Michelle and John: It's a long one!!!

Hmmmm....... I think I did a post for this and didn't save it, because there seems to be a chunk missing. So I must apologise for the long gap - we haven't actually have had time or internet for a few days.
So after Fox Glacier we went back to Christchurch for a night. We didn't have much time there - we arrived late enough on Saturday, and left early on Sunday (we have had many early starts on our tour, and a lot of time on the bus too.) Some of our group were finishing up that night, so we all went out for dinner and a few drinks.
On Sunday we went to Kaikoura - one of the best places in New Zealand to see marine life. The sea here is teeming with dolphins, whales and seals. We didn't go on any of the excursions, so all we saw were the seals and a few dolphins off in the distance.

We spent that night in Nelson. I had arranged with some of the girls on the tour to go wine tasting, and John went quad biking. I however had a change of heart at the last minute, and decided to go for a wee sky dive instead. (16500 feet - nearly 5km!). John didn't know this until I returned, and instead of coming back tipsy like he expected, I arrived back in the sky dive bus! It wasn't as scary as I expected, nor did I get the adreneline rush I expected, but I did enjoy it, and I got some really good views of the area. The freefall part lasted approx 75 sec, but it feels more like being pushed up by heavy wind than falling.

(Ironically valentine's day was the first day that we have spent that amount of time of time apart - I managed to get John a present in Christchurch without him noticing that I had left the hotel. My propensity to start chatting to people and get distracted serves me well at times!)

After Neslon we moved to the North Island. This was by 3 hour ferry, which was longer than I expected as I thought the two Islands were closer than that. The tour group are quite fond of a game called Mafia, which passed the time well. We stayed in Wellington that night. We visited the Te Papa museum, which was very impressive, especially when you consider that its a free museum. It is very varied - from photography exhibitions, to natural history, to geography and everything in between. Wellington is very picturesque, and also at less than 250K of a population, quite a small place for a capital city.

From there we went to Rotorua. We stayed here two nights, but in two different places. The first night we stayed in a Marae - a Maori community. This was a very enjoyable insight into their way of life. We were welcomed into the Marae by one of the elders, and we all had to do a tongi (touching of noses and forheads), and we were looked after for the night by Jen and Sean. Had to laugh though when we found out that Sean's full name is Sean Murray, and his dad comes from Cork! He is a tattoo artist and knows a lot about the meanings behind the Maori symbols. This was in all a very interesting night, and one of the highlights of our trip. (Sorry about the lack of photos, while it is no problem to post pictures of the outside of the meeting house, we were asked not to post photos of the inside. We can however show the photos to friends and family when we get home)

Still in the same area, we went to Whakarewareware Thermal Village. This was a more touristy look at the Maori lifestyle, which was very interesting, especially the cultural show. The village is on a volcanic hotspot, so they have loads of hot springs, and a few geysers. They use the hotsprings for cooking and bathing. Our hotel room had a hot tub too outside which was lovely. I also finally got John to do something a bit adventurous, and we went white water rafting. We did a grade 5 river, which is as good as it gets. It was good fun, even if we did manage to scare the instructor. I'm fairly certain he made a mistake, because we all did the wrong thing at the same time. (Namely paddling like crazy towards the waterfall, instead of crouching down in the boat). For someone who rafts this river twice a day, it's a rare experience to be shaking afterwards. But we had fun! (We must have been oblivious to the danger!!) We also managed to get our raft vertical in the water, without flipping it.

Some pictures of that here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=298552&id=532283005&l=4e7fd8fdd3