Rose and Jess Damon and Esler
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South Island ▷ Coastal Otago ▷ Oamaru ▷
Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony
3.0/5
Excellent viewing of penguins coming ashore (that's what we came for, right?) BUT...
they really need to get a different commentator. The guy reading the nature information sounded like a grade four student reading aloud in perfect MONOTONE for the first time. Also, they need to work out how to control the weather, 'cause we got soaked. And we wish we had realised there were vouchers available BEFORE we paid for it. Oops.
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South Island ▷ Canterbury ▷ Christchurch ▷
Christchurch Art Gallery
3.5/5
Jess liked the White exhibition but Rose was unimpressed.
Rose did love "Up Against Down" though; the guy throwing himself against a wall was capitivating and she loved the use of video. Some of the contemporary art was awesome; most of the traditional stuff was dull.
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South Island ▷ Canterbury ▷ Methven ▷
Mount / Mt Hutt Ski Area
4.0/5
We had an AWESOME 2 days skiing and our package (from Alpine Expeditions) was great value.
Beautiful powder on the first day, and a gorgeous mountain. Great weather too - hurrah! Not too busy either. HOWEVER there was only one beginner run AND the signage was pretty poor so we got stuck on an icy mountainside sliding down on our butts. But apart from that it was ace :-D
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South Island ▷ Coastal Otago ▷ Oamaru ▷
Moeraki Boulders
5.0/5
Our Moeraki Boulders experience was epic.
We discovered that they are rather difficult to get to at high tide, and our efforts to avoid wading through a river involved wading through the mud on somebody's farm instead. This was soon followed by dodging sneaky waves as we ran along the beach trying to get the photo of a lifetime and stay dry. Jess was unsuccessful, as her Spiderman pose on the cliff face ended with her sinking straight into that same cliff face and extracting very muddy ankles as a result. If only we had known BEFOREHAND that there was a set of perfectly good wooden steps leading directly down to the Boulders from a nearby cafe.
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South Island ▷ Queenstown Region ▷ Queenstown Township ▷
Elevation Paragliding Queenstown
0.5/5
How can we possible rate this experience?
Jess had an awesome time - definitely not an adrenaline rush, but loads of fun cruising through the sky over gorgeous Queenstown with a friendly instructor. She scores it an 8. Rose, on the other hand, nearly died. As we all reached the top of Coronet Peak the clouds were coming in thick and fast and the instructors knew we all had to hurry. Fortunately, Jess was able to take off almost straight away. Rose and her instructor, on the other hand, stayed on the peak for some time, wrestling with the pesky parachute which had become tangled after catching on the intrsuctor's camera pole. After much sliding down of slopes and wrestling with cords and wind, to no avail, the instructor turned around, observed the gathering clouds, and said "I'm not flying through that". Consequently, Rose was lumped with an enormous backpack, roughly the same size as her body, and told "The best thing you can do is to take this and walk. The lift closes in 10 minutes". Rose attempted to do this, but found it rather more difficult than she may otherwise have done, had she not been wearing Converse sneakers (she didn't know she was going to the snow that day!). After many minutes of struggling and gaining no ground at all as she alternately sunk to her knees in the snow or slipped over on the ice (or was pulled over by the weight of the pack), eventually the instructor was able to make it up to the lift to ask them to keep it open long enough for their descent. Finally, Rose was able to make it to the lift (once she had been relieved of the pack) as the clouds set in, wheezing and coughing from the cold and altitude, as one might expect after struggling to walk UP a black run (which is indesputably geared towards sending people DOWN as fast possible). There was silence on the chairlift as Rose and the instructor coasted down the mountain, relieved to live another day. Jess rates this experience highly, but Rose overrules. She has been traumatised.
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South Island ▷ Fiordland ▷ Milford Sound - Fiordland National Park ▷
Mitre Peak Cruises
5.0/5
Perfect.
We were very lucky with the weather - clear late afternoon sunshine was stunning reflect across the water. We had everything we needed - small boat, not crowded, no other boats on the Sound, free tea & coffee, plenty of outdoor observation space and WE SAW DOLPHINS AND SEALS AND LOVED! Brilliant tour.
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South Island ▷ Coastal Otago ▷ Dunedin ▷
Cadbury World
2.5/5
Hmm...
Well we love chocolate and we've been pigging out ever since our tour BUT we would have liked to have learned more of the secrets of chocolate-making on the tour. Would have liked to get up closer to the process and seen in more detail as what we did see was very interesting. Also, wish they had been giving out Crunchie instead of PerkyNana. P.S. Loved the pop quizzes.