The South Island

Since our last post we have been traveling the beautiful South Island, we have been having lots of fun Tramping (Kiwi lingo for hiking!), nature watching, and enjoying the landscape. New Zealand doesn't have a lot of mammals, at least not many that are indigenous. But the sea more than makes up for this and on more than one occasion now we have been able to watch dolphins, seals, sea lions and penguins from coastal overlooks and bays. Its great to be able to look down and see the wildlife enjoying the aqua-marine oceans below.

The mountains here are just beautiful, we were lucky enough to see the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers in all their splendor but our budget didn't allow us to do a heli-hike (helicopter ride onto the glacier then hike across it!) but we hope to be able to come back someday and do this. Milford Sound was a huge highlight for us, we paid out for a boat cruise and were again lucky with the weather, it had been raining the previous day which meant the waterfalls were in full flow, but the sun had returned and the mountains rising out of the fjord looked immense. Dolphins came and jumped out of the water next to the boat and seals were sunbathing on a rock we sailed past.

A couple of days ago we did a wonderful 2 day Tramp in the Catlins region on the South East coast, it took us along beaches, cliffs with fantastic panoramas, through native brush, over cow and sheep covered fields, past ghost forests and to our first nights lodging - a converted 1920's trolley bus, complete with kitchen and 6 beds! The views were incredible and the weather had been good to us the first day, our legs didn't even hurt too much. The second day however was not so good to us, the rain came overnight and within 10 minutes of walking through a field our trainers were soaked through, oh well only another 3 hours to go! We still made the best of it and kept on smiling and appreciating the nature surrounding us. The sense of adventure and achievement was definitely alive when we got back to the van and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone!

We're on our way to Christchurch now and will be hoping to sell the van for a good price, it shouldn't be a problem as it is the middle of high season here (although it so cold at the moment you wouldn't know it!) so there should be plenty of travellers about looking for bargain temporary home!

I'd also like to say a MASSIVE hello to my cricketing buddy Paul Harris who was kind enough to give us a tour of Auckland including lots of the great bars and my old friend Dave House who we met up with at Nelson Lakes and we hijacked the first day of his 2 day tramp. Great to see both you guys and I hope you are still both having a great time.

We didn't get to skydive last week...

So first the bad news (well not really that bad):

After our last update we were just waiting for the all clear to head to the airport in Lake Taupo and do our skydive, the only problem was when we called they told us it was too cloudy. Not wanting to waste a day hanging around (as it didn't look like it was going to clear) we decided to move on, so no skydiving :(

A couple of days later we were in the art deco town of Napier, so we consoled ourselves with a fun bicycle wine tour and sampled not only some of New Zealand's finest wines, but also some fantastic cider. We slept pretty well that night!

Our travels took us down through the capital Wellington, where we spent 3 days checking out the sights before catching the ferry to the South island. This morning we found ourselves approaching Abel Tasman National Park, the sun was shining, and there is a local skydive operation. So we called them and booked in for 1.00. Having arrived and had a little chat and decided what we wanted to do we were just about to suit up when we were told the wind had picked up and we would have to wait until 3.00 to see if it dies down again. AAAAGGH! Are we ever going to get to jump out of a plane??!

So we hung around town and called back just before 3.00, they told us to come back, when we arrived we were straight into our our jump suits and before we knew it in the tiny little plane and climbing! I was feeling really excited and Fran didn't look at all nervous! We got an awesome view over Abel Tasman's coastline and the day was just perfect for it. So strapped on to our instructor I was the first to go, man what a feeling! Plummeting towards the earth at over 200km/h from 13,000 feet, the wind just taking away your breath and the world spiralling towards you. 50 seconds later and the parachute is open (which is a good feeling!) and you drift back to earth taking in the awesome view, it feels like you are a bird. Fran and I both had huge grins on our face afterwards (we still do now!), she says she thought it was a fantastic thing to experience together, and her heart missed a beat when she saw me tumbling out of the plane, she felt more nervous seeing that than when she had to jump! Overall a fantastic day that we will never forget, I would recommend to anyone to shell out some of your hard earned cash to throw yourselves from a plane!