Wonderful Land of Oz.

G'day from Australia! What a surreal thing to write, and since being in Sydney I still haven't quite got my head around being here. Every time I see the opera house or harbour bridge, I have to pinch myself, I'm really here! 

The last time I wrote I had just said goodbye to my family in Tauranga, New Zealand. The three days I spent there were, thankfully, brilliant. The girls I shared my dorm room with in the hostel were really welcoming and from all over the place, America, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland....On my first full day there I had a well-needed relaxing day which was made up of reading, napping and a trip to the supermarket. Later in the afternoon one girl called Aoife, from Ireland, convinced me and Emily, from America, to make use of the hostels free bike rentals. Although the bikes were basically falling apart we managed to cycle to Mt.Monganui, which is a bustling beach resort town, with lots of lovely looking restaurants, beautiful holiday homes and a gorgeous scenery including the mountain and two popular beaches. It was a far cry from Thames, where I had originally planned to stay, and I was relieved to see I had chosen the right place. The next day I decided to have a more productive day and set myself the task of climbing the mountain. The climb turned out to be a sequence of seemingly endless steps and by the time I arrived at the summit I was thankful that the incredible views allowed me to sit and stare at them for a prolonged period of time, giving me a chance to catch my breath and reduce the shiny redness that my skin had adopted. 

After spending a while taking in the views from every side of the summit and watching a paraglider fearlessly shoot off into the sky I started to climb down and, after taking a slight wrong turning made my way back to the town where I treated myself to a frozen coke (only $1!)  and got the bus back to the hostel. That evening I sat with Emily and we watched a New Zealand film called Boy, a coming of age, indie film about a 12 year old Maori boy. It was nice to see a local film as we had had very little chance to meet many locals and really see what it's like to live in New Zealand. It is also on my bucket list to watch a local film in every country I visit, so far so good!

My final full day in NZ was spent lazing about in the hot salt pools which are located at the foot of the mountain with Aoife. We sat and enjoyed the sunshine and met a man called Rod who gave us some really valuable tips for our travels. It is amazing that as soon as you mention you are travelling to people everyone has personal experiences and advice to share with you. Finding out about where to go, where to avoid, what is worth the money and places that are off the normal route is surely a great part of backpacking and people, as always, are more than happy to share their opinions with you. That evening I re-packed (crammed) my bag and sorted out my online check-in, which was a bit nerve-wracking. The girls from my dorm then decided it would be nice to go out for some drinks at a bar down the road where there was some live music. 

The next morning my alarm rudely interrupted my sleep at 7am for my coach to Auckland which left at 8am. As this was the only coach all day I had to wait in a shopping centre in Auckland for a few hours before I made my way to the airport. 

It was weird to be suddenly alone again, I got a repeat of the feelings I had had sitting on the bench after my family had driven away 'I can't believe I am in new zealand', 'What am I doing?' and 'Come on Emma, you can do this' flicked through my mind as I got steadily more nervous about my first plane journey alone. I arrived at the airport with PLENTY of time to spare and went straight through security, skipping the check-in desk thanks to my nifty little hand luggage backpack. My plane set of at around 18:30 local time and landed in Sydney at 20:00 local time, 11 hours ahead of the UK. The flight was nice enough, Emirates is a great airline and the countless films available in the seat screen helped time go quickly. Although it was an uneventful flight I found that my hands were shaking when I came through arrivals. I jumped on a DOUBLE DECKER train from the airport to Kings Cross and when I exited the train station I was met by a mirage of neon signs and scary looking bouncers. Turns out that Kings Cross is Sydneys 'red light district' and full to the brim with strip clubs. It didn't help that I had no idea which direction the hostel was in and therefore had to walk back and forth, up and down the main strip a few times before I got my bearings, passing the same dodgy looking bars again and again. Luckily when I did find my hostel my first impressions were good with really friendly staff and fellow travellers. The hostel is called Kings Cross Hostel and turns out to be in a really great location in the city, regardless of all the neon signs. The main downfall of the place is the lack of air conditioning meaning that sleeping in a 12 person dorm is pretty stuffy.

