Todd and Lisa's RTW trip

A little birdy told us that they had a hard time reading the blog… because they were tired of hearing about all the great things we are doing and becoming very jealous. We would like to tell you all… we are ending the trip with a BANG and we forshadow these next few posts will really make you vomit with envy!!

Last post we ended with we were relaxing in Wanaka soaking up what turned out to be the last of the summer/autumn good weather, it has now turned to autunm/winter (like November at home). We had a wonderfully mapped out plan about our last few weeks itinerary, but we guess we should know by now… it never goes as planned. We had a beautifull drive from Wanaka to Fjiordland, on the south west of the island. We passed through huge mountian ranges, valleys, lakes, sheep, cows, more sheep until we got to our campsite way out near an area called milford sound. This whole area down here is where they filmed ‘The lord of the rings’. The scenery almost looks fake its so incredible. On our way down to milford we booked a morning boat trip through the sound. It is supposed to be a highlight of NZ. Ironilcally milford sound is also the wettest place on the south island. As soon as we finished cooking dinner (mussels of course) it started to drizzle… the drizzle gradually turned to rain…and then pissin’ down rain!! We woke up and couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. We drove the rest of the way to the sound to where the boat leaves. The rain was a real bummer, but it made the drive way more dramatic. We were surrounded by huge cliffs with multiple gushing waterfalls all around. When we got to the dock, we found that the boat was still going out but we decided that we didn’t want to freeze our bums off. Fortunately, we were able to get a refund. The lady at the desk was kind of a bitch and we reminised back to Vietnam.

The drive back out of the sound was equallly spectacular, and now we had a much longer time to enjoy it. We gradually made our way all the way to the bottom of the island to Invercargell. Invercargell was dubbed the ‘Arsehole of New Zealand’ by Mick jagger… and to his defense it wasn’t all that much. Our reason for heading to the arsehole was to go to the Bluff Oyster Festival.

Bluff oysters are said to be the best in the world. They are very different than the oysters we are used to. They are much meatier….. mmmmm delicious. The festival was pretty good, but perhaps we anticipated to much. It was inside a warehouse because the weather down there is very unpredictable. We had imagined a big outside, hang on the grass, kinda party…. oh well. The highlight was the OYSTER EATING CONTEST. The way they do it is pick people from the audience, calll them on stage and whoever can eat 12 oysters with a toothpick, then whistle wins. We had been planning and planning on getting Todd up there…. real groupies around the stage. So the way the MC was doing it was trying to get different types of people up there. In the round that Todd got into he was picking different types of men like a computer guy, a construction worker etc. Of course todd was trying to get any profession and then lie. The one he got chosen for was ‘the intellectual’. The MC atually looked at our Toddy and said he looked intellectual. It must be all those books he’s been reading!! Unforunately, the reigning champion of 10 years was also in his group. Todd came in second place…. not bad for an amatuer (an amatuer intellectual).

We left bluff and headed up the Caitlan coast. We actually didn’t make it more than 2 hour out of invercargill because we found a spectacular campsite. It was on a peninsula. We woke up with dolphins on our left and penguins on our right. It was awesome. The penguins were so cute waddling around like little children.

we left after breakfast and headed further up the coast to an area that has sea lions. We hiked out to a spot on the beach that was full of these huge sea lions. When we first got there they were all sleeping, but then they started to have lovers quarells. The males were jumping at eat other growling, not fighting, just protecting their bitches. We learned later that sea lions have harums.

We went a little further up to the city of dunedin. Cousin Ivan (from Aussie) is from there and his parents are still there. As we arrived at their house it started to rain…. it continued to rain the entire next day. The following day we attempted to leave Dunedin, but only made it an hour before we had to turn around due to flooded roads. At least we had a nice family home to hang out in as we waited for the rain to pass. The day after we were able to get out of town and head to where we are now, Queenstown. The drive here was really sad though. All of the farms were totally flooded. So many farmers lost their animals. We were also so sad for the sheep that were hanging around because they were saoking wet. Wet wool is no fun to wear!!

We are now in Queenstown soaking in our last few days in NZ. This is the area of all the extreme sports, but we are choosing to just hike and save our $$$ for the tropical islands we move onto next!!!

THIS IS WHAT DRIVING IN NEW ZEALAND IS LIKE……

Milford sound…

The intellectual hard at work…

Our cute seal and sea lion friends

Here we are in Queenstown….

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 12:50 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.