One piece of advice: Never book a direct flight Manchester to New Zealand, it´s a killer!After 30 hours on a plane you are seriously getting crazy....Manchester - Dubai (7hours), Dubai - Bangkok (6h), Bangkok - Sydney (9h), Sydney - Christchurch (3h)and a few hours on each airport, getting off and on the plane again....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! We tried to keep track about what time it was but no chance...You feel nothing in the end, just your body walking through the check points, but you cannot really imagine what´s happening.Anyway, the food with Emirates was fantastic and all we did those 30 hours was: Eating, drinking and watching DVDs - every few hours...
BUT, we arrived at Christchurch (how happy we were to read this name on the screen!!)on the 15th at 3pm and felt a bit like drugged...(shame we weren`t!). We stayed in the Cokers (good choice of name...!) Hostel in Manchester Street! Wasn`t the best choice but after 30 hours all you want is relax and get normal again, so we decided to change to Coachman Backpackers. Still jet-lagged we went up a hill with the gondola in Christchurch, where you have a wonderful (windy!) view of the town - just to remind us that we are really in New Zealand, still a bit surreal.
After two days and a bit of recovery from 12 hours time difference, we headed to Queenstown, a great great city with a good vibe, where we immediately followed the sound of music and ended up in a festival, drinking beer! OH yes, we finally arrived. Later that afternoon we booked the impossible...a bus to Milford Sound (a must do, simply impressive!!). The bad things is you spend 5 hours on a bus (one way!) and 2 hours on the boat, but hey - welcome backpacker life!
Because Queenstown is known for adrenalin seekers, Raf decided to do a bungy jump from Kawarau Bridge, about 43m. I was quite nervous just watching him (fall) and it was really pure adrenalin rush!! (I am talking about ME, how did HE FEEL?? His heart was on fire...) It was a great experience and he looked like he had seen the most beautiful girl in the world (that would be me of course) after the jump! Amazing feeling it must be.....
From Queenstown we headed to Franz Glacier to do some hiking. Gosh - we came back home, totally soaked, totally knackered....The Glacier looks great from far away and on the postcards, but unfortunately we did not see much of it. We decided to do the BIG WALK (everyone who knows us would say...."you are not fit, why would you chose the LONGEST WALK??" Well, we don`t know....it was an incredible experience, lots of nature surrounds you, great fresh air, and we definively made up on all those bus travels as we spent 10 hours walking or better said hiking...or better said floating, as is was raining so heavily that we were rather swimming than walking. Anyway, a great day but unfortunately our hard work was not blessed by a great view as it was foggy everywhere.But we can say we walked up to 1300 meters (Alex Knob it was called). After our endless journey to the forest and back we cannot move anymore so we will be more than happy to take a 10 hour bus to Nelson tomorrow....We did not know that you can feel all your bones after such a hike!
After a long long drive in a 20 year old little bus, we reached Nelson. The drive was nice though, we saw the whole West Coast of the South, so a bit of a consolation for the uncomfortable chairs. Nelson is a nice city, a bit touristy but the Abel Tasman Track was worth every penny. We had lovely weather, a nice little boat tour and then we walked round the Abel Tasman for 4 hours, having a look at the most beautiful spots, just nice. Our most used sentence was "This is nice...."! Definitively the best day so far.
After the track we took the bus to Picton, an astonishing nice little city on the Harbor. There, we did another (! - we are getting sporty here!) track, called Queen Charlotte Track. We did not really know which one we preferred, Abel Tasman or Queen Charlotte but it was different, as Queen Charlotte seemed less touristy, there were times where we thought we lost the track as we could not see anybody around us, which was nice! Another 4 hours walk, a bit muddy at the beginning but nice views and a nice little picknick with wine and muffin and a gorgeous view! A perfect day to celebrate Rafs 30th (!) birthday. No joke, this is true! I surprised him in the morning with a 3-0- candle stuffed in muffins and a voucher for SKYDIVING in Taupo , so he`ll never forget his birthday....When I started to sing "Happy Birthday" in my sexy pyjamas the wrong Raf went in the room and the guy looked rather scared, but after the second try and it was the right one:)
Anyway, back to the Queen...As another birthday present I asked a few whales to say hello and when we took the boat back from Queen Charlotte we saw 2 whales (one baby whale swimming just next to the boat!), it was the most amazing experience ever...you cannot be much closer to nature.
SO - after a lot of tracking it only took a short ferry ride to reach Wellington, on the north side of New Zealand. We went to the botanic gardens and saw Te Papa Museum, the best museum we probably seen so far, with a MEGA Squid! Unfortunately we don`t have the money for a few beers but we look forward to Asia for this:) After a short stay we took the bus to Taupo, where our BIG day started. We are still feeling the adrenalin a bit in our veins...A combo of Skydiving AND Bungy is definitively enough within 10 hours, but it was WORTH IT, every penny and every second...! BIG DAY. First of all, our lodge in Taupo called TIKI LODGE was great, lots of nice people and a cosy atmosphere. Once we arrived we decided to go for a combo of Bungy and Skydive the day after so there we go:
8am - wake up and we both felt really nervous....it was a GREAT SUNNY DAY, clear blue sky...We were really happy! But thank god we took the bus in the morning already, cause we would have gone mad otherwise...