The next morning I met three girls from Surrey (small world) who were staying in the same room as me. Catherine and Georgie, who were travelling in Australia together and another Catherine who was travelling alone. We spent the morning watching the Lego Movie, which I LOVE and then me and Catherine (who was travelling on her own) decided to go and do the free walking tour of the city. It started in the centre, near the cathedral and ended at Circular Quay which is near the Opera House. 

We learnt a lot about the first settlers from Plymouth and the convict history which seemed even more apt as Sydney will be celebrating Australia Day on the 26th of January, marking the anniversary of the first settler ships arriving. After a day walking around we decided that we deserved a cheese and wine evening on the roof of our hostel with the other Catherine and Georgie and this was the first time I saw the bats. From a distance, they look like eagels soaring towards you, then, as they get closer, you start to wonder whether dogs here have wings, but then you realise they are bats. Huge bats. Huge fruit bats flying over the city at dusk like a scene from a horror film. It makes you remember, that even though you are surrounded by English, shopping centres and Opera, this is a tropical land. This is far away from Brighton. As if to emphasise this we also watched lightning flash in the distance, a tropical storm. After the cheese and wine, we heading on to a local bar and danced like lunatics for a few hours before bed.

Over night there was a monsoon style rainstorm which hammered down on the pavement outside of the window but by the morning the heat from the sun had dried most of the street. I did some boring stuff in the early afternoon like buying a sim card and some suncream then met up with Catherine and Georgie and crossed Habour Bridge to the Olympic Pool. This may seem like a strange thing to visit when in a large, famous city but this is a public swimming pool with a twist, the location. The pool is situated right next to the river, practically under the bridge with a view of the opera house, skyscrapers and Luna Park, a 1940s theme park right next to the pool.

We stayed there for a few hours, paddling and lying in the sun until we got very hungry and made our way back to the hostel, picking up a pizza and garlic bread on the way back. 

The 22nd was the day I got to go to the famous Bondi Beach, a bus ride away from our hostel. The weather was beautiful and Georgie, Catherine and I lay on the beach like local aussie girls soaking up the rays. We must have forgotten that we are all pale English girls though because not one of us got away with the sunbathing without burning some part of us. I was a bit disappointed that there were no shark warnings while we were there but there was a warnings for jellyfish however the sea was too inviting and the weather to hot to stay out of the water. We went to the big Westfield mall on the way back and had banana bread and coffee on the top of the mall with a view over the city. That night we were convinced once again to go out for a drink with people from the hostel, which was really fun and good to meet other people staying the hostel. 

On the 23rd, partly due to a hangover and partly out of pure laziness I did absolutely nothing. Thipe main highlight of the day was that we made cookies and watched the Baz Lurman film 'Australia' which means I can tick off watching an Australian film from my bucket list too! 

The 24th was much more productive as I decided to got for a walk on my own around the botantical gardens, which are absolutely huge and full of amazing plants and exotic birds. That evening I met with Georgie and Catherine and did the first cultural thing of the trip so far. We watched our first opera show. The Sydney Festival is going on at the moment in the lead up Australia day, meaning that there are lots of events and performances going on around the city. One of these events was a free opera performance in a open green area next to the botantical gardens called The Domain. We met with some family friends of Catherines and enjoyed the breathtaking talent of the singers and musicians, surrounded by hundreds of other people all with picnics and wine. The sky darkened, bats flew overhead and lightning could be seen in the distance during the performance which added to the drama of whole experience. It was a really special part of my trip that I won't forget and I am filled with amazement for the singers. 

Today has been another lazy day, taking advantage of the roof terrace in the sun and trying to plan what I am going to be doing as I travel around Australia. I am heading to Byron Bay with Catherine and Georgie next and we are staying in the house of one of Georgies dads friends, which will help with the budget and will mean not having to share a room with 12 people anymore. Woohoo!

My time in Aus so far has been brilliant but I have only seen Sydney and soon I will be travelling from one place to another, something that involves planning and organisation.... so we'll see how that goes!

Thanks for reading :) x

The end (and the beginning)

And so it begins. Today I watched my dad, sister and cousin drive away in our snail shell of a campervan as I stood on the side of the street with my hand luggage sized backpack and some washing machine powder they had kindly donated to me. I am in New Zealnd, the furthest land mass from home, alone. Well not quite, but we'll get to that.

