5th -25th February. 5th February. Drizzly day, walked a section of the Kepler Track from Rainbow Reach. 6th February We took a tour with southern discoveries to Milford sounds. We met in Te Anu hopped on the bus, it was about a 3 hour bus ride, 2 hours on the ferry and about 2 hours back. We got lucky and had a friendly chilled out bus driver and only about 4 people on our bus. We made lots of stops on the way there, one of them being the mirror lakes. Running commentary along telling us about the national park. Amazingly scenic drive through the mountains. It has rained heavily the night before so all the waterfalls were really powerful. Absolutely stunning with hundreds of waterfalls running down form glaciers. As we got closer to Milford we saw snow topped mountains and at one point we stopped at a stream where the water was so pure we could fill up our water bottles. We went through a big underground tunnel though a mountain to get into Milford. When we arrived at Milford we got straight on the ferry. It was crazily windy on the way out through the sounds. The mountains were just towering above us it was amazing to watch all the waterfalls and we saw seals too. It's was hard to take a photograph that captured the enormity of it , you couldn't gain perspective. We were sleepy on the way back it was nice to get driven and not have to worry about driving. Really good value for money. Would have cost nearly then same in petrol and we probably wouldn't have made it all the way there and back so would have had to pay for accommodation anyway. ( we actually did end up going back there the next day to do some hikes our bus driver told us about and basically drove it all again ourselves anyway. It is just the most beautiful drive so we were happy to do it again and it was nice to be able to stop whenever we wanted to to take pictures and look at the views). Southern discoveries 7th February Key summit , routeburn track. Relatively sleep climb but easy track. You get a little peep at the snow topped mountain on the way up and the views from the top are stunning. You can see lake Marian from the top of this hike. We camped in the National park that night, so peaceful and surrounded by mountains but freezing in the morning because it's a valley and takes ages for the sun to creep over the mountains. 8th February Lake Marian. This was the second hike we did in Fiordlands National park and one of our favourite hikes of the South Island. It's was about 31/2 Hours - 4 hours return so perfectly doable, the track was a bit more scrambley than the Key Summit track. When you get there you see a huge turquoise lake surrounded by snowy mountains and you can swim in the lake, dreamy. We jumped in but didn't last very long because it was take your breath away freezing. After the hike we drove to a free camp site about an hour outside of Queenstown in preparation for our bungee the next day. I had a total freak out that night and got absolutely 0 sleep. 9th February Jump day. Worst day of my life. Don't need to write this down because there's no way I'll ever forget but in short. Had a panic at 5am and decided we would try and swap from Nevis to the tandem at Kawarau Bridge. We were successful thankgod or it would have been wasted money. Never been so terrified in my whole life. Caused a massive scene at both the bungee and the swing. Somehow I was convinced to do both. Lots of tears. Pictures are hilarious. After we went for a Ferg burger and tried a tasting of a bottle of wine from south Australia, Penfolds Grange that was over a grand to buy the bottle at the winery. 6 year anniversary - def won't be forgetting that one. 10th February We wanted to go to a couple of wineries in the central Otago region on this day. However knowing it was both unacceptable and undesirable to drink wine straight after breakfast, we decided to fill our time by visiting Arrowtown, a small gentrified old gold mining town which now has lots of quaint shops and cafes. Got a decent mocha and Jess also wanted to go get some shots of the bungee bridge now it wasn't such a terrifying prospect. We picked up our T shirts and watched some other fools jump. We headed to the chard farm winery, a really scenic place in the foot of the hills. The tastings were really great, both the whites and Reds were brilliant, we ended up walking away with a bottle of red. The rest of the day was filled with a huge drive. We just kept driving and driving, each town we past through didn't hold much appeal, nothing seemed quite as exciting as the queenstown bungee day! We decided to go straight to curio bay, one of the last two main things we were excited todo. Unfortunately, curio bay was a disappointment. We had heard great things about a residential hector dolphin gang that you could just walk into the sea and swim with. Plus the place had seals and rare penguins. Jess' wildlife curse continued however, a rival gang of orcas had rolled through the dolphin territory and scared them off. They hadn't been seen for a few days. With a few solid days of rain forecast, we weren't hanging around to see if they would ever return. With heavy hearts, we set off to tick the last thing off our list. We had another huge day of driving ahead of us. Every town and country road this way reminded