Update from Queenstown

Everything you’ve heard about New Zealand is true, especially about the pristine scenery. Since the last update we spent about 3 weeks in the North Island and 1 week in the South Island. The North Island was gorgeous, and the main highlights were a few snow-capped volcanic mountains, some stunning volcanic activity (geysers, bubbling mud pools and the like) and the Waitomo Caves. At the latter, we did underwater caving through caves full of glow-worms, a really memorable experience.

But even after only being in the South Island for a few days we can see why people rave about it. This is where the vast majority of the Lord of the Rings was filmed, and the scenery is just breath-taking. Soaring valleys rise up to snow-capped mountains, reflected in perfectly still lakes, surrounded by pristine forests - its all very idyllic. But the main purpose of this particular week is EXTREME sports!!

It’s a long list, so skip this paragraph if you’re not interested. Yesterday we did a Heli-hike on Franz Josef glacier, today a sky-dive over Lake Wanaka, tomorrow a ride in the Shotover Jet, the next day we’ll be jumping from New Zealand’s highest static bungy jump (134 metres high!), and finally three days learning how to ski at Cardrona Alpine Resort. It promises to be a pretty exhausting week. The sky-dive alone left me absolutely shattered, the adrenelin was pumping so hard during the 45 second free-fall all I could do was go AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Comfortably the biggest rush of my life so far, we’ll just have to see whether it gets trumped by the bungy jump…!!

Sorry I haven’t uploaded any photos to the web site, it really isn’t that easy to do from the road. I’ve decided not to upload any more huge photos as they’re difficult for most people to access. Hopefully when it next rains here I’ll have the time to upload some of the best shots (it’s bound to rain sometime!!!).

Talking of weather, we’ve been really lucky so far. Pretty much everything worth doing here is outdoors, and some things simply can’t go ahead if there’s too much cloud (never mind rain), like the heli-hike and sky-dive. We waited three days for the clouds to clear over Franz Josef glacier and they finally parted on the day we were leaving. Like I said, lucky as can be.

Our plans for the next few weeks are to complete our adventure activities and then onto Fjordland (South West of the South Island), where we’ll visit Milford Sound. After that we shoot up the East coast of the South Island to Christchurch, fly back to Sydney on 20 July, then onto Lima in Peru on 21 July.

(2023 Update: photos from this trip were uploaded to Flickr a couple of years later, here are snaps from New Zealand’s North Island and South Island, and a link to the collection for the whole trip can be found here)