Best bits so far

So we are almost halfway through now and as we sit in Sherbert waiting for the rain to stop we are pondering the best bits so far - here we go.....

Best ice cream - despite NZs fab efforts Martyn declares the triple scoop waffle cone that took an hour to eat from San Pedro dr Atacama is the winner!
Best little bit of paradise - The Woolshed
Best walking day - day 3 QCT
Best car - for Kay = Sherbert for Martyn = Jalopy
Best lunch - Christmas dinner in Punta Arenas
Best camping experience - thunderstorm night on way to Everglades (although didn't sleep much and toilets were awful!)
Best campervan experience - cyclone night and being the only people in the campsite
Best driving experience - the 'hold on' moment at 90mile beach (although we weren't driving)

Martyn says that is enough for now - rain stopped so we have to go find/make some more!

Would you like ice with that?

Please help - I have run out if adjectives for all the things we keep doing! This morning was stupendous (that's my last one so you will have to insert your own now. When I get internet I shall research some more to use later!)

Awoke to the cloud rolling down the valley which was 'insert adjective' but did make us wonder if we would see anything on out kayaking trip but off we went anyway!

We passed the little 'prove your paddling capability test' which surprised me being as we were out of the water and when the guy said 'now pretend to turn left' I had to turn to Martyn and ask him how to do that. This was very weird as when on the water you kind of do it instinctively but you do feel like a bit of a muppet waving these paddles around on dry land. Didnt feel so bad when everyone else made equivalent errors though.

So having passed but still feeling slightly nervous about abilities we loaded into the truck and went to the lake. A 15min (insert adjective) walk got us to the lake where we donned life jackets and tutus ( sorry, spray decks) and after a safety briefing that mentioned Titanic just once too often for me onto the water we went.

Our guide was Charlie Hobbs owner of the Old Mountaineers Cafe, kayaker and mountain guide. He had just got back from helping out in Christchurch and was amazed by all the huge icebergs that had been knocked down off the glacier by the earthquake. Not surprisingly I was somewhat more hesitant in my appreciation, especially when he picked one and started trying to knock bits off it to make it turn over. This is I'm sure a spectacular sight but after the safety briefing and all the instructions about what to do if an iceberg turned I was a bit busy remembering all I was supposed to do to truly appreciate the moment!

Anyway, genuinely 'insert adjective' with the icebergs peeping out from the morning mist and then blue sky and bright White ice. Saw Mt Cook from the other side and also Mt Tasman. also saw grey dirty icebergs and bright blue ones.

Tootled back to cafe and experienced lunch accident - menu was much nicer than planned crackers and hummus left overs so stuffed ourselves whilst reviewing photos with Charlie who thought some of them were so good he gave us his card so we could email them to him!

Strangely after lunch we were a bit sleepy so we sat and admired the view for a while and pondered what to do next. Decided against the planetarium and 3D movies at the posh Hermitage hotel (where we went for two glasses of water and a lemonade last night). Can't understand why in such an (insert adjective) place they would have these (although planetarium visit before stargazing last night was brill),

Thought about going for a walk in a vague attempt to work off lunch. Found a good 3-4h return which would have been pushing it but also a two hr rtn just right. Went to DOC for instructions/map but got side tracked by the old mountaineering exhibitions. Also found the memories books for all the people who have died on the mountains. These were all experienced people who did everything right. Having read about someone who died on our nice easy little two hour return we decided we had probably pushed our luck by not experiencing Titanic this morning so chickened out of the walk and just admired the view some more.

Later we tootled off to Omarama and had crackers for tea and an early night - after a nice older gentleman walked into our cabin by accident - his was right next door!

I feel very small

Wow - ten past midnight and still awake - we've just been stargazing with a Sherpa!

At 21.30 our stargazing trip started with the best planetarium show ever (just a snapshot of what we hope to see more of tomorrow) to get us used to what we would hopefully see. Then a bus journey out to the runway of the Mt Cook airstrip.

Southern Cross, Orion and his dog, Pointers, Large and Small Magellanic Cluster galaxies, globular clusters, the jewellery box, a nebula which is actually one of the 'stars' of Orion, shooting stars, a satellite, and the Milky Way like I've never seen it before.

wow wow wow wow wow - made us feel very small!

And our driver on the way there was a Sherpa who has been to the top of Everest, got stuck on Mt Cook and survived 3 days and was friends with Edmund Hillary. We opted for keeping quiet about our 'trial' climbing weekend in Wales!