First of all I have a lot of catching up to do. These last few days have been pretty hectic and it's been impossible for me to dedicate enough time to write anything. This is mainly due to the fact that last week marked a huge turning point in our trip, both physically and metaphorically. We reached our most southernly point and turned back on ourselves. After Oamaru we started heading back north steadily towards the unescapable end. We also hit a turning point with the way we acted, we became a lot more reflective and nostalgic, discussing what our favourite part of the holiday WAS, what we would miss about New Zealand and whether we would come back (ummm....yes.) So you can see why I haven't been able to write for a while, we've been too busy cramming as much in as possible.

The last time I write we were in a DOC camping site in between Christchurch and Kaikoura. After ravelling in the dark up and down winding trails to the site that evening we woke up to find that it was actually quite a beautiful place. We spent the morning walking along the stoney beach, discussing what we thought was the cause of the tiny holes in the rocks, which as you can imagine got quite heated. After agreeing to disagree we packed the van and heading up the coast yo Kaikoura where the clouds and also decided to go. We booked to go swimming with the local seal colony the next day then rebelliously set up camp on the side of the road before going to the local irish bar for a drink. The bar had a live irish/kiwi band playing which was very surreal and we met a group of travellers from Birmingham who had been living in Melbourne for the past 3 years. We talked excitedly about the joy of skydiving for a long time, seriously, you should do it!

The next day the seal swim was cancelled due to the conditions so we decided to reschedule it for the next day and walk to see another colony nearby. When we got the there there were lazy seals slumped over rocks in every direction, they were so well camoflaged that I nearly walked into one. 

We walked along the rock pools and coastal tracks to the edge of the reserve where Oli climbed a very steep hill (because Bonnie said he couldn't) and Bonnie, dad and I took the longer more scenic route up. That evening dad treated us to the local dish of freshly caught crayfish which me and Bonnie devoured, getting every last piece of meat out of every corner. We then had three games of pool in the pub which went progressively from very enjoyable to slightly stressful, anyone who has witnessed me playing competitive team games recently will understand. 

On the 9th we finally managed to swim with the seals. The weather was beautiful when we woke up and we walked to the seal centre to get changed into our attractive and very flattering wetsuits. The seal colomy was a short minibus ride away and when we got there we were lead onto a bright yellow speed boat with a skipper who had been taking out seal tours for 28 years. We zoomed over to a group of seals and jumped overboard. There weren't huge numbers of seals in the water but when I did spot them I was amazed with how easily they glided through the water and howfast they could swim away. I had a great couple of minutes with one seal who swam underneath me, did a some corkscrew turns and looked at me with wide puppy-dog eyes. It was great to see the lazy lumps we had seen the day before tarnsformed into slick, beautiful swimmers. 

After lunch we had to leave Kaikoura and head further north as we were booked onto the ferry to the north island the next evening.  We drove up some familiar roads, including the dust mountain tracks that we had broken down on all those weeks ago and camped at Robin Hood bay, the bay we had stopped off at on our first day on the south island. 

The next morning I woke up sweating as the sun had transformed our van into a sauner. We sat outside in the sun and soon got talking to our neighbour who was an American who was living with his British wife nearby and every so often brought their spacious caravan to the bay, and I couldn't blame them. He asked my dad 'so, when are you emmigrating?' which, just in case you didn't know dad, is an idea I am completely happy with, I will be happy to come a visit you here any time. We walked along the beach, enjoying the warm sand under our toes and then had to leave this little paradise to get to Picton in time for our ferry. Oh, and have time to sample some of the local wine of course!

We passed through Marlborough on our way to the ferry port, an area famed for it's brilliant wine. It wouldbe rude not to stop really. So Oli, Bonnie and I decided to go for a quick wine tasting around a couple of vineyards. The whole affair started pretty distinguished, discussing the fruity undertones or dryness, but by the end it all tasted pretty good. I don't fully remember the journey to the port but there was a lot of giggling and loud singing and at one point I said 'In wines defense, it does taste really good.' The ferry crossing was nice and calm but I did not enkoy it at all. Do not go on a ferry after drinking lots of wine. We arrived in Wellington late and Oli's friend Shaun kindly let us crash at his house again.

