Chocolate High!

Just to prove how good it was, here's Em with the giggles....

The Silk Oak Chocolate Factory

Not content with just Cadbury World in Dunedin we had to go try this little chocolate place in Hawkes Bay...they have a really interesting museum, tasting, shop and cafe. In the cafe they serve small cups of thick, liquid dark chocolate with optional chilli - the way King Montezuma used to drink it, apparently. Of course Em had to have one! Here she is guarding said chocolate from a cheeky dad...look at the determination on that face! :0)

Miles and miles and miles and miles....

Gosh, we seem to have travelled an awful long way the last few days! We left the South Island, a rather "lumpy" crossing, straight through Wellington to a place called Paraparaumu (pro. Para - para - oo - moo) and then on to Napier, part of the Hawkes Bay Wine Country. Miles and miles of vineyards, and guess where we spent the afternoon? In a chocolate factory! Do you think we need to rebalance this relationship somehow??? ;0)

A note on the South Island, much quieter, cooler, but quieter. Here's a typical view of a road in the South!

The Chimney

This part of the rocks is called the "chimney" because it spouts a plume of spray from the waves that crash below the cave. Like a guiser but in vapour...!

Pancake Rocks

Our journey north continues away from the Alps and we stopped off to see the famous "Pancake Rocks" - a peculiar formation of layers of rock and blow holes carved out by the waves.

So bizarre!

This is the most awesome landscape we have ever encountered. Last night there was a frost. From the window of our log cabin (brrrr) we can see snow on the mountains. And yet in the garden there are palm trees and cabbage trees - sub-tropical! Apart from the chill, it's really bright and sunny, and gets quite warm during the day. This excellent piccie was taken by Ems.

Glacier!

From Arrowtown we visited a really interesting place at Wanaka called "Puzzling World" that has all kinds of puzzles, illusions and a terrific maze (thank goodness we got out). Great fun!
Then onto some serious stuff, the Fox's and Frans Josef Glaciers. Here's a picture of Fox's Glacier, one of the closest glaciers to the rainforest floor and then the sea. Seven other glaciers contribute to it's journey down the southern Alps, and we got within about 50m of the face (or terminal). Ice at the face joined the top of the glacier as snow FIVE years ago! Truly awesome...

Their promised land...

Arrowtown, quaint historical village on a mountain plateau...

Arrowtown

Not far from Queenstown is a small town called Arrowtown. Fascinating museum talks about how early settlers forged new routes across mountain ranges to find secluded pasture plateaus to set themselves up with farms - and the odd bit of gold here and there. Arrowtown was described by one as their "promised land". How lovely! It is cold down here in the south, we hear that Invercargill has had snow since we left. Here are some leaves to prove it's now mid-Autumn!

Chocolate, chocolate, everywhere!

Wednesday we were in Dunedin. That just happens to be where Cadbury World NZ is located. Yes. Cadbury World. It was quite a different experience to the one in Bourneville, you actually get to go right inside the factory and watch them making the chocolate. There was also a large, purple, five storey silo that would usually contain chocolate crumb, but had been converted to contain a staircase down and in the middle, the world's only chocolate falls. In the space of about three minutes, one tonne of Cadbury chocolate fell right in front of where we were standing!

By Emma.

Invercargill

Arrived Invercargill 13:00hrs. Departed Invercargill 13:01.

Milford Sound (again)

Milford Sound is worthy of a note from me (Tim). Probably the most awesome, amazing place I've ever been... Days later and I'm still lost for words. Apparently they get over 4 metres of rain a year in Milford, most days are overcast or foggy. However we got sun and clear views... A rareity.

Te Anau is the nearest town albeit over 120K from Queenstown. Then its another 150K to Milford Sound along the most scenic (if not trecherous) route. (bit like the opening scene of the Italian Job...wish I still had me Alfa)... There are no settlemets whatsoever for the whole journey and there is nothing in Milford other than a visitor centre and harbour. Picture is us waiting for green light at Homer tunnel, a 1.5Km tunnel right at the top of a mountain, literally. Only one green light every 15 minutues...... From May to October you have to have snow chains as it can suddenly start snowing without warning.... Remote and bleak but somehow breathtaking....

