Leaving Queenstown was a bit of a milestone as we knew we only had a couple of stops before hitting the North Island. We stopped at Twisel to see Mount Cook and Lake Tekapu which has this amazing turquoise water and was just spectacular. Check out my other photos on flickr as they are pretty impressive me thinks 🙂

Stopped again at Christchurch and Kaikoura but really just to break the journey north. Kaikoura was completely different experience this time as the weather was spectacular. Kate decided to go swimming with Dolphins and I was to go diving with Dolphins and unfortunately we both missed out. If I had been able to get through 5 minutes (literally) earlier, I would have got to go. Anyhoo, them’s the breaks and I settled for cycling around Kaikoura and stopping at some nice beaches and generally just taking in the sun, which we didn’t get a whole lot of in New Zealand.

 

After what felt like the longest journey so far, we reached Wellington, which is a nice relaxed city, would have liked to check it out a bit more but the time is ticking at this stage and we concentrated on the South Island more so the North Island is really just a couple of whistle-stops. We headed out with some of the crew from the bus and had a good old night.

 

Met a lad from Port Umna who of course knew the only other person I’ve ever met from Port Umna – such a small world. Of course one of the girls on the bus has worked with my bro Johnny – again proving Irish people are just everywhere!!! Anyway we had a good night but I now vouch that I am never drinking wine again (well at least until Chile), I suffered the next day and we had another mammoth journey to get through plus we had to jump 15000 feet out of an airplane– Oh yeah and please don’t attempt a sky dive if you’re suffering ill-effects from the night before!!!!

 

It is such an amazing experience, unlike the bungee jump which was great but didn’t live up to expectations, the sky dive more than delivered. Like the bungee, I wasn’t nervous at all and I actually wanted to be – because you need to get hyped up I think. We were harnessed up and up we went.

We circled for ages so we got loads of oxygen into us. I thought that this would perk me up but, again like before the bungee, I started falling asleep. God I’m weird but I think I might get sleepy instead of nervous, maybe it’s my unconscious nerves coping technique or something. Anyway I didn’t really start to realise what I was doing until a girl who was jumping at 12,000ft disappeared out the door….. Hmmmmm THEN I knew something was about to happen!! Also Kate’s turn was up and her pupils dilated to five times their  normal size – absolute classic 🙂 Anyhoo me next and suddenly I’m sitting at the edge of the plane and the next thing we’re free-falling through the air. The funny thing is with the bungee and the sky dive I expected this sort of feeling like you’re flying – don’t kid yourself, when you’re free-falling through the air, you’re incredibly aware of every ounce you weigh 🙂 until the parachute opens and whisks you back up.

Such a great experience, I will definitely do another one if I can. My official photos are unreadable from the disk they gave me though, which is a little disappointing so I´ll have to kick some ass!!

Stopped in Auckland just for a short stop, which was much prettier than I had been led to believe. Briefly stayed in the worst hostel ever!! Allergic because the hostels have been really good in New Zealand this place was dirty and untidy. Even when I stored my bag there for the morning before my flight, it was covered in cockroaches when I came back to get it – nice, huh?

And that ends my time in Australiasia. It´s weird to be leaving, it marks the end of a big portion of my trip. Overall I think I preferred Australia to New Zealand, don´t get me wrong, New Zealand is beautiful but I think it´s a bit too much like home in terms of landscape….. and weather!

The Kiwis are quite similar to the Aussies, very friendly and chatty people, with an affection for meat pies. The Kiwis or the Aussies were never able to get Kate´s name though, we used to laugh about it – because it´s pretty straight forward but she was called everything from quiche to Keish 🙂 I used to tell her she had to said with their accent Kay-ate (phonetically speaking) Also they have these crazy huge car parking spaces, yet I´ve never seen such difficulties parallel parking. I mean in Auckland on the last day, it took 5 people to parallel park a car that really could have been driven into the space – the space was that big!!!

Well that´s it, I´m off to Santiago, Chile. Will be travelling alone for the rest of my time away as Kate has gone back to Australia to work. Of course I´ll miss Kate loads but I´m looking forward to the challenge of South America on my own too. And travelling alone isn´t half as scary as you think, in fact you´re rarely on your own anyway.

 

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612984838372/  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612986159450/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612940910545/