During the day in Wellington we decided to visit the WETA studio workshops, which is where films are made, including of course Lord Of The Rings. After looking around what was essentially a LOTR gift shop we went for lunch at a local cafe called The Larder and had a delicious brunch (if you are ever in Wellington, I seriously recommend it). We left Wellington and heading back up to Lake Taupo, this time greeted by a beautiful sunny day and a stunning sunset over the lake. Dad also got interviewed by the lical newspaper, The Taupo Times, so keep an eye on their website for the story about the hairy british guy. 

The following day we were treated with more scorching weather and we drive further north to Rotarua. We stopped at a place called The Thermal Wonderland which is a strange, almost alien place with high levels of natural thermal activity which results in bubbling mud, plumes of steam, huge pools of bright colours and the overwhelming smell of egg (sulphur).

At points, the mixture of strange surroundings and extremely hot weather, I felt like I could have been walking in the surface of Mars. As if this wasn't enough heat for one day we then decided to visit a place called Kerosene Creek, a natural hot water river which had been recommended to us. We arrived there and I was desperate to get into the water to cool down but when we got to to the water we soon realised that this was not a place to cool down. The water was so hot, it was painful to get in and I only managed to get up to my shins before I bottled out. Dad however, fully submerged and pretended that it didn't hurt. 

That evening, at my request, we found a cool lake to camp by and I had a much needed evening swim, I felt so hot that steam could have come off my skin when I got into the water. We had fish and chips and watched the sun set by the lake. We sat outside until the sandflies got too much of a nuisance then went to bed.

The morning of the 13th was a luxiourious one for me and Bonnie. We spent it in one of Rotaruas many spas and had a 'relaxation massage' which was heaven after sleeping in the van for a month. Although I could have laid on the massage table forever the next activity was well worth getting up for. We were going to Hobbiton! After ajourney through rolling green pastours we got to the set and were taken on a tour around by a British lad called James. We saw masterfully detailed hobbit holes and learnt some crazy facts like the fact that it was two people jobs and couple of weeks before filming to walk from a hobbit hole to the washing line and back again every day in order to make a natural path in the grass and that the tree above Bilbo's house is fake and each leaf was painted and stuck on individually by students. However, they got the shade wrong for the season they were meant to be filming in so Peter Jackson made one woman repaint every single one! Throughout the tour Oli and dad were churning out the lord of the rings themed puns with the tour guide to the point that it just got ridiculous, you really can't take a male Naef anywhere! The magical tour ended in The Green Dragon, the shires pub where we were given one free pint of proper cider (which my dad greatly appreciated). 

After geeking out at Hobbiton we headed to The Coromandel Penisula, the arean of New Zealand that is where kiwis go for holidays. Our first stop was the Hot Water Beach, a beach where you can  dig a hole in the sand and instantly have a natural hot tub. When we arrived it was evening time and the beach was full of people so there was nowhere to dug a hole that would be hot or the only areas that were left were where it was too hot to dig. We ate our dinner and watched like hawks for people to leave the their hot tubs. Oli began trying to dig in the boiling hot areas and ended up burning his feet and me and dad decided to go and battle against the gigantic waves in the sea. Finally we got a spot as the sun was going down, next to a large group of brits on the Kiwi Experience and a small group of locals who we ended up talking to. We left in the dark and headed  to the nearest Top 10 camping site. Naturally at the end of a holiday, funds are running low, so dad aksed me and Bonnie to sit on the floor of the camper and hide under a towel so that he didn't have to pay for us. This was nerve racking to say the least, especially when dad started a full conversation about the campervan to the man in the gate and oli kept doing the most suspicious smile possible. We were smuggled in sucessfully and our prize was a lovely hot shower.

We explored The Coromandel more the next day, going to Cathedral Bay. A strenuous 40 minutes walk lead us to a beautiful bay with a cave that lead to anothe beautiful bay. We rested in the shade of the tress and listened to the waves crashing until the temptation to get into the sea was too much. The waves here, just like at Hot Water Beach were huge and you had to fight your way past them. We then lay around some more and relaxed in preparation for the walk back. 

