Kiwi Experience – South Island

We left Queenstown and headed to Kaikoura to visit Adele an old friend of my from America days...it was lovely to catch up with her and meet her wee son Jack.  We spent 1 night with her then headed to Blenheim, Marlborough....the wine region!! We did a half day tour of the local vineyards which was brilliant, some lovely and some not so lovely wines in the various tasting sessions but it was definitely an interesting education for my wine palette.  Most of the vineyards we visited currently supply to the UK and Ireland so it will be nice to come home and say oh I’ve been there.  We visited Cloudy Bay, Mahi, Lawsons, Highfields and Villa Maria so I am sure some of you will recognise some familiar Friday night wines!!

We jumped onto our Kiwi experience tour bus in Nelson to start our trip down the west coast.  One of the highlights was the ‘Poo pub’ which is a country pub in the middle of nowhere where Kiwi have a fancy dress party for each bus.  The theme was world cup so James and I collected as many Irishy things as possible and basically looked as Irish and stupid as possible for the night – it was good fun!!

We headed further down the west coast to Franz Joseph glacier where we completed a full day hike.  The scenery is beautiful and it’s a really unique fun day.  It is pretty challenging as you wear your crampons to climb up and down steep ice steps, tunnels and slopes but it is so worth it for the views...see pictures!!

Next stop Wanaka, a small lake side resort with a few small ski fields off it.  We spent 1 night here and enjoyed a lovely walk around the edge of the lake, the scenery in the south island is fantastic lots of lakes surrounded in the background by snow capped mountains. 

Finally we made it round to Queenstown again which we were really looking forward to.  On the first day James completely took leave of his senses and completed the Nevis Bungy jump at 134metres along with a few of our friends on the bus.  I went to watch as a spectator and was terrified of the height just looking at it.  James always says that he is afraid of heights as he is afraid of falling off so he decided that having the ability to jump off might cure his fear.  It was so scary....initially I (and he) didn’t think he would do it but he ended up doing so well and when the guy said 3...2....1....he didn’t even hesitate and just went...admittedly not the most fantastic swan dive but he still jumped which was so impressive.  My heart was in my mouth until he came back onto solid land!!! He is now pretty pleased with himself and has watched the video on repeat more or less since then.  Check out the video on facebook if your interested!!  This is the same bungy that most of the Ireland team completed when they were in Queenstown so it has had lots of publicity recently.  Definitely a once in a lifetime experience and one that I have no doubt he will talk about for a while (lucky me!!)

The rest of our time in Queenstown was spent just chilling and catching up with friends we made on our first visit.  We had a few great nights out in Altitude (sadly I did not witness the Mike Tindall incident!!) and World Bar drinking cocktail teapots!!  Naturally we sampled Fergburger which is a must when in Queenstown.  One day we played Frisbee golf which was really good fun although alot harder than you would imagine, its basically laid out like a golf course with 18 holes and a basket you have to get your Frisbee into...turns out I am pretty rubbish at Frisbee haha!! It was a good laugh anyway and something a little different.  

We were sad to leave Queenstown again this time for the last time, it is a brilliant town with so much to do and so much fun.  Hopefully someday we will return here, probably as old foggies and reminisce about the good days lol!!

World cup mania has been in full force since my last blog.  The atmosphere everywhere during games is electric and we have been really lucky to see most of the matches live on TV, something I know is proving difficult at home.  Obviously the most brilliant night and match so far was watching the Ireland v Australia game, we watched it in an Irish bar in Queenstown called Pog Mahones and the banter was fantastic.  It was so intense and just a great night with everyone in such high spirits at the end.  While we are obviously delighted with the result we have mixed feelings (along with most of the irish supporters in NZ) as we purchased quarter final tickets on the assumption that Ireland would come second in the group and not first...oops!! So most of the Irish in NZ will now (most likely) be watching the Australia v South Africa quarter final grrrr....anyone know any Aussies who would like to swap tickets please let me know!!!!

So now the adventure continues up to the North island which I am excited about as I have not been there before.   We are going to the Ireland game this Sunday (25^th) v Russia so I can not wait for that....myself and BOD will be reunited haha!! I plan to wear as stupid an outfit as possible to try and get on tv so watch this space lol!! Get the sky plus at the ready!!

Hope this finds everyone well and settled back into school, uni, work routines without too much hassle, hopefully the next time I write I will have made my tv debut and will be able to update you all on our North Island adventures.  Time is passing so quickly we have started looking at getting things booked in Australia which is a sign that the time is really flying so we are definitely trying to make the most of each day.  Keep in touch people its been so nice getting unexpected but lovely emails from home recently...keep it up!! xxx