Lord of the Rings to Islands (via Skydiving and Rafting); The North Island

After our three hour ferry ride across the Cook Straight we touched down in Wellington, the capital of NZ.

Our two days in Wellington were spent admiring the views from Mount Victoria, watching the Sheep cam in the Te Papa museum and catching the cable car up to the Observatory and botanical gardens.

James even managed to persuade Em to go on a Lord of The Rings tour, and despite the torrential rain we still pretended to be Hobbits in some scenes, before heading to the Weta Cave. This is where the special effects company that worked on Lord of The Rings and Avatar, among others, is based.

From windy and wet Wellington we ventured north to Taihape. Here we had a rather adventure filled day. We started with two hours of grade 5 white water rafting. This was an awesome, but also hilarious experience. Luckily no one fell out, although Em managed to lose a paddle half way down a rapid!!! From here we headed to Gravity Canyon, where we arrived intending to do the flying fox. After some persuasion, the staff and James got Em to do the worlds highest tandem swing instead! This involved being hung off the edge of an 80m bridge then released into a 50m free fall! After our video failed the first time round we got an offer to do it again for free, luckily this time the video worked! You will all get to see this in due course!

 

The next was a big day. We got up at 6am to embark on the 20km Tongariro Alpine Crossing, one of the worlds top ten day walks! It was amazing!!! The first half was a steep ascent to Red Crater at 1900m above sea level. Some of this was made tricky by the large amount of frozen snow and ice on the track. The views along the way of the surrounding volcanoes and lakes were breathtaking. On our way back down one of the Volcanoes started emitting large amounts of smoke! 

 

Our next stop was Taupo, the second largest lake in NZ and also an active volcano. Here we did a skydive. After kitting ourselves out and posing for our videos we hopped into the pink plane and ascended to 15,000ft. Here the roller door opened... Em was first up and despite being absolutely petrified beforehand, loved it! Meanwhile James took the opportunity to pull some funny faces on the way down and managed to shake the foot of the cameraman. The view from this height during our 60 second free fall was incredible. After safely landing on our bums and getting our heart rates back to normal we visited the Huka falls and Volcanic activity centre. 

The next day we started by watching the Lady Knox geyser erupt at Wai-o-tapu thermal park. We then wandered around the rest of the park in the pouring rain before heading up to Rotorua for our Moari Cultural evening and meal. This began with a brief introduction by our guide before watching the local tribe arrive on a waka (canoe). We then headed to the performance area, where we learnt about Moari weapons, instruments, facial tattoos and other parts of their culture. Next up was our hangi meal; nice roast lamb, chicken, kumara, other vegetables and gravy.... Yum! To finish our evening we went on a short bush walk to see the glowworms at the fairy springs.

Glowworms were the major attraction of the next morning as we visited Waitomo glowworm caves. On the boat hjourney at the end of our tour we were able to see hundreds of glowworms lighting up the ceiling like the starry night sky. From here we headed up to the Coromandel peninsula. Whilst here we stopped at Thames, Coromandel Town and Whitianga. We started the next day watching the sunrise at Haihie beach before walking to Cathedral Cove. We then headed down the east coast of the peninsula stopping at a few beaches and a gorge along the way, before driving up to the Bay of islands, north of Auckland.

On our way to the Bay of Islands we made a quick stop at the Hundertwasser toilets. These were his last pieceof artwork before he died, and they are pretty impressive toilets! Having arrived in Paihia we boarded our boa for the afternoon. This boat trip took us on a short tour of some of the 144 islands in the Bay and included a stop at 'Hole in the Rock'. We were also meant to heave a swim with dolphins (our second attemtpt), however, yet again, we saw no dolphins and were very disappointed!

From the Bay of Islands we drove down to Auckland for our last day in New Zealand. Here we took in some of the view from One Tree Hill and Achilles Point, before heading into the city centre.

Now it's time for us to say goodbye to our campervan and New Zealand and we will catch up with you all when we reach South America!

Much love

x x x

ps Less than 50 days til we land back in the UK....hope you're all excited!!

Bungees, jet boats, zip treks, heli-hikes and kayaking...the rest ofthe South Island!

