Australia East Coast!

I didn’t think anything could beat New Zealand, but our East Coast trip was probably my favourite trip (so far!!!) We did so many amazing one-in-a-lifetime bucket list ticking-off things so this may be a long blog post - just warning you now!

After leaving New Zealand we arrived in Sydney on 11th July, where my brother, niece and her boyfriend met us at the airport! We got back to the house and were spending time with my brother’s kids (2 nephews and 1 niece) when my mum came walking down the stairs!!! My family are very good at surprise visits!!

So I got to spend 3 weeks with my mum and family in Sydney, which included my birthday and my youngest nephew’s 1st birthday (on the same day!)

Sydney is pretty cold in July! But we did loads, including taking the kids to Luna Park, the aquarium, Sky tower, and Taronga Zoo where we did ‘Roar and Snore’ which is where you get to camp at the zoo!

We also took my mum out on the whale watching boat! From the day we arrived we kept spotting whales splashing out at sea, so we decided it would be great to see them up close as well. The whales we saw were different to the ones we had seen in Kaikoura in New Zealand, these ones were Humpbacks and Southern Right whales.

My mum flew back to England on the 1st August, so we booked flights for the 5th up to Cairns, flying with Jetstar which isn’t as cheap as flights in Asia but was still not too bad! The thing I hate about budget airlines is when you book they then add on the price of taxes, baggage etc afterwards so it ends up costing way more than you originally thought!

For the whole of our trip we worked our way back down towards Sydney on the Greyhound buses, which are great! Loads of leg room, comfy leather reclining chairs, free wifi! We got hop on hop off passes which we booked online, then you can book your seats on the bus you want to catch the day before.

We had hop on hop off passes between Cairns and Sydney, but the first place we visited after landing in Cairns was Port Douglas, which is an hour north of Cairns. We decided to do our Great Barrier Reef trips from there, as a few people we had met had told us it was better! 

We did 2 reef trips - the first was with Quicksilver, which was an hour and a half trip out to Agincourt Reef (part of the outer reef) and to a floating platform. From the platform you could snorkel, go on a semi-submersible boat and have lunch! The boat out there was very busy but I think a lot of people didn’t actually go snorkelling, as it never seemed that busy in the water. I think this is a popular choice for non swimmers as there is the semi-submersible boat. We went on it but it was nothing like actually being in the water!

The water was really rough on the way out, as the weather had turned a bit stormy and there were literally people spewing everywhere! I get seasick and had taken tablets and luckily I was ok! They also gave us ginger tablets so I took one of those too.

The following day we had booked a trip with a company called Wavelength, which was a smaller boat with a maximum of 30 people. Due to the sea being rough though it was cancelled, and we were transferred onto another boat called Calypso. It seemed the same as what we would have done with Wavelength - snorkelling at 3 different outer reef sites, I think mainly at Opal reef. This was even better than the day before! The reef is so beautiful and we saw so many colourful fish!

From Port Douglas we also did a tour with Daintree Discovery Tours, which took us to the Daintree Rainforest, Mossman Gorge, Cape Tribulation, Cassowary Falls, and a crocodile spotting river cruise! It was just us and 6 Kiwi ladies who were lovely! Our guide was a guy called Kim, who was so knowledgable but didn’t stop talking!!

When we left Port Douglas we got transfers back to Cairns. The man in our hostel, Port O’Call lodge, was so friendly and funny and when our bus arrived he came running out with a red carpet and laid it down for us to walk on!

In Cairns we stayed at the Jack Backpackers, right above the Union Jack hotel. We got free dinners at this hostel and they were really nice!

While we were in Cairns we went to the Esplanade and sunbathed at the lagoon, and went on a day trip on the Skyrail, which took us over the rainforest and to a village called Kuranda.

In Kuranda we visited the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary, where the butterflies come and land on you! We then went to the Kuranda Koala Gardens which was a wildlife park full of Australian animals. The best part about this place was that we got to cuddle a koala! I had been wanting to do it since well forever so I was so excited, we cuddled one called Tilly and she was so cute!!

