New Zealand

Right, time for you land lubbers to be updated on our quest for world domination.
Hanmer springs was the last entry so ill try and speed you all through what we have done in the last few days.
We departed Hamnner on the 27th and drove through the rain to a place called Nelson in the North of the South Island. The drive took us about four hours and when we got to our destination, the sun came out and it all looked rather nice again! We found a campsite quite close to the town centre and after taking some advice, we set off to look for somewhere to celebrate my oldness!after muc umming and arring we settled on a thai restaurant called the Golden Orchid (or something golden.. maybe Bell!) anyway, i wont bore you with what we ate but it was nice, the place was a little busy so the service wasnt great but hey, we are on holiday! Back to the campsite and Pol had bought me a choccy cake so we scoffed most of that and went to bed full and content! We have since turned our back on Chocolate and havent eaten any in nearly a week! (wow i hear you all say!) Saturday took us East to a small town called Blenheim, Small being the operative word as when we got there around three pm.. all the shops were closed (And this was on a saturday!) this led us to think we wanted to leave the primitive south island and head to the sun and intelligence of the North! We therefore called our van hire company who booked us on the South to North Ferry leaving at ten.. BONUS no 1: When we took the van, we were told that EZY would pay for the Ferry for the van only and it would cost us $60 each... when i arrived at the Ferry terminal, the man told me that our fees had been paid by EZY too! What a bonus.. kerching.
Pol slept on the Ferry while i entertained myself with Dead Men Dont Wear Plaid (Steve Martin film from the 1980's - Matt S) and by the various random comments coming from a very tall cross dresser sat in the corner of the lounge!
our first views of Wellington were pretty much the same as our first views of everywhere in New Zealand, through rain lashed windows.. however, when we went out to explore the city the next day, it was rather nice (albeit, rather wet) We met our Swedish friends in the Te Papa musuem and spent an enjoyable three hours wandering around the various exhibits and pressing buttons etc... highly recommend it if anyone decides to go there. Mooched around the shops all afternoon and went to bed early.. (very exciting i know!)
We then decided to drive up to the Tongariro National park and do some walking for a couple of days to save some money. It was spectacular! the Volcano was snow capped and as the ski season had just ended, all the mountains still had a touch of the white stuff... needless to say we went for a walk in it..(how bizarre!)
Walked to the emerald lakes yesterday (about 13km) and lazed around after as felt a tad tender... We are now in a place called Taupo waiting for our washing (which cost $6 each load and the machines dont even have a hot wash....grrrrrrrrr)
Thats all for now peeeps...

Pollyali

xx

Been a few days so we shall tell all about our journey to the wilderness that is Milford Sound.
The cruise was absolutely spectacular and something that we would highly recommend to anyone. We departed the port around half four and ventured out onto the water where we were greeted by some of the most amazing scenery i have ever seen. The mountains rose out of the water itself and peaked in the clouds far above our heads. As there had been substantial rain fall in the previous couple of days, the waterfalls that we had been told about were all too visible and made the scenery even more wonderful. We steamed out to the Tasman sea and dropped anchor in Anita's bay where we jumped into Kayaks and splashed around for an hour while a guide pointed out some of the interesting areas in the bay. After numerous sandfly bites we jumped back on the Wanderer and were treated to a roast pork dinner and some fine wine!

The evening was spent playing Monopoly and after a a cosy nights sleep we were awoken to the smell of fried bacon! As we munched our breakfast the Captain announced that he had seen some dolphins playing by the front of the boat and i have never seen people move so fast in my life. All of a sudden, all 33 people were crammed in the front of the ship gawping at a pod of 6 dolphins which including an ickle baby one! queue more äwws and wows!Unfortuatley our camera takes 3 seconds to take a picture so we didn't manage to snap the happy moment.

A couple of minutes after seeing the dolphins we saw another set of creatures, in total 11 yellow eyed pengiuns were coming out amongst the rocks and into the sea. The yellow eyed penguins are the second rarest penguins in the world with only 2000 pairs alive in the wild, so we were really lucky to see so many of them!
The trip ended with the usual practice of any tourist operation, the veiwing of the photos you had taken as you were boarding the boat. We did not purchase the set at $35 as it had been a couple of days since we had hda a shower so we were some what greasy in the pictures, not something you parents would have been proud to have mounted on your walls!

It's big Al's birthday today so we are going to indulge in some hot springs and a game of a-maze-n-golf.

xxx

Hello, you're very lucky people as you get two blogs written by the Polly side of pollyali in a row. This would be because Ali is outside Pollocking a rubbish hostel in Oz for now telling us that they are fully booked over New Year when just two weeks ago, when we originally booked they had space for us!
Well we haven't done much since I last wrote but just to update you on certainly the most visually spectacular part of our journey. We left Dunedin and headed for another free campsite just slightly south of Te Anau, needless to say the campsite was 30km from the main road, next to a lake filled with mozzies and noone around for miles, the whimps that we both are decided after eating our soup and cheesy pasta that we felt a little uncomfortable spending the night on our lonesome there. So we pressed onto the lovely town and the starting base for the Milford Sounds of Te Anau. We treated ourselves to a motor park and a glass of wine in the local bar 'The Moose'. Now the Moose was a lively bar with a crap band playing covers and with it being bank holiday was full of youths getting way to p****d, not wanting to sound our 25 years of course!
We set off this morniong equipped with snow chains, a bargin at $25, and headed up into the wilderness, (in the rain). So here we are sat in the only cafe bar, who I might add are making a pretty penny out of the tourists (mainly Japanese), all who are carrying umbrellas on the smallest of paths, those who know me will know that this is a pet hate of mine, especially when they are all fully cladded in kagools! We have booked an over night cruise on the Wanderer 50 pounds each and that includes dindins, glass of wine or another beverage that takes your fancy and a proper bed! If you are going to book a cruise may I recommend that you drive up to the Milford Sounds and book it here rather than in Queenstown or Te Anau as it's twice as cheap.

