Sorry for the wait..
Ooops it's been a little while! Internet is way more expensive in New Zealand than on the East Coast of Oz.. We have been doing so much so I apologise if this post goes on a bit.
Our last activity in Australia was doing our Advanced Open Water diving course. To put you out of your suspense - we both passed :) Hooray! We did five speciality dives and six fun dives over three days. Our specialities were Peak Performance Buoyancy (very useful for not scraping yourself on coral like a certain Alice did), Deep Dive (we went to 29m and did a timed task that took longer underwater because being so deep makes you go funny), Navigation Dive (we could have done with this before we went on our first fun dive without a guide), Night Dive (which is basically a fun dive at night - cool!) and Underwater Naturalist where you take some info about the life down with you and try and work out what everything is. It was an amazing three days living on board and getting fed vast amounts of amazing food! Much better than we had been eating before!
A couple of days later we left Australia (sad face). We spent a good six hours entertaining ourselves in Sydney airport while waiting for our connecting flights and finally got to Christchurch at about 10pm. We spent the next day hiring a car, reading travel books and studying maps to work out what we were going to do. Two weeks is NOT enough time in NZ and if you are planning a holiday here, you need at least three weeks per island not two weeks for the both! We have decided to look into getting a working visa and coming back for a while to live (that's how good it is).
In Christchurch, we climbed the tower of the cathedral (quite claustrophobic but great at the top) and visited the art gallery which had some really interesting exhibitions. The best was a guy who had made a replica of his studio and painted it all black except for outlines in paint that shows up under UV light. It was really dark except for the outlines so it made all the 3D objects look like a line drawing.
In Oamaru we spent the evening hanging out with Yellow-eyed penguins and then Little Blue Penguins. The blue penguins come riding in on the waves and then come up a ramp and walk across the road to their nests right in front of you so that was pretty cool to see. In the evening we learnt that over here you have to ask for a 'handle' of beer. It is very confusing getting the right words for how much beer you want.
The next day we drove to Dunedin. We drove out to an Albatross colony at the end of the Otago Peninsula. It was a beautiful drive, half of it up on the hills and half of it right by the waters edge. We saw a lot of Albatrosses flying around above our heads. We alse spotted some baby seals lying on some rocks and a big fat juvenile male seal sunning himself on the beach right next to us!
In Wanaka, we stayed in a beautiful hostel called Wanaka Bakpaka which was more like a cosy homely b&b. In the lounge area there were sofas in front of a huge window with stunning views of Lake Wanaka. We went for a walk to try and find a waterfall which in the end we failed to find but it was a good walk anyway and the lake was pretty so we decided to come back to town and go to the pub.
The next day we moved on again, this time to Fox Glacier Village. Fox Glacier village is a bit smaller and less busy than neighbouring Franz Josef although the glacier is actually bigger. We parked the car and went for a walk along the track to the glacier terminal. After all that walking we decided we needed a handle! Drive, activity, pub! Drive, activity, pub! Sensing a routine here?
Ben should take over here as he went off on a half-day hike up the glacier the next day while I sat and drank lots of Mocha!
Hello everybody, recently I have been mostly eating spaghetti on toast and fesh and cheps! (that's for you Lex) On the 28th I booked onto a half-day hike up onto the glacier which was absolutely fantastic, I loved every minute of it. There was a lot of uphill climbing to get on top of the ice but it was worth every step. We put on our crampons and clambered over the ice for about an hour, crawling through little tunnels and in my case taking hundreds of photos! Once I got back to the village we headed off to Hokitika (there has been so much driving in NZ, we definately need more time). Here we checked into the most amazing hostel we have stayed in so far. It was wonderfully homely, clean, friendly etc... and it was all decorated with pictures painted by the lady that ran it. Then, when we were making our dinner her husband came out with a plate of choclate cake he had just cooked for us to help ourselves to, we had found heaven! We liked it too much it would seem because by the time we got to the swingbridge we wanted to visit that evening, it was pitch black. This scared Alice very much! I quite liked it though. So, to calm her down on the way back to the hostel we went to look at some Glow-worms! Awwwwww!
Yesterday morning we drove on to Hanmer Springs stopping on the way at Maruia for a soak in the thermal springs. They were grey!!! And, like all sulphuric geothermal springs, STANK OF EGG!!! They were lovely and warm though and it was cool sitting outside in warm water while the air temperature was so low. Then we had a quick (naked) dip in the Japanese Bath-houses. We had to split up into girls and boys but it turned out we were the only two there!
And to today! We got up extra early this morning to drive on to Kaikoura where we wanted to do some whale watching. Thankfully there were places left on the boat but it was one of the more expensive trips we have done. My God was it worth it though! It was amazing. We got to see 4 Giant Sperm Whales, Dusky Dolphins, Hectors Dolphins (rarest in the world) and lots of Wandering Albatrosses. Once again I took a million photos and need to back up the memory card very soon! I loved it!
Ben is right, it was amazing! The Dusky Dolphins were showing off and doing tricks and coming right up to the boat. In between sightings, we were shown some presentations about the whales and dolphins. The best fact we learnt was that Sperm Whales are called Sperm Whales because some American whalers (about 150 years agoish) caught one. They chopped it up to get the blubber and discovered a huge reservoir of oil in its head - about 2 tonnes of it. It was sticky and kind of off white and the whalers thought it must have something to do with the whales reproductive system... and so the name stuck even though pretty soon after, everyone realised that it was nothing to do with sperm. Nobody actually knows what it is for though - although it is very useful, NASA even used it as a lubricant in their first Apollo space missions! Shame you have to cave a whale's head in to get it...