We also got to feed kangaroos, saw wombats, crocs, lizards, snakes and spiders.

After leaving Cairns we got our first Greyhound bus to Mission Beach. The reason for visiting here was to do a skydive, but for the whole 2 days we were there it rained! So we decided we will have to do it somewhere else (or Damo can, I don’t know if I’m too chicken to do it or not!!) 

The next destination was Townsville, while we were here we visited Reef HQ, an aquarium with a really cute turtle hospital! We climbed Castle Hill for an amazing view of the city and watched the sunset from up there too. We went to the seafront area called the Strand, swam in the sea and had lunch at a place called Longboard, where we spotted turtles in the sea!

From Townsville we also visited Billabong Sanctuary, which is an amazing sanctuary full of Australian animals, where you have loads of chances to get up close and interact with them. It’s much smaller than a zoo and you get to feed kangaroos, turtles, cassowaries, birds and if you pay extra can get photos holding a koala, wombat, snake or baby croc! There were also lots of talks and shows including dingoes, jumping crocs, and a bird show!

The following day we got the ferry over to Magnetic Island, where we stayed for 2 nights at Bungalow Bay - a hostel with its own koala sanctuary! We got a deal which included 2 nights accommodation, entry to the sanctuary, a koala photo, snorkel gear, plus return ferry!

The hostel was walking distance to a beach called Horseshoe Bay, we walked down to it and decided to hire a jet ski! I had a go at driving which was a bit scary but I loved it! That afternoon we also saw a man feeding loads of lorikeets some bread, he gave us some to hold and they surrounded us too! I love lorikeets, they are so pretty, but they totally scratched my arms up!!

The koala park was really good, we got to hold a koala, a snake, a turtle, lizards and a parrot ate a seed from your mouth - if you timed it right you had a photo of the parrot kissing you!

We met two girls at breakfast called Becka and Kate and 2 guys at the park, Kish and Ash, and that afternoon we all went and did the forts walk, which was a good few hours but beautiful, amazing views and beaches, we even saw a wild koala in a tree which was amazing!

Becka, Kish and Ash were all heading to the Whitsundays next, which is what we were planning to do, and they were going on a boat called the Clipper, so we decided to get booked on it too as we all got on really well! So we travelled down to Airlie Beach where we spent 2 nights, then 2 nights on board the boat!

We had heard that the Clipper had a reputation of being the party boat but it was pretty tame really, even though there were 54 of us on board! It had 2 slides that went from the boat into the sea and you could also jump from the deck which was loads of fun!

We also did an introductory scuba dive, which at $60 was the cheapest we had seen it. I'm so glad we did this, it was so relaxed as we went in from the beach, there were heaps of fish, and we even heard a whale singing which was incredible!! The second day we booked to do it again but this time it was going in backwards straight off the boat and for some reason I freaked out a bit and couldn't get my breathing right! I think because I couldn't touch the bottom which always makes me panic as I'm not a strong swimmer! So Damo did the second dive and I went for a snorkel instead!

We also did a trip to Whitehaven beach which has pure white sand and again is beautiful!!

We arrived back to Airlie beach, and had booked the Greyhound with Becka for 11.55pm that night. So we hung around Airlie Beach for the day, with another girl we had met on the boat called Katie. We then got ready and went out for a couple of drinks, got a dominos and got on the coach! 

The coach arrived into Agnes Water / 1770 at around 10am the next morning. It was quite hard to sleep on the coach but we managed it somehow!! We checked into Backpackers @ 1770, the private rooms here weren't private at all which was weird! The walls separating them had big gaps at the top so they weren't really walls! It was just like one big room sectioned into 3. There were also no plugs! Annoying!!

In 1770 we did a tour called Scooteroo and also a 3-hour surf lesson! We did the surf lesson first, it was great but such hard work, I'm so unfit!! I managed to stand up a few times though!

