The South and Windy Wellington

My first stop down south was Queenstown as I was keen to visit Milford sound (the Eighth wonder of the world) andget myself a much feted 'Furgburger'!) plus also what with the recent situation in Christchurch I felt it was rather prudent to stay away from the East coast, so had decided upon a journey up the West. Day one was mainly occupied with having an explore of Queenstown, getting to know my roommate (German, obviously) who was a nice girl called Sophie and partaking in a Fergburger of my very own. For those of you not in the know Queenstown has a burger bar called 'Fergburger' which is fairly famous worldwide on the backpacker trail (I first heard about it in Argentina for example). It apparently does the best burgers in the world; I actually think this may be correct, frankly it was the most amazing burger I've ever had. There are photos of this joyous even but unfortunately on my other memory card.
The day after and I was off for my daytrip to Milford Sound, which is actually a fjord carved by a retreating glacier many moons ago, and one of the most beautiful places in the world. I had a brilliant day, making friends with a young American lad called Ryan on the bus journey down we were much bemused that the remainder of our tour assumed us to be a couple insisting on taking photos of the two of us together. Not sure what I'm going to do with those...
The national park itself was amazing, and even included an opportunity to see the New Zealand fur seals, which were super cute sleepy little rock dwelling critters! It was also interesting to learn about some Kiwi history and facts from my bus driver, I find New Zealand fascinating. Learning about what happened to their eco systems and wild bird life with the introduction of foreign predators was a particular highlight. They also farm Venison over there, so the fields are full of deer like they would be cows or sheep, which was bizarre.
The next day I decided to transfer to a little township called Franz Joseph, which is only two streets big, but is adjacent to one of only three climbable glaciers in the World, and, you guessed it, I was pretty keen to go glacier climbing! So the day after was spent hiking on ice, climbing through caves and playing with crampons. The MASSIVE highlight of the day was finding a wormhole (a tunnel through the ice) which the guide encouraged us to wriggle through, as one of only three prepared to risk a quick slide through the heart of the ice river I would highly recommend the experience. Although I wouldn't recommend doing it in shorts like I did, as my knees now closely resemble the inside of a blueberry pie. That night I decided to chill out with a visit to the local hot springs to ease my hiking related aches, followed by a quick 3 and a half hours watching LOTR- Return of the King... perfect material when in New Zealand and you're seeing a filming location everyday (my bus drivers always pointed them out, and I was always delighted... although do now have a lot of pictures of empty fields...).
After Franz Josef I was headed to Nelson, which for NZ is a fairly lengthy bus trip. The woman at the hostel did encourage me to break it up with a night at Greymouth, however I don't find 7 hours on a bus particularly daunting and had been warned Greymouth was little more than an industrial town. I was glad of my decision when we stopped there for lunch! NZ is strange in that 1/4 of the population lives in Auckland, and the remainder of the country seems uninhabited by comparison. Queenstown for example was like an English village with Starbucks.
Nelson was similarly small when I arrived. I wnet out for dinner that night with a friend called Paul I had met on the bus. An oddly intense young man who insisted on buying me dinner (minimal complaining) and then tried to talk me into doing a wine tour the next day. I was very torn as the idea of spending the day being driven between wineries sampling their wears certainly seemed inviting, but in the end I plumped for my original plan of spending the floowowing day hiking Able Tasman National Park. It turned out to be an excellent choice as I met the prerequisite German straight away (Saskia this time) and wer had a fabulous day hiking through the beautiful park. With my usual underestimation of my abilities I had assumed i could do the 12k hike set out on my programme in well under the 7 hours laid out by the park guidelines. I was right, but in retrospect adding another 10k hike on top of that to be completed in the same amount of time was probably overkill, and 22k later Saskia and I were ready to drop. The painful muscles and numerous Mozzie bites were worth it though to see the gorgeous park (apparently the beaches there constantly rank among the most beautiful in the world- and you can see why) . I'm definately planning a return trip to go back and see what I missed!
Still speeding along the next day saw me getting the ferry back to the north island and into Wellington for a day. The Cook Straight crossing had to be a highlight of the trip too, traveling along the beautiful sound out of Picton. Plus also have I mentioned I love Ships?
I also adored Wellington, although well deserving of its nickname 'windy Wellington', the city was beautiful. Clean, well developed, and very very friendly. I met back up with intense Paul to spend my final NZ morning with a trip to Weta, the production company behind Gollum, which didn't disappoint. Only realizing once-there that I had met the CEO waaay back in 2003 that day I stood outside the LOTR premier in London!
I also managed to smoosh in a trip to the Botanical Gardens, a ride on a cable car and a trip to the amazing te papa Museum, which frankly was fascinating. Need less to say Wellington has made the 'places I'm heading back to' list too!
That night it was back to Auckland for a final pizza and movie night with Lance, con my illuminating balloons for celebratory purposes (thanks you Walo!), then onto Sydney this morning. 3 cities in 24 hours! Phew!

Black Sand, Hobbits, Zorbing and almost Mount Dooooooom.

My flights were into Auckland in the North of New Zealand, the largest city in the country playing host to a whopping 1/4 of the entire poplulation.... luckily including my friend Lance (who I met whilst doing the Inca Trail) who had very kindly agreed to put me up!! My first evening in New Zealand I was invited to join Lance's family for dinner, which was very enjoable as not only are thay lovely people, but its always nice to meet the locals, even if they are almost identical to English people!

Sin any kind of plan before arrival my first full day was mainly occupied with sorting out what I actually wanted to see and do in NZ. I decided to split my two weeks equally between the North and South Islands to enable me to see as much as possible. Luckily Lance had already done a lot of planning for our North Island activities so there wasn't much to do but book some plane tickets! The one thing I had SET MY HEART on doing in the North was a visit to Hobbiton, which I set up for the Friday of that week. I also managed to have a good explore of Auckland city centre, which was much like any other large city. Did have some lovely parks though. I'm becoming quite a massive fan of parks!

