nearly it

we have now arrived in our final destination for nz, christchurch.



After the mountain which was in fact 1748m, i out did him of 20m, how rude! Jonny and i decided to pop over to milford sound, we had been told a 1.5hr drive, so we set off and 3.5hrs later we arrived, ha! A major lie and under estimation! The journey was awesome though, the fiordland was truly amazing with crazy roads through lush valleys full of lupins and massive steep sided peaks, very much like norway. Milford sound was really tranquil, hardly anything there but a spectacular view. We then drove back, almost running out of petrol, running over 2 birds that put a hole in our grill, and then got stuck on the radiator, nice!



After the class day on monday which was finished with some funky white water rafting we drove to dunedin, apparently this place was modelled on dundee but im not sure why anyone would do that :)



The main event here is the wildlife (this section is dedicated to all wildlife lovers) and man it was pretty amazing. We took a cruise in the afternoon out to the otago penisula, this is the only mainland colony of albatross in the world. They nest out on the headland, they have their courting rituals and an 80 day incubation period on their eggs. Our boat went out a bit further down the penisula and we saw a massive sea lion hunting and catching a fish, fur seals on the rocks, stuart island shags nesting high on impossible cliffs. The albatross were loving the strong wind and we saw them flying ridiculously close with their massive 3m wing span, to take off they simply opened their wings and went stright up, never flapping except to land which was much harder, they had to wait for the wind to drop and came in like a plane!

Some little facts for ya, Albatross are the only bird with 2 joints in their wings for superior gliding ability, the first time they fly for young of this colony is from NZ to south america! They actually have a tendon in their wings which locks they wing meaning gliding requires no/minimal energy.

Next we went to omaru, they have loads of penguins and at night they roam the streets shouting and making mad noises, they are hilarious, waddling about. We tried to see their colony the next morning but there were none there, guess they were still in town somewhere! We stayed in a really lush old school hotel backpackers witha real fire, settled down to a chilled evening of lord of the rings, lovely!