Tales from a tour guide

The job of a tour guide is a mix of amazement (am I really being paid for visiting these beautiful places?), panic (pray we arrive on time for the boat/plane/activity) and mostly pure fun at being with new people every week.

The funny stories pile up while out on tour. Every tour has a different atmosphere, which depends on the location, size of the group, who is in the group and so many other factors. This variety is what keeps us coming back for more.

On a long tour of 2 or more nights, the coolest thing is watching the group start out as strangers and gradually turn into a group of friends, joking with the guide and fellow passengers. It is common when we finish tours for tour members to be swapping emails, phone numbers and arranging post-tour parties.

Meanwhile, this weekend Hamish is guiding our Mount Cook tour. No doubt he'll come back with some stunning photos, as the weather forecast is great and the winter snow and lakes will be picture postcard perfect.

Look forward to his update on Monday...

Brett

First Ski of the season

Sunday was a very happy day for us here at Hello New Zealand, we had our first ski trip of the current season up to Mt Hutt. It was an early start for us all as we left Christchurch just a little after seven o'clock. We had twelve students from Seafield School of English, and another five students from CPIT. It was a varied mixture of students, we had Koreans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Thai and Saudi students. What an exciting bunch they were, and even early in the morning they were very chatty and enthusiastic.

First we drove south to a small town called Rakaia. Here we were able to stop for a break, and to change into our skiing clothes. Rakaia is also the name of the very big river that flows next to the town, in fact it is so wide that the bridge across it is two kilometers long!! It is also well known for Salmon fishig and we all had a lot of fun taking photos next to the big fish that is in the town.

It was a lot of fun, but the real excitement was about the day skiing ahead of us.

We drove up the access road to the ski field and there was a mixture of excitement and nervousness on the bus. Some people ahd never been skiing or snow boarding before, and some people had never seen snow. Everybody was very happy and smiling when we got off the bus at the skifield, and while the guides Brett and Hamish went to get the lift tickets and organize the lessons most people ran straight to the snow to see what it was like.

Soon we changed into out ski/snowboard boots and got our skis and snowboards. There was a lot of laughter and we all took many photos as we got ready.

Some people could already ski or snowboard well, and they went straight up the mountain while the rest of us went for our first lesson.

Now the real fun started, and we all were laughing very hard as we learned to ski. Some people fell over alot, but it was good fun, especially that great feeling you get the first time you ski down the slope without falling over. Unforgettable, it was a special experience. The lesson lasted two hours, then we went tot he cafe for a lunch and to swap stories about the morning. After lunch all of us went up the chairlift to the top of the mountain. The view was cloudly, but good. Then we all skied down, some were better than others. It was a little bit scary, but the most exciting part of the day. Some of us went really fast, and some of us took our time, we came down the hill safely and at the bottom there was a lot of high fives and stories to tell.

We all very tired and some of us had sore muscles as we got back on the bus. It was nice and warm on the bus and most of us fell sleep as we drove home. We got back to the bus exchange at 6.30pm and said good bye to Brett and Hamish. We all had a wonderful day and made many new friends. I cant wait until next weeknd so we can do it again. :)

An epic Queenstown adventure

Wow. Thats all I can say. Wow. What a weekend we have just had. We had a tour to Queenstown that was so much more than we expected. It was fantastic.

We started out on Friday. We left Christchurch at lunch time with students from Aspiring school, Pacific school, Kaplan, CPIT, CCEL and New Zealand language centre. It was a very good mix of people, people from Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Taiwan and France.

Everyone was very excited as we left Christchurch and the excitment increase as we arrived at a snow covered Tekapo. Lake Tekapo looked very beautiful surrounded by snow, and we made many photos at the little stone church on the edge of the lake. It was a little cold, but the sun was shining brightly, perfect for making photos.

Soon after Tekapo we came to Lake Pukaki, and a lot of fog. We couldn't see much out the windows, the fog was so thick it was like driving in a cloud. The sun was setting and we were all getting a little hungry so we stopped in Omarama for a good hot meal. Mmmmm, much better.

