Mark bungy jumping at Kawarau Bridge!

As you can see from the video, I went bungy jumping and lived to tell the tale!

This morning we set out from Queenstown for the Kawarau Bridge, which is the world’s original bungy jumping site. I was hoping for a few minutes to calm my nerves before the jump, but there was no one ahead of me in the queue so I was quickly strapped to the cord and led to the edge of the precipice. It’s a 43m drop to the river below, and I’m not afraid to say I had a moment of panic when I peered over the edge. Why on earth am I throwing myself off a bridge?!

Luckily though I had no time for second thoughts, as the guy said, “OK then, 3, 2, 1….” and with that I launched myself into the abyss. You may be able to make out a roar of elation as I hurtled earthwards – absolutely not a scream of terror as June believed it to be!

If that wasn’t enough adrenalin for one day, we both went on a jetboat trip up the Shotover River in the afternoon, which was really good fun. Jetboats don’t have any propellers and are able to operate in 4 inches of water, and can do incredible twists and turns. We got pretty wet but had a great time.

Today was a total change from the last few days. We had a lovely time cruising the Milford and Doubtful Sounds – they are really stunning and peaceful places, and on both days a pod of dolphins came up to see us, which was magical. We tried to take a few photos of them, but they move pretty quick!

Yesterday we arrived in Queenstown and went up Deer Park Heights, which is a nature reserve which by happy coincidence was also a location used in Lord of the Rings! So both June and I had a lovely time there. Some cute photos of the animals are on the Flickr site.

Time to go and lie down now I think…

Sealed with a kiss

Hi all. VERY quick blog today as the internet cafe closes in 3 minutes. We're in Invercargill at the moment, which is at the southern tip of the South Island. We've had a lovely few days travelling through the Otego Peninsula and the Catlins, both of which are teaming with wildlife - we've seen some albatross, seals, sealions, penguins, dolphins and sheep! We've loaded a few pictures up.

 

Tomorrow we're heading up towards the fjords, and hopefully will take a cruise on Milford Sound, but haven't got round to booking anything yet. We are very much making this trip up as we go along....

 

Will give you more of an update when we get to Queenstown in a few days. Bye for now!

Och Aye The Noo!

Hello from Dunedin, the Edinbugh of the southern hemisphere. We're staying just off Princes Street and have stood beneath Robert Burns' statue, so we're feeling very Celtic at the moment.

 

The trip down here from Oamaru was along a beautiful stretch of coast, and we saw some more penguins and a large colony of fur seals on the way. We also visited the Moeraki boulders, which started their life as dead animals or plants but over the millennia have been encased in incredibly spherical layers of rock.

 

Dunedin is a nice, albeit very hilly, city. We puffed and panted our way up Baldwin Street, which is the steepest street in the world, with a gradient at one point of 1 in 2.4. We fancied trying out our hire car, but wasn't convinced that its engine and / or brakes would be up to the job!

 

Tomorrow we're heading off to the Otago peninsula to spot some more wildlife, before driving south to the Catlins and then on to the fjords.

 

We've added some photos of the last week to the South Island set.

Pick up a Penguin

Hi there! Just a quick update to fill you in on what we've been up to for the last few days.

 

After leaving Christchurch we headed off towards the Southern Alps, and have had three lovely days amongst truly beautiful lakes and mountains. We spent a couple of nights in a small town on the shores of Lake Tekapo, which is a very blue glacial lake surrounded by snowy peaks. The following day we travelled to the Mount Cook National Park, and went on a long walk to the base of NZ's tallest mountain. We didn't climb this one though - its 3070m tall and covered in snow and ice! It was a really gorgeous place.

 

Today I went on a quick LOTR trip to the location where the Pellenor Fields scenes were shot, while June relaxed with a cup of coffee and a book. We then drove though lovely countryside down to the coast to a town called Oamaru, and headed down to the beach to see some Yellow Eyed Penguins come ashore after a day's fishing. Unlike on Phillip Island in Australia we got really close to the penguins and were able to take some cool pictures - we'll try to upload some tomorrow.

 

In the end we decided not to hire a camper van and have got a hire car instead. Financially it makes much more sense - the car hire was $19 a day (about 8 pounds!) and we've been staying in really nice backpacker places for about $55 a night. Compare that to a camper van cost of $140 per day, and its not rocket science. Although it would have been nice to go back to nature in a camper van, we feel happier driving around in a normal sized car and having a few home comforts.

 

OK, time for bed now. Tomorrow we're heading down towards Dunedin, which apparently is a very Scottish place, so hopefully June will feel right at home!

A message from the land of Rohan.....

Flying the Flag of Rohan
Originally uploaded by mark&june

Hello again! We've just had a fantasic day visiting Mount Sunday, which was famously used as the set for the city of Edoras in the Lord of the Rings.

Its in an amazingly stunning setting, surrounded on all sides by snow-tipped mountains and a grassy plain with blue rivers running across it. We climbed up the small hill to the place where the Great Hall was built, and learned a bit more about the making of the film from a very entertaining Kiwi tour guide. We took loads of lovely photos, including this one with a replica prop from the film.

