Welcome to the real world!

We've done a cheeky slideshow which I hope you can access here.

To celebrate making it through Term 1 at school and Phil being awarded a spot bonus at work, we set off to Queenstown….by plane, as our car seems seriously dodgy at the moment….and the ferries are about the same price as flights!  Crazy…as we came into land at Queenstown airport we had our faces glued to the window…..it really was like arriving on the Lord of the Rings set…….

We booked onto the Kepler Track, one of NZ’s finest walks, and on Day 2 found ourselves with rucksacks on our backs (mine a lot smaller than Phil’s’….cleverly engineered by moi!) and track map…….into the hills we went….but first a long walk through a beech forest….pretty…..but we love hills and views….so after a big uphill climb through the trees…a good few hours….we were relieved to finally get above the tree line and see some of the countryside.   Spectacular!  But it was pretty cold out in the open…so we hurried to our Mountain Lodge where we cooked some pasta delight and played lots of canasta before bedding down for the night in our silky sleeping bag liner….which I’m very proud of, so I had to tell you on the web, as it’s a double and its pretty fine!  (see pic of me making it on our home page!)

The next day was billed as ‘the Alpine Day’ and it didn’t disappoint – we were glad of the porridge start because it was up up up until we reached the summit of Mt Luxmore…via some off the track route that Phil was desperate to take…..he loves playing Indiana Jones and going solo….again awesome views…look at the photos…I’m terrible at descriptions…sorry to my English-teacher Mum…We did a lot of along along along across some pretty impressive saddles with steep drops down (did nothing for Phil and my vertigo…yes, we’re both wooses!)   and then it was down down down…all the way to our sand fly infested campsite by the beautiful, but chilly falls on the Iris Burn (well done to Phil for swimming….although it is compulsory that one of us does at each place we go to around the world!)

Final day……along the Iris Burn….pretty, but rather too much forest for us hill loving types….and rather too-long a day of walking, especially when it ended in the dark in the forest that was a little like Lord of the Rings Fangorn Forest…..yes, I was scared……ok, I’m not proud!!

So, one big tramp under our belt……and some rather big blisters (Phil) and rather tired legs (Jo and a little bit Phil)….we decided to do the usual sight-seeing thing and drive to Milford Sound and do the boat-thing.   We were so glad we went – the sun came out after a grey/wet Milford start (this place gets 2000mm of rain….its an understatement to say it is a wet place)….and we loved looking upwards at the perched Pembroke glacier, the fairy like waterfalls and the steep steep sides of the fjord.  Mitre Peak was looking pretty mighty and the seals basking on the sun on the rocks were looking pretty….exhausted actually….bit like the P and J Outram.

What next?  Queenstown of course!!  NZ’s biggest play park…..and we made the most of it…an afternoon white water rafting on the Shotover River, a day (and almost inadvertently most of an evening!!)  mountain biking around Ben Lomond and the compulsory gondola and luge experience.

I’ll leave Phil to talk about our experience of the white water rafting, as to be honest, he probably saw more of it…..I spent a lot of time with my head buried beneath his bum and clinging on for dear life trying not to disappear down one of the aptly named rapids like Jaws or Toilet.  He’ll also tell you how we nearly came unstuck in Skippers Canyon too…..which I missed out on, as I spent the entire journey feeling sick at the through of that cold, green, rapid-filled river……..but I was SO glad I did it….wow, what a feeling when we landed back ondry land…..my broken paddle even made it down the river with us, but Phil will tell you about that.

Maybe Phil should talk about the mountain biking too – as that turned out to be nearly quite epic!