New Zealand

As we flew over NZ, it reminded us of England with all the greenery. New Zealand is such a wonderful country; we had a great time. We were met at Auckland airport by some old friends of Dave's, who are now living near Auckland. We stayed at their house for 3 nights as we started to plan our trip, catch up on washing and get over our tummy bugs still present from Fiji (which remained with us for a further 3 weeks). We picked up our campervan on the second day and we were really pleased with it. It was the best one that we have had so far - really clean inside with loads of space and the bed was slightly bigger than a double size. It was 2.6m high, which meant that we could permanently stand up in it, no more pop top and ducking like in Tasmania!

We checked out Auckland city for a bit and then headed into the Northlands. We did not warm to Auckland that much as it is so spread out and there did not seem to be that much to do there. At Goat Island, we went snorkeling to see the huge, friendly resident Snapper (some are up to 50-60 years old), Blue Maomao, Kelpfish, Red Crayfish, Crabs, Sea Stars, Sea Cucumbers and Sponges. The water felt ABSOLUTELY FREEZING to us, even with a 7mm wetsuit on! It was 12 degrees, and we had been used to snorkeling in the warm waters of Fiji, which were about 28 degrees. But we think we did well to last around 45 minutes.

We visited the Kaiiwi Lakes, which were a nightmare to find (signs and directions are useless in NZ, just like Australia). They were absolutely stunning, completely underrated, and we had a beautiful day of weather. The lakes were comparable, if not better than the famous lakes on Fraser Island, Australia. We also visited the nearby Waipoua Forest with the giant Kauri trees. We drove through Opononi, and went on the ferry crossing on the way to Cape Reigna. We only went to the start of 90 mile beach as we couldn't be bothered with the long journey to the end just to see an average beach! We then headed over to see Doubtless Bay, Tauranga Bay and Matauri Bay, which were stunning, just like a mini Bay of Islands. When we reached KeriKeri in the Bay of Islands, we stayed at a really nice house of some friends of Dave's grandparents for 3 nights. As we had both not had a bath for so long, Lins went in the hot tub with striking views as often as possible, enjoying it so much that she fell asleep most of the time. We were unlucky with the dolphin watching trip in the Bay of Islands - we ended up going 3 times to try and swim with them, but we met some great Kiwi’s on each trip. On our third time we managed to see them but each time the trip around the islands was amazing with really great views. In the same region, we walked round historic Russell and then saw the place where the Waitangi Treaty occurred and read all about the history of NZ.

We then did a long, boring but scenic drive to the Coromandel Peninsular where we caught up with some friends from Fiji. We went to Hot Water Beach, where you can hire a spade to dig up the sand and create a hot water pool to sit in and watch the sea (too hot in parts!). We also did a beautiful walk to Cathedral Cove, which had an amazing beach and view through coves out to the ocean. Then followed another long drive to Waitomo Caves, which are fabulous caves containing unique formations and glowworms that you can see close up. We did the 'Honking Hagis Holes' adventure option. It was absolutely brilliant and involved abseiling, rock climbing and crawling through small holes that did not seem possible to fit through (some people get stuck in the holes and need a little shove!). The first abseil was 30m into the dark, and the second and third were both down waterfalls, which was quality! We also did this with our friends from Fiji and some Italians who wore extremely small speedo's!

The sulphur smell from Rotorua hit us a few kilometers away as we approached the city. It really was overwhelming at times; we had to choose our campsite carefully so that we were a bit further out of town in order that our van did not get contaminated! We did white water rafting down the Kaituna River; with the best tour guides we have had so far...we had such a laugh and loads of fun. The Kaituna boasts the highest commercially rafted waterfall (7m) in the World. There are actually 3 waterfalls among the 14 rapids (Grade 5); two smaller waterfalls to practice on before attacking the 7-meter drop named Tutea Falls. One in three rafts capsizes as they go down the waterfall. Ours somehow did not as we paddled hard down the waterfall but we all got soaked and then watched other rafts capsize after us!

