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!