skydives and scenery

hello hello hello!
so i left you last time when i'd just got to auckland so sit back and prepare yourself for some dodgy grammar and overexcited rambling.Right, after a right off of a sunday due to overexertions the night before in Auckland,me and Rich rented a car and decided to head east to the Coromandel peninsula on a bit of a whim.The drive was pretty incredible,navigated wonderfully by yours truly we drove along the pacific coast and from that headed across a particularly treacherous mountain pass which nearly proved too much for our cheeky little toyota (named diana,goddess of the hunt) and arrived in Coromandel town. This area of NZ is pretty backwards and like alot of new zealand towns revolved around one main street,it was a picturesque little place in a lovely bay with quality fish and chips and sleepy pool bars. The few days after we visited a selection of amazing beaches and coves,especially Cathedral cove which was almost the furthest east anyone can be in the world-where the old explorers thought the world ended,weeird.Talking of weird-Barley's just sent me an email wondering whether new zealand "is a really odd place populated by odd people"?Bluntly,yes.The people our age are all annoyingly massive but have an odd passion for sculpting their hair into a 'mullet' resembling the road kill we pass every day and are epicly unapproachable but hey ho NZ is stacked with travellers anyway!To please various parents we planned a walk up some mountains called the pinnacles (only about 2000 metres)from the start it was immediately apparent we were desperately out of shape,luckily (and very oddly) we didn't see one person the entire walk so noone had the pleasure of coming across two sweating english wrecks struggling up the mountain...it was actually a bloody hard ascent and descent,ladders and proper rock climbing involved so it was good fun and the view was ridiculous,in fact the scenery everywhere is just mindblowing..we did absolutely race it up and down however,which might have explained the immense blisters that still are decemating my foot as we speak..
We met up with the 6 others who we were with in fiji back in auckland and also met 4 cheltenham college girls from home,very small world-throughout we've developed an amazing knack of picking up over excited private school girls with big hair,nothing really changes!We then all went to watch Auckland Blues play Western Force at rugby which was awesome again,even if it is the most frustrating brand of rugby to watch ever..After some monstrously expensive nights of debauchery in auckland the 8 of us hired some campervans to tour new zealand with. Mine and Rich's is a beautiful streamlined thing (kind of..) called Deano,and so we set off from Auckland on the open road in a convoy of 3.
Apparently in NZ they call campervans 'maggots' due to their white sluggishness on the motorways (this very much is the case),we however travelled in ignorant bliss through north island with the sound of R'n'B classics volume 1 blaring through Deano's primitive speakers..on the way south a few issues occured..1.Deano's spare wheel came off his undercarriage,2.Deano's wheel bounced into the path of Jack and Suze's van which they missed narrowly. To various parents,this never happened.(To everyone else it did,and ended up to be rather amusing..) With the help of an english policewoman,Jack's handyman skills on the chassis of our van,bungee ropes from Gotley and some unhelpful attempted project management from me,we got Deano back on the road. It seems the van has hardly anything that works to it's full capacity,while others would find this annoying I find it slightly endearing and pretty retro to be honest..

We had some great stops along the way down North island. We went luging in Rotorua which is basically just bombing it down a phenomenally dangerous track at a huge gradient on tea trays on wheels-great boyish fun!Taupo was a really cool town and Lake Taupo was pretty stunning-its the size of Singapore after all-the weather was a real pleasure aswell and we came across something called 'the craters of the moon'-it was fairly phenomenal though lacked alot of resemblance to the moon..Basically all over NZ there are lots of sulphur clouds that decide to burst out of the ground in a fairly dramatic fashion and so we went through a kind of apocolyptic battlefield picture filled full of sulphur geysers and red hot craters...We've stayed in some funny places so far.. from campsites to caravan parks to the side of the road. Free campsites are hard to come by though, and sleeping on the side of the road is not particularly loved by the locals,i'd personally find it quite amusing seeing 6 unshaven,grossly unclean teenage boys tumbling out of vans in the morning wondering round town looking for a shower,but each to their own.
Our last stop in South Island was Wellington,it is the tiniest capital city you will ever see-it's only just bigger than Cheltenham set in a bay at the very end of S.Island,got a look at a colossal squid in the museum which was impressive (and hilariously ugly) and after being overloaded with lots of useless squid-related facts decided we'd treat ourselves to a few nights in a hostel. Wellington basically consisted of lots of going out (sorry Mum) even though it is meant to be off-season in NZ it is still packed with travellers mostly our age and you find that a massive group of travellers (tour buses etc) seem to follow each other round New Zealand which is jolly amusing!Yes so after lots of unmentional antics in the eventimes and a tiny amount of culture we took the ferry across to South Island.
Firstly,South Island has the most INCREDIBLE scenery i have ever seen,even just the drives we make between places are impressive,and unfortunately you do have to do a-lot of travelling because NZ has alot of open space..So yes we raced it down to Franz Josef Glacier,we got there in a literal hurricane which wasn't much fun-we didn't actually see the glacier for two days it was that bad. I've been hardened to this kind of situation thorugh many a holiday with the family in the Lake District crippled by rain but it was massively frustrating as i wanted to do my skydive there,but it was called off because of the weather. The next morn Me,Alex and Rich got up remarkably early for us and finally managed to do the walk to the base of the glacier before it was engulfed by cloud and it was well worth it.I'd always wanted to go see the Khunbu icefall under Everest and this seemed to be the next best thing,a huge expanse of ice that seemed to have just jammed itself in the middle of the huge range of mountains and all around were waterfalls and massive boulders left there by the retreating glacier.awesome. I'm afraid my photos will be rammed full of views and hope it does them some kind of justice!)Following Franz Josef we drove down via Wanaka to Queenstown,the adrenaline and traveller capital of NZ-it did not disappoint..Queenstown is a funny little town plonked on the banks of Lake Wakatipu surrounded by really striking mountains and the beginnings of the Remarkables range which are like no other mountains i've ever seen-imagine the mountains you draw as a kid,loads of pointy triangles..then times them by about 10000.These mountains are the main ones used in the Lord of the Rings films and were pretty special..Though it's a town-Queenstown is basically full of a city's population of travellers-everyone was in the same position,tight on money but just too much temptation everywhere to not spend money.Whether it was Fergburger (best burger bar in new zealand-Barley,just imagine roosters,minus the charming general manager and plus the use of real meat),the numerous sports shops,ludicrously cheap bars or enormous selection of bunjee jumps,jetboats and skydives..It was Rich's 19th birthday while we were there so we celebrated it in typically restrained style (ahem) and saw him another year older with a bang. The nightlife was awesome in Queenstown and we met loads of hilarious and chilled out people (alot of them Irish) at the blessedly warm bars (NZ is freezing!big shock from Fiji).

