New Zealand 2009

This is our last morning in NZ. I can't believe a whole month has passed already and it's time to leave. We have both had the most amazing time here and crammed in so much that some of it is hard to remember. I'm sure when we get home we'll constantly be saying "oh do you remember this" and we also have about a million photos to get through. We certainly had a ball and I reckon we'll definitely be back at some point.

We decided to get on the tourist tram this morning for our last trip around Christchurch. Then it's off to the airport for the 31hrs worth of flights to get home. It's been well worth it and looking on the brightside I've got 22 hours of the journey with a flatbed and champagne in business class - sorry Neil, had to mention it sometime.

Thanks NZ for a wonderful and amazing trip! We hope to see you again soon.

On the recommendation of my walking guide from Queenstown we headed to Joe's Garage for breakfast. It was really good and for once not full of tourists. Post hearty breakfast we decided to do the first half of the walking tour from our Lonely Planet guide book. We wandered around alleys, roads, shops etc until we ended back at the cathedral Square. We had a look in the Cathedral and the choir were practicing for the Christmas concert that evening. They weren't really your typical church choir. More like a choral group you'd see on a tv show singing acappela and jolly good they were too. We listened to them for a while and then headed up the tower to admire views of the city.

We continued to wander on the tour route until we got back to the hotel. We needed to leave early afternoon to get to Akaroa in the Bank Peninsula for our Penguin tour so we set off aiming to have dinner at Akaroa before being picked up at 6:30.

Akaroa is really pretty and would be an excellent weekend spot. We ate fish and chips at the beach for dinner and were then collected for our tour.

The tour is run by a farming couple. Their farm is in a bay and they noticed the penguin colony nesting there years ago. They notified the DOC and asked for some assitance in ridding the area of stoats that might kill the little blue penguins but given the demands on DOC they didn't think enough could be done in order to save the colony from predators and so declined to help.

The farmer's wife Shireen then took it upon herself to start laying traps, ably assisted by her husband. They also started to build nest boxes on the cliffs for the penguins as they come back each yr to the same place to breed. The then started to record how many nesting pairs were present and the location of the nests. They recorded 77 pairs and reported this to DOC. When DOC realised how many penguins were now in the are they decided to help and there are now several hundred nesting pairs in cliffs around the bay each yr. Shireen and her husband have done an amazing job of saving these wee penguins and now run penguin tours to a) fund the conservation and b) make some profit for themselves out of it. The whole tour was very natural in that they have built hides up onthe cliff where we could sit and watch the penguins jump out of the sea at sunset and we were also issued with camouflage tops so the penguins wouldn't be scared off by my bright orange anorak! Penguins clearly have better taste in clothes than I do! We also spied into a couple of nest (not ones where there were tiny new penguins as that would upset the parents) to see the more mature penguins up close.

The enthusiasm and passion of our hosts was infectious, not that I could probably be any more enthusiastic about penguins than I already am but I think Neil is also now a huge fan. They are amazing little guys, less than a foot tall, who climb 50-100m up cliffs to build nests - how fantastic is that!

After eating breakfast I called the local stables to see if we could go on a 2hr horse trek. As there was one leaving imminently we packed our suitcases at superspeed and headed to the stables pronto.

I think Neil has only been on a horse once so I'm not sure how keen he was - i think he was fine as long as they just walked and didn't run off with him.

THe horses at the stable were just beautiful so I went round to say hello to the 5 horses that were coming on the trek. The biggest one was called Trevor (excellent name for a horse...) and when i patted him his ears went back. For anyone who rides horses you'll know this means the horse intends to be as naughty as it can get away with and will probably be a difficult as possible. As the horses were allocated, needless to say I got Trevor because I'd ridden before. After about 10mins of asserting myself Trevor and I became excellent chums and he stopped nipping the other horses!

The trek was really good and we went back up Mount John (where the observatory is) to take in the views across Lake Tekapo - really stunning. It was a really nice morning and I remembered how much I liked horses and horse riding. Neil got on fine with his horse (though it did have a bit of a mind of it's own when it came to route choice) and I did have a giggle at Neil's riding style- slouched body, leaning back all the time and swinging around with the movement of the horse akin to John Wayne tee hee. However, he stayed on the horse successfully and only had one minor panic when they horse decided that walking up a hill was too hard and he wanted to pick up the pace a little.

After treking we took some photos around Lake Tekapo, including the historic little church on the lakeside, and then headed on our way to Christchurch.

We stopped for afternoon tea en route and popped in to the local tourist office to book up for a penguin tour tomorrow night. I love penguins but on the entire trip we've only seen only solitary little blue penguin and that was at Abel Tasman, so I am reeeeally looking forward to tomorrow night.

In Christchurch we had dinner at the Curator's House Restaurant. It's on the side of the Botanic Gardens and has the most yummy food "with a subtle Spanish influence". We had a really lovely meal there and whilst we'd intended popping into a few bars on the way back to the hotel we were pretty tired so ended up giving it a miss in favour of sleep - jeez we're getting old.

Our Shotover Jet boating was delayed for a couple of hours but we made it our successfully. It was really fun wooshing through the canyons at high speed with the "driver" skimming past the canyon walls with just centimetres to spare. The 360 spins were the most fun though we did get completely soaked yet again - it was sunny and hot today though so we didn't mind too much.