Still in Rotorua, we did a very interesting tour of Te Pau Maori village and again learnt a lot about Maori history and the smelly geyser fields. In the evening we were really looking forward to a relaxing natural spa at The Polynesian, but the smell was just too bad for Lins and we had to walk out! The next morning we did ‘Zorbing’, which is a fairly new activity that involves rolling down a hill in a huge hamster ball type thing, filled with warm water (or you can be strapped to the ball). It was sooooo much fun! We slipped and slid our way down the hill together in hysterics! Our only criticism was that it was too short.

The drive to Matamata where remnants of the original Hobbiton village set from The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was beautiful, although frustrating being stuck behind slow campervans. We were not expecting a lot of this tour due to what we had read, but it really was great. Our guide was fantastic and gave us lots of insight into the making of the film. Bilbo Baggins' house can still be seen and entered, as well as Samwise's (Quinny's!) and lots of others, there were around 37 hobbit houses still remaining. We got our photos taken at The Party Tree, the lake and in some of the hobbit holes! We had some absolute LOTR fanatics on our tour, who knew practically everything about all three films!

After our time at Hobbiton, we started heading south in the north island to Taupo. Our first morning here was spent getting really nervous and going to the restroom a lot (Lins!), and then jumping out of a plane at 15,000ft! Our skydive was absolutely amazing. 15,000ft is the highest commercial skydive you can do in the world, and it allows you to freefall for just over one minute at speeds over 200km/hour, and then cruise down slowly for 6-7 minutes. We both got to steer the parachute when it opened towards the ground and add some spins! The set up and welcome was very professional and all the instructors had done thousands and of jumps. We were both fortunate to have really funny guys jumping with us, both who tried to wind Lins up with safety worries, but it was all good fun. We went for the full package, which meant that we got 40 photos, a handy cam video and another jumper who dived with us and took a video from a different angle. Lins was pretty nervous but very excited in the build up, asking questions such as ‘what if my parachute does not open' and 'what if your parachute does not open' and 'what if you black out!?'. The instructors seemed to find it all quite funny but did a good job of reassuring Lins. Dave was surprisingly not nervous at all and was just really up for the jump. The fall was completely exhilarating. You don’t really have any time to turn back once you are on the edge of the plane...it’s so noisy that even if you said ‘I don’t want to do it’, I think your buddy would be pushed to hear you. The views of Lake Taupo, the mountains (including Mt Doom from LOTR) and the forest were brilliant. We were buzzing for hours afterwards and immediately started to think about when we could do our next one. Still smiling and talking about the experience over and over again, we went to Hokua Falls and rapids (very blue water in parts), and to see the dam opening. We loved, Taupo, the town is really beautiful and has a great feel to it.

Just south of Taupo is the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, one of NZ's most famous and stunning walks. It is 18.5 km and we were prepared for lots of rain. We were really lucky though; it started off nice and warm, but got very cold and windy at the top of the mountains (we felt like we were going to lose our fingers when we stopped to take photo’s)...but no rain though! Again, the views were amazing and on the walk you pass through lots of beautiful and varied types of scenery, including turquoise blue lakes and active volcanoes. We got up nice and close to Mt Doom and finished the walk in a leisurely 7 hours, stopping to take hundreds of photo’s...literally.

Further south at Palmerston North we visited the rugby museum and had a little look around the town, very pretty actually. We then headed down to Wellington, doing a city walking tour, shopping, Te Papa Museum, and the Botanical Gardens (with a ride in the old cable car up to the top). We met up with our friends from Fiji again for some drinks and ended up having a very near death experience. We were just walking along to a bar and all of a sudden we heard an incredible 'bang'. We looked to our left across the road and witnessed a bus with hundreds of sparks and a loud electrical cracking coming from above it. At the same time that we looked left, we saw a tram-line cable coupled with a metal rod flying across the road towards us with sparks flying everywhere. Fortunately it narrowly missed us all. Lins and Carolin were short enough for it to miss their heads. However, Dave (Mission Impossible / James Bond style) ducked down and grabbed Leigh next to him. Both of them very nearly got hit in the face. Surprisingly, only some pedestrians near by asked if we were alright; and the bus driver who had hit the overhead cables was more concerned about his bus! The road was closed off, and we just casually continued to walk to the bar for our drink and some interesting conversation! We really liked Wellington; it's a great, vibrant city, apart from the weather. It was extremely windy at times with lots of drizzle.