After this relaxing day our goal now was to find somewhere for me to stay before my flight to Sydney, somewhere for my family to leave me. We went to Coromandel Town but it was far too quiet and so we looked on the map and saw a place called Thames which looked quite big, surely there must be stuff to do there, when we artived at Thames we quickly realised it was a ghost town. Even the barman at the bar we visited admitted it was dead. However, by this point it was far to late to go anywhere else so we parked in a car park and slept.

We were woken VERY early by a knock in the window. A man from the council had recieved a call and was comi g to give us a fine for camping in the wrong place. Damn. To top it off we then accidently ran over and left one of our camp chairs, not a good start to the last day together. 

Thanks to my facebook friends recommendations we decided to drive to The Bay Of Plenty and that I should be left in Tauranga, a sea side town that is the commercial centre of the bay. We arrived here quite early and had lunch, but I couldn't fully relax because I knew what was soon to happen. I checked in at a hostel called Habourside Hostel but before we went our seperate ways we went for a stroll along the beach in the sunshine and had an ice-cream. And then it was time to say goodbye. After lots of tears and hugs and sentimentality I watched my family drive away. I walked to a bench by the habour and tried to de-puff my eyes and get my head round my situation. Now, at the beginning of this post I spoke about not really being alone. That is because I have met the people I am staying with in my hostel and there are so many people travelling alone! I am alone, but not alone! Everyone so far has been very welcoming and friendly and that's all it takes for me to not feel scared anymore but excited, very bloody excited! I am at this hostel for 4 nights and I hope to climb the nearby 'mountain' and enjoy the beach before my flight on the 19th.

Thank you again for reading :)

X

Emma Naef, ADVENTURE GIRL

Hi again,

Wow this week has gone fast and a lot has happened, the first of which is that it is a whole new year! Happy New Year! Unfortunately our last day of 2014 started off with a disappointent. The rain continued to get worse over night and when our alarm went off at 6:45am we awoke to the sound of what seemed like a tropical monsoon pelting down on our little tin van. This meant that our Franz Josef glacier tour was cancelled. In a desperate attempt to get onto a frozen river we drove to Fox Glacier and waited there only to hear that their tours had been camcelled too due to the weather conditions. This bad news however had a silver lining as it meant we could journey onto Queenstown earlier than we had originally planned and would get there well before the countdown for new years rather than rushing to make it in time. On the way to Queenstown the weather perked up and the clouds gave way to beautiful sunshine. The last part of the route was through an area called the Crown Range which has to be the most beautiful part of New Zealand I have seen so far, and that really is saying something. Rolling hills covered in bushes that from a distance look like fluffy bean bags and purple and yellow foxglove flowers flew past until we turned a corner which exposed a view over mountain ranges, fields and a lake with Queenstown nestled in the distance.

It was one of those views that a photo cannot do justice to. You will just have to visit it yourself to find out! We wound down the roads into Queenstown and found that lots of people had had the same idea as us. The car parks were packed with people all in town to celebrate. We luckily found a parking space on a road just out of the centre and made our home there. Oli, Bonnie and I got ready for our evening (I even put some make-up on! Something I haven't really been doing for the rest of our trip) and left the campervan, our transformation from campervan dwellers to new years party people much like the Clark Kent/Superman transformation. We headed to a bar called Monty's while dad had a well deserved nap and met with some of Olis friends. Dad joined us later on and a live band filled the venue with covers of sing-a-long favourites. To my dads joy the bar stocked Aspells cider (although, only in small bottles so he was forced to buy two at a time!). We met some New Zealanders who had originally been part of a bar crawl but had decided it wasn't there scene and ended up staying in Monty's with us. We counted down the new year next to the lake and watched the fireworks a whole 13 hours before the UK would be doing the same thing. We called it a night after dad realised he had misplaced his mobile phone and the night was drawing naturally to a close. We walked back to the campervan in the freezing cold with dad stopping every so often to give a high five or shout 'WOOOO 2015!' at strangers. 

The next morning, perhaps feeling more delicate than normal, we moved the van to the campsite we were booked into for the next couple of nights. Luckily a couple of minutes walk away from the site was one of the top attrations of Queenstown, the skyline. We queued and headed up the mountain in a 4 man gondola to a glass building at the top. The view over Queenstown was, unsurprisingly, incredible.