The next day Lance had the morning off work so we were away visiting some of the gorgeous black sand beaches along the coast of the north island. It was a tiny bit cold to swim (the climate here is much close to that of England than Oz is) , but we had plently of fun mucking about taking photos on the beach. We also visited the mount(ain) overlooking Auckland so I could see the good views of the city. the summit was complatetly inundated with Korean tourists, which also led to some entertaining 'spot the odd one out' phots.

The next day was the day of HOBBITON! So, for those of you not in the know, the set of Lord of the Rings is split over the South and North Islands of New Zealand. Hobbiton (the home of the Hobbits) is in a place called Matamata about a 2 hour drive South of Auck. For this purpose Lance had kindly lent me his car. Originally they had planned to demolish the sets at the end of the filming of the trilogy back in 2002, however someone figured tours would be a better plan, and then the location got picked up again for the filming of the Hobbit- which is currently underway. To cut a long story slighly less long, Hobbiton is actually an active film location at the moment, with fruit growing on the trees, flowers blooming and all the 40 Hobbit holes fully constructed as filming was due to start 2 weeks ago, but got pushed back (yay!!! So glad!). Its basically AMAZING to be there and I would LOVE to write all about what I saw and post all BILLION of the photos I took but I had to sign a privacy agreement stating I wouldn't show anyone the photos or discuss what I was told or saw till after the release of the final film in 4 years time. Check back then chaps for the hot scoop!

In yet another jammy turn of luck one of Lances friends had scooped free VIP tickets to Auckland races for the next day, and I was invited (by proxy, but who cares!)! we were to be seated in the Mercedes Fashion Tent (room, as it turned out to be raining), so got a catwalk show to go with our gambling. Despite having to borrow my whole outfit off Lances sisters we had an absolutely wonderful day, with free champagne, HEAPS of gorgeous food (yes, I did have two puddings... well two plates of pudding, multiple pudding on each plate. Backpacker heaven) and I even won $15 having a lady like flutter on a race or two! Higlight of the day would have to be listening to the stadium of Kiwis sing thier national anthem. Well that and being branded the 'soul stealer' by Lance's friends for having red hair (apparently Ginger people steal souls, who knew). We then decided to follow up a spectacular day with a night out in Auckland, where I got to wow everyone with my ability to drink very very fast.

In a sensible planning move we decided to get up super early the next day to go to Roturua, a town south of Auck; in order to enjoy the world famous sport of Zorbing, have my first go at Luging, and to see Mount Dooom (and possibly coincidentally some Kiwi scenery). Luckily we were largely sin hangover due to the sobering powers of a 3am kebab and lots of water!

NZ is the home of adventurous and extreme sports, and as the birthplace of Zorbing I was able to count spinning down a hill in an inlatable ball a 'cultural experience' (if you dont know, Zorbing is willingly getting in a large inflatable ball filled with water and having someone shove you down a hill. Sounds idiotic. Massively fun). Next we were off to try Luging (also invented in NZ) which is basically Go Karting, but on a downhill track instead of a circle, allowing gravity to power the cart, and meaning you go very fast, on two wheels and occassionally airborn. Also massively fun.

Next we (read I) had decided the day was incomplete without a visit to Mount Ngauruhoe, better known outside NZ as Mount Doom. Unfortunately after driving the 3 hours to get there it was too cloudy to see properly (so annoying it was funny), you could almost say the venture was doomed. Ha ha. But luckily the spectacular sunset over Lake Taupo was ample compensation. And I actually got to see a lot of the North Island I otherwise would have missed out on! the downside was that we arrived back at half past midnight, and had to be up again at 5am for my flights to the South Island.

But it was all good, I got there in time and was ready to enjoy a week dahn souf!

Sydney take one...

After Brizzy I was off to Sydney for a paltry three days, luckily I'm set to return there so no worries as they say!

I was pretty struck with Sydeny from the start: I had picked a really good hostel full of very welcoming people ('Come join us! We're drunk! Have some wine! Whats your name?'- the kind of welcome I welcome.), and on the journey from the airport I had met two ladies who informed me that the Sydney Art Gallery was currently playing host to the Terracotta Soldiers, which I was excited to go and visit.

The next morning I was off to scope out the area with a big run around the botanical gardens, to see the *scream* Sydeny Opera House! Whenever I see something on my travels thats iconic (Jesus in Rio is an example that's stuck) I get covered in gossebumps, and it was no different with the Opera House. And it didn't dissapiont. Although I've put off a visit inside the iconic building for a later trip. I also stretched my run to encompassed a quick look along the docks and at the Naval base in Sydney which is visible from the dock road, and quite impressive!

The remainder of the day was spent catching up with my friend Zoe who I was working with in Bolivia, whi currently lives in Sydney. Needless to say much Goon was consumed. Dissapointingly we couldn't find a washing line with which to play 'Goon of Fortune' (peg the bag wine to the washing line, spin it, whoever it lands on drinks. You get the idea... This actually IS Australian culture!!), but conisdering the state of my head the next day anyway it was probably for the best!

The next day I had decided to go and see the Warriors and they didn't dissapoint! Absolutely breathtaking. Naturally I now have to add going to China to see them in thier 'natural habitat' to my list of things to do! I'm also adding a further visit to explore the Sydeny Art Gallery to my return activities as it was a gorgeous collection I didn't fully get round! Shockingly that night everyone was very subdued in the hostel and we settled down to watch a film before my early flight to New Zealand the next morining. Yay!!