Scooteroo is a tour of 1770 on motorbikes, where you get to ride your own Harley style bike, spot kangaroos and watch an awesome sunset! I was terrible at trying to ride a motorbike so I got to go on the back of the guide’s bike, which meant I got to go really fast! It was still so much fun, we even saw a kangaroo with a joey in his pouch just stood at the side of the road looking at us!

We did one more thing in 1770 which was a sunset dolphin kayak, and it was only the 2 of us that day so we had a private tour! We kayaked around, stopped at a beach which was full of millions of butterflies, saw turtles, dolphins, and a beautiful sunset!

We left 1770 at 6.30am the next morning and got the Greyhound with Becka down to Rainbow Beach, ready for our Fraser Island trip!

We were put into 4 groups and we all had our own 4x4 which everyone took in turns to drive! Fraser Island was amazing, it was so beautiful! We visited a couple of lakes (Lake Mackenzie and Lake Wabby) a lookout called Indian Head which had incredible views and we could see 2 small sharks swimming in the sea! Champagne pools, Eli Creek, also known as Hangover creek, where the water floats you along, there were even people halfway down giving out beers! We spotted a couple of whales too, we saw one breaching from our 4x4 on the beach and it was so close! On the last day we also saw 2 dingoes!

We had to camp in really small tents which wasn’t too bad, until the last morning when I saw the shadow of a big spider crawl up the outside of the tent while I was in it!! We also saw a huge lace monitor lizard on camp one morning. The showers, toilets and cooking stuff they gave us were so gross, but we got given plenty of food!!

After staying one more night at Rainbow Beach we said goodbye to Becka and travelled down to Noosa. In Noosa we did the coastal walk, which people in the hostel had told us was a must-do - and it definitely was! On the first part of the walk we spotted a big water dragon on the rocks! We followed the coastal path, it was all so pretty, then we got to a part of the headland called ‘Hell’s gates’ where we spotted some dolphins! We carried on up the path to get a little closer, and we stood watching them for ages until they went further out to sea. I loved it I could have watched them all day!!

After watching the dolphins the path lead us down to a nudist beach, which is part of the walk, I didn’t expect to actually see any nudists but as we got down onto the sand a man came walking past swinging his swim shorts around in his hand!! Damo then decided it would be funny to strip off and get a photo of him facing the sea while there was no one around, but we spotted a man watching from the bushes haha! As we got to the end of the beach there were nudists everywhere! We then walked round a bit more headland before arriving at Sunshine Beach, which is where our hostel was. We decided to go to the bottle shop and have a couple of drinks and doritos on the beach, we sat and watched the surf life savers and a man trying to have a surf, but he was just getting swept along the beach!

The following day we did a boat trip on the Noosa Everglades. We just did an afternoon trip, which was around 4 hours, we went up the river, stopped for some food and drinks and travelled back down. We saw lots of wildlife, mainly birds and lizards. We also saw a huge lizard at the place where we stopped!

That night we went to watch the Inbetweeners 2 at the cinema, which we loved because it was about them backpacking in Australia so we could relate to it all!!

The day we left Noosa we went to Australia Zoo for the day, as the Greyhound stopped there on the way to Brisbane. The bus was even Australia Zoo themed!!

They do loads of different animal experiences which you can book online before you arrive, you can even have your photo taken with a tiger if you don’t mind paying $400!! As we’d already had a couple of koala photos we decided to do the Cheetah photo, a lot cheaper at $60 for the both of us! It was an awesome experience!

After our photos we caught the end of the main croc show, it wasn’t as good as the one we had seen at Billabong Sanctuary though! We also watched the tiger show which was great! All in all we had a good day but I wouldn’t say Australia Zoo is as amazing as I thought it would be!

