A lil ski town called Queenstown and Milford Sound

Queenstown is a lil ski town, so it's surrounded by pretty snowy mountains and a lake in the middle. The buildings are mostly chalets and all  of the pubs and cafe's have log fires. 

Since being in New Zealand, Cj and myself have been wondering where all the young kids are. We have been one of the youngest in most of our hostels so far. We soon realised that they are all in Queenstown. It's definitely a more vibrant, loud, buzzing place then the rest of the south island. 

Our hostel had an amazing view as it was on top of the hill leading out of the town centre. A lot of workers where staying at the hostel (mostly loud mouth British lads) so it was quite clique. We met an odd but very friendly and outgoing Israeli couple and many germans. The hostel was pretty young and loud. We stayed in a dorm room for 1 night and managed to somehow bag a budget private room for only $3 more then the price of a dorm bed, so we stayed in there for 5 nights. Yes, we were staying in Queenstown for a week as it was recommended. 

On our first day the alarm went off at 7am. I got up and showered and i was sure i woke Cj up but to my surprise i came back from the shower to see him still sleeping. So, i had to wake him and warn him that he had 20mins before we had to leave. So, a moody Cj left the hostel un-washed, no hair gel and wearing the same clothes as yesterday. 

All of this was soon forgotten as we made it to the pier for 8am. Ready to board the boat for our paraflight over the lake. New zealand has loads of cheap deals on things like this off a website called book me. It means you may have to do these crazy things at 8am but its over half price. 

We were first up on the parachute so we got kitted up and put 600 metres into the air. Its not scary at all as its very smooth and you just look out into the mountains across the lake. Its a spectacular view. 

Lucky for me, i brought a woolly hat the day before as i was cold and i got it for a tour later on. Thankfully i brought it with me on the para flight because it was bloody freezing in the air. Definitely worth it though. It was also, finally a bright sunny day so the sky looked good.  

After our para flight we warmed up in a local cafe and got some breakfast. After a walk around the town, we headed back to our hostel to check-in to our private room. 

We spent the rest of the day chilling in the hostel garden.

Day 2, ended up being an admin day. We have nothing planned or booked in for Fiji and America so we needed a day to sort it out, otherwise it'll get too late and we'll have a problem. So, we planned our american route, and the cheapest option for Fiji. Turns out Fiji is pretty expensive unlike Asia.

Day 3. We were up at 5:45am to get into town for 6:45. We were going on a Milford Sound tour today. Mitre Peak is the company we decided to book with as we'd heard some good things about them by talking to people. Apparently its a much smaller boat then the other companies. The tour cost us $175 so it was one of our big one's for New Zealand. We hopped on the specially made coach at 6:45 ready for a 4 hour drive to Milford. The coach is like a conservatory. Glass walls and a glass roof. This is because the views to milford sound are one of the highlights. We drove through the Fiord-lands, up mountains. Through tunnels carved out of the slate rock and over streams with waterfalls. First we drove 2 hours to a town called Te Anau to pick some people up and grab a coffee. After this, the next 2 hour drive was the one to stay awake for. The views were breathtaking. This country is very, very pretty. The tops of the mountains were covered in snow so i reckon in winter it's even prettier. 

About an hour into the journey we stopped at a mirror lake. The reflection was so clear, you can see the mountains both ways in the pics. 

We then drove through moss forest and alleys of mountains. I wish we could have filmed the whole journey but we were saving the cameras battery for the cruise.

Whilst the driver was on the microphone telling us all about the place, i noted down some of the key bits of information.

So we drove through/past...

- the divide stream, we were on the east side. This stream flows into the tasman sea.

-lake Ferguson

- Hollyford valley

-Mount Christina

-we drove through the 1952 rock tunnel

-Cleardale Valley

-through beach/moss forest

He also told us that milford sound is the 2nd wettest place on earth. 

We finally arrived to Milford sound after that journey. We got off the coach and made our way to the Mitre Peak cruise boat. Everybody was correct. Our boat was half the size compared to the other 2 companies moored up.  We situated ourselves right at the front of the boat outside. This is because if there was any chance of seeing dolphins i wanted to be at the front. We set off through the fiords on either side of us. It was pretty cool seeing the tall slate fiords with waterfalls next to us. 