Sailing through waterfalls

Here's Tim and Em sheltering from the waterfall the Maori's called "Cloud on the Water"! Hee, they got SO wet! :0)

Dolphins racing the boat!

Milford Sound

The Icing on the Cake!!!

Finally, after a stopover in a lovely lakeside town, Te Anau, the time had come for us to visit the NUMBER ONE THING THAT KIWIS VOTED FOR TO DO IN NZ! Te Anau is the closest town to Milford Sound and it's still a 2 hour ride to get there. Then we take a boat cruise up through the sound, and drive back again. It's going to be a long day.

But oh, my god, what an amazing day! For one the sun was shining. This apparently is quite rare in this region. The lady who ran the motel said as it was sunny the day before, no way would it be sunny on the day of our trip. But the heavens shone on us. The sun was out.

It was a lovely calm day and we sailed out onto the water. It's a fiord, actually, not a sound. Stunning scenery. No, I mean, breathtaking. Then half way out a slight detour as a pod of dolphins flanked the boat - they ride the pressure wave from the front of the boat so it looks like they're racing us. THAT close! Really!

We sailed out to the Tasmin Sea (quite lumpy), back through a couple of waterfalls, stopped off at an underwater observatory and then back to shore. In a way you wish you could leave Milford Sound until the end of the tour because everything else just pales by comparison.

I shall have to bore you with lots of piccies now, then Timmy has a few words to say too... Julie x

The gondola ride...

And this is how we got to the top of said mountain [never again!]...

Queenstown

You know how we said that Waitomo was the Adrenalin capital of the North Island - and we opted to go bunny shearing? Well, Queenstown is the Adrenalin capital of the South Island. This is where you can bungie. Not just bungie, bungie so your head gets dunked in the lake. Bungie "swing" from one side of a canyon to another. And bungie from the top of a mountain. Or paraglide strapped to another raving lunatic (other than yourself that is)...

Well, we opted for what we thought was gentle. The gondola ride up the side of the mountain to admire the beautiful views of Queenstown from the top. We thought it looked quite steep. Em thought it was fab. Tim and I enjoyed it so much we decided to WALK back down the mountain, all 2.5kms of near-vertical dirt track. Anything but get on that again!

The picture doesn't really do it justice. By the time we recovered we were able to admire the views from the top, and Tim & Em did the additional top-of-the-mountain Luge ride (only Em managed the ski-style chairlift though). Here's the view of the town and lake from the top of the gondola ride.

Christchurch to Queenstown

Been a few days since we've had broadband so a bit to catch up on. After leaving Oamaru we stopped off at the Moeraki Boulders, strange and completely round boulders on the beach .... It was a fairly long drive from Oamaru to Queenstown so we carried forward onto St. Bathans, a Goldmining town. Gold Mining long since ceased, however, some of the old buildings still remain like the hotel which they say is haunted. Blog by Timmy.

Blue Penguins

On to Oamaru where we went to the local Blue Penguin Colony after dark to see them waddle onto land from their day-long fishing trip...

Christchurch

From Hanmer we travelled south again to Christchurch, a thoroughly British city and the largest so far south in New Zealand. Here's Emma's picture of the sculpture in the city's pedestrian centre, meant to represent the leaves of native NZ plants and trees. We took a ride around the tram circuit and saw Boatered punters on the river, quite bizarre.

Ski Fields

Before we left Hanmer we took a drive up to the ski fields, and popped into a local farm park where Em got to walk a Llama...

From the other side of the camera...

