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!!

Dolphins at Akaroa

Saturday was pretty wet and wild, but we were lucky with our trip to Kaikoura. We left the rain of Christchurch behind and drove over the port hills. At the Hilltop we stoopped for a spectacular view of.............clouds. We were high up in the clouds and couldnt quite see Akaroa through the mist. As we drove down out of the clouds the weather cleared up a lot and by the time we reached Akaroa it was still cool and cloudy, but there was no rain.

We arrived at the wharf 10 minutes before our harbour cruise left - perfect timing! (Thanks Hamish, great driving) A lot of the students came to Akaroa especially to see Dolphins, and we were all hopeful as we boarded the boat. Andy has done six tours with Hello New Zealand, and really wanted to see dolphins, as he had missed out on seeing Whales in kaikoura. Andy wasn't disappointed, we saw the Hectors Dolphin on the cruise. They are very small (1.3 metres) and very playful. They came close to the boat and swam along side us.

Seeing the dolphins was a definite highlight, but was also saw alot of other wildlife on the tour as well. We saw a lot of seabirds, seals, and even a penguin swimming! It was coold and the wind was blowing alot, but the animals didnt mind at all, they are used to living in the wild.

After the cruise we had plenty of spare time for lunch and to explore around Akaroa. Akaroa is very small, but very beautiful. It is right on the edge of the sea and all the cafes and shops face out onto the sea. Very romantic! It is also famous for its seafood, and has one of the most famous fish and chip shops in New Zealand. This was where most people chose to have their lunch. I had a big piece of fish, ahot dog and some chips. The chips were very very good, and the fish was fresh straight from the sea. I ate too much and couldn't finish my hotdog.

The weather after the cruise turned bad, and it started to rain alot. We had a nice long lunch and stayed dry in all the interesting art shops. Then we drove back to Christchurch, but on the way back we made one more stop at the cheese factory.
Most people hadn't seen cheese being made before, and the video they showed about it was very interesting. They were just finishing making cheese for the day so we watched the workers in the factory cleaning up. And then a brought a lot of cheese to take home for my dinner!!!

This week we are getting ready for our Mt Cook and Tekapo trip. Can't wait to see the mountains again :)

Chocolate Penguins

The nights are cool, but we are still having beautiful sunny days -perfect for touring!

I have always associated Dunedin with Speights, Jeff Wilson and drunken students, but really it is so much more as we discovered on our tour there.

The first stop was the Cadburys Chocolate factory. This is always popular with the women on the tour,and the ladies from Thailand and Korea were excited as we arrived. We also had four me from Saudi Arabia with us and they were just as excited to visit the Chocolate factory.

Everybody enjoyed the tour very much and we all came out of the shop with lots of chocolate treats.

Baldwin street is the steepest street in the world, and this was next stop on our itinerary It was a hard walk to the top but it was worth it, we got some very nice photos.

After a quick lunch we left Dunedin and went to the peninsula to see some of Otagos famous wildlife. We were visiting the Yellow-eyed penguin colony but as we were a little early we had time to go to the end of the peninsula to see the Albatross. We could see many flying in, it was amazing.

We only saw three penguins but they were very cute. By the time we finished it was getting a bit cold and dark so we went back to Dunedin for a well deserved hot meal and cup of tea.

On Sunday some of us went out to see Larnach castle, while the rest of us went to tunnel beach. Tunnel beach is my favourite place to visit in Dunedin. It is little beach that you have to walk 30 minutes to get to, then go down a short tunnel. Its very private, and very beautiful. Well worth the visit.

All in all it was a very good trip. We were very tired when we got back to Christchurch, it was very hard to get up on Monday morning.

Next week, dolphins at Akaroa!

Kaikoura

On the weekend we had a very nice tour to Hanmer and Kaikoura. It was a small group but a good mixture of students. We had a Mother and daughter from Malaysia, a Brazillian,a Thai girl, a Swiss student, and Kazuyoshi from Japan.

Kazuyoshi was very interesting. he was 71 years old and retired. He has come to New Zeland to improve his english. We spoke alot during our two days awa, to help his conversational english, but I think I learnt more from him than he learnt from me. Kazuyoshi particully enjoyed sitting on the beach at Kaikoura and the smell of the sea. Very different from Tokyo!!

The first day we went Hanmer where most people went swimming in the hot springs. Virginia and Vivian are from Malaysia and have lived in New Zealand for five years. They decided to go Horse trekking instead of the hot springs.
The ride to the horse trekking farm was very exciting, very bumpy ride in the van and we had to drive through the river several times. It was a wild and exciting place to be. The horse trek farm was surrounded by beautiful hills and forest. It was more beautiful than I could of imagined. Virginia and Vivian went horse trekking for an hour, and you should of seen their faces when they came back, so happy, both of them couldn't stop smiling.
Virginia had ridden a horse before but it was the first time for Vivian. She said she wasn't scared at all and definitely do it again.