We went past a colony of seals chilling on rocks. Our boat got pretty close. A little while later we spotted dolphins racing to our boat to chase us in front. I love watching dolphins play with the boats. These were bottle nose and they were big. Double the size of the dusky's we saw in Kaikoura. One did a back flip which was really cool to see. 

We sailed on to the end of the fiords. After an hour we head back. On the way we saw a pretty cool waterfall. The tour guide told us that we were going to get quite close to the waterfall so we may get wet. Luckily i had my mac already on and the go pro out ready for some waterfall action. The spray was pretty cold as it was water from the mountains. After a while in the spray, the boat just kept getting closer to this waterfall. We were starting to get pretty wet at this time. I turned and headed in doors as the boat was heading under this waterfall. Cj, was slightly slower then the rest of us who dived indoors so he was last in and only had his hoody on. Yes, we had to ring his hoody out. He got very wet. 

Luckily the sun was out so he stayed in the sun for the rest of the cruise to dry out. 

Once the cruise had finished we got back on our coach and headed back to Queenstown. We didn't get back until about 7pm so it was a pretty long day. 

Day 4. We went on a little stroll around the lake and botanical gardens. We pretty much just chilled by the lake and on the beach on this day. In the evening we pre-drunk with a game of go fish and headed out to town. We'd heard that the place to go was cowboys. So we went down the lil pub lanes to this chalet/ski style bar. It was good. There was a bucking bronko indoors that a few people tried out. We decided not to stay here as there was no dance floor, so after a few bevvies we left to find a more dancing place (more for me) we found a pub with a band playing and then a pretty terrible Dj. It was a fun place though. Had a good vibe. 

Day 5. Our last day and our one mission on this day was to get a FergBurger. They are famous and the queue to this place was always up the street. So they must be good. I chose a chicken, mango and chilli burger whilst Cj chose the Mr big. Cj is a huge burger fan and I'm not so much, but omg, this burger was amazing. The best thing ever. I don't know how they do it but it tasted good. They were not over priced either. 

For the evening we were umming and arring as to whether go out. It was a really nice, hot day, a saturday and the town had a huge vibe so we got the feeling that it was going to be a good night. Cj was knackered (getting old) but we decided to get some ciders and hit Whinnies. This club was good, very busy. 

We woke the next morning, ready to catch our bus to lake wanaka. 

This was the first time in all of the transport we have taken that we officially had a mare. First of all, 10mins before our bus was due to arrive Cj realised he left his tablet jn the room. So he ran back for it. Then, the other guys waiting for the bus too, came to me asking of we are standing at the right place for the bus. This is where we got dropped off so i assumed it was but it was 8:40am and the bus wasn't here. Alarm bells started ringing to the group of us as we realised we were standing in the wrong location. They all left to see if they could catch the bus whilst i stayed and waited for Cj.

Once he arrived we ran to the correct place to see if we could catch it. We saw the other guys standing at the bus stop so we knew we'd missed it:(

When we post up the next post, we'll reveal how we managed to make it to lake wanaka on time.

Invercargill hotel stop

So, after a busy schedule volunteering back in Australia and moving on to different places in New Zealand quite quickly, we thought we'd be pretty knackered from travelling so much and need to re-charge for the west coast. Turned out that New Zealand is alot quieter and chilled then Australia. We found our selves a bit lost in the evenings and going to bed pretty early, along with everyone else in the dorms. So, naturally we caught up on energy from Oz's shenanigans but we decided to opt for a hotel in Invercargill rather then a hostel. 

There isn't a lot to do in Invercargill. It's normally used as a stop off place for the naked bus people as you cannot get a bus from Dunedin straight to Queenstown. Due to us thinking we'll need a rest stop we decided to stay here for 2 nights, instead of a 1 night quick stop.

We booked a nice hotel that was actually quite cheap. We did wonder the streets for an hour, it was again a freezing, rainy day so we decided to just chill in the hotel. I did manage to buy some proper trousers for $5 though, leggings were not warm enough.

Unfortunately, thats as exciting as this post gets. We didn't even get any pictures, except of the sky. I took it at 10pm, thought it looked pretty crazy. Oh, and Cj spent $40 on dominos, preparation for his Fiji body!

No penguins in Dunedin

After a 1 night quick stop in Christchurch, we were on the bus again the next morning to Dunedin. 