So far the veiw s are unimaginabl;e and I wish I had saved up a little more and bought a rather expensive camera as ours does not do it justice.
Mum's been telling me to hurry up and put some piccies on the website, I apologise it's not through laziness but the fact that each photo is taking 15 mins to download and time is money! Promise as soon as we find a decent conecction we will provide proof of our adventures.

ttfn (as Mum would say)
xxx

We departed from Queenstown on Thursday as it was sucking every penny out of us with all it's tempting adventure activities. The weather has got a lot better (about 20 degrees yesterday) however if you are travelling down to the Milford Sounds you still need to carry snow chains with you, if you get caught without it's a $750 fine ouch! So we decided to head slightly up north again to visit Mt Cook or Aoraki as it is known in Mouri, which means Cloud Piercer. Aorkai is New Zealands highest mountain standing at over 3000mtrs, and is quite something to look at.
We left the Swedes behind and set off on our lonesome to a small town called Twizel just 50km south of Mt Cook. Twizel was almost like a town out of some horror film, we arrived at 4pm and there was not a soul in sight! Everything was shut(except the Shell garage), however despite the dullness of this town I have to hand it to them for coming up with the ingenious idea of combining wait for it....'Surf and Suds'! Now I hear you crying "whats so good about that?", but if you consider trying to find a internet cafe that actually sells coffee in New Zealand has been virtually impossible, especially in the smaller towns nevermind in Christchurch, so the idea of being able to do you laundry and your emails at the same time in simple out of this world! Anyway we stayed in a campsite called Twizel Tourist Park, which was extreamly good value at $22 a night,and that included power, hot showers and a hairdryer, fabulous!
We got up at our usual time of 9am and headed up to Mt Cook, which was still covered in snow so the views were amazing especially on the drive up to it as it overlooks a massive lake. We choose to do a walk and opted for the easy one which took about 2 hours return as there was a chill in the wind and we wanted to head on for Dunedin the same day which was about 450km away.
On route to Dunedin we stopped off at the Moeraki Boulders. If you haven't heard of these before, they are a weird phenomena. Randomly on the Moeraki Beach these compleatly almost perfectly spherical boulders have been formed. They haven't been washed up but have come out of the ground and the cliffs that line the beach. Some of these boulders are 2m in diameter, and are very strange, well worth a look if you are passing.

We arrived here in Dunedin at 7.30pm last night and checked into anouther holiday park, I think we're going to look for somewhere free tonight, they're not expensive but if you can get one for free it's much better. The free one we were staying on in Queenstown we later found out was a scene from 'Lord of the Rings', no wonder the veiws were so good!
Dunedin is a pretty university town and so far seems very pleasent. We have visited the Cadburys factory this morning,and found out some interesting facts.

1: Dream is only made here in Dunedin and is the only real white chocolate.
2: The reason why there is a difference in taste is because of the milk that is used. In New Zealand Dairy Milk is made from milk from the Otago region. In Britain it's made from British milk, presumably from somewhere around Birmingham and in Oz it's made from mostly powdered milk because they don't produce as much milk.
we are now heading up to the 'Worlds Steepest St' after this.
Well that's about it so far, we will update you soon.

Pollyali xxx

Mum and Dad - I am sending a package home today with Loz's pressie and some other artifacts for you.

Second update in two days for you guys! How lucky is that?!?
Just wanted to let you know about our white water rafting expedition yesterday.
We were driven up a dirt track called Skippers Canyon yesterday afternoon. The road is so precarious that rental vehicles are not allowed up it and the drop is so steep on one side that passing was almost impossible. Anyway, we arrived at the Start of the Shotover river and were assigned to our own rafts with a local guide to steer us. Pol and I were lumped with a bunch of Irish guys who were well funny but couldnt row in time! it got so bad that the guide moved the Polmeister to the front where she bellowed out "1","2" over and over again!
The first part of the course was a nice easy flat with very few rapids and we soon were practising all the moves that we would need to get us through the worse part of the river (a 700 metre long rapid - the name of which i cannot remember) well after a couple of smaller grade 2 rapids (they grade them 1-7 in New Zealand, 1 being a walk in the park, 7 being something that only experienced rafters should try) we approached the grade 5 one! (yep, brown trousers time) As we went down the first of around ten big dips everything went to sh1t. The boat infront of us got into trouble and came a bit too close and the next rapid proved fatal. We had to slow up too much as we would have hit the other boat and of course ali decided he wanted to go for a swim! (at a completely inopportune moment!) Queue much calamity and stress as two big Irish guys tried to pull him in.. well one try to pull him in, the other just waved his paddle in his face and shouted "grab on" and of course, Ali, had one hand on his paddle and the other on the OS line (OS by the way, means Oh Shit!) and was far to concerned about keeping his legs away from the jagged rocks to worry about anyone elses paddle! They got me in by the way and we managed to traverse the rest of the rapids without further mishap. The course ended with a nice fast trip through a 140 metre long tunnel which had been built in the 1870 by a family looking to drain the river and pann for gold. They built the tunnel 4 metres too high and therefore it only drained part of the year! Enough digression, we emerged at the other end and promptly went down a massive jump! THE END! Great fun and we are both so pleased that we went through with it... feel a tad tender today though!
Off on our way again today after pol does some Horsey riding so we wont be updating for a few days.
Take care all.

Love Pollyali

xx