Tamra’s Kiwi Experience

After Queenstown we made our way to the Doubtful Sound via Te Anau where we stayed in a backpackers for one night, it was a beautiful little town next to a lake with crystal clear waters. 

 

The following day we arrive at Manapouri to catch our ferry accross to the Doubtful Sound.  This was the day of my 30th birthday- eek.  We arrived on a little island and it was a short coach drive through thick bush, luscious forest, waterfalls, views of the sounds- truely spectacular, to the ferry which would take us on our overnight cruise.   During the coach trip we stopped at different spots of interest as tourists do to take photographs.  After one stop we got back on the coach and the driver who spoke to us through a microphone telling us about the different points of interest made a comment and mentioned my name, I thought to mself ‘oh, no what have they got planned’, as we approached the ferry the driver asked the whole coach to sing happy birthday which they did! very embarrassing but kind of nice.

    

      

We boarded the ferry and we settled into our sleeping areas (bunk beds seperated by curtains), the rest of the afternoon was spent cruising the fiord, truely beautiful it was, we took a little boat trip so we could go closer to the land which was awesome.  We then proceeded to travel out of the fiord and out to sea slightly to some rocks where seal’s were nesting and also penguins! I saw penguins on my birthday! after a few hours of seal and penguin watching we returned into the sounds and anchored up for dinner.

      

     

    

 

My family had organized champaigne and wine, we had a lovely meal, I opened my presents then the crew bought me a cake and sang happy birthday, we had an awesome dinner and drank while the sun went down.  I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my 30th birthday.

 

    

        

The next morning (as rough as I was feeling) we headed out to a fork in the fiord where we were promised water like a mirror and pure natural beauty and thats just what it was.  Looking into the water you could see your reflection and the reflection of the trees and mountains surrounding us, the crew turned off the boats engines so we could experience the pure sound of nature and we all kept silent for 10 minutes to really appreciate the experience.

    

    

We then headed back inland to catch the coach back and that was the end of a very memorable experience.

Next we travelled to the Catlins via Invercargill where we just drived through stopping at Bluffs Point the southerly most point of New Zealand. 

 

At the Catlins we stayed in a beach house looking out onto the open sea, watched the sun set, went out for a nice meal then played scrabble before retiring to bed, such a lovely house, very comfortable and homely.  The next day we had a look at a petrified forest, went to see a few waterfalls and lakes and made our way up to Dunedin.  The holiday home we stayed in at Dunedin was very strange, it was somebodys home with all their clothes and belongings still there! still it was cheap so i wasn’t complaining.  We went into the city of Dunedin the following day and had a browse around, quite nice, we went out onto the peninsula and went to the Royal Albatros Colony, very impressive, then Dionne and I went on a cruise which was really good as we saw more penguins and seals plus royal albotros.  After a few days in Dunedin we travelled back to Christchurch and stayed there one final night before flying back to Auckland.  We saw and did many other things on the south island, stopping at points of interest along the way, too many to mention here, but the things I have just talked about are the highlights, for me anyway.

    

Once at Auckland we met up with my other brother Kurt who came over to Auckland with his friend to do some DJ’ing.  It was only briefly though, we had lunch then set off for Taupo where we stayed for 3 nights. 

 

Taupo was inland about 4 hours south of Auckland.  The town is next to the biggest lake in New Zealand, lake Taupo (obviously!).  We spent the next 4 days exploring the town, visiting nearby areas of interest.  We also went to Tongoriro national park which was a further 2 hours south of Taupo, my mum, Adam and I did the first part of the Tongariro crossing which is supposed to be the best one day walk in NZ but we couldn’t due the full walk as it means climbing a volcano and you need the right equipment, still the part of the walk we did do was spectacular, it was below the mountain which was mount doom in lord of the rings.

    

    

    

The highlight i thought was Rotorua, here there is live volcanic activity, bubbling mud pools, we visited a couple of thermal parks and watched a Maori performance which was really good.

