26 January 2007 - Time is going far too quickly!!

It seems like only yesterday that i arrived in New Zealand and now I'm flying out of the place!

From the last time i wrote i made it down to Wellington and stayed there the night as i was catching the Inter Islander ferry over to Picton in the South Island. Claire, one of the girls i met in the Bay Of Islands was going to be joining me for the last week through the South Island. When i arrived in Picton i picked up the rental car and drove to Nelson, around an hour and a half away, to pick Claire up from the airport. We decided to head back to Picton that night to stay there as we wanted to look around the Marlborough winneries.....unfortunately, by the time we got back to Picton they were all closed! We had to make do with going to a local bar and testing the wine there!

The next day we headed down south via the West Coast as we were headed for Queenstown. New Zealand is a pretty sparse country and the scenery is incredible. We made our first stop off in Hokitika as it was getting late to drive.....it was pretty dead around, a lot like Picton....we did wonder where the population of New Zealand was hiding! On the drive down we stopped off at the Pancake rocks and a Seal colony which were both pretty cool.....

So, it was an early start again as we headed South again.....We were headed for Wanaka, around an hour from Queenstown as we were staying the night there. On the way we stopped off at the Franz Josef glacier.....it was pretty impressive and we made the walk near the front of the glacier.....

The next morning we had a small detour on the way to Queenstown. Claire had been trying to persuade me to do a skydive with her and she called the Skydive place that morning to book her dive. So, we drove to the airport in the early afternoon and her jump was scheduled for 12pm.....i almost had the form in my hand and i had a brief moment when i nearly agreed to it.......but, i bottled it! Claire loved it and from looking at her DVD I'm pretty glad i didn't agree!!!

We arrived in Queenstown that afternoon and checked into our hostel for the 2 nights we were to be there for. Queenstown was pretty lively.....this must be were everyone was hiding! We had a good first night as we went out for a few drinks on the town.....i had booked to go white water rafting early the next day so wasn't too up for too much of a late night! We did manage to get into the Minus 5 Bar.....the temperature is always between minus 5 and minus 10 and the whole bar is made of ice.....even the glasses! You have to wear big coats, gloves and boots that they provide.....was good fun!

I was up at 7.30am the next morning to get picked up for my rafting. We were off down the Shotover river in Queenstown.....had an amazing time and luckily didn't manage to get dragged out of the boat! Some of the rapids were pretty intense though....

So, it was our last night in New Zealand and we headed out for dinner and a few drinks in town. Had a really good night and i was heading off to the Cook Islands the next morning while Claire was heading off back to Auckland to stay at her friends place.....going to be weird not having here around!

Cook Islands here i come!!