A stopover in New Zealand!

After travelling for 3 months through the Americas, it’s nice to be taking a short break in New Zealand. Some of the simpler things that we appreciate (that we hadn’t really realised we were missing) are...

English – When everyone speaks a language we can understand, it makes things so much easier. Not to mention that we now fully understand food menus, supermarket items and the book shops have a load of titles we might actually want.

Tea – Being a British colony, they appreciate a good cup of tea. We’ve been drinking mostly coffee for the last 3 months, and surprisingly, South America didn’t have the great coffee we were expecting from it (some exceptions!) So it’s nice to have some nice normal tea again....they also have great coffee!

Carpets – Airports, apartments, hostels, bars, etc have carpets. Most places we’ve been so far (bar USA) have mostly stone/tiled/wooden floors. You just realise how comfy carpets are for lounging around in.

Yes...we are easily amused :)

When we arrived, we immediately went to Christchurch and met up with Myra and Graham, two of Conor’s old friends from Ireland who have been living here for the last 3 years. It was great to meet them and they were very hospitable during our short time here. Thanks guys! Especially for lending us the warm clothes for our stay...how can we forget that Chubaka outfit Graham!

Ok, New Zealand is a large enough country (bigger than the UK) split into two islands and with mountainous terrain, so there is only so much you can see in 1 week. We decided we’d rent a car and go for a road trip from the east coast to the west coast and loop back again. This gave us a chance to see some of the fantastic scenery, wildlife and geographical features that NZ has to offer such as.....Castle Hill, a bundle of interesting boulders perched on top of a dramatic hillside (the area resembles the ruins of an old castle and was used in the film Narnia apparently).....Pancake Rocks & Blow-holes, unusual shaped rocks with little tunnels carved out by the sea, and when the tide is high and waves are strong, they spurt out massive plumes of steam and foam.....but the nicest scenery around had to be the rugged snow-capped mountains, the valleys with rivers and lakes, and low cloud in between. No one place in particular stands out but the country seems to have unlimited impressive views.

But New Zealand is the adventure capital of the world and no trip there is complete without risking your life to some extent! So we spent an evening rock climbing with Graham (great fun), did a few hikes, and also got a chance to do a bungee jump off a bridge (Kadi’s first!) :)

One thing that struck us as odd about NZ was the place is very calm and quiet. The streets are empty, very few cars on the roads, coffee shops and restaurants have very few people in them, hostels and shops close up very early in the evening. Kiwi’s obviously live a different type of lifestyle....they get up early, tend to be fairly active (running/cycling/etc) and go to bed early. Something we were not expecting. But all in all, it was great to spend a week there between South America and South East Asia.