When in New Zealand...

Queenstown

Leaving Wanaka we stopped for an hour at Puzzle World..."eccentricity at its best". They had four rooms of illusions and one of the world's first mazes. We wandered around being wowed and then attempted the maze...to little avail in the limited time available. I maintain we could have managed it if we'd had enough time! But as it was we made it to one of the four coloured corners and then had to use the emergency exit.

After a stop at a fruit stall for some YUMMY mandarins, we headed to Arrowtown, a small town just outside Queenstown. Here we were just wandering around when we spotted in a shop window...Irn Bru! So Sarah was straight into the shop :)

Next was Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. Unfortunately, by this time we had spent far too much money and we are big wusses anyway so no adventure sports for us. We will definitely be coming back to New Zealand however, and then we'll try the river surfing! This time round though, we tried what else Queenstown is famous for...the bar crawl. Cocktails in teapots, dancing to live music and freezing out toes off in the minus 5 ice bar guaranteed it was a memorable night.

Having spoken to other travellers throughout Asia and New Zealand we had gathered a range of activities to do, and in Queenstown this included going to Fergburger! There is always a queue coming out of this place and it's easy to understand why once you have set eyes on their burgers. We have never sen such a huge burger and it took Katie three attempts to finish it! Then of course it was Cookie Time.

Christchurch

We left Queenstown after our trip south and spent a whole day on the bus, but our driver Poncey was quite amusing. He'd be speaking on the microphone about some scenery or something and then all of a sudden he would go off on a tangent about a person he had spotted. It makes the hours of driving bearable if you have a good driver! We stopped a few times throughout the journey, once to take a photo of New Zealand's highest mountain Mount Cook, and the bluest lake we have ever seen. According to Poncey the bluer the water the more "Scottish" it is - ie. the colder it is, and he was right about this lake!

Unfortunately we didn't get into Christchurch (ie Shakin City) until 5ish and so we quickly checked in before dashing to the Quake Museum that closed at 6. The museum not only tells of the 2011 earthquake and the rebuild, but of many previous earthquakes that have rocked the city. The museum is situated in the re:start mall which is a shopping mall made entirely from shipping containers. Even though the mall is a sign that the city is slowly being rebuilt it is situated right next to the red zone. The red zone is a part of the city that to this day is still cordoned off, barely touched since the earthquake. It has an eerie feeling about it as the buildings are just deserted and there is rubble everywhere.

Re:start Mall

Red zone 

Kaikoura

The last stop in the South Island was Kaikoura. It is a small seaside town originally created and sustained by the whaling industry which now uses the whales for tourism. Since we were lucky enough to see whales in South Africa we decided to save our money and go sunbathing instead of whale watching. This turned out to be a very bad decision as the whale watchers returned to tell us they had not only seen the usual sperm whales but they had spotted a killer whale! Yet another reason to come back to New Zealand. We commiserated that night with a couple of Norwegian friends by eating chocolate Easter eggs and watching a movie.

Fur seals are not afraid of humans in Kaikoura

The rest of our time was just spent travelling back up the country on the bus. We stayed in Wellington for a couple of nights to catch up with friends before heading for our flight out of Auckland.