After leaving the zoo we got to Brisbane and checked into Chill Backpackers which was a really nice hostel with a rooftop bar! There was a hostel just up the road which did $7 burgers so we went there for food. We hadn’t planned much to do in Brisbane other than a visit to my favourite clothing brand, Black Milk! That was arranged for the Wednesday so on the Tuesday we just walked into the city. We walked along the river and over the bridge and back, and went in the Queensland museum as it was free!

The next day we walked to Black Milk HQ in Newstead, we had a 1.30pm tour and a girl called Shanna took us around. It was cool to see where all the clothes are made and we also saw loads of new stuff coming out in the future including loads of Disney stuff! I also got to go in the ‘sample room’ and buy anything for $40 each so I got some stuff for me and my niece Daisy (who got me into Black Milk in the first place!), Shanna then filled up my bag with a load of goodies like badges, stickers and water bottles! I also got to take part in a ‘Fit night’ where they invite a load of Queensland girls to try on clothes for the latest release before it comes out, and because I was there I got to do it too! We had half an hour to try on as much as we could, take loads of selfies and eat the food!! We then walked back to the hostel a different way and saw the Story bridge by the river.

After Brisbane we caught the Greyhound to Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. We bumped into a lovely lady called Jane again, who we keep seeing at loads of different places! She was also staying at the same hostel as us this time. After checking in, we went to have a look around and went up the Q1 building, which Becka had told us to do. The view was amazing and we stayed up there for the sunset and took pictures in the dark too.

We bought theme park tickets online with a deal that meant we got to go to Seaworld, Movie World and Wet n Wild for the price of one park! So for the next 3 days we got the bus to each park, it was like being back in Florida again! All the parks were great!

After Surfers Paradise we got the Greyhound to Byron Bay, our final stop on the East Coast before heading back to Sydney. We stayed at Arts Factory Lodge - as seen in the Inbetweeners 2!! Byron Bay was so beautiful, I loved the coastal walk around the headland and to the lighthouse! We saw so many whales and a big pod of dolphins that hung around for ages!

After 2 nights in Byron Bay we got the overnight Greyhound bus back to Sydney, leaving at 8pm and arriving at 9.30am the following morning! We spend just over 6 weeks on the trip in total. A lot of people we met had booked the whole trip through places like Peter Pans travel, but we found it was so easy to do it ourselves, and it meant we could be a lot more flexible and stay longer in a place if we wanted to! I made a video montage of our East Coast adventure and you can watch it below! :-)

New Zealand - South Island Highlights!

(This is the second part of our New Zealand trip, click here to read about what we did on the North Island!)

The ferry from Wellington took 3 hours and took us to a place called Picton. From there we drove for 2 hours to reach Kaikoura, where we had booked a hostel called Dusky Lodge and a whale watching trip for the following day!

Kaikoura is known for it's whale watching and it's possible to see sperm whales year-round. The trip started with us watching a quick safety DVD and getting on a bus which took us to the boat. As soon as we left the marina me and Damo spotted a seal swimming by the boat, and it wasn’t much longer after that that we spotted our first whale! We could see the top of it floating in the water and spouting water out, it stayed there for about 10 minutes before diving down, which is when you see it’s tail!

After watching the first whale we went further out to sea to see if we could find any more. Every so often we would stop and the captain would put something called a hydrophone into the water, which enabled him to hear if there were any whales singing and if they were close!

We soon found another whale and while we were watching that one, another one was spotted in the distance so we went over to that one too! After that we saw a few more seals swimming, some albatross, and as we got back towards the land, a couple of rocks which were also covered in seals!

The next day we left Kaikoura and headed for the west coast to visit a place called Punakaiki, where there are “pancake rocks” and blow holes. The rocks were formed from the layering of limestone over millions of years, and they do look like pancakes stacked on top of each other!

They are best seen at high tide, as this is when you get the blow hole effect of the water smashing through the rocks. We were only staying there for one night and high tide was at 6pm so we headed down there, although it was raining really heavily! We did a couple of videos of the water but headed back the following morning when the weather was a bit better to take some pictures.