We took our van onto the ferry for the crossing across the Cook Straight to the South Island. Fortunately we had a good crossing weather-wise; it is not uncommon to have really stormy conditions and for lots of people to be sea sick. We were both prepared though and had sea sickness tablets, which made Lins very drowsy as usual and not that useful for the rest of the day.

We went anticlockwise round the South Island, apart from our first leg to Blenheim. We did a wine tasting tour of the Marlborough wine region, famous for Sauvignon Blanc’s, and sampled some great wines. We had a mixture of people from different countries on our tour, everyone was really friendly. It was quite funny as everyone got really drunk (we got a little tipsy too), most of all some really posh older ladies from England! Some of the wineries included Cloudy Bay, Kathy Lynskey Wines, and Highfield Estate. After sleeping off our wine overnight, we then went back to Picton, doing the Marlborough Sounds walks, which were very beautiful. The drive out of Picton was spectacular; we stopped so many times to take photos of breathtaking scenery around each corner.

We loved Nelson (the sunniest place in New Zealand and therefore one of the most desirable places to live). There is a great beach with background views of snow capped mountains. We then went north to Abel Tasman National Park and Pohora, which were stunning. We did a full day kayak and walking tour, seeing turquoise water and glittering gold sand beaches, again we had great weather and the views were incredible. We did a road trip to Golden Bay, taking in extraordinary sights, the highlight being a scenic drive over Takaka Hill, known as the Marble Mountain. We stopped at many lookouts along the way. Near Takaka we walked round Te Waikoropupu Springs, New Zealand's largest freshwater springs.

When we drove down to the Nelson Lakes, we couldn’t quite believe the sights. The lakes are surrounded by the snow capped mountains of the northern end of the Southern Alps and are surrounded by forests and wildlife. We did some short walks and Dave did a 3 hour speed hike (average time is supposedly 5-6 hours), whilst Lins rested her back.

We then headed west, on the way stopping at The Buller Gorge to do a ‘Superman’. This was brilliant and involved running off a cliff edge over the gorge and being pulled along by a zip wire, pretty fast. We both laughed all the way. This was our first experience of running and throwing ourselves off a cliff and we loved it so much. The west coast is referred to by many Kiwi's as the 'real' NZ and is supposed to have really bad weather most of the time...not for us though! Our first stop was Westport, where we saw some smelly seal colonies at Cape Foulwind. We drove as far north as Karamea to go to the Oparara Basin featuring the majestic Limestone Arches (near the Heaphy Track). We then continued south along the west coast, stopping frequently to view the beautiful rugged coastline. We saw some famous jade shops, Punakaiki's pancake rocks and blowholes (spectacular cliff formations), and passed through Greymouth before reaching Franz Josef Glacier. The drive was equal if not better than the 'The Great Ocean Road', Australia. New Zealand is very underrated.

We spent a couple of days at Franz Josef, choosing to do a heli-hike of the glacier. This involved an exciting scenic helicopter flight over the glacier and landing over half way up the glacier where the ice is much cleaner. We then followed our guide through spectacular ice formations of towering pinnacles and brilliantly blue ice caves and crevasses. We had panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and learnt a lot about the magnificent glacier. We were incredibly fortunate as the trip has to be cancelled over half the days in the year due to poor visibility. Apparently it rains / snows over 300 days a year here! We had clear blue skies for most of the trip and saw amazing scenery. We enjoyed wearing our crampons that allowed us to go almost vertical up the ice and it was one of the best things that we have done so far. The next day we did a base walk to the glacier to get a different perspective of it.

