New Zealand

New Zealand is about e coolest place on earth. I spent 2 wks in e south island, where it is known 4 its scenery*. And the truth is, its scenery really rocks. they filmed LOTR there!!! Not only dat, its got a really rich culture n history. Oh n I nearly 4got, FANTASTIC lamb shanks. It’s a must 2 try lamb shanks there. By e way, there are way more sheep dere than ppl. If u drive through e country you’ll know. along e coast eat fish n chips or seafood chowder. otherwise when in doubt, eat Lamb Shank!

Okay, enough of promoting e place. So we got dere and found e weather pretty nice, though it got a little cold at night,and burning hot under e sun. but there are heated beds and lots of sunblock so its ok. We spent 2 days in Christchurch den took dis train right across e island. e train went throug entire mountains! n dey were lik super rich in minerals. dere was a gold rush in NZ. So we went from east to west, and found dat dis lengthened our daylight time by lik an hour plus. Imagine, e sun rises at 6 and sets at 9plus.

Along e way we stopped at quite a lot of scenic stops and/or along e road 2 take photos. We took a lot. There were 3 cameras! Places/things of interest include hot springs, lake wakatipu, fox glacier, Wanaka, e fiord lands etc. We had horse riding but it happened 2 be e hottest day. So it wasn’t very comfortable.

Went glacier climbing too. Its I huge slope of ice by e way, and it changes everyday. So cool! And cos water flows under it, dere are these cracks and crevasses det are super blue ad can go on forever, or really deep. N I learnt, ice dat is whitish is easy 2 chip at or smash. E more blue it is , the more solid. So dere were sections of these blue ice dat I tried 2 hit and ended up jarring my arm or foot. Oh n we had metal spikes attached 2 our boots dat were provided 2 help us maintain our footing.

Sometimes we could even go under arcs of ice or go through “iceslides”. Mind you, e gradient was almost 0 and dere was almost always a pool of freezing cold water. So you’d stop sliding halfway and u hav 2 wiggle your way out on hard blue ice dat offered no grip at all. But it was fun.

Flying in a helicopter is also great, cos its so different from a plane. Wen it turns, u can feel e inertia pulling u and u can see e world outside spinning round, kinda lik in e omnimax at science center, but more cramped n noisy n exhilarating.

Had white water rafting too! We did a course with mostly level 3s n a few level 4s but spent quite some time floating 2 get 2 e rapids*. Aft e rapids we also went 2 milford sound.

Milford sound! Im not even going 2 try 2 describe it cos its impossible. But basically we took a long n scenic bus ride on dis highway dat is e only road 2 e place. den went on a boat n went into e sound*. Saw fur seals n dolphins lik 15m away.once again, nature managed 2 astound.

I cant stop talking bout my bungee jump too! E funny thing was, I felt more afraid wen I was back stage durig syf den wen standing on e board of wood sticking out of e bridge. Aft I jumped, I was really terrified. I was lik rushing head first into a river dat was lik 43 m away! Dats bout 10 storeys! 4 me e adrenalin rush kicked in jus b4 I bounced n was smiling lik an idiot even aft I got down. E high is jus amazing.

NZ aso has dis stone dat is green, thus ‘greenstone’. Dey carve dis stone n wood n bone into pendants n some of dem are really intricate. There is also this shell dat can only be found in NZ dat dey use 4 such things. So I brought some of it home 2 experiment with, which some ppl already hav.

sadly, e place is swamped with sandflies. dey bite u so dat bloos flows out of ur skin den dey drink it. dey are lik everywhere and e bites hurt n are very itchy. my dad still looks lik he had chicken pox only until recently. i was also missing home n my friends.

*Note: 1)most ppl spend 1 wk covering both north and south island (e whole of new Zealand) with their tour groups. My family has a rule never 2 go with e tour groups. Dats y we took so long. 2)rapids are measured level 1 to 6. 1 is barely moving water and 6 is lots of ppl falling out and dying. 3) sounds are like lakes dat open into e ocean.