The rocks are free to see and the walkway takes about 15 minutes to walk all the way around. After looking at the rocks we went in the cafe opposite for some real pancakes!

After that we drove down to Franz Josef, home of the Franz Josef Glacier, where we had booked into a hostel called Chateau Franz for 3 nights. We had booked into the cheapest type of double room they had, which turned out to be a converted caravan, which had a sign outside it saying the 'Love Shack!’ The guy that showed us to the room was expecting us to say we didn’t want to stay there I think, and said its only $10 more per night to stay in a nicer room, but we didn’t care so we said we’d stay. We then realised that night that it was freezing, and the windows didn’t close properly!! So the following day we moved to a much nicer room, and we didn’t get charged for it, result!!

The day we arrived the guy in the hostel gave us a leaflet with a list of walks, so we went and did the Franz Josef glacier walk, basically a view of the glacier before we actually went up onto it the following day! After that we took the half hour drive to Lake Matheson, which is one of those lakes that you see in adverts for New Zealand and it always looks amazing. I was so excited to see it as the lake gives a mirror effect, but when we arrived the water wasn’t still and the tops of the mountains were covered in clouds so it didn’t have quite the same effect!!!

(Good photo courtesy of www.newzealand.com!)

The guy who gave us the leaflet had also told us to come and book our glacier trip through the hostel as he can do it $30 per person cheaper, so that’s what we went to do the following day. However when we got there it was a different guy and he said there was no discount for booking through them!! Grrr! He phoned up to book it for us anyway and we were the only people on the 11.40am trip so we needed another 2 people or it wouldn’t run! I was so annoyed because I could of just booked it online the day before!

Anyway by the time we got down there we had 4 other people in our group so it was all good! We all got kitted out with waterproof trousers, socks, boots, gloves, jackets, bags and cramp-ons to wear over our boots on the ice.

We walked across the road to where the helicopters were and the cloud had cleared and you could see the glacier perfectly! By helicopter is now the only way you can get onto Franz Josef glacier as it has retreated so much due to global warming.

I got to sit in the front seat on the helicopter as I was the smallest (there’s advantages to being a short-arse sometimes!) We took off really quickly and it felt like being on a rollercoaster, it was a totally different feeling to when we went on the helicopter in Vegas! It only took about 10 minutes to arrive about halfway up the glacier.

We got out of the helicopter and it felt so unreal like being on a different planet!  You don’t realise how huge it is until you’re on it! We put our cramp-ons on and met our guide. Before putting them on I was slipping all over the ice like Bambi but as soon as they were on, walking on the ice was easy! Our guide lead us up through the ice, we saw an ice cave which we walked into and you could see through the hole at the top. We then carried on up, getting higher and higher!

We then walked through a section of rock and ice mixed together. At some points there were ropes to help us climb, but it was all pretty easy. We then carried on down into a walkway where you had ice either side of you, which I found a little bit scary!

We then went through another one which was even more scary and claustrophobic but I made myself do it because I didn’t want to be a wimp! Our guide then decided he was going to use his pick axe to make a new walkway, he said that each guide would hack away a bit more as they go through afterwards. There was no way I was going through that! Damo did but almost got stuck, haha! After that we started to make our way back down to where the helicopters pick us up from. We were on the ice for around 3 and a half hours in total!

It was a totally amazing experience and nothing like anything else we’ve ever done! We did our trip with Franz Josef Glacier Guides and the trip we did was called the Ice Explorer.

Back at the hostel it was a free BBQ for dinner yay! Then a stretch hummer arrived which picked us all up and took us to a bar that was literally just across the road! They drove all around the town to get there though to make the ride a bit longer, which still only took about 3 minutes, Franz Josef is the smallest town I have ever seen in my life! We had a couple of drinks and a game of pool then walked back to the hostel. (Which took about 2 minutes, haha!)

The next day we had planned on going to Fox Glacier to do a hike called Quick Fox but after yesterday being so good and rain forecast we decided not to bother. The day after that we were off to our next stop, Wanaka! It took about 3 and a half hours to get there.