We headed up river to see where the white water rafting finishes up. It looked amazing as in days of old during the goldrush they wanted to divert the river to see if there was gold to be had in the bottom of it. Needless to say in a canyon it's quite hard to divert a river so they spent 4 long years making a 150metre tunnel into which to divert the river. They did this successfully but alas after all that effort failed to find a single nugget of gold. The good news is that the tunnel is now an awesome 150m long white-water rafting tunnel! If we'd known about it earlier I think we'd have opted for the rafting instead of the jet boating as with the high water levels the rafting would have been about as good as it gets. Maybe next time ;-)

Post jet boating we headed back to Queenstown for lunch and even more shopping (how will I ever get all this stuff home!) and then drove to Lake Tekapo. We stopped off at the original AJ Hackett Bridge bungee and Neil was wavering about maybe having a go. I have to say that although I said I'd NEVER do a bungee, after the skydiving I looked at it and thought "hey I could do that it doesn't look too high". I pushed Neil into getting more info and enquiring about jumping however, they had a corporate event that day and had closed the bungee early. Some things are just not meant to be.

As with pretty much all of NZ, the drive to Lake Tekapo was stunning. When we arrived we booked ourselves on to the star gazing tour at the observatory and hoped the cloud would clear. Before the tour we had dinner in a Japanese restaurant - food was amazing!

When we arrived for our tour we were told that we get a discounted rate as it was cloudy but if we still wanted to do we'd get a tour of the observatory and explanations of the work they were doing, and also see lots of pictures on their computer. It sounded like it was better than nothing so we headed up to the observatory for our "indoor" star-gazing.

The 3 astronomers who work at the observatory did our tour and it was absoloutely brilliant! We saw all the telescopes, data, pictures etc etc and it was really really interesting (apologies everyone this is where you'll realise that I'm a closet space-geek). We were then mid-way through our slide-show when one of the atronomers dragged us all ourside as there was a gap in the cloud. In the end we say absolutely everything and I have to say I think it is one of the best tours I've ever done. It is soooo exciting to see all the stars when the sky is clear and also to have a clearview of the milkyway (which we don't get in the Northern Hemisphere). We had a laser-pen guided tour of the visible universe and it was fantastic! Obviously in the south they can see things we can't see and vice versa and the other odd thing is that when you are in the southern hemisphere all the things you usually see in the north are upside down. Yes I probably need to get out more but I just love the whole space thing!

We got back at 1:15am and I just realised that tomorrow we drive to Christchurch. That means our holiday is nearly over.

Again we woke to heavy rain - what a great day to be outdoors...

My guide picked me up just before 8 and we headed out toward Glen Orchy for morning coffee before continuing on to the start of the Routeburn track. It turns out i was the only 1-day walker that day so I had a great day out.

The weather was truly awful but again it added so much to the scenery that I didn't really mind. More amazing and beautiful waterfalls, atmospheric mist and amazing crossings of rushing rivers (crossings on little suspension bridges I might add, I'd have been washed away forever if i'd tried to cross through the water as the force and flow or water was enormous). We made our way up to the first camping hut, looking at plants and trees, stopping to listen to and try and spot birds and generally admiring the view. It took all morning to reach the main falls at the top and it was well worth the 800m climb. It is hard to describe the scene but believe me it was absolutely stunning.

The company I walked with have their own "hut" (more like a building than a hut) at the falls which is right next to the DOC camping hut (Department of Conservation). I'd been in a DOC hut on the Tongariro Crossing and it was basic but did the job. The Ultimate Hikes hut on the other hand was the walkers equivalent of 5* luxury! They have hot showers (not that i used them), carpets in the lounge area and leather sofas! for the 3 day walk they also make all the walkers a 3 course dinner and they can even buy some wine to have with their dinner - very civilised. THe DOC hut and walking unguided is clearly cheaper but you need to carry all your own food and accommodation is basic - no showers or if there are they are cold, electricity and gas in some huts in summer (nothing in winter), long-drop toilets, bench tables and plastic matresses to sleep on that double as sofas. It's all you need for camping in reality but I prefer the idea of hot showers and heated accommodation.

We arrice at the hut drenched but at least we both had a full change of clothes. We had lunch at the UH hut and then walked back down the same part of the track to the car. It was amazing as the weather had brightened up and the light had changed so everything looked different on the way back. We looked at more plants etc and I even sampled some water from a waterfall stream, smelled celery pine (looks like celery leaf but smells like pine!), pepper plant - you guessed it, tastes like pepper and a few other things including a tree which smells awful - fondly referred to as "the smelly tree".

On the drive back to Queenstown the rain had cleared and there were spectacular views up the lake to Glen Orchy.

Neil had a good day biking but hadn't been able to go Heli-biking as planned and his first back-up plan was also cancelled due to weather. He managed to get out in the afternoon for a few hours with a group and seemed to enjoy that.

We ate dinner at a place called Finz on the quayside and then went to the -5 Icebar for cocktails - parka jackets ahoy!

Tomorrow we are hoping to do the SHotover high-speed jet boating through the canyons but it has been cancelled for the past 2 days due to high water levels.