us of home, not in a good way. That may have been because of the grey, rainy day! We stopped at a place that was recommended to us by the chard farm lady, nugget point. I had to convince Jess to leave the car as it was pretty soggy. It was scenic with a lighthouse and sea formations but we didn't hang around in the rain. Stayed in a nice campsite that night, river land holiday park. 12th February We drove to the Moeraki boulders in the morning. The boulders were pretty cool but the biggest sight was the 100s of tourist climbing all over them. We drove up the coast further and came across a town called Oamaru. There was a road sign saying you could see penguins there which is really why we made the detour. It was very grand, elaborate fancy buildings. It was mid day so we missed out on the Penguins that apparently only come out at dusk but we did see lots of seals! One climbed all the way up the rocks, over the gate so it was right next to us, and then carried on climbing up this set of stairs behind us. It was absolutely hilarious it was like a puppy showing off. After this town we drove through the national park to Mt Cook. The peak was covered in cloud on the drive towards it but the scenery and mountains were awesome. The bluest lake we've ever seen. We did a small hike when we got there to see a glacial lake which had icebergs floating in it. That night there was gale force winds so we were glad there was a campers shelter for us to cook in and hide away for the evening. 13th February Woke up earlyish and started our Mt cook hike. Lots and lots of steps follows by a scramble up to the top. Heavy day took about 6 and half hours to get up and down. The views from the top were just breathtaking. Huge glaciers everywhere with waterfalls running down them. You could hear the running water really loud and cracks in the ice sounded like thunder. Amazing. There was a little glacier hut you could have stayed in overnight but we went up and down in the same day. After the climb we drove about half way to Christchurch to camp. On the drive out of the Mt Cook national park the cloud had lifted at the peak of the mountain so we got our first proper view. The lake Pukaki was the brightest blue lake I've ever seen. Stars were incredible at the campsite. 14th February. We headed to Christchurch and had a quick look round, we weren't very impressed tbh. It was quite sad seeing the extent of the damage from the earthquake, broken windows everywhere, the main cathedral was just a wreck, cracked concrete in the remaining buildings. It looked quite flat I guess because the majority of buildings had been knocked down. We got a text late afternoon that someone wanted to view the car so we raced to the car wash and did an inside and outside job to get her looking presentable after the roadtrip. The couple who viewed were French. We headed to a cheap campsite out of town that night. Had a special meal, burgers and a bottle of wine for Valentine's Day. 15th February Hit the library to get started on our statements. Did shitty life admin jobs all day spend half of it on the phone. The Frenchies turned us down on the car. We headed back to the same out of town campsite. It was a gorgeous sunny evening. We emptied all our possessions out onto the grass and started the process of sorting through all our clothes and decided which ones we could live without in Asia, all our winter clothes went in the charity bag. Had a call from Dan that evening telling us he was coming out to Asia to join us! 16th February. Library again. Cracked on with the case. Organised a new viewing with a couple of guys, America and Sweedish. Frechies messed us around a bit and tried to put in a really cheeky offer but eventually went up to what we wanted. We took the car back to Queenstown and really loved the Swedish and American guy. Trusted them straight away. They offered at the viewing, same price as the frenchies but we felt more comfortable selling to them. 17th February. Sold the car to the American and Swedish guy in the morning. They were so sweet the American guy wanted a picture with us and told us he would happily host us if we were ever in California. We opened a bank account straight away to get rid of the cash we were carrying around and then bussed to New Brighton where we had a cheap air bnb sorted. We planned to basically shack up for a week to work on our case. Little Brighton is a small little town about 20 minutes outside of Christchurch. Beach is nice and you can surf but quite a strange vibe. We got so lucky with our air bnb hosts, couple from Argentina. The room was private and cost half the price of a hostel so it was a little gem. We had dinner with the hosts one night which was nice, they also let us use their laptop some days to work on our case. 17th- 25th. Lots of library days working on our case. Bad habits from working life sneaking in. Hooked on peaky blinders after nearly a year of no tv and wanting wine every night🙈. Booked flights to Vietnam on the 28th February. Super excited to get back to Asia and catch up with some home faces. It's the 25th today, we think we have one more day of library work to finish our statement and then will have a get ready day. Count down time!
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