The End

So after our seven hour drive we managed to find a parking spot just out side of Queenstown. We got up early and went into town, had a look around and ran errands. It turns out Queenstown is awesome, its not too big and not too small with more than enough stuff to keep you busy. It turned out being my favorite city behind Sydney. I just wish i had a few more thousand dollars to spend. Every other store was a company specializing in bungi jumping, river rafting, zorbing, or other activity with a risk of death. We spent most of the day exploring. We got a spot at a holiday park and after dinner we walked downtown and went to a bar called minus 5. It was made entirely of ice; the walls, the chairs, the bar, and even the glasses were made of ice. There were also about a dozen ice sculptures inside. Despite the name it was negative 8 degrees C and we stayed in for 30 minutes. Luckily they lent you a parka, boots and gloves. Afterward we made our way to a wine tasting shop which was really neat because they gave you a credit card that you put in these different wine filled machines and you could choose the amount and type of wine you wanted and it would dispence it for you. NZ is filled with wineries so we had to try some their famous pinot noir. Afterward we caught the tail end of an excellent cover band performance on the wharf. The next day we took the gondola 450 meters above the town to the events center overlooking the lake and city. Its also a jump off point for paragliding and bungee. Unfortunately those both started around 150 bucks. So we decided to do the street luge. There were two different tracks you could ride down on mini street cart luge thingees. It was awesome, we got 5 rides for a good price and they even had a chair lift that took you back up to the top with your ride. On the last run, at the photo finish line, Mandy was just ahead of me (only because i gave her a head start mind you,) and as she was rubbing it in my face with her victory yell and one handed fistpump she lost control and careened offroad onto the rumble strip. Fortunately she regained control of her vehicle before anything more than damage to her ego could take place. Unfortunately it wasn't enough time for me to take the lead. The cameras got a pretty good pic of her heading for disaster and the looks on our faces were pretty hilarious. Remember kids, 10 and 2. After our shenanigans we headed back into town one last time before hitting the road. I mean we had to go back to the famous chocolate shop, Patagonia, all Mandys idea of course.
Fast forwarding to later that nite we slept in a parking lot at Milford Sound, this place was the first thing that made me want to visit NZ so bad. We woke up the next morning and literally walked outside into a cloud of bugs, like you'd see on cartoons. And these were serious bugs, they didn't just poke a little needle into your skin they actually took bites of you and left you itching for a week. We jumped back in the van to apply amounts of deet that were likely near fatal to humans. Milford sound consists of a parking lot, a bar, an info center, and the dock station for the tours. Milford sound itself is the northern most of thirteen Fjords on the east coast. We took a two hour boat tour all the way through the sound which has vertical cliffs rising directly out of the sea and up beyond sight into the clouds. Rainforest clung directly to the rock face and there were waterfalls everywhere, big and small. We pulled right under a few of the big ones and watched the water shoot off the cliffs a few hundred meters above and turn into mistly pelting rain. We spotted some penguins with those huge yellow eyebrows hopping around on the rocks as well as a sea lion colony. It was a great tour and our only regret is that we didnt get to explore more. It was like nothing we had yet done on our trip or in our life. Id say Lord of the Rings meets Water World meets foggy Stephen King Novel scene, but with less bad guys. We took our time leaving stopping every 20 miles for short hikes and sights. There was a 2 mile long mountain tunnels, suspension bridges over rivers, and fields of flowers that shamed The Sound of Music. Over the next few days we went along the South coast scenic hwy. Which was, surprisingly, the worst scenery in the country. Not sure how that works. Over the next few days we made our way along the southern coast and up the west to Christchurch. This is already way too long so ill touch on the highlights. We stopped at the southern most point of the island, went to a petrified forest on the coast, saw the most endangered penguin in the world waddle 5 feet past us(I think Mandy summoned it with her powers of marine biology), went to a beach with 60 million year old round boulders on it (cooler than it sounds), sampled cheese at a factory (a surprising highlight. When we got to Christchurch we definitely experianced a lowpoint when we decided to stay the nite in the airport. Long story short: sleepless, misery, noise, international arrival gate carpet as bed. When the blessed plane finally took us away we stopped in Sydney for two more nites staying at Dans place in Bondi Beach. It was great to end the trip with a few days on the beach and in the sun before back to the Northwest winter. It was great to see the guys one last time and they treated us to a really fun nite in downtown Sydney. We were sad to leave and i was really sad to forget my block of blue cheese in Dans fridge! Buuut we were really happy to come home to family and friends. I hope you enjoyed reading our blog as much as we enjoyed writing it and hopefully we will be starting a new adventure soon (other than work).