On the way to Fox Glacier, only about 30km away, we stopped to do a walk with views over Okarito Lagoon and a great sunset over Mt Cook. We did a base walk to Fox Glacier. It was much bigger than Franz, but supposedly not as nice actually on the ice, but we really liked it.

Wanaka is beautiful, the lake has such an amazing setting and the town is very pretty. We did some walks here and spent time relaxing in the pretty town. We also visited Puzzleworld, which had some great illusions and a very annoying maze. The drive to Queenstown was picture perfect; again we stopped many times to take photos. We really loved Queenstown, it was surprisingly not too touristy but very clean with some really nice streets and shops. We had an action packed few days. We took the very steep gondola up to the top of Bob's Peak. At the top are numerous observation decks offering breathtaking views of the Coronet Peaks and The Remarkables, over Queenstown and across Lake Wakatipu to Cecil and Walter Peaks. Here, we also had 3 goes on the luge, which was brilliant fun. We went all the way down without braking and we were laughing all the way!

On our first morning we both did the Canyon Swing. It is like a bungy jump, as you jump off a cliff tied to a cord. The difference is that the cord is around your waist, and after falling vertically, the way that the cord is tied means that you actually travel in a huge arc at the bottom, like a swing shape, rather than bouncing up and down like with a bungy jump. This was great for Lins as she cannot do a bungy because of her back, but the canyon swing is smooth. It is hard to put the experience into words, if you check out: www.canyonswing.co.nz you can see video's of the different jump styles. The jump is 109m (60m free fall) and the arc is 200m ... it was AWESOME!!! We both decided to jump off forwards; again the action of throwing yourself off is like a bungy and most unnatural. The guys supervising us were fantastic, so mush fun and really encouraging. The hardest part was obviously jumping off the cliff with the Shotover River below, but what made it harder was that the guys simply said, 'right, you're ready, go when you like'. This meant that we had a few minutes of psyching ourselves up and delaying the inevitable. We both screamed on the way down, but also loved every second of it!

That afternoon Dave did the Nevis Bungy jump. The Nevis is the third highest bungy jump in the world, and apparently the scariest. The reason it is so scary is that the platform where you jump from is part of a cable car suspended by wires over a canyon. Many people who simply watch, find it too difficult just to sit in the cable car, as it sways side to side in the wind constantly. The jump itself is a terrifying 134m of freefalling at over 150km/hour for over 8 seconds before the cord kicks in. You jump in weight order, with the heaviest jumping first. There were over twenty people jumping, and Dave was about number nine. To be honest, the longer you wait - especially after hearing everyone jump before you scream (even the men) - the more nervous you become. As Dave had completed the Canyon Swing in the morning, he was slightly more confident. In fact, he found it a little easier, despite the obvious height and exposure to the elements; the procedure was very swift. As soon as they had tied his feet together with numerous ropes, he was instructed to waddle to the end of a tiny platform jutting out over the canyon. As soon as he was there, the instructor shouted "three, two, one, bungy"! Fortunately, Dave didn't have time to think about what he was doing and just jumped head first out into the abyss. What followed was a raucous shout for about 5 seconds. It certainly was an experience Dave will never forget.

The next afternoon we did river surfing, which was surprisingly quite tame (Dave didn't think so, not quite as good a swimmer as Lins) and disappointing; although the scenery and experience of being in the river was great. It involved going down The Roaring Meg section of the Kawarau River, twice. There was 6 km of continuous whitewater, graded 2-3 because of its fast flowing water with rapids and whirlpools. We also did the famous Shotover jet boat ride, which involved skimming past rocky outcrops at close range and full 360º spins. It was good fun and incredible how the driver came so close to hitting rocks but narrowly missed every time. Our last activity was hang gliding over the Coronet Peaks, which was great, it really felt like we were flying. We ran off the cliffs with an experienced hang glider on our backs and watched the amazing views for miles around.

We then did the long drive to The Milford Sounds Fiordland National Park. The drive was extremely scenic, we were stopping the whole time to jump out of the car and look at things. The Park is beautiful and we did some short walks around the lake, where we got hassled by some big Kea's (they are like huge parrots that can turn quite aggressive if they want some food from you). We did a scenic cruise that took us all around the peaks and even right underneath one of the waterfalls. It rains here most days of the year, but we only got some light drizzle towards the end.