Dunedin is further down the east coast, towards the south pole. We arrived at midday into the university town. Our hostel was called manor house, and it literally was a large scottish country house converted into Dorm rooms and kitchens. It was a very quiet hostel considering we were in a 12 bed dorm. We arrived on a rainy cold day and had to wash our only wet weather outfit. So, we had to spend the remainder of the day freezing in shorts and T-shirts. 

It was movie night in the hostel TV room so we spent the evening watching a very bad old school kiwi film. But, we got free popcorn so it wasn't so bad in the end. 

We woke up the next day trying to decide what to do. Originally i wanted to catch a bus to Otago Peninsula to visit Penguin Place. After a lil chat with the hostel man he then broke the news that there is only 1 bus from Dunedin to penguin place, therefore, we would not be able to return. We were starting to think that maybe we need a car to travel New Zealand. Our other option was to pay $150 for a nature tour. this seemed a little pricey for us, when the only animals we really wanted to see on the nature tour was penguins (we had already seen seals and the albatross bird). We have set ourselves an activity budget for New Zealand and this tour didn't really fit in high on the list.

So we felt a bit disappointed that we didn't have anything to do in Dunedin and we were here for 3 nights. We decided to make the most of a free and again rainy day and research and book in all of our accommodation, buses and tours for the next 6 weeks. We spent a fair bit on our credit cards as we opted for a very expensive tour which we weren't planning to do, this made us feel slightly better about not doing the nature tour. 

We explored Dunedin city but there isn't really much to report. The city is just shops. It has a beach and a harbour which we were planning to explore on our last day.

Day 3 was hot and sunny, yay! So out came the shorts as we were going to the beach. Our hostel man told us about a tunnel beach which sounded pretty cool. It was off the map and you needed to get a bus there. We decided not to listen and try an walk there to save a bit of money. We walked to almost off the map and we were half way up the steepest hill we've ever walked. Absolutely shattered in the heat we worked out that this road leads to the tunnel beach, the realisation then hit, that it was a steep hill all the way. 

We then thought to ourselves 'how much better is this beach to the one we can presently see at the bottom of the hill'. So we decided to walk down the hill to St Clare beach. Yes, we gave in but we were rewarded for trying with beer and cake in the pub at the bottom of the hill. It was a nice seaside town beach. We walked back to our hostel the short way round the harbour and finished the day with a thai green curry from a local restaurant. 

Overall, we weren't too impressed with Dunedin, probably because we couldn't do any tours but we felt that it was a bit of a boring place anyway.  We said that if we were to do it differently we would either miss it out if weren't doing a tour or only stay for a day. 

At sea in Kaikoura

I booked Cj and myself into 2 exciting tours in Kaikoura whilst on the greyhound bus in Australia, so i was looking forward to visiting this place for a while. 

We were welcomed into Kaikoura with a bus ride along the coastal road showing off a bright turquoise sea with mist floating above it. The town was a cute lil seaside town. 

Our hostel was really nice and had an amazing view of the mountains surrounding Kaikoura. We arrived pretty early so we decided to do the popular walk around the peninsular. This walk takes you along the coast through the town to the cliff. We arrived to a colony of seals, just chilling on some rocks. We managed to get really close to them as they seem pretty used to people. We walked around the corner to a carpark to climb the view point and there was a seal just chilling on the walkway decking around the car park. It was bazaarr. Once we viewed the amazing view from the cliff we were about to head back down until Cj mentioned that he would like to do the 3 hour trek round the peninsular to the other aide of the town. It was about 5pm so it was gonna be a long walk. We made it back into  town after the trek at about 8:30pm. The views were so nice. 

We decided to treat ourselves to a meal at a restaurant as we were starving.  

The next day we were up at 9am for our first tour. Thankfully it was a clear, sunny sky so the tour wasn't going to be cancelled. We were going to do the famous whale watching tour. We arrived at the tour centre ready to check in an were warned that the sea had a 2 metre swell which meant a high chance of sea sickness. I bought a sea sickness tablet from them just incase as i did not want to take any chances, Cj decided to risk and and simply said 'if i'm sick, i'm sick'.

We boarded our boat after a short coach ride to the port. The boat housed about 50 people. We were introduced to our moari tour Guide and he went through health and safety and gave us detailed instruction on what to do if were sick. Lovely!

We set off on our specially made boat into the deep sea. Its common to see 2 whales on a tour so we just had to wait until the staff spotted one. They have special instruments that go under sea, ad it picks up the noises whales makes. 