The weather was perfect and clear and the lake was ridiculously blue, how could I not fall in love with this town? Up at the top, along with a restaurant, was a luging track. Luging, as it turns out, is rolling down a hill on a teatray with handlebars and after the initial fear of rolling down a hill on a teatray with handlebars subsides it is actually quite fun. I even ended up getting a bit competitive by our third and final run.

After this excitement we headed back down in a gondola, which absolutely terrified Oli, and made our way to another exciting place, Ferg Burger. Most people who I have spoken about going to New Zealand with have mentioned Ferg Burger. It is a small burger joint in the town centre which serves a large variety of HUGE, delicious burgers. We arrived and were greeted by a very long queue (even at 4pm) which a smiling waitess, whose main job it seemed was crowd control and suncream distribution for the customers in the queue, told us would take 20 minutes. I must admit that at some point (around the 15 minute mark) I wondered whether it really would he worth it, we had be warned the would be an extra 30 minutes wait time after we'd ordered too. It was worth it, oh yes it was worth it. I had the Bombay Chicken burger and as well as it being bigger than my face it was absolutely mouth-wateringly yummy. Another positive to Ferg Burger was that we had tracked down my dad's phone and luckily the woman who had it was in the queue at the same time as us! 2015 off to a very good start! After a quick walk by the lake we returned to the campervan and slept. 

On the second day of 2015 we treated ourselves to a relaxed start with a lie-in. We then drove a short distance through the mountians and past the vast lakes to a small town called Glenorcy where we set off on a walk around the surroundings. We walked over marshes, through woodland and in meadows and met a great little three-legged dog that we named Oscar/Colin.

The 3rd of January 2015 is a day I probably won't ever forget. It's the day I jumped, head first, out of an aeroplane. Luckily dad had booked us onto one of the early falls from the sky so we had little time to contamplate what we were about to do. We arrived at the skydive centre in the town at 9am and were briefly briefed on what was about to happen and then put in a minibus and transported to the 'dropzone'. The Rolling Stones 'Hey You (Get Off Of My Cloud)' was playing in the bus which seemed very fitting. We arrived there and were greeted by our hostess who quickly informed us that we would be on the first plane going up. We were to,d to visit the toilet and then to go straight into the hanger to get ready for the dive. In the hanger there was lots of people working on packing away the parachutes properly and skydive instructors walking around looking confident and generally cool (how could they not look cool!). We were given our dive suits, put into our harnesses and given silly hats and some gloves. Our instructors introduced themselves to us, mine was called Wesley and he was just the right balance of friendly and serious. Too friendly and I would have worried about his professionalism, too serious and he would have made me more nervous. Speaking of nerves, I should tell you that at this stage I was not really very nervous at all, something that surprised me. Everything was happening so quickly and effeciently around me that I didn't have much time to be scared, also he whole situation was so ridiculous that it had taken on a sort of dream like quality which resulted in me either smiling like a goof or staring off into space. The instructors then led us off to the little rickity plane and I just walked straight on, they didn't have to drag me or anything. We all sat on the floor of the plane lap in lap and the plane took off. We climbed higher and higher, the town, lakes and mountains getting gradually smaller amd smaller below us. We climbed for about 20 minutes and I felt serene, the last emotion I was expecting to feel. My body must have been releasing chemicals to keep me calm in such a stressful situation, some sort of primative survival technique. Even when we reached 15,000 ft, they opened the door and I watched people fall out into the abyss before me, including my little sister, I felt calm. Wesley shuffled us towards the open doorway and sat on the edge with my dangling off the side of the plane. This moment is a bit blurry in my mind but I do remember seeing the landscape far below me, tilting my head back and then siddenly falling and somersalting out of the plane.