Upon arriving in Queenstown we headed into 'The Station' station to book James' bungee for the following morning. After spending the rest of the morning walking around Queenstown, we decided to begin our adventure filled few days with the Shotover Jet. This is the worlds most exciting jetboat ride, that goes down the shotover over canyon. Despite being freezing cold this was an awesome experience. After a good nights sleep we headed out the next morning for James' bungee. At 134m, the Nevis Highwire Bungy is the largest in Australasia. While Em watched, James managed to summon up the courage to swan dive out of the cable car.

After making it safely back to land, we decided to go for a wander around queenstown gardens before heading up the Skyline Gondola. At the top of the Gondola, after admiring the great views over Queenstown, we took a few rides on the Luge; this is a effectively like a gravity fuelled engineless cart.

 Next up was our zip trek tour; this involved riding four zip lines with the last one providing some spectacular views of quenstown and the surrounding area. After our adventure filled day we decide to treat ourselves to the famous fergburger and the opening day showing of the Hangover III.

 

Our last two days in Queenstown were spent exploring the greater queenstown area, including Glenorchy, Arrowtown, and a walk up Queentowns Hill. Having initially planned to visit Fat Badger for dinner that evening, we had to form a contingency plan when it got burnt down. Instead we had some awesome pizzas at Winnies before treating ourselves to some wine tasting.

The following morning we set off from a snowy Queenstown early on and headed for Franz Josef Glacier. We stopped at a number of places along the way including Wanaka and Haast.

After our Heli Hike got cancelled twice in one day we decided to do the glacial valley walks of both Franz Josef and Fox glaciers. We also managed to visit Gillespies Beach before watching sunset at Lake Matheson. This is a mirror lake that provides great views of mounts Cook and Tasman.

The following day we started with an early morning kayaking trip on Lake Mapourika, which gave some stunning reflective views in the the calm waters. Luckily the wind had calmed down since the pervious day so we were able to head up to the glacier on our heli hiking tour! After a 10 minute chopper ride over Franz Jose Glacier, we landed on the snow covered glacier in beautiful sunshine! A two hour trek through knee deep snow provided us with unparalleled views of the glacier!! It is safe to say this was an unforgettable experience!

From Franz we headed up to Hokitika for the night. The next main destination on our list was Abel Tasman National Park. On the way here we stopped at Greymouth, Pancake Rocks, Westport and Buller Gorge where we walked along New Zealand's longest swing bridge.

Our first day in Abel Tasman involved a lot of driving and a few short walks. First up was Hawkes lookout followed by Takaka Hill Walkway. Next up were the Pupu springs which are supposedly the clearest springs in the world. After visiting the sand dunes and beach on the Tasman coast, we headed to the inland sea and wandered along the farewell spit.

The next morning began with a boat trip up the coast of Abel Tasman from Kaiteriteri to Totaranui before being dropped at Medlands Bay. From here we undertook a 13.6km/3.5hour hike down the coast to Anchorage where we caught the sea shuttle back to our van in Kaiteriteri.

Our final day on the South Island was spent driving from Abel Tasman to Picton. We stopped very briefly in Nelson to visit the Founders Heritage Park, the centre of New Zealand, and the ground where New Zealand's first rugby match was played.

We decided to head off the highway at Havelock and drove the rest of the journey to Picton via Malborough Sounds. This was a very scenic route and fitting end to our time in the South Island.

A 3 hour (and very expensive!) ferry ride will see us arriving in Wellington, New Zealand's capital.

Much love

X x x


Ps: We promised to keep you entertained so here are some of the funnier things each of us has said and done recently (we're keeping them anonymous but see if you can guess who did/said what!)

"Are prosthetic penises always hard?"
"Sea lions are descended from lions!"
"There will be snow on the glacier" (when it was snowing in valley)
Chopping ones finger off whilst cooking
Getting covered whilst emptying the toilet cassette
Practising singing and dancing in the car
"It was more like rabbit poo!"
"I'm spreading my legs as much as possible"
"It's going to rain; all the cows are sat down"
"Look at that croctle in the sky" (a mix of a crocodile and a turtle recurring in someone's dreams)
"We need to eat cheap...... I need my chicken and port pâté"