to the mueller hut, where the views and scenery were simply stunning, and get back to the base in 5 and a half hours, so rewarded myself with the most expensive cider I've ever bought! But it was also the most refreshing and rewarding cider I'd ever drunk! That evening I was completely shattered and my feet had blisters all over so I just had a very early night!
The following day I found a local gym, did a workout then jumped back on the kiwi bus up to Christchurch. We got in at 4pm and I checked in to a hostel I had booked separately to the one you use with the bus. I had heard a lot about this hostel and had to book it a week in advance just to get a Bed. This is because the hostel used to be the Christchurch jail! It was so cool, it's all still set out in the same way as when it was a jail and they have left some of the rooms exactly as they used to be with all the jail art left on the walls the prisoners had drawn. After checking in here, I set off on a walk in to the Christchurch centre to look at the red zone. This is the area in the middle of Christchurch which is all closed off to the public due to the wreckage the earthquake 2 years ago left. It was such a weird and eerie feel, you would stand there in the middle of a crossroads and every road would be closed in every direction with no one in sight bar the army guys guarding the streets. Buildings would be smashed, half destroyed or just completely gone.
I then came across where the church used to be and as the 2 year memorial was only 3 days prior to me being there, they still had all the flowers and remembrance pictures displayed. They also had 185 white chairs where the church used to be to symbolise the 185 people that had died. These ranged from babies cots through to rocking chairs, was very sad and quite moving. I then moved on to an area called re:start. This is where they have converted ship containers in to shops, restaurants, cafes and banks to service the community whilst new areas are being built. These were actually really cool and looked awesome!
After getting ridiculously lost trying to find my way back to the hostel I eventually got back, made myself a nice spag bowl, then watched the Bourne supremacy which was playing in the movie room!
Wednesday morning saw another early one and we got back on the kiwi bus at 7am heading up to kaikora. We arrived here just after mid day, checked in to our hostel then headed down to the dolphin encounter to book our trip for the following morning. The walk back up to the hostel turned in to a bit of a bar crawl stopping off at most pubs on the way back! That evening I had some dins then planned an early night as I needed to be up at 4am the following day, but instead turned in to drinking a crate of beers and not going to bed till 1! I then slept through my alarm and woke up at 5.10, needing to be at the dolphin place at 5.30, a half hour walk away! I drank a load of water, packed my bag, stuffed some wheetabix down my throat then managed to sprint there on pure adrenaline in 10 mins! We had a safety brief then got kitted out in full body and head wetsuits, then made our way down to the bus along to the marina. We boarded the boat at about 6.30am and then travelled out for about half an hour on the look for the dolphin pods. The reason for going that early was because the dolphins would have just gone out to the ocean to feed and were coming back closer to shore to play. I couldn't believe my eyes when we came across the pods, there were just hundreds of dolphins all around the boat swimming in our wake! We kitted up with snorkelling gear and flippers, waited for the all clear then jumped in. We were told to make as much noise and movement as possible to get the dolphins attention. I swam down under the water straight away, with dolphins bombing past me in all directions then started spinning around and got a couple of dolphins attention. They started spinning round with me, following me, then swam back up to the surface with me, spinning round me in circles! One of them came very close to my face and his eyes followed mine, so I started spinning on the spot and he would follow exactly as I did looking straight in my eyes the whole time! Such an unreal awesome experience! We did 5 separate swims in different spots experiencing the same things over and over, with even the little babies the size of a toddler joining in!
We got back to the shore at 9 after two hours of swimming and made our way back to the hostel. I made myself some breakfast then set off again to hire a bike! I cycled up to a local seal colony to see some more sea lions and then up to a viewing point over the whole town and then back down to the coast on a track called toms track! That evening I just passed out through exhaustion and slept for about 13 hours!
Today is now Saturday and I have just got the bus up to Picton where I am just about to board the ferry to Wellington to make my way back up through the North Island to Auckland where I fly out to Melbourne in 12 days. Lots planned in the coming week and a half including another sky dive, volcano walks, cliff jumping and a stop at a friends of my dads for a bit of luxury (i.e my own room!) and hopefully a round of golf! Speak soon! X