We drove through the Southlands along the Southern Scenic Route, stopping at some lovely beaches and rock formations along the way and of course the most southerly point of the main islands of NZ. We drove through Invergargill, only stopping briefly to check our emails. It really is as bad a place as the Kiwi's say....not much to do there and quite run down. The Catlins region to the east of Invercargill has some great scenery: lots of beaches, lush and green rolling hills, forests and rivers. Lins had a scare on the beach near Curio Bay as she almost walked into a HUGE sleeping sea lion, which looked just like a rock! When it heard her, it sat up and did an almighty roar, in which she responded with a squeal and ran off! On a more enjoyable wildlife encounter, we were driving along and Dave happened to spot two yellow-eyed penguins sitting on a rock! They are the rarest penguins in the world so we were well pleased. We got some good photos without getting too close, but we were so lucky to see them in the wild. We also saw the supposed 180-million-year-old fossilised forest, called the ‘petrified forest’ of subtropical kauri and other trees, apparently dating back to the Jurassic age. We did a lovely little walk along Nugget Point, the views out to the ocean were incredible and we saw Hooker's sea lions, elephant seals and New Zealand fur seals basking on the rocks down below. We also visited the lighthouse at Waipapa Point, scene of New Zealand's worst shipping disaster. We did several short walks to some of the many waterfalls in the Catlins region, including McLean Falls, which is one of the best.

After the south coast we continued north to Dunedin, which we liked, and we stayed at a nice campsite near St Clair beach. The main attraction on this part of the island is the Otago Peninsular, which has beautiful rugged scenery. The coastline really is stunning, with a line of high cliffs, arches and headlands that provide endless vantage points for breathtaking views of the ocean...again, lots more photos. We stopped to do short walks at Sandfly Bay, Hoopers Inlet (where we saw The Chasm and Lover’s Leap), and Allans Beach. We also did a tour of The Royal Albatross Centre at Taiaroa Head, which we think we remember correctly as having the biggest population of Albatross birds in the world. We were again so fortunate to see about 10 adults flying over us for about 20 minutes, their wing span was incredible and it was great watching them glide though the air. We drove back along the other side of the peninsular and saw Portablello and the great views of Dunedin Harbour.

One of our best short walks in NZ was to Tunnel Beach, just south of Dunedin, which draws its name from a passage that was hand carved through a rock promontory to allow access to a lovely secluded and sheltered beach at the base of the cliffs. Whilst Dave was taking some photos, he noticed something moving through the lens. After a second look, he noticed it was a seal that had come ashore to look around. He waddled out of the sea and remained in the shallow waves and started posing perfectly for our photos! We were the only ones on the beach and it was great to watch the seal looking around inquisitively at us and the surroundings!

Further north at Moeraki, 40km south of Oamaru, there are huge spherical boulders scattered along the beach and emerging from the sandstone cliffs. Each boulder weighs several tonnes and is up to two meters high. Continuing north along the coast at Oamaru we did a yellow-eyed penguin tour. We were lucky to have a private tour and this time we got really close to the penguins in their den (as we were with a guide, this was ok apparently). The mother penguin was looking after two chicks, and they were all so sweet. We also did a blue penguin tour (again, private as no-one else turned up; perhaps we smell?). These penguins are the smallest in the world. We watched the ‘penguin parade’ as well. This involved over 200 penguins coming back to land at around dusk, after a full day at sea, and then watching them shuffle into their homes. Further up the coast we stopped off numerous times to see lots of wildlife, which gave our memory cards a severe denting.

