New Zealand....
Our blogging can only be described as pathetic during our time in Australia, but in our defence we had jobs and if we weren't working we were going places or most probably hung over.
Now however we will strive to improve. I don't know where we got to on the blogging in Australia but we had an amazing 12 months. We had an apartment with a view over the harbour and 'the' bridge out of the bedroom window and a view of North Sydney from the Lounge. We stayed there on the Lower North Shore in Neutral Bay for 11 of our 12 months allowance and conveniently had jobs just up the road to walk to.
We left Australia after feeling quite settled there. Although we were the otherside of the world it felt a bit like home as it seemed quite a few people were there! We had our friends we made in Vietnam who were living in Sydney anyways, We stayed with some Uni friends at first, then Henley arrived and Josh and Saz came to visit. We were even lucky enough to have a visit from the A-Plant product manager Mr Humphreys and his partner, who Sar has known for a while. Next were the parents who came out for a few weeks. We went to Melbourne to visit Ollie, Wise and Canny as well as Mr. Young.
Then over in Perth we had Jo-Z and dizzee Sazcal to go and visit and see the West Coast. Not to mention the amount of English people we met over there, 2 of which we went on the big Ayer's Rock/Ocean Road trip with (5000Km in 6 days...massive!)
So we haven't done too badly in the last 12months. We left it until the day our visa expires to leave the country and go and see what nextdoor neighbours New Zealand had to offer - no renovators, no neighbours and no home & away so the odds were against them, but they redeem themselves slightly with the rugby world cup.
After almost being refused onto the aeroplane leaving Sydney because of our visa status (as our flight from NZ to Bali stops in Sydney) it took them a while to realise we weren't going to be leaving the airport and would be in transit (after we had explained this to them 10000000 times!) we arrived in Christchurch. Then it all kicked off again because we hadn't got a print out of our onward flight from New Zealand. They wouldn't let us past security until we showed them one, so we simply said "have you got wi-fi? and we can show you the ticket on our email?" they called over some other important person and then said "you're not troublemakers are you?" and let us through....finally!
We thought we only had 3 weeks in New Zealand but it turns out we have a month to see the south island. We got on a bus into Christchurch and found a hostel (we only found this from the lonely planet we looked at in the Sydney airport. Everything else was based on notes from Joz and Saz.) for a few nights. It was an active prison until 1998 and they had done little to change it from a prison! So we had 3 nights in a cell from the set of 'Bad Girls' to sort ourselves out, make a plan of what to do, buy the bus ticket and really get organised!
Walking round Christchurch was pretty shocking, the whole city centre is a red zone and you can't access it as they are still getting aftershocks from the Big Earthquake in February, so far they have had 5 serious earthquakes which has left the city in a mess to be honest.
Most of the buildings we saw had been ruined and literally whole sides of office blocks have fallen down. Although shocking to see and shocking to say but there was not much to do in Christchurch...simply we got a little bored and spent a whole day walking around some botanical gardens with a cup of tea, aging by the minute. On the bright side we did find a chippy which did fish and chips for $4nz which is the equivalent to £2 so...every cloud
We have now planned to return to Christchurch on the day we leave so we don't have to spend long there. Next stop was Mount Cook which was amazing! right in the middle of snowcapped mountains is a little village with 1 pub and 3 hostels and then HUGE Mt Cook. It was so cool, we haven't been anywhere quite like it. We checked in and headed on a walk straight to Mt Cook. the weather was perfect so in shorts and t-shirts we headed on the track to get a closer view of the mountain, it was amazing!
That night the England Scotland game was on so we went to the pub to watch it. Full of english, oh and 1 scottish girl....happy the whole way through the game right until the end then someone went quiet. Don't think we even heard her leave!
The next 2 days it didn't stop raining so we thanked our lucky stars that we did the walk once we arrived. The next 2 days consisted of watching X-factor, sitting in the sauna and drinking about 100 cup of teas....
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