kez & hay travels 06

Goodness gracious its cold here! Going from 40 degree Singapore to 4 degree Christchurch was a bit of a wake up call! And it seemed the hostel wasn't that prepared for the cold either. Spent a few days visiting this small quaint town, eating gorgeous food (bangers'n'mash being a top favourite) and helping the Kiwi's celebrate their victory against the Wallabies in the rugby. We rented a car for the majority of our time in the south island, and our next destination was the west coast via the very scenic Arthur's Pass. After a couple of days we arrived at Franz Josef village, home of the very famous glacier. With cascades of ice tumbling down the valley into the village, it seemed like a huge gush of water had been frozen in time.  We spent a day walking on, in and through the glacier - again another example of Hayley and Kerry realising they are just not made for such energetic activities. Nursing our bruised muscles, we headed down to the small lakeside town of Wanaka.  Here we had the most exhilirating experience of our lives -skydiving 9,000 ft, including 30 seconds of free fall. Never have we spent so much money for such a quick effect (the jump lasted 4 minutes), but it was worth every penny. Absolutely amazing.

Queenstown lies about 2 hours south and is the adrenalin capital of NZ. However, after spending the equivalent of our weekly budget in SE asia on a 4 minute jump-thrill, we decided to play it low for a while.  Hayley didn't last long at this as she sped off on a jet boat, being flung around the boat as it did 360 degree spins.  We went to Deer Park Heights to see some of the places where Lord of the Rings was filmed (it had to be done!)  Kerry also got very nearly eaten alive by resident goats, whom she was trying to feed.

At this point of our trip we turned back north, heading for Lake Tekapo (which is a blazing turquoise colour due to its rock sediment). This was a memorable journey simply because we were driving on a practically empty tank for what seemed like hours - "so they don't have petrol stations in the mountains then!" We happily rolled into the nearest town after a 2 hour tense drive. We arrived at Lake Tekapo to 5 inches of snow and so we spent the whole evening huddled around the hostel's log fire. Luckily the next day the snowy weather had calmed down so we went back to the east coast to the french influenced town of Akaroa.