We had two days in Kaikoura, a small coastal village which has a large mountain range that provides a dramatic backdrop to the town centre, located on the east side of a small peninsula extending out into the Pacific Ocean. We had planned on doing a whale watching trip, swimming with the dolphins trip and swimming with the seals trip. Kaikoura has lots of unique marine life due to the location of the peninsular and the huge drop off canyon in the ocean about 6km off shore. On our first day, the weather was awful. Our whale watching trip turned back after thirty minutes as over half the boat was being violently sick again (haven't we told this story to you a few times before?!). Thankfully we got a full refund, as we were expecting more arguments about getting our money back. However the next day was one of the best days of our lives......we got up at 4.30AM to go swimming with the dolphins and it was AMAZING!!! The dolphins were wild Dusky Dolphins, the most playful and acrobatic in the world. We were all sitting on the boat, half asleep in our wetsuits, when after 20 minutes, the guide said, 'right, we've got a pod of about 400 dolphins, get to the back of the boat and get ready to swim'. We rushed to the back and sat on the edge of the boat, waiting to see them. We were still thinking, '400 dolphins, yeah right', as we couldn't see anything in the ocean. Then, all of a sudden, tens of dolphins were jumping around the boat everywhere!! The boat stopped and we entered the water and swam out about 10m. There were dolphins everywhere...literally! They were bumping into us and everything, swimming around us, looking right into our eyes and practically jumping over us! After 10 minutes or so, we all got back on the boat which then moved up to the start of the pod and then we did the whole thing again! We were extremely lucky as we went swimming with them 5 times, for a total of around 50 minutes. Towards the end of our time we got some great photos of them jumping out of the air and doing summersaults. We were quite shocked by this amazing encounter, we really hadn't expected to see that many dolphins and so often.

At the end of the trip we rushed over to the seal swimming place. It was not very well organized (very laid back), but we ended up having 45 minutes swimming with the wild NZ fur seals! Again, we really weren't expecting to see anything. Pardon the cheesy phrase but it truly was a magical experience again. At one point Dave and I had 5 seals swimming around us and playing with us. You could look into their huge eyes and see that they were being inquisitive. At times they swum really fast straight towards us, and then at the last minute darted away. They were extremely powerful yet very graceful. It was brilliant!

Apparently it is not cruel to swim with the dolphins and seals when done properly. The seals especially seemed to really enjoy having us around. At times when we swum towards them, it was easy to lose track of how far you had gone, so the guide called us back. This meant that the seals also followed us in. With the seals we were told to copy their actions as much as possible and not arch the top half of our torso out of the water as this is a threatening position. We were also told to be as quiet as possible. In contrast, with the dolphins we were told to entertain them, copy their actions, also making lots of noises. We all looked and sounded so stupid!

The last few days were spent staying with Helen, a teacher friend from Quilley School, near the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch. We had a great time and it was so nice to have some normal conversations rather than the whole travelling talk of 'where are you from, where have you been?' Christchurch is really lovely, a great city with lots going on. We checked out The Arts Centre, Cathedral Square and many other local sights. Helen drove us up the mountain range for great sunset views of Christchurch, the Canterbury Plains, Banks Peninsula and Lyttelton Harbour.

We were extremely lucky with the weather for the duration of our trip in NZ. In the whole 8 weeks that we were there we had 5 days of rain, 3 of which we were mainly driving on, and none of which affected our activities. We just kept dodging it!

Unfortunately we had a quite a few problems with our van (the Cheeseman luck with hiring vans continues!) However, we did love living in it, we had enough space and it was really clean. It was also so nice not to have to pack and unpack everyday.

We absolutely loved NZ (a.k.a the land of bad haircuts and where everyone pulls out in front of you on the roads), and actually preferred it overall to Australia. There was so much to write about! If NZ were closer we would love to live there. Overall it has been our favourite country so far. The weather made a lot of our trips better than expected, but the Kiwi's are such great people, so friendly and genuine. Most of the campsites were really beautiful, either in the middle of a forest, surrounded by huge trees, or right next to a stunning lake. Most also had excellent facilities and really friendly Kiwi staff! We drove close to 10,000km and completely maximized our time, seeing many things that other people don’t have time to; getting up very early and arriving at campsites between 8-10pm on most nights. This left us totally satisfied but exhausted and in need of a holiday!