Gotta go - Martyn has actually set an alarm for tomorrow morning! Check out is at 10am.....but oh dear we have to be doing next activity at 09.30........night night

apple n cheese

or cheese n apple?

if you have read previous blogs you will remember the debate we were having.

Today at dinner it got worse.

Crackers, pate, hummus, cucumber, red pepper and cheese. Very nice. But what order do you have them in? I didn't think it mattered but Martyn is as specific with this as he is with cheese and then apple (which if you ask me is just wrong but obviously I'm not telling him that). Apparently you have to have cracker, pate, cucumber and then cheese on top. He wasn't even prepared to try any other order. Supposedly anything else is 'just wrong'.

I didn't like to mention that he had a different order if it was hummus as sometimes he didn't have a cracker at all!

and then we had apples for pudding. Martyn got very stressed when I asked him if he would like cheese with his......can't think why :)

Baaaaaaannnnndddwidth

Finally, somewhere that has some decent internet. We've uploaded some more photos to Flickr, and this cool little video of the Dolphins we saw off the coast of Kaikoura.  Enjoy, then snigger at the fact that it cost me a fiver to post this. 8-/

Now we're Cookin' it

We are at Mount Cook but unfortunately our blog camera photos of it don't do it justice so the picky today is on the way here and we will post more photos soon - in fact we have left the laptop attempting to upload some more but given Martyns earlier cursing it may not happen!

So what has happened so far today? We woke to cloudy grey skies and a chill in the air but set off with our usual high hopes for the weather - we kept telling ourselves that in the hills and mountains the weather changes rapidly and do you know having driven for 50km ish and stopped at Lake Tekapo to view lake (what a surprise), church and statue of collie dog the sun came out. Just in time for our horse trek.

Beautiful ride around the base of Mt John. Martyn rode Chief and I had Fergus who had feet so big he occasionally got in a muddle with them bless him! Still that was much better than the digestive issues Chief seemed to have. Martyn and I could not stop laughing. Every time we went up a hill Chief emitted a certain booster. Sensibly Fergus decided to keep his distance for which I will remain eternally grateful!

Before the horse trek we had a bit of time so we went up to the Mt John observatory to look at the telescopes. Unfortunately the berry muffin and banana smoothie caught our attention before the sign for the guided tour but never mind they were yummy and there were pictures of the telescopes on the leaflet!

Then we drove to Mt Cook and we are currently sat at a look out watching the sun set. It's a hard life.

Hello sherbert

Got up and left our nice cabin in Kaikoura and headed off to Christchurch in search of new car (well replacement car - it's definitely not new!). Managed to fill up with petrol before we left as the petrol station up the road had a delivery over night and we got there before people had realised! Filled every container we had with water and packed the three days worth of shopping we did last night into carrier bags and set off.

Car swap fine in car hire places that were out near airport and had text from Martyns parents saying they were having breakfast in Brisbane so their plane must have left alright!

Got into replacement vehicle - the 4WD we had booked and planned to call Lucy (not very inspired as we hired it from Jucy) Immediately had to rename him (definitely a he so Lucy just wouldn't work) he smelt of those Refresher sweets / sherbet . Hence the name.

Officially he is called Sherbert. This is shortened affectionately to Sherby or, when struggling to get up the odd hill he is known as Herbert the sherbert! He must be a good little truck as we've only had him a day and I'm very attached to him! We hope Jalopy is okay and today we also wondered what Vinny is up to now as we saw one of his younger brothers yesterday.

Anyway, due to the situation in Christchurch Sherbert was given to us with just over half a tank of fuel and a very muddy bum (boot) but we loved him anyway and filled him up at the first station without a 15 min queue for fuel! We've left his muddy bum as it makes us look like really well travelled 4WDrivers!

Made it as far as Fairlie where we found a campsite that wanted a ridiculous amount of money for their last available cabin (oh, sorry - apartment as the receptionist was determined to tell us-like that made any difference) so decided to break out tent again - we must be missing home or something as it's less than ten degrees here!

We've decided to use the days we should have been in Christchurch to head up to the Mt Cook region which we were going to have to miss out and not surprisingly as we went up to the mountains and read about the stunning views the cloud came down and the rain started - typical.

Still, tent pitched in the dry and it's not raining yet, keep it to yourselves but it might actually be brightening up which would be great for all the cool things we've planned for the next few days!

Oh and touch wood - we are officially declaring the rash gone (fingers crossed it stays that way!)