Down, Under and Right A Bit
Well, we arrived in New Zealand and immediately headed down to the southern island and into the nearest hostel to get some much needed sleep and some fish and chips (which ended up being a curry again as all the places to eat had closed!). The hostels round here all seem pretty nice, filled with travellers of all shapes, sizes and ages all trying to scrape enough money together to get to the next village. Obviously still suffering from sunburn wasn't enough and we had to endure more anguish when we missed the 'Magic Bus' to our first destination. I reacted without thinking and soon we were heading after the bus in a silver 'Gilnaria' through the mountains to catch it up at the next stop...
The scenary was amazing, clear skies, looming snow capped peaks and lots of U2 on the radio. I really enjoyed driving again as we sped through the landscape, both grimacing with pain at every turn due to the sunburn. Finally, we caught the bus up at our next hostel in Greymouth only to find that Katie had left her wallet in the car after we put the keys through garage letter box! Luckily the owner was only a late night car journey away, the wallet was returned, and the worries were over. We sat down in the hostel to watch our first night of television for weeks.
Over the next few days we took in as much of the Southern Island as we could - even a Glacier (Franz Joseph - so called because it looked like the Austrian emperors white beard) which towered over us like a white wave! It was amazing to walk up it and peer into its icy depths while hoping our crampons didn't fail and leave us skidding down the ice flow to a certain doom. We also found the time to leap off a 43m high bridge - quite terrifying but also over very fast as you plummeted towards the river, churning (much like our stomachs) below. Yes, we did get the DVD of the whole scary experience for you all to laugh at later! The area was extraordinarily beautiful and virtually every turn of the road revealed more spectacular scenery.
Finally, though, we are sitting a warm hostel (the temperatures here are more like Britain!) after drinking lots of cocktails from a teapot, playing another game of chess...Does life get any stranger than this?! I hope not.
I will be coming home in a few days and I have really enjoyed all these adventures and will take away some amazing memories and less photos than I would have liked due to running out of memory, batteries etc.
Will see you all soon,
Mark
The scenary was amazing, clear skies, looming snow capped peaks and lots of U2 on the radio. I really enjoyed driving again as we sped through the landscape, both grimacing with pain at every turn due to the sunburn. Finally, we caught the bus up at our next hostel in Greymouth only to find that Katie had left her wallet in the car after we put the keys through garage letter box! Luckily the owner was only a late night car journey away, the wallet was returned, and the worries were over. We sat down in the hostel to watch our first night of television for weeks.
Over the next few days we took in as much of the Southern Island as we could - even a Glacier (Franz Joseph - so called because it looked like the Austrian emperors white beard) which towered over us like a white wave! It was amazing to walk up it and peer into its icy depths while hoping our crampons didn't fail and leave us skidding down the ice flow to a certain doom. We also found the time to leap off a 43m high bridge - quite terrifying but also over very fast as you plummeted towards the river, churning (much like our stomachs) below. Yes, we did get the DVD of the whole scary experience for you all to laugh at later! The area was extraordinarily beautiful and virtually every turn of the road revealed more spectacular scenery.
Finally, though, we are sitting a warm hostel (the temperatures here are more like Britain!) after drinking lots of cocktails from a teapot, playing another game of chess...Does life get any stranger than this?! I hope not.
I will be coming home in a few days and I have really enjoyed all these adventures and will take away some amazing memories and less photos than I would have liked due to running out of memory, batteries etc.
Will see you all soon,
Mark
posted by Katie at
10:30 am
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