The Scenic South Island

So we're on the south island now, actually we flew in last nite and are in Seattle but I'm gonna retain a present tense anyway. Our ferry got in and we started driving. Our plan was to go up to the North tip of the island then down the west coast and around the bottom and up the east to finish two weeks later in Christchurch.
Right when our ferry got in Mandy started feeling sick so we drove a few hours to a nice town on the coast called Nelson. She was pretty much confined to the bed for the next 48 hours and we stayed in Nelson for 2 nites waiting for her to get better. We just took it easy and hung out for a few days, on the third day she was feeling better and we decided to shove off. We decided not to go up to Abel Tasman because the weather was bad and we had lost a day; we did after all have a whole island to drive around. We drove from the west coast to the east coast and stayed in a town called Westport. The next day was our 3 year anniversary so we decided to splurge and stayed the nite in a real parking lot! It was at a hostel in a place called Greymouth. On the drive down from Westport we stopped at a few really cool spots. One was a trail to a seal colony and we watched them playing on the rocks for a while and then we went to pancake rocks. Basically there are layered rocks coming out of the ocean that look like a stacks of pancakes, we didnt get to stay to long because it was pouring out so we jumped back in the car and dreamed of various other forms of giant breakfast foods the rest of the way to Greymouth. We took much needed showers, the water was actually heated by coal, and joined the rest of the guests for the only viable rainy day activity, Brewery Tour. It was 25 dollars for a tour, tasting, dinner and they even opened the bar for 30 min. We had a great time and made lots of friends from England.
The next day we headed farther south and spent the next two nites at Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. We went on a guided tour of Franz Joseph and hiked around on the glacier for 3 hours. This was probably thee highlight of the south island. To quickly recap the tour theres a short walk through rain forest, a medium walk along the river that comes out of a cave in the glacier and runs through a rocky valley floor surrounded on both sides by near vertical cliffs absolutely littered with waterfalls. This brought us to the base of the glacier where we strapped on our crampons (huge spikes for your boots) and went to play on the very large ice cube. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day, the sun was shining and we were hiking around in shorts and t's. There were little streams coming off the glacier and we even crawled through a few ice tunnels. To add to the already unreal environment giant green alpine parrots kept landing on the ice around us to investigate. That nite we camped at the parking lot to the other ice cube, Fox Glacier. We cooked dinner while enjoying quite a view, two parrots even supervised our cooking and took food right out of our hands when they weren't trying to steal our whole meal.
The next day we hiked around Lake Matheson, the most photographed lake in NZ. It is set in the foreground of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman and if the water is calm enough the mountains are perfectly reflected in the water. Then we went to Gillepsies beach for a few hours. It had a black sand beach, was covered in flat round stones, and even had a pair of sheep wandering around on it (those things are seriously everywhere). At around 3 we put 100 dollars in our gas tank and made the 7 hour drive to Queenstown, my favorite city! The drive was through the Otago region, and even though i know ive said it a hundred times, it was the most scenic drive yet.

More North Island Adventures

Hello from Queenstown, the adrenaline capital of the world. Were here at the bottom of the south island and this town is radical dude. Every other building is sky dive this, or bungee jump that with a half twist. But before i can tell you about our adventures here i got about a week of activities to catch u up on so ill hit the hi-lights.
After we left the north island coast we headed to central NZ. First stop was a place called Rotorua. This place had tons of the adrenaline sport as well(its everywhere here) but as usual we were a little broke to do that so instead we went a "thermal wonderland." Aside from action this town is dead center of a volcanic park, kinda like a mini yellowstone. We watched some geysers and did a walk around the park. The best part was the pools. The water, rock, and sand were different colors, bright colors. Orange, Green, Red there where lots of ponds and streams. There is something very wierd about seeing a naturally occuring bright green pond. It was the color water you'd expect the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to live in, or maybe the toxic avenger. Unforunatly the pics we took dont do the colors justice.

From here we headed east to Wiatomo. A miniscule little town. The only reason to go there was for the underground rivers and glow worm caves. We stayed two nites at a little camperground park. It was basically geriatric park because there were old people everywhere and we had lots of fun making friends and visiting with them, espesially Barbara who came by 3 times the day we left, each time bearing gifts. We scored all sorts of stuff: Sugar pots, tea cups, tp, a tin of biscuits (we talked alot about tea and coffee). Anyway we went on our adventure tour which boasted 5 adventures in one, and it was definatly that. After getting briefed we repelled 90 feet down through a hole in the ground in some remote sheep field, this part was really fun. Then we explored the tubular cave with underground river via intertubes and our own foot power. All along the way stopping to squeeze through cracks and holes, a clastrophobics nightmare. The highlight was the gloworms(which can only be seen here and in australia) clinging to the cieling by the thousand. When you turned your headlamp off it looked like a 3 dimensional nite sky, except much brighter. There were only six of us down there and the cave formations were great!If Mandy was writing this blog shed probablly say how i sat in my intertube wrong and almost flipped over for like 30 seconds. Her and everyone else thought it was hilarious and laughed the whole time with no nevermind to my feelings; its a good thing it was dark, so no one could see my tears of shame. This adventure was a definatly a highlight of the trip.

Moving on. Next stop was at the bottom of Lake Tauranga, the biggest lake on the island. Tuarngi, the little town we stopped in, is the trout fishing capital of the world. We must have come on an off day or something because we were board out of our minds. The reason for coming here was to do the Tongariri Crossing, the most popular day hike in NZ. So the next day we set off early on the 20 km hike. Notable hike moments: Hiking over Mt. Doom ( From the movie lord of the rings for those who dont know), almost getting blown off the top of the track by what felt like hurricane winds, seeing the bright blue lakes oddly out of place in the volcanic landscape,and going from rocky plains to mountains to lakes to grassy fields to hotsprings and through rainforest all in one hike. It was a good hike and we were glad we did it.Unfortunatly we dont have time to do the real world renowned 5 day longs hikes in NZ.

The next 2 nites we spent in Wellington, which sits on the southern coast of the north island. We both really like this city, after we found parking... The highlight here was a the Te papa museum. And instead of telling you all the details ill just skep to the end and say its the best museum in the world. Or at least the best we've ever been in. Other than that we did a little shopping, found a market, got lost, and some other stuff i cant remember. At the end of our stay we hopped a very expensive, fairly scenic fairy to the south island! I wish i could include all the details but there just arent enought hours in the day or enough wi-fi hotspots in the country. We have to get on the road again in our campervan which seems to be loosing its ability to stay clean. Talk to you soon!