We stayed at an amazing hostel called Wanaka Backpaka! It was right on the lake with amazing views of the mountains, even from our room!

We spent 3 days in Wanaka, the first place we visited was Puzzling World. We already had heard about the place as my brother and his wife, Ian and Manda, had been there 10 years ago! It’s full of bizarre illusions and puzzles and mazes and was loads of fun! 

There were 5 different rooms to go in. The first one had a sloped floor which was at a 15 degree angle, it totally messes with your head and made us feel like we were going to fall over! We also managed to get photos of us doing a Michael Jackson style lean!

Another room was full of faces that follow you, the next was where in one corner of the room you look really small and another you look really big! Even the toilets were cool! There was also a giant maze outside with 4 towers in each corner, and you had to find your way to each of them. 

After Puzzling World, the weather had brightened up so we walked up the nearby Mount Iron. The track was quite steep in some places but it was worth the climb as the view was great!

After Wanaka we headed to Arrowtown, which is not far from Queenstown. It is a historic gold mining town and we thought it would be a good base for a few days. It’s so cute and the main road was like a movie set! We stayed at the New Orleans Hotel which was above a nice pub, and had our own bathroom and a TV which was like luxury!

The first place we headed to was Skyline in Queenstown. We just wanted to do the gondola ride for the view, as we had done the luge at the Skyline in Rotorua, but they had a special price for the gondola, lunch and 3 luge rides so we did that! The lunch was a really nice buffet and we had a window seat to appreciate the amazing view!

The next day we headed down to the Arrow River, just by our hotel, as it was used as a scene in Lord of the Rings. We took a few photos of that then had a look at the nearby Chinese Settlement, where Chinese gold miners came to live in the 1800’s. The houses they lived in were so tiny!

When we were in Fiji a girl we met called Sunny had told us about Fergburger in Queenstown and said we had to try it! So the next day when we were having a look round the town we spotted it, absolutely rammed with people and decided to give it a go! I went for a normal burger while Damo went for the "Big Al" which was the biggest one of them all and it was like Man vs Food, he even managed to eat it all!

I can totally understand the hype though, they were so good!! 
Another thing we did in Queenstown was the Shotover Jet, which we did instead of Milford Sound - we had booked a trip, but there is only one road in and out, and it was closed due to snow! I was a little bit gutted we missed seeing Milford Sound but overall we did so much in New Zealand that we can’t really complain! 

The Shotover Jet is a jet-boat ride on the Shotover river which was loads of fun, they speed along inches away from the rocks and do lots of 360 spins! 

That night we went to the cinema then went to go to the Minus 5 ice bar as we had some free tickets we’d got when we bought some energy drinks! When we arrived though they were just closing as it was so quiet. There was another Ice Bar we’d seen called Below Zero so we thought we’d go there instead, and when we got there the guy even said he’d honour our free tickets for the other place if we had a drink each!

We went in and there were two guys in there playing on an air hockey table that was made of ice. Suddenly there was a loud crash and the air hockey table was smashed into a million pieces and the 2 guys were on top of it!!!

We managed about half an hour in there before I was freezing and had to get out of there!

After Queenstown our next destination was Dunedin! As we drove out of Queenstown we saw our first snow for the whole time we’d been in New Zealand!

In Dunedin we stayed at a hostel called Kiwi’s Nest and it was owned by the loveliest couple who were so friendly and helpful with things to do in the area! One of the first places we visited was Cadbury World!

We did the full tour and our tour guide was a man from Derbyshire with a really strong accent, even though he had been in New Zealand for something like 30 years! First we watched a short video then had to put hair nets on!! We got lead around the factory, learnt how chocolate is made, and got given loads of free chocolate!

