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"Well, I'm back."
Sep. 20th, 2010 09:46 amAll good things come to an end, and we're back in Melbourne. Since my last post:
Rey and I went on a short heli-tour of Franz Josef/Fox Glacier/Mt Cook. Expensive, but worth it. As a kid growing up in Canberra I never really understood why authors made such a big fuss about mountains; visiting NZ helped clarify that in the rest of the world, 'mountain' means something beyond 'may have to walk slightly uphill for a bit'. In the afternoon, we hiked up to Franz Josef with a guide. This was also good - he knew his stuff and was able to tell us a lot about what we were seeing. Incidentally, about 50% of the people we met in South Island were from the UK.
The next day we drove to Queenstown via the Haast Pass (about a day before snow, yay!) At the risk of repeating myself, v. scenic. In the actual town of Haast, found a jewellery shop that has rather good bone and jade carvings. By this stage we'd seen a lot of places selling the same standard generic-jade-for-tourists designs, so it was nice to see something original with a bit more creativity & finesse. Queenstown looks like another place where we could've spent more time than we did.
Next on our agenda was a day-trip to Milford Sound, but by this stage bad weather had hit and the Milford Road was closed, so the people we'd booked with took us to Doubtful Sound instead. It was a long trip - about ten hours there and back, over land, water, and land again, which gave me enough time to read 'Order of the Phoenix' from end to end. I suck at landscape description, but Doubtful Sound is an intimidating place - huge silent mountains looming up from the fjord, no sign humans had ever walked the earth. This is where dinosaurs would live, if they could live on vertical cliff-faces.
The plan after that was to drive to Invercargill and spend our last night there, before driving on to Dunedin for our flight out on Sunday. The weather was getting worse, and when we got to Invercargill we found it covered in snow. We weren't sure if this was normal for the area, but realised it wasn't when we saw the locals taking the opportunity to build snowmen. One enterprising group had put on ski gear, built themselves a snowcouch, and were happily creating a 6-foot snowpenis to greet passers-by.
We decided to keep driving to Dunedin to avoid the risk of getting snowed in and missing our flight. Found a nice B&B with a spa, which was much appreciated by then. In the morning we did the Cadbury's factory tour, and then visited the aquarium - small, but worth a look all the same. I spent 20 minutes staring at one tank before I managed to find the octopus (if I hadn't, we might still be there) and then off to the airport to fly home, where Dog-Or jumped all over us and demanded extended cuddles.
All in all, we had a lovely time in NZ. The landscape was amazingly pretty, the people were nice, and we managed to avoid earthquakes and tornadoes. Would do again!
Tomorrow, back to work...
Rey and I went on a short heli-tour of Franz Josef/Fox Glacier/Mt Cook. Expensive, but worth it. As a kid growing up in Canberra I never really understood why authors made such a big fuss about mountains; visiting NZ helped clarify that in the rest of the world, 'mountain' means something beyond 'may have to walk slightly uphill for a bit'. In the afternoon, we hiked up to Franz Josef with a guide. This was also good - he knew his stuff and was able to tell us a lot about what we were seeing. Incidentally, about 50% of the people we met in South Island were from the UK.
The next day we drove to Queenstown via the Haast Pass (about a day before snow, yay!) At the risk of repeating myself, v. scenic. In the actual town of Haast, found a jewellery shop that has rather good bone and jade carvings. By this stage we'd seen a lot of places selling the same standard generic-jade-for-tourists designs, so it was nice to see something original with a bit more creativity & finesse. Queenstown looks like another place where we could've spent more time than we did.
Next on our agenda was a day-trip to Milford Sound, but by this stage bad weather had hit and the Milford Road was closed, so the people we'd booked with took us to Doubtful Sound instead. It was a long trip - about ten hours there and back, over land, water, and land again, which gave me enough time to read 'Order of the Phoenix' from end to end. I suck at landscape description, but Doubtful Sound is an intimidating place - huge silent mountains looming up from the fjord, no sign humans had ever walked the earth. This is where dinosaurs would live, if they could live on vertical cliff-faces.
The plan after that was to drive to Invercargill and spend our last night there, before driving on to Dunedin for our flight out on Sunday. The weather was getting worse, and when we got to Invercargill we found it covered in snow. We weren't sure if this was normal for the area, but realised it wasn't when we saw the locals taking the opportunity to build snowmen. One enterprising group had put on ski gear, built themselves a snowcouch, and were happily creating a 6-foot snowpenis to greet passers-by.
We decided to keep driving to Dunedin to avoid the risk of getting snowed in and missing our flight. Found a nice B&B with a spa, which was much appreciated by then. In the morning we did the Cadbury's factory tour, and then visited the aquarium - small, but worth a look all the same. I spent 20 minutes staring at one tank before I managed to find the octopus (if I hadn't, we might still be there) and then off to the airport to fly home, where Dog-Or jumped all over us and demanded extended cuddles.
All in all, we had a lovely time in NZ. The landscape was amazingly pretty, the people were nice, and we managed to avoid earthquakes and tornadoes. Would do again!
Tomorrow, back to work...