The fog cleared just outside Omarama and we drove up through the Lindis pass. It was dark at night but we could see that the hills were covered in snow. It was cold, but the bus heater worked well keeping us all warm. Some of the Japanese girls were worried about the sheep out in the snow, but its OK, the sheep have thick wool to keep them warm.

We arrived in Queenstown at nine o'clock and went to our accomadation. We had a private block all to ourselves with nice warm rooms and a lounge with a TV and DVD player. It was really nice and we all felt like a family.

The next day we started off to visit Milford sound. The weather was clear and we took a lot of photos of scenery as we went. We had a nice lunch at Te Anau and took 100's of photos of the lake there. Beautiful. After lunch we drove to Milford sound. The road was very exciting, it twisted and turned all through the mountains and forest. Our guide Hamish has driven the road many times and we were able to sit back and enjoy it all.The best bit was when we went through a tunnel 1300 metres long. It went under the mountain! As we came down the other we could see Milford sound and Mitre peak.

We got on the boat for a two hour cruise around Milford Sound, it was awesome, we were the only ones on the boat and we had a lot of free tea and coffee. The cruise was fantastic for making photos, we must of taken tousands of photos. Everyone like the cruise, especially when we could see the seals playing in the water. Some of them even jumped out of the water for us. Very cool.

We were tired as we drove home. We stopped at Te Anau for dinner, some of us went to Subway and the others went to a cute Italian retraunt where they had really yummy pizza. The rest of the drove home most people slept, and some people listened as Hamish, Waleed and Susan played word games. Hamish won, but he has been speaking English for a very long time!

After two days on the bus we had a day to do exciting activities around Queenstown. It was cold and wet but five people went jet boating. They had a great time. The jet boat was very fast and they did lots of 360 degree turns. The photos looked very exciting.

Two girls went to the spa for a special beauty treatment. They looked wonderful when we saw them again later. We weren't so lucky with skydiving and hangliding, but two people went on the big swing. So scary but the photos looked wonderful. Jill and Yuko were very brave.

Lunch was a big surprise, it was Kunikos birthday, and Hamish brought her a birthday cake with candles. We all sung happy birthday and had chocolate cake. Everyone was very happy.

After this we all went on the bus to go and watch Jean-Marc go bungy jumping. We all watched some people jump off the bungy bridge, then Kuniko decided she would jump too. Very exciting!

Jean-Marc jumped first, and we all cheered him on as he jumped off the bridge. It was a great jump, very beautiful, like a swan. Kuniko was like stone when she jumped off. Very funny, we all laughed alot.

In the evening we all watched each others DVDs from the activities. The Jet boat DVD was very good, so was the Big swing. It was fun to see everyone having a good time.

On Monday we left Queenstown. First we visited Arrowtown, which was very cute. We had a nice hot coffee here and played with some snow. It wasnt snowing but we found some on a car that went past. We drove to Wanaka and visited puzzling world. We had funny making photos outside, and all laughed at the illusions in the illusion room.

After we left Wanaka we drove towards Christchurch. We got to the Lindis pass but the road was closed because of too much snow! There was a long line of cars waiting for the road to open again, but we turned around and drove towards the coast and back up to Christchurch. We drove through Ranfurly and there was alot of snow on the ground. We drove through two snow storms, then Hamish stopped the bus so the Saudi boys could build their first ever snow man. It was so cold outside. On the bus it was nice and warm and we all took turns to sing songs from our country. We also played a good travelling game called I Spy.
We reached a town on the coast called Palmerston then drove north. Just north of Oamaru there was some surface flooding and we drove through some water. It certainly was a dark and stormy night. We arrived back in Christchurch at 9.30, not too late.
It was very sad saying good bye to everyone. It was a fantastic trip and we all have a lot of new friends and memories we will never forget.

Thank you everyone!!