How can I describe that? Oli said that I would have fun trying to write about this but it is pretty impossible. I can describe the noise, nearly deafening air whooshing past as we hurtled downwards reaching freefalling speeds of up to 200km/h. I can try and describe the views, a complete birdseye view of what has to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet, the instructor turning us 360 so I could have a complete paroramic of the mountain ranges below (BELOW!?). However, I don't think I can describe the feeling. Euphoric comes pretty close. What I can tell you is that my heart was racing somewhere inside my chest but I wasn't payibg attention to that, and my face was probably stretched to unusual lengths trying to fit in my smile and that when the 60 seconds free falling was over I had really never said 'that was absolutely amazing' more earnestly in my life. I may even never say the word 'amazing' again because I know very few things could actually justify it after I chose it to describe skydiving. This probably sounds a bit over the top, but hold your judgement until you try it yourself. After the parachute was pulled there was sudden silence and my eyes must have been wider than they've ever been as we paraglided down, taking in those views for the last time and feeling the adrenaline pumping. When we landed I thanked my instructor very enthusiatically and ran over to Bonnie. As I ran I heard a 'wooOOOOO' getting gradually louder and realised that it was Oli coming into land. We all ran into a hug and my familys smiles matched my own huge grin. Our instructors were already heading back into the hanger for their next dive, they do up to 10 dives a day! We were all buzzing as we took our suits off and left the hanger and all I could think was 'I want to it AGAIN!'. Dad had managed to release some of mums ashes just before his jump so Mum got to do the dive with us!

 

^ a picture says a thousands words!

The rest of that day we spent feeling dazed and a bit invincable. We had a HUGE pizza (a day of extremes) and then packed up the van and drove back up to Fox Glacier, after we decided to give the glacier one more shot.

And luckily the glacier bet paid off and our trip was not cancelled. To continue our extreme adventure holiday, the glacier trip included a helicopter trip onto the ice which was brilliant (just like James Bond) however, I did have to fight the urge to jump out half way through the flight. As we approached the glacier it was pretty impressive, then I spotted these tiny little dots below us and realised they were people, the glacier was ginormous! We landed next to the group of people and were given 'crampons', metal grips for our shoes to help us walk on the ice. We walked for 4 hours, past a large waterfall which fed the river underneath the glacier. Our guide cut steps into the ice with a pick axe for the more difficult parts of the walk and we walked down into ice caves where everything glowed blue. 

At the end of the walk the clouds started to roll in and we got back in the helicopter back to the town. The walk was well worth the drive back on ourselves, it was so different to anything else I have ever done. We then drove all the way back towards Queenstown to a posh little lakeside town called Wanaka and camped up in a nearby area called Albert Town.

The following day we had a surprisingly active day, Dad, Bonnie and I hired bikes and went for a 16 mile mountain bike ride by the lake and Oli managed to beat his record and run 10k in under an hour, which was probably helped by the fact he has given up smoking during the holiday with the help of an e-cigarette :). It seems we may have become an adventurous adrenaline-junkie family since the skydive! We left Wanaka that afternoon and moved onto Oamaru. When we got there it was overcast, raining and deserted. It was how I imagine a town would look after a zombie apocalypse, shops all closed, a few cars on the road and the only people on the street moving slowly with their heads down. It's fair to say Oamaru didn't make a very good first impression.

But first impressions can be wrong as the next day we explored what the town had to offer. The first thing to explore of course was the Whitestone cheese factory, where we watched some bored looking, vaguely pissed off men work in the factory and tried a selection on the cheeses in the factory shop. YUM. 

The town also turned out to have a Victorian section where we found lots of galleries and boutiques. It was home to the Steam Punk HQ building too. Steam Punk is an art movement which is inspired by a mixture of science fiction and Victorian influences, which doesn't make any sense but makes for some pretty cool stuff to look at. The building had lots of creepy statues, interesting projections and strange installations. The best part, in my opinion, was a bit called the Infinity Portal. It was a room with all the walls covered in mirrors and lights hanging down from the ceiling, making it look as if the lights went on forever, in every direction. 

Right now I am sitting in the campervan at a campsite next to the sea which took us hours to find. As far as I'm aware we are near Christchurch and/or Kaikoura. Tomorrow we are letting ourselves relax and hopefully I get a lie-in (no alarm set)! 

My 2015 has so far has been full of adventure and excitement and is a great way to start my year travelling. Only 10 days left with my family until I am on my own on the opposite side of the world! Ahhhhh. 

Thank you for reading again! 

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