Suddenly our tour guide yelled whale. He said its 6 miles away and that our boat was going to put the gas peddle down to get there in 6 minutes before the whales disappears. Te boat was up and down an skimming right over these waves. As soon as we arrived the 2 side doors swung open and everyone had to run out to catch the whale. It was amazing seeing this huge whale the size of our boat just floating on the surface blowing out of its blow hole. When it bobbed up you could see its eyes. After about 1 minute of watching it bob (and try to keep our balance over the huge waves) the tour guide was very enthusiastically telling us to get ready for the next part. The whale dived up an down by arching his back and flicking his tail at the end before disappearing. 

That moment lasted all of 4 minutes but it was an amazing sight that felt like there was no clocking. Cj and myself felt blown away at seeing a whale.

We were lucky to see our first whale in the first half hour of our tour so we had another 1.5 hours of whale racing. After the whale has disappeared we have to sit back inside the boat and wait for another sighting (this is where the sa sickness happens, the waves were literally 2 metres high and we were up and down. Luckily neither Cj and i were sick. I was feeling the motion in my belly but i was distracted by the whales to notice it. However, for other people it was a different story)

This tour was actually really adrenaline fuelled. We were up and down, racing out the door to see the whales, constantly looking out for whale blows and we were buzzing for the whole day. 

We managed to see 6 whales and one of them was on the surface for ages that we all just watched it for a good 10 minutes. We got so close. 

On our way back to the port we caught up with some dusky dolphins (about 8). We were lucky to be standing at the front of the boat that these dolphins we jumping in and out of the water, racing the boat only inches from us. That was a real bonus to the tour. 

Our 3rd day in Kaikoura was supposed to be another tour but it was a really cold

Miserable day so out tour got cancelled. Unfortunately die to the weather, this day was a bit of a right off. It rained pretty hard all day.

We woke up on our last day praying for no rain. Our tour was moved to the next morning and as we had to catch a bus at 3pm it was our last opportunity.  

It wasn't raining, just a bit grey. Luckily our tour was finally on after being moved again to later in the day. It was cutting time short before our bus but it was worth it. 

Our tour was seal swimming. There is loads of seal colonies in Kaikoura and this tour allows you to swim with them in the sea. 

We got kitted up in proper deep sea diving wet suits so our guess was that the water was going to be cold. 

We got driven to the boat ready to be taken out to sea. The driver took us out to island which was full of resting seals. Unfortunetely as it was a cold day te seals were not quite hot enough to get in the sea and cool off, so the tour had a bit of a slow start.

We were in the water for about half hour just waiting for the seals to come in. It was cool watching them go about their day on the rocks though. The water was actually freezing. It was difficult putting our heads under. 

Eventually a few seals came into the sea and they are so playful and interactive in the water. I was amazed. They tease you by swimming in and around us. They came so close. Cj was getting really close to some seals. They seemed to like him. Their movements in the water are so elegant. 

After about 2 hours i was blue. I decided to get back in the boat and watch for the next half hour. Cj stayed in with the seals. 

After this tour we warmed up and got on our bus back to Christchurch. It took me the rest of the day to actually warm up but it was worth getting that cold. 

First stop in New Zealand...Christchurch

Our first stop in new zealand was Christchurch. 

We took off in a hot, sunny Sydney and arrived to a freezing, wet New Zealand. Dressed in shorts and T-shirts we definitely looked British. Although, i am going to have to let the tough english blood down and mention that i couldn't take the cold and had to change into something warmer before we even left the airport. Cj trooped through and was sad to face the fact that his tan is probably going to fade over the next 6 weeks. 

Our hostel in Christchurch was owned by a Moari family so this was a pleasant surprise compared to Australia, they were very friendly. We explored Christchurch on our first day once we visited the shops to get Cj some trainers. We soon realised that flip flops are useless in NZ. 

Christchurch felt like an odd place to begin with. We knew about the horrid earthquake that hit the city centre in 2011, but we wasn't quite expecting it to look so bare. It was actually really sad seeing the remains of the buildings that were hit. The city has put art, boutiques and niche things in the empty places so the vibe is pretty good and gives the city an overall modern, quirky twist. 

We only had 1 proper day in Christchurch but this ended up being enough as we found out the sun doesn't actually set in NZ until about 10pm. We were out exploring in the daylight until about then without even realising the time. Took us a while to get used to the light evenings. It felt like we were jet lagged.