(See my other posts on Rotorua for photographs)

                                                                                                                 

    

Then we headed back to Auckland for the final few days, we went to Rangitoto island which is a landmark in the sea from Auckland, we walked to the summit of the volcano where you get spectacular views of Auckland, then did some last minute shopping.  We had our last dinner to celebrate a wonderful holiday then my family left the following day for England, it was sad to see them go but I was left with good memories and I would be joining them in a few months time.

    

 

 

Christmas in Auckland was pretty good this year, for our works Christmas do we went on a harbour cruise and had dinner and drinks on board while cruising under the harbour bridge and the coast of Auckland.  Was very different to the working mens clubs in Yorkshire!

Here are some photos of the evening:

    

    

    

    

    

I had to work on Christmas day (12 hour shift!) but it was quite a nice shift, we were allowed to wear what we wanted to work so i wore my fairy wings.

    

Then that evening Dionne and I went round to our friend Emily’s for christmas dinner:

    

Boxing day we headed to the west coast, Piha beach for some sun and relaxation, a very different way of spending Christmas:

    

    

And at Fairy Falls:

    

    

And our second christmas dinner at Grey Street:

    

    

And at Prana, New Years music festival:

    

    

    

    

    

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Hi everyone, my family came over for my 30th birthday in November and we went on a trip round New Zealand.  My mum Tricia, dad Keith, brother Adam, aunty Rita and uncle Roger came over for 3 weeks of adventure and fun!  We had such a good time and everything went smoothly except for a few small hitches, but nothing serious.

I have had to publish this in parts as I don’t have time to sit down and write out the whole thing at once, for some reason you can’t click on my photos here to enlarge them but you can see them all in my photo album enlarged.

I collected my family from the airport in a hired people carrier, they stopped off in Singapore on the way for a few days to break up the long 24 hour flight.  They were still fairly tired so for the first day I took them for a look at my house in Auckland, had a drive round the city centre, took a bite to eat at Mission Bay then took in the views up One Tree Hill, before getting a good nights sleep.  They stayed in a motel near where I live as it would have been too crouded at my house with all my flat mates as well.

The following day we went for a drive to my favourite place in Auckland, the Waitakere ranges and Bethells Beach west Auckland.  It was a fairly nice day so we had a stroll along the beach.  We then went to crystal mountain where you can buy green stone jewellery, its a cool place for buying gifts.    After that we drove over the harbour bridge to Devonport and went for a wlk up a volcanic cone, we could see across to Rangitoto, a volcano that is one of Aucklands famous landmarks.  After that it was into town and up the sky tower, this was a very scary experience, the lift up is bad enough as it has glass panels in the floor and walls so my mum just hid with her eyes shut in a corner.  It wasn’t too bad at the top on the viewing platform as long as you didn’t go too close to the edge! My dad kept scaring us by leaning on the glass and there were people actually jumping off the tower attached to a piece of string!….whatever.

 Dad, mum and Adam at Bethells beach:

    

Dad up the sky tower:

View of Rangitoto from Cheltenham beach:

 

After drinks at the top of the sky tower we went for a stroll round the shops.  We had a nice meal and a few drinks then an early night to catch our flight the following day to the south island.  My family took some clothes to the laundrette to be washed and I warned them about Mr Woo, the Chinese shop owner who doesn’t speak any English that, items of clothing always seem to go missing, and sure enough some items of clothing disappeared, we didn’t discover this until on the south island so there was nothing we could do about it, oh enough about Mr Woo….

My frind Dionne came to the south island with us.  We landed in Christchurch where we spent the first night, the rest of the day we spent looking around the quaint little markets of the city, having lunch, catching a tram ride round the city, taking a gondola up a mountain which was a very scary experience as it was windy, having dinner then watching a rugby match, New Zealand against Australia, its really good watching the Haka when everyone chants along.

Dionne in a Christchurch market:

We stayed in a cheap but comfortable backpackers motel that night then got the early morning train accross to Greymouth on the west coast the following morning. 

 

The train journey was something else, it took you through places that were inaccessable by car, through mountains, over rivers and some really high bridges! It was very miserable weather that day but still a good experience. 