Even if we weren't fans of the movies it would have been an amazing place to visit, but it was even more special to see all of the sights we recognized from the film (including the valley where Helms Deep was digitally inserted, only a couple of miles from Edoras, not a five day walk!).

Definitely one of the best days of the trip so far!

Kia Ora from New Zealand!

I'd better get my moaning out of the way before I go on.

 

Unfortunately the last couple of days have been a bit of a blur for me due to a severe onset of "man-flu". I began to feel a bit rough in Sydney (cold, cough, headache, fever, aching muscles, sore throat etc), missed two nights sleep, and then to make matters worse on the flight over to NZ my ears got blocked up and wouldn't clear. I ended up with two blocked nostrils and two blocked ears, and resorted to having to breath through my mouth and smell through my eyes, which wasn't easy. I spent my first 20 hours in New Zealand in bed. Maybe my body needed it though - we've been going full pelt for 4 months, and the last week in the outback was pretty tough. June was also a bit low yesterday, but has done an admirable job of looking after me. I think I'll let her keep the opal ring.

 

Anyway, we're both feeling much better now, and really looking forward to exploring New Zealand. We're in Christchurch on the South Island, which is a very pretty town set up by the Church of England about 150 years ago. It has a nice cathedral, punters lazily drifting down the River Avon, and picnic-ers lounging in the park. It feels a bit like an idealised version of England, and the people are all incredibly friendly and helpful.

 

The death of Sir Edmund Hillary has been pretty big news here, with flags flying at half-mast and books of condolence being signed. He's probably the most famous Kiwi that's ever lived - to be honest I can't think of many others - Jonah Lomu, Peter Jackson, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, urm...

 

Tomorrow we're going on a gondola trip up a nearby mountain, and on Tuesday we're heading off for a day trip to Mount Sunday, which was used as the location for Edoras in The Lord of the Rings films. It looks like a stunning place, and it will be really cool (in a geeky way) to be there and to pose for photos with props from the film. We'll report back in a few days. Bye for now.

 

Farewell from Australia

Hello again! Apologies for the long gap between blogs - we've been in the outback for the last week and only now that we're back in Sydney have we managed to log on.

 

We had a fantastic time exploring the Red Centre - it was certainly one of the highlights of our trip so far.

 

Our first stop was Coober Pedy, which is famous for its Opal mines. Its a small, desolate place in the middle of nowhere and felt very different to anywhere else we've been. Its got a bit of an "end of the world" feel to it, and has been used in films like Mad Max and Pitch Black - there were lots of abandoned movie props lying around. Most of the houses are underground or built into the side of hills to keep them cool, and during the day the streets were pretty empty as everyone tried their best to avoid the 45 degree heat. Although it certainly wasn't somewhere we would want to live it was a great place to visit, and the surrounding landscape was beautiful. We visited an opal mine / museum which was really interesting, although while my back was turned June managed to blow three weeks of our budget on a lovely opal ring! We've added some photos of the area to the South Australia set.

 

After Coober Pedy we carried on up the Stuart Highway to our next stop, Uluru. We were wondering whether it could live up to our expectations, but it really was a beautiful and magical sight. We visited the Rock at sunset and sunrise to see the shifting colours, and went on a very long hot walk around the base. We decided not to climb up it though as it was made pretty clear that the Aboriginals aren't keen on tourists trampling over their holy ground.

 

Right next door to Uluru are the Olgas, a collection of huge rocks that we went on another stunning walk through. Due to the excessive heat we had to do our walking in the morning - most people started about 6am, but as you may know we aren't really morning people and only got going at 8ish, meaning that we finished on our hands and knees at midday!

 

We shared a cabin in Uluru with a lovely Candian couple, Jessie and Dustin, who are doing a similar trip to us in the opposite direction, but who are made of tougher stuff than us, sleeping in tents in freezing temperatures, going for 3 day hikes in NZ and occasionally sleeping in their car. I tried to convince June this might be a good way to recoup some of the cost of the ring, but she wasn't having any of it!

 

After Uluru we drove on to Kings Canyon, another beautiful area of red rocks and scorching heat. Luckily the hotel we were staying at had a lovely pool, which we happily spent the afternoons floating in after the mornings' exertions.

 

Our final stop in the outback was Alice Springs, which wasn't at all how we had imagined it. Instead of being a desolate desert town it was a (relatively) pretty place with lots of greenery, surrounded by hills. We took a couple of interesting trips to the Royal Flying Doctor Service control station and the School of the Air, which broadcasts lessons to children living in remote areas by two way radio and web-conferences. We also went to the cinema a couple of times to escape the heat!

 

All in all we travelled 3000km in the week, and luckily didn't break down in the middle of nowhere or get attacked by wild dingoes / kangaroos / lizards. The worst we suffered was a cracked windscreen and a little bit of heat exhaustion! Our photos from Uluru, Kings Canyon and Alice are here.

 

 

Today is our last day in Australia before flying off the New Zealand tomorrow morning. We've had an incredible time here and have seen and done so much. Its a beautiful, friendly and fascinating country, and hopefully we'll be back again one day to try and visit the areas we missed this time.

 

Speak to you from NZ!