That afternoon we drove to Baldwin Street, which is the steepest street in the world! We parked at the bottom and walked up to the top, which wasn’t as hard as we thought. We then ran back down and I felt like I wouldn’t be able to stop! We got back in the car and drove to Signal Hill lookout, which was a great view over the city. After that we decided to go and see something else so we went to Larnach Castle, which is New Zealand’s only castle. We thought we would just go and look at it but you have to pay just to go into the grounds! And we thought it was the biggest load of rubbish ever! If you’ve ever been to any kind of castle in England then don’t bother going here. I don’t know how they can class it as a castle, it’s just a big house! But the gardens were pretty and there were some cute ducks!

The following day we did a trip with Elm Wildlife Tours, which we had found out about through a leaflet in the hostel. We were picked up at 1pm and driven to the Otago Peninsular. The first part was a little bit boring, as the other couple on the trip had paid extra to see baby albatross birds so while they did that we were stood looking at birds on the edge of the cliff. After that we drove further down the road and onto some private land, where we parked up on a hill in the middle of a field of sheep! We walked down towards the beach, and could already see that the beach was full of a big group of sea lions just chilling on the sand!

As we made our way down to the beach we walked through an area which had been made to encourage penguins to nest there. We didn’t see any around but as soon as we got onto the beach there was one just coming out of the sea! It was so cool to see a penguin just waddling along towards us!

The guide told us that they have got used to humans now so they have no problem walking past whereas they used to run away! After this we made our way across the beach walking through where all the sea lions were laying without getting too close! He told us that this was the most females he had ever seen on the beach, there were 9 in total. We spent a while just watching them as a few of them were really active, then we watched some more penguins at the other end of the beach.

After watching the penguins we started to make our way back across the beach. One of the sea lions looked like he was going to chase us so the guide took us up through the dunes instead! There were a few sea lions laying in the dunes too, including a pregnant one. After making our way back up to the van, we headed down the other side of the hill, where there were lots of fur seals on the rocks.

We sat in a viewing area, which allowed us to be really close without disturbing them. There were some cute little pups and some playing in the rock pools!

This tour was one of my favourite things we did in New Zealand, it was amazing to see penguins, sea lions and seals all in the wild.

After leaving Dunedin, we drove up the coast a little way to visit the Moeraki Boulders. They are a group of boulders on a stretch of beach which are sphere shaped, and really unique!

We had a few more days left before we flew from Christchurch to Sydney on the 11th July, as we had allowed more time for the South Island in case we got caught in any snow. We knew a couple of days would be enough in Christchurch so with the extra few days we headed for Mount Cook. 

The drive to get there was beautiful, everywhere in New Zealand is, but this was even more beautiful!! We kept stopping on the way to take photos!

We had booked an Argo tour online, which is an 8 wheel drive vehicle, and it took us up to the Tasman glacier, right by Mount Cook. It was a really bumpy ride! We stopped a few times to take photos, and the best view was when we got to the top and walked up to the view of the glacier! I was so glad we chose to go here, we hadn't even planned to do it and it was one of my favourite places we saw in New Zealand!

That night we stayed in Lake Tekapo, which was around an hour from Mount Cook and in the direction of our final destination, Christchurch. After checking into a hostel (Tailor-Made-Tekapo) we went down to the lake where we skimmed stones, saw people getting married and took pictures of a sheepdog statue for my mum!

We spent our last couple of days in Christchurch, it was so sad to see the devastation that the earthquake of 2011 has done. While we were there we went in an earthquake museum and it was so interesting, there was also a video of people talking about the day it happened. We saw the cathedral, which has been left, as the people of the town can’t decide whether to rebuild it or knock it down and start again! We also visited the ‘Cardboard Cathedral’ which was a gift from a Japanese architect as a temporary replacement.

On the 11th July we flew to Sydney, which is where my brother lives with his 3 children and also my 21 year old niece! We spent just over 3 weeks in Sydney before flying up to Cairns and working our way back down the East coast, which is the next trip I will write about! :-)

If you've not already seen it on the North Island page, here is a video I made of our time in New Zealand, featuring all the things you've just read about!