Kayaking, Hiking and some Biking...

a quick update! We left Akaroa after a gorgeous morning kayaking in the sound...although unfortunately we didn't get to see any dolphins (there was a bit of wind, so we could only go down the sound towards the inland end, and the dolphins were probably in the ocean-end) oh well! We did see lots of birds, and explored the cool volcanic rock formations along the water. After the kayak, we drove about 4.5 hours to Mt. Cook - the tallest mountain in Austalasia. The day was clear, so we lucked out and got incredible views of the glacier-covered mountain! We camped in a parking lot/campsite by the mountain (with about 50 other campers), and then this morning did a day hike up to Mueller Hut, that overlooked a gazillion HUGE glaciers. Although the hike was a steady 5k climb up - and then directly down - the views were amazing, and definitely worth it. I was put in my place a bit about our rockies being the best mountains EVER...these were pretty awesome. Huge, lots and lots of glaciers (and big glaciers at that - think plains of the six glaciers, but increase the size of the glaciers by about 150% each, and then add a few more). The 90km winds made it a bit tricky at the top, but luckily the Hut was there for our lunch spot (people generally do the climb, then stay the night in the hut, before heading down the next day - my knees may have preffered that option :)

After the hike, we decided to high-tail it out of the Mt Cook area, and come to a place (ahiri valley, near omarama (which I keep accidentally calling obamarama) with a potential mountain bike (more cross country) route of about 50 kms, part of which we'll do tomorrow. So as I write this, our camper is parked in a MASSIVE valley, bordered by pretty huge snow covered mountains. We're about 20 metres from a river / stream, and I can hear the sheep (I hope they cut out the 'baaaas' at night) that are wandering around in the field we're in. There isn't much around - only the sheep, a gravel road, the river and us.

One thing I wanted to clarify after my last post, is that our food situation is actually quite good. The instant noodles are our 'we're too tired to do dishes / cook anything but we need to eat' nights...usually (as in tonight and last night) we're getting pretty good with our camper-cooking! We recently acquired a BBQ - which has meant that nights of lamb (no, not the cute ones outside our camper at the moment...), corn on the cob and steamed veggies are now regular. In addition, we've been doing the standard pasta and sauce / stir fry's, fajitas, grilled cheese, salads, and even made our own popcorn (a newly acquired skill from our ski vacation - thanks jess!). We've been eating well :) I have to say, gavin's also become very skilled with doing the dishes in our confined space :)

anyhow, time for a relaxing evening and some biking tomorrow! I hope that everything is going well at home!

huge hugs

a

and another brief update as I'm only posting this is Wanaka - the sheep quieted down last night, only to have gavin go chasing them today as we biked through the valley. unfortunately, we were rained out a bit, so only got in about 25kms...but it was a GORGEOUS bike. The only part I wasn't so keen on was the river crossing we had to do - which actually in the end marked the turn around point, because once we'd carried our bikes across the river (well, gavin carried mine, I was happy just making it across without falling into the river and getting soaked), it started to pour with rain and cloud in...so we crossed back over the river, and headed back to the camper in the rain...fun fun fun. I think the weather here has something against us mountain biking - everytime we go it seems to rain - oh well! :)