...it's me! We came back to our chalet for some tea then went back to the pools in the dark - they were all steaming, it was really quite something. Anyway, signing off for now, we'll post again when we have more news! Tomorrow (Monday) we're probably going for a nice walk around Hanmer to see where the ski fields are in winter. There is descension in the ranks, though, there's talk of a river trip by jet boat or a wet & wild experience on quadbikes...I think I may stay here and finish my book (Atonement, nearly finished, don't spoil the ending...)

Then on Tuesday we head for Christchurch.

Hanmer Springs

After the excitement of Kaikoura, we took a detour inland to a village called Hanmer where there are volcanic spring pools to chill-out and relax. Surrounded by palm trees, pine trees and then mountains, the springs are said to be even more spectacular in winter when they're surrounded by snow - and they feature at number 4 of the top 101 things Kiwis wish to do...they're not far wrong you know! Here's a piccie of Tim and Em enjoying the pool - just look at that view!

To Seal a Fabulous Day!

As if we weren't wildlifed-out after our Whale Watching trip, we took a visit to the local Seal Colony just at the end of the road, and caught this character having a nap in the corner of the car park. We nicknamed him Charlie but he didn't look amused.

Dusky Dolphins

Just as a bonus on the way back from Whale Watching, we saw a group of Dusky Dolphins swimming near the boat. Here goes, the one picture that caught them. An Albatross came right by the boat as well but they're impossibly difficult to photograph...

Kaikoura - Whale Country

After a short respite in Picton, we headed south again to a village called Kaikoura. It's unique in that a 1km deep ocean valley comes very close to the shore and you only have to travel 5-6km out to sea to find male Sperm Whales feeding. Fifteen minutes out to sea in a very powerful Catamaran, sure enough, and we were chuffed to bits, we saw not one but TWO fully grown Sperm Whales and patiently waited for them to dive again to deeper water to get that all-important "tail shot". Here goes, and very proud we are too!

Emma in a Sound

Here's Emma admiring the view, it was like nothing we've seen before, well, especially since we slept the entire way through the Panama Canal which I suppose is the closest we've come before!

Crossing North to South

Time to pause our brief tour of the North Island, we crossed Cooks Strait, a short time over open water and then down a series of channels called "Sounds" - which we are told are underwater valleys, as opposed to fiords which are gouged out by glaciers. Here's a picture of our ferry, just to set the scene.

The Capital of New Zealand

After Turangi we headed for a small town called Mana just north of Wellington. We visited the Te Papa museum and saw the fault lines between the Australian and Pacific plates which make this such an Earthquake and Volcano hotspot. What a pretty city, settled around steep hills on all sides. We had a wander around the quayside and a ride up through the town in a cable-car - here's the view from the top. Then we went to a wildlife reserve and saw a native Tuatara lizard in the wild.

North Island - heading south

Right, back on track now and time for an update. Travelling south of Waitomo we headed for Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake - really a massive volcanic crater. We stayed in a nearby town called Turangi, by a river world-renowned for fly-fishing (apparently) and did a fabulous "bush" walk round a much smaller volcanic crater lake - Rotopounamu. There were much longer walks but they were 7 hours plus across vast fields of volcano cones, some of them active as recently as 1996. This 6km walk was ample though, you can see the diagram on this chart, and we head south again...

Our journey south

We're playing catch up between internet connections so here's a picture of the Karangahke Gorge we walked a bit of on the way between the Coromandel and Waitomo...

The Shearing Shed

The other amazing thing we did today, well, you’ll never guess. It was the funniest thing we have seen in a long time. Cute. And funny. And unique. We went to a Shearing Shed (pictured). To see, wait for it…..Angora Rabbits being shawn. Before, huge fluffy white German Angoras the size of a small deer. After, a rabbit that resembles a freshly clipped miniature poodle, all shawn except massive fluffy feet and ears. They are well-trained and depend on the shearing for their survival apparently, and live out their full natural lives in spacious barns….Amazing. No, really! Scroll down the page to see for yourself...

The rabbit before being shawn....

This is one of the German Angoras before it was shawn. They really are that huge!!!