And then i did my skydive. I've wanted to do one all the way through New Zealand and i did it yesterday. I'll warn you now this could be an embarassingly hyperbolic, self-indulgent and gushing description of the event. To start with,the weather was perfect,not a cloud in the sky (so lucky considering they had floods in Queenstown a few days before) and a fresh layer of snow had been sprinkled over the Remarkables. I took a bus out about 10 km from Qtown with the usual mix of loud public school girls and silent asian men and rocked up at the skydiving centre. You rather disconcertingly see everyone take off and land as you wait to do it but i wasn't nervous at all which was odd,so we all got suited up and checked about a million times that all the equipment was safe(which i was glad about!) and i met the 'divemaster who i'd do the jump with called Flash. All of the instructors are complete maniacs but great at doing their job and calming you down etc,i was just one of two jumping from 15000 foot,the highest you can do it in NZ (i thought if i was going to do it i'd do it properly..) so consequently was last out of the plane. The plane is more of a glider and is so so tiny,they cram in 4 jumpers and 4 instructors in a tube about 5 metres long and 2 metres high.THe views were mindblowing,you could see both coasts of New Zealand and Mount Cook perfectly from the plane.Everyone jumped out in what seemed like an instant and it was just me left,we shifted over so i was hanging out of the plane and i nearly wet myself. The first 2 seconds were the most terrifying/exhilirating thing ever,basically we backflipped out so we were looking at the plane as we went down. We freefalled for 60 seconds and reached 200 kilometres per hour in the process,after the first few seconds of terror you enjoy it immediately and the adrenaline is the most amazing thing ever!The noise and cold just attacks you as you fly but i was making sure i remembered everything and the incredible views because alot of people say it's a huge blur. So we fell from 15000 feet to 5000 in 60 seconds.mad. And then he pulled the parachute and the explosive noise turns to complete,serene silence.And that gives you time to take in the view,the most incredible i have,and might ever see,the Lake,all the snow capped mountains of South Island with Mount Cook rising serenely from the blanket of clouds."How was that bro?sweet as,ey?"That was a bit of an understatement Flash...(i also have no explanation as to why all New Zealanders say 'ey' after everything they say..) He has the best job in the world,he let me fly the parachute aswell for a time on the way down and we got to do flips and spins etc and finally landed calmly back on the grass,it seemed to have been forever but in fact took a matter of 5 to 10 minutes. So to avoid being emotional and gushing it was the best thing i've EVER,EVER done.seriously.The feeling as you freefall i'll never forget and that plus the most incredible view of those mountains,everything came together perfectly,simply awesome.
And so i write from Timaru midway up the east coast on the way to Christchurch where i'll hopefully spend a few days with my cousins very near there!Just come from Dunedin which has alot more going on than just rugby(we did admittedly go to the new zealand sports museum which was suitably geeky and improved pub quiz knowledge significantly...) and at just before sunset we went to a beach on Otago peninsula and had an amazing experience with the sea lions there. They all came out onto the beach together,first of all they are the most ridiculous animals,the way they move across the ground is pure comedy,they skim across it with their flippers and after 10 minutes get tired and collapse on the sand and yawn (awesome life if you ask me..) but were just incredible creatures to get close to under the sunset. We also got a glimpse of the yellow eyed penguins who were cool too but didn't look like they could kill things (i have a very blunt view of nature,i'm only interested by things that look like they eat people..)
I'm very tired out from this blog,firstly, i apologize for the massive wait for it- i've been having way too much fun.2.sorry for the lack of amusing quips,i'm struggling to even write like i'm not a dyslexic 13 year old..3.sorry for the gushing account of the skydive,very hard to put in the words..
Another blog will come much sooner before i get to south america,so i'm off to go spend recklessly money i dont really have (i wish i was joking..) and i'm having the time of my life but missing friends and family loads aswell!
lots of love!
theo
xxx