The South Island in three weeks

Frank and I spent three weeks traveling with Rachael and her friends in a whistle stop tour of the south island. We had such a great time, Frank and I cruising in our beast and the girls racing around in their modern, automatic hire car. We cruised up throught the Nelson lakes area and then down the West coast. We stopped briefly for a look at the bizare pankake rocks and stayed in Hokitika where the pub was shut up before eleven on a satarday night! Our first major highlight was Franz Joseph glacier. We took a day tour of the glacier which was cool, no in fact it was freezing by the end. Great fun squeezing through crevaces but far to much standing around for me, I was cold and grupmy by the end. I also had a go at ice climbing on an indoor ice wall which was great. I beasted all they had to offer, overhangs and all. Its a lot easier than climbing and I picked up the technique straight away. I even managed the seven point wall - climbing with one ice axe and one free hand, counting one point for each swing of the axe (regardless of wether it stays in or not). I did it in seven first time which I'm told was fairly impressive first go (apparently some guy has managed to do it in 2). Next we raced on to Queenstown since Emma had serious tooth ache and need a dentist badly. Queenstown is a fun, tourist town and the adrenaline activity capital of New Zealand. We got drunk, as you do. We wanted to do the Routburn track (a famous walk through fjiordland) but it was all booked up, camping and all! So we went on down for a boat cruise in the Milford sound (actually a fjiord not a sound). This was awsome whith 2km high mountains towering straight out of the water. The next day we went for a day walk since we couldn't do the Routeburn. We were attempting to reach a saddle with great views of the Milford but as we got higher and higher, the way got steeper and steeper and the terrain turned into bare rock which was slippy as we were basically walking in a cloud. We reached a lake after climbing the last bit pulling on fixed wires. The next section was really steep smooth rock you had to haul yourself up with wires. Jen and Emms turned back as this was turning out to be way more serious then we thought and had almost become mountaineering. Rach, Frank and I carried on up the wires (where a fall would have killed us) and we too eventually turned back as visability got poorer and poorer. As we made our way down we saw that Jen and Emms had got lost and were on completely the wrong side of the river. After a bit of a river crossing we all made it back safely. So rather than an easy day hike for the girls who had not done any walking in New Zealand yet, Frank and I had taken them on the most serious walk we'd done! We left Milford for Te Anue where we were intending to go horse riding but ended up tandem cycling. Next was back to Queenstown for all the crazy activities they offer: bungy jumping, skydiving, canyon swinging. I did Nevis, the biggest bungy in New Zealand at 134m. With a cable car ride out to the platform suspended by wires over a massive canyon, this was pretty intense. Rach and Emms did a tandem bungy and their video was hilarious with Rachael clearly terrified and Emma looking vacant as she simply mentally removed her self from what was going on. There was no jumping invloved, they both just rolled off the platform! Next we passed through Wanaka where I took Rachael to a climbing wall, first bit I'd done for probably over a year, unfortunately I still don't think is a good idea for my body :-( Next stop was Mount Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand. We were so luck with the weather and our hike gave us great views and loads of photo opportunities (so you end up with fifty where one or two would have done). Next Christchurch - big city, boring, don't go there. We said goodbye to Frank who was off to travel with another friend and headed on up to Kaikoura. Kaikoura is the whale watching capital of New Zealand, so the girls went whale watching, but I passed on that having seen them before. Kaikoura is an amazing place, a big flat peninsula which great surf all over and a back drop of stunning snow capped mountains. Then we raced up for our final activity which was a day walking and kyaking On the Able Tasman coast, all great fun. So that was an account of our tour of the south island. Everyone was off to do different things now and Rachael andI planned to do three weeks kiwi picking before she left to finish here trip, so we headed back up north.