The Kiwi Experience
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005How much further away from home can I get?
Im now in New Zealand, in fact I have been for over 2 weeks now. I have already done a circuit of South Island and am well on my way to heading up to North Island this week.
I arrived here in Christchurch. Its a lot like England and all the street names are named after English places. The weather matches too, but I guess it is the end of summer/beginning of autumn… I met a guy called Kevin from East Sussex whilst watching TV in my hostel on my first night and we decided after a lot of umming and arring to hire/buy a car/take a bus together around New Zealand. We eventually decided to get a car and thought about buying one when we came across an ad from a guy also staying at our hostel who wanted to get a car, so we contacted him and Andy from Banbury became the third of our team. We settled on hiring a car and off we went. If I had been the woman at the travel desk dealing with us I would have hit us.
We headed straight for the west coast and picked up an American girl on the way who ran away after one day with us – I didnt think we were quite that bad. The scenery was just amazing – mountains, rivers, forests. We ended up at Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. The boys did some glacier walking but Im not keen on snow and ice so I just settled for the helicopter ride and saw Mount Cook, NZ’s highest peak. We did some walks off the beaten track and got bitten to bits by sandflies – absolutely nobody warned us about these little critters, they are worse than mosquitoes and the bites take ages to disappear. Whilst at Franz Josef, dare I say it, I also caught the 2nd Lord of The Rings film. I’ve always said I would never watch them, but I guess Ill just have to now..
You can drive for miles in New Zealand and not see anyone, which is pretty much what we did. But you will see a lot of roadkill. We did drive after dark once and we narrowly missed hitting possums, deer and kea birds.
After the snow and mountains we spent Easter in Wanaka and Queenstown. I met some guys I had stayed with in Australia there which was nice as it took me some time to feel settled in New Zealand. The complete change of weather and apparent hostility of some people we met made me want to get back on the first plane to Oz. I spent a lot of time in icy cold rivers, first to do some white water sledging, which is basically where you body surf on rapids (and swallow a lot of water and get stuck in whirlpools…) and then I did some jet boating and white water rafting. Unluckily I happened to be on the only raft that capsized that day but was rescued by a lovely American couple, and then my raft took a 55 degree dip downriver over some rocks and I ended up smacking my face, god knows where or how, but there was blood everywhere (Mum dont panic, Im OK). I still have my teeth!!!
Kevin met a laaady in Queenstown (and is probably still there with her), so Andy and I decided to go it alone and continue with our trip to Milford Sound. Some say that Milford Sound is the most amazing thing you will see in New Zealand if not ever. Its a fjord surrounded by massive mountains and waterfalls. Andy and I took a cruise and we saw dolphins and seals and we also caught it on a really nice sunny day (Its the 2nd rainiest place in the world apparently). It really was terrific. The drive to Milford from Queenstown is also amazing, going along big blue lakes and massive sheep-filled fields and through mountains.
We continued southwards and ended up going to Stewart Island which is billed as what New Zealand used to look like 30 years ago. Lovely. Andy and I tramped our way across the island, god knows how far we walked but we walked for 6 hours along beaches that could have been in Thailand. The weather wasnt too bad. You are also supposed to see the aurora australis, southern lights, from there but we didnt see anything 🙁 We met an old couple who invited us back to their place for dinner which was really nice of them and we had fish and chips.
Andy is in New Zealand a wee bit longer than me and wanted to explore the south a bit more, so we parted in Dunedin, a university town in the south east and I continued back up to Christchurch. Not much to see on the east coast. However, on my way to this internet cafe, who do I see but the man himself!! Seems there was not a lot to see after all. I have also finally managed to catch up with my uni girlfriend, Becky. Bex has been travelling since December and we were supposed to meet down under but I think we were both on Fraser Island at the same time with no phone reception, so we have made the effort to meet up here in Christchurch, which has been really cool. We went to Akaroa today, which is where you can go watch dolphins, if you want, or just sit in the sun and eat, which is what we did!
Tomorrow Im heading to Kaikoura to swim with dolphins and maybe do some whale watching, and then will take the three and a half hour ferry trip up to North Island and stay in Wellington and plan what to do next…
Hope you are all well!
Farrah xxx
PixieDoux