I think we should have fish and chips for tea as the guide on the boat told us that the local Grouper is very tasty and fresh!
Our last activity in Australia was doing our Advanced Open Water diving course. To put you out of your suspense - we both passed :) Hooray! We did five speciality dives and six fun dives over three days. Our specialities were Peak Performance Buoyancy (very useful for not scraping yourself on coral like a certain Alice did), Deep Dive (we went to 29m and did a timed task that took longer underwater because being so deep makes you go funny), Navigation Dive (we could have done with this before we went on our first fun dive without a guide), Night Dive (which is basically a fun dive at night - cool!) and Underwater Naturalist where you take some info about the life down with you and try and work out what everything is. It was an amazing three days living on board and getting fed vast amounts of amazing food! Much better than we had been eating before!
A couple of days later we left Australia (sad face). We spent a good six hours entertaining ourselves in Sydney airport while waiting for our connecting flights and finally got to Christchurch at about 10pm. We spent the next day hiring a car, reading travel books and studying maps to work out what we were going to do. Two weeks is NOT enough time in NZ and if you are planning a holiday here, you need at least three weeks per island not two weeks for the both! We have decided to look into getting a working visa and coming back for a while to live (that's how good it is).
In Christchurch, we climbed the tower of the cathedral (quite claustrophobic but great at the top) and visited the art gallery which had some really interesting exhibitions. The best was a guy who had made a replica of his studio and painted it all black except for outlines in paint that shows up under UV light. It was really dark except for the outlines so it made all the 3D objects look like a line drawing.
In Oamaru we spent the evening hanging out with Yellow-eyed penguins and then Little Blue Penguins. The blue penguins come riding in on the waves and then come up a ramp and walk across the road to their nests right in front of you so that was pretty cool to see. In the evening we learnt that over here you have to ask for a 'handle' of beer. It is very confusing getting the right words for how much beer you want.
The next day we drove to Dunedin. We drove out to an Albatross colony at the end of the Otago Peninsula. It was a beautiful drive, half of it up on the hills and half of it right by the waters edge. We saw a lot of Albatrosses flying around above our heads. We alse spotted some baby seals lying on some rocks and a big fat juvenile male seal sunning himself on the beach right next to us!
In Wanaka, we stayed in a beautiful hostel called Wanaka Bakpaka which was more like a cosy homely b&b. In the lounge area there were sofas in front of a huge window with stunning views of Lake Wanaka. We went for a walk to try and find a waterfall which in the end we failed to find but it was a good walk anyway and the lake was pretty so we decided to come back to town and go to the pub.
The next day we moved on again, this time to Fox Glacier Village. Fox Glacier village is a bit smaller and less busy than neighbouring Franz Josef although the glacier is actually bigger. We parked the car and went for a walk along the track to the glacier terminal. After all that walking we decided we needed a handle! Drive, activity, pub! Drive, activity, pub! Sensing a routine here?
Ben should take over here as he went off on a half-day hike up the glacier the next day while I sat and drank lots of Mocha!
Hello everybody, recently I have been mostly eating spaghetti on toast and fesh and cheps! (that's for you Lex) On the 28th I booked onto a half-day hike up onto the glacier which was absolutely fantastic, I loved every minute of it. There was a lot of uphill climbing to get on top of the ice but it was worth every step. We put on our crampons and clambered over the ice for about an hour, crawling through little tunnels and in my case taking hundreds of photos! Once I got back to the village we headed off to Hokitika (there has been so much driving in NZ, we definately need more time). Here we checked into the most amazing hostel we have stayed in so far. It was wonderfully homely, clean, friendly etc... and it was all decorated with pictures painted by the lady that ran it. Then, when we were making our dinner her husband came out with a plate of choclate cake he had just cooked for us to help ourselves to, we had found heaven! We liked it too much it would seem because by the time we got to the swingbridge we wanted to visit that evening, it was pitch black. This scared Alice very much! I quite liked it though. So, to calm her down on the way back to the hostel we went to look at some Glow-worms! Awwwwww!
Yesterday morning we drove on to Hanmer Springs stopping on the way at Maruia for a soak in the thermal springs. They were grey!!! And, like all sulphuric geothermal springs, STANK OF EGG!!! They were lovely and warm though and it was cool sitting outside in warm water while the air temperature was so low. Then we had a quick (naked) dip in the Japanese Bath-houses. We had to split up into girls and boys but it turned out we were the only two there!
And to today! We got up extra early this morning to drive on to Kaikoura where we wanted to do some whale watching. Thankfully there were places left on the boat but it was one of the more expensive trips we have done. My God was it worth it though! It was amazing. We got to see 4 Giant Sperm Whales, Dusky Dolphins, Hectors Dolphins (rarest in the world) and lots of Wandering Albatrosses. Once again I took a million photos and need to back up the memory card very soon! I loved it!
Ben is right, it was amazing! The Dusky Dolphins were showing off and doing tricks and coming right up to the boat. In between sightings, we were shown some presentations about the whales and dolphins. The best fact we learnt was that Sperm Whales are called Sperm Whales because some American whalers (about 150 years agoish) caught one. They chopped it up to get the blubber and discovered a huge reservoir of oil in its head - about 2 tonnes of it. It was sticky and kind of off white and the whalers thought it must have something to do with the whales reproductive system... and so the name stuck even though pretty soon after, everyone realised that it was nothing to do with sperm. Nobody actually knows what it is for though - although it is very useful, NASA even used it as a lubricant in their first Apollo space missions! Shame you have to cave a whale's head in to get it...
I think we should have fish and chips for tea as the guide on the boat told us that the local Grouper is very tasty and fresh!
posted by alicestronaut at 3:31 am
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