10.15am - we and 4 other people got picked up to go to the airport, where we got a bit of an induction. Dressed in red with a cool pilot cap we started to go to the small (!!) yellow plane and got to know our instructor who would do the jump with us. All nice chaps, they did jump between 5.000 and 20.000 times!! UNBELIEVABLE!! So all in good hands.
12.00am - We got squashed in the plane and everybody could feel the slight tension...there we went....5.000 feet.....10.000 feet....12.000 feet - where the first 3 people already jumped off. Just seeing them jumping or falling or whatever WITHING SECONDS was VERY scary....this is the time where you think "AM I MAD OR WHAT???" But no time to think....A few last words from our instructors and you start to panic...no wonder, 15.000 feet - the highest possible.
And that`s the moment of your life (literally!!) I (Mel) went first (no choice there!) and after a few seconds, a quick hello in the camera (the moment I missed caused I got ready to jump...) you hold on to your equipment and there you go...YOU FALLLLLLLLLLLL! After a few seconds you start to realise...oh my God, I jumped out of a plane!! Raf went after me, but I was too busy trying to understand what I am doing, so could not see anything apart from the Lake Taupo (the biggest lake in NZ!) and lots of mountains...it was beautiful and we both loved every second....It felt like 5 seconds but you are actually falling for more than 60 seconds!
The parachute opened at 5.000 feet and you start to relax a bit more. Raf did not feel too well after it cause the instructor took a few very fast turns so he felt a bit dizzy at the end. All in all, worth doing 100%, I personally want to do it again as it was the BEST experience of my life, that `s for sure. Maybe a skydiving instructor could be another option for a career? (Mum, I am joking!:))
But that` s not it... yet...
12.30pm - We checked out the DVD and chose our T-shirt, it was great to see the DVD as it really is 60 seconds!
13.00 - Drive to the next adrenalin site: Bungy - the bit where Raf is less scared,I am more scared of it than the Skydiving...Cause YOU need to jump!
Quick decision if I wanted to do a Tandem with Raf (which means even if I don`t want to jump I WILL anyway) BUT I was brave enough (stupid!) and wanted to jump on my own.
13.45: After a quick word of advice and checking your weight you can go on the platform/bridge where you jump off. (I looked down once and thought - SURELY NOT!)
Raf jumped first and left me all by myself 50 meters above the ground. He did so well, jumped after the 1-2-3 count like a professional (well he already did it once before!!).
My turn, SCCCARRRY - the instructor counted 1-2-3 but I was still up there. I said "I cannot jump, ...count again", so she counted again and I jumped. I only remembered that I made funny noises and then SPLASH - the body was half in the water and you realise "This is it!". Raf nearly lost his T-shirt when he jumped and I was half naked, but hey.
All in all, a great experience, a real adrenalin shock, but worth it. In my opinion scarier than Skydving, in Raf`s opinion less scary than Skydiving...so I guess you need to do it yourself to find out!
Our adventure just started and the next stop would be Tongario Alpine Crossing, 7 hours walk/hike. Bus pick up at 5.30am, this is not a holiday we can tell you this!!:) The Crossing is kind of hurt cause it was so beautiful. Definitively the best walking/trekking we did so far. Beautiful landscape, craters, lakes....although the `Devil`s Staircase` was a bit steep, we got rewarded with the nice views.
It was not as exhausting as we thought (probably because we got used to walk for a few hours a day!) but we fell asleep like a baby this night.
Next day: Bus to Rotorua...and you can SMELL it once you approach this city, it`s unbelievable how it stinks! As if you are walking through a festival site on the last day...like a toilet! Supposed to be healthy, we are not quite sure...
Nice little city and we encountered our first Maori experience, everything for no money and nothing too touristy. We visited a small Maori village and a guy called Sonny gave us a 1,5 hour tour through the history of his people. It was fascinating, interesting and really beautiful. We enjoyed every second and every `hungi` greeting (quote as he `hungied` Raf: `You are easy to hungi`!).
We spent the evening in the Polynesia Spa, absolutely great. There were 4 outdoor pools, all between 30 and 42 degrees, quite HOT when you spend longer than 10 minutes...We really enjoyed it...After all those hiking tours! Well earned..
Our last stop in New Zealand was Auckland, Kia Ora! The city itself not very spectacular but the day trip to Devonport was worth while...
Raf & Mel aka. "the adrenalin couple"
