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!
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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