 

We landed in Grey mouth 4 hours later and it was very cold and raining a lot so we didn’t do much really, we picked up our hired people carrier, cheched into our very cheap, old and haunted backpackers motel that apparently was once visited by the Queen (there we photos of her on the wall), then went for a drive around the area after getting very wet while looking for a museum that wasn’t open.  We had a bite to eat and a few beers in the hotel bar then retired to bed.

The following morning we drove down the coast through Hokitika where we stopped for a browse around the village and at the greenstone factory then carried on to Franz Josef Glacier.  We stayed in a nice little holiday park here and went for a walk to see the absolutely enormous glacier that was pouring out of the basin at the top of the mountain and apparently moving very slowly but about a few inches a day, but actually melting and receding back at the same time also at a very slow rate, very interesting.  It took about an hour to walk up to the glacier along what looked like rocky wasteland where the glacier had once been.  We took a drive to a nearby beach to watch the sunset that afternoon.  It was a spectacular sunset.  We drove back along the country road and decided to stop to do some kiwi hunting, we saw some signs saying beware kiwi’s crossing so we thought we might try our luck as it was getting dark.  We parked at the side of the road and turned the engine off and waited quietly.  We decided this was hopeless and we were about to leave when Roger brought out this toy kiwi which made genuine kiwi noises that he had bought as a present.  I didn’t really want to tell you all about this but it was so funny.  For about an hour we sat there with this toy kiwi making kiwi noises out of the window in the hope that one would come out of the bushes!  The funniest thing was a car drove past and stopped to ask us if we were ok, Roger then told him what we were doing, the guy could hardly keep a straight face and we were all so embarrassed.  We left shortly after, and we didn’t see any kiwi’s.  It was very funny though.

 

The next morning my mum, Adam, Dionne and me went on a glacier climb, an organised climb that is, it was very difficult and took a few hour to hike about a quarter of the way up the glacier then 2 hours back down, it was absolutely amazing though the experience of being stood in the natural coridor formations of the ice, the ice was a beautiful blue colour inside.  I definately recommend this to anyone visiting New Zealand.

         

    

We met the others after the climb feeling quite fulfilled but tired.  We then continued on our journey down the coast to Fox Glacier.  We didn’t climb this one but went for a walk to the mouth of the impressive glacier which took about an hour.  While in Fox we also visited the glow worm dell and had a few drinks and a meal in a nice restaurant.  We stayed in a backpackers holiday home that night which was very comfortable.

The followind day we drove south down the west coast then inland to Lake Wanaka where we stayed at a backpackers for the night.  We had a look around the town and had a walk along the beautiful lake.

The following day we went to Queenstown where we stayed in a beatiful holiday home overlooking the lake (after trying to break into the wrong house!) for 3 nights.  Here is the vire from our balcony:

 

It was a half hour pleasant walk into town along the lake.  Here we had some wonderful experiences.  Dionne, Adam and I went on a tour of a canyon in a 4 wheel drive, very scary going along those thin, windy canyon roads, our guide gave us infomation about the gold rush period and how the gold in that area was mined.  We then took our hand to gold panning (in the river where Arwen faces the ring raithes on the horses and calls upon the river horse spirits to wash the ring raiths away, in the lord of the rings might I add).  This was really cool, but we got eaten by sand flies and our guide nearly fell in the river!

    

Dionne, Adam and I also went horse riding along the Dart River and under the Misty mountains (lord of the rings), this was brilliant, I loved it, it was Adams first time on a horse and my second, horses having a mind of their own are very difficult to persude them to do what you want them to do, but we kind of got the hang of it and had a wonderful day.

Here are a few funny pictures of Adam on his mischeivous horse!

    

While in Queenstown we also went up the scary gondola where my mum was pertified! then went for a lovely forest walk at the top of the mountain, we had a look round the shops in Queenstown, ate lots of nice food and drank lots of alcohol.  A jolly good time spent and our accommodation was the best of the whole trip.

    

Part 2 coming soon…..

My family holiday in New Zealand…

 

and my works christmas cruise, these are both being published and will be added soon for you to view!