Sivana and Julia goto school together at Languages International. Julia has only been in New Zealand for four days and she was very enthusiastic about seeing some New Zealand scenery. Both her and Sivana loved the Lord Of The Rings films, and this was one of the reasons they chose to come to New Zealand. They were very happy to see amazing mountain scenery from Hanmer to Kaikoura, but they both agreed the highlight was going Whalewatching on Sunday, when they saw two whales up close. Amazing!!

Pinttira has been on 3 tours with me know, she is enjoying seeing New Zealand and travelling with us very much. For her seeing the Dolphins was the highlight. She was a little sick on the boat but she still managed to take many photos of the dolphins. I know she had a good time because she said she would be joining us on the Wine tour this weekend!

This week I'm off to see penguins in Dunedin, but thats a story for next week. See you then!

A two week update

Hello again,

it is two weeks since our last update, so I have alot to say.

On the weekend we had a ski trip and also a tour to Kaikoura, both on Saturday. It goes with out saying that they were both a huge success. Brett took the ski trip and it was a very nice day. Brett is learning to snowboard this season, and he is having just as much fun as the students he takes up there. Mt Hutt was good for skiing on Saturday, and we were again lucky as it was closed on Sunday.

Hamish took a group up to Kaikoura to go whale watching. It was a good day, and all the time we spent on the bus was well worth it once we saw our first whale. We had a really good mixture of students and all of them enjoyed the day. We were so excited about seeing 4 whales, and a pod of 500 dolphins that we took very few photos, it was one of those moments where you just want to look with your eyes.

The previous weekend we had trips skiing, as well as a tour to Mt Cook.

The trip to Mt Cook was particularly important as it was the first tour for our new guide Hamish. The tour was brilliant, it was a great group of people and the weather and scenery was spectacular. Some of us went swimming in the hot pools at Tekapo, very nice on a cold night :)

We saw Mt Cook, Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukakai, Tasman glacier, the clay cliffs, and brought fresh Salmon on the way home. What a very busy weekend we had.

Over the next few weeks we have more ski trips, a trip to Wellington, and another tour to Mt Cook. Things are getting very busy indeed as spring approaches.

Keep up the hard work, but dont forget to look at the world around you.

See you all soon

Hamish

Snow, snow and snow!

What a good ski season we are having. Our trip to Mt Hutt last Saturday was fully booked, and it was a brilliant day. There was a lot of fresh snow at the ski field, and the conditions were very good. It was the first time most of the students had seen snow, and they were all surprised how cold it felt. I think I would like snow alot more if it was warm too.

Sunday we had to cancel our trip, the weather was bad. The ski field did open later, but the weather wasnt very good. But on the positive side much more snow fell, so there will be plenty of fresh snow this weekend. We already have a full load of keen skiers on Saturday, and only a few seats left on the Sunday trip. Fingers crossed we get good weather.

We also have our Mount Cook trip coming up on July 24th - july 26th. We have about 10 seats left, so you still have a chance to join us. It should look extra pretty at the moment with lots of extra snow in the area.

We have started our design a T-shirt competition which is keeping us busy at the moment as well. Everyone on our mailing list would of heard about this, we are looking for a new design for our T-shirt. You can email us for more details, or ask at your school reception.

Hope you are all well, Ive enjoyed meeting lots of new students in the last few weeks.
See you all soon.

Early July Update

July is only a few days old, and already at Hello New Zealand we have had alot of adventures.

The weather was against us for the ski trip to Mt Hutt. Mt Hutt ski field was closed on Sunday due to bad weather conditions. Although we had to cancel the trip, this is still good news for us as bad weather equals more snow for next time!

Both Hamish and Brett took advantage of the day off. Brett was finally able to sleep in on a Sunday. He spent the rest of the day baking cakes (Really!) and making his girlfriend happy on her birthday. Now he is relaxed and all ready for the next week of ski trips.

Hamish travelled to the westcoast. There was a lot of snow, especially in Porters pass, and Arthurs pass. The bus he was on got stuck in snow just by Castle Hill and the passengers had to be transported by other means to Arthurs pass. The 5 hour journey to Hokitika eventually took 9 hours, a long tiring day.

This weekend we are looking forward to another ski trip to Mt Hutt. Snow boarding is very popular this season, and Brett is getting better at it every weekend. Lots of people are having their first snow experience, and ski experience with us, its a lot of fun for everybody.

We are also doing a horse trek and farm tour on Sunday. This is a good chance to experience a real working New Zealand farm. We see alot of farm animals, and get to shear a sheep. And then we go horse riding, which everybody seems to like, except for me. Im a little bit scared of horses. Must be some childhood trauma in my past.

Sorry there is no clever finish to this today, its dark and late. See you all next week,

Hamish