Milford Sound



When we had a weekend off from Cherry picking, we ventured to Milford sound for a few days. The following pictures are of our time spent there. On a side note, thank you all for your concern following last week's earthquake. We happened to be downtown Christchurch when it struck, in a parking lot. We will post some pictures of the damage here soon.

Milford Sound is considered to be the 8th wonder of the world, and we would have to agree with that claim. I hope the following pictures paint a portrait of what we experienced. Once at Milford, we boarded a ferry and were treated to a buffet lunch and extended journey due to our original boat having mechanical issues.



View from our camp ground, about 1hr away from Milford Sound.

Emily posing on our way to the Sounds



We were right in the heart of the Southern Alps as you can see in the background





Emily and Sasha above a massive waterfall. These falls were everywhere on our drive to Milford. It had rained quite a bit the day before, making all these falls even more dramatic.



Finally made it

Posing with mitre peak in the background, with the entrance to Milford sound behind us

Mitre peak

One of countless waterfalls flowing into the ocean below. There was around 6 meters of fresh water resting on top of the salt water due to all the rain the day before.

View from the deck of our boat

John enjoying the coffee

Fiord land is one of the wetest places on the earth, and we were treated to some serious downpour. John setting up the tent in the rain. 

Several rocks had seals lounging around on them, soaking up some sunshine

Some waterfalls fell from so high that the water would become mist before hitting the water

Emily getting up close to one of the waterfalls

Getting ready to get up close with he falls

viewing fish from the underwater observatory

Scale model of the observatory. The fish you see above are seen from the bottom windows of this model

Ran into some fellow Canadians. Acadians at that, with the last name Leblanc. Same as John's Mom.

Mitre peak once again

scenic shot



The video above is of Emily getting soaked by one of the waterfalls.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. We hope to post some more blogs here in the next few days, so keep an eye out for them.

Talk again soon,

John and Emily

2011 Queenstown Adventures and Cherry picking

Emily and I have spent the last month and a half living and working in a town called Cromwell, which is 40 min outside of Queenstown, which is considered the adventure capital of NZ. We had very limited internet access, this being why it has taken us until now to post some new blogs. The following pictures are of our time spent in Cromwell and Queenstown. Hope you enjoy. The video above is of Emily's bungy jump in Queenstown.

 After our time spent in Cromwell working, Emily and I traveled to Milford sound and then headed south to Invercargill, the Caitlins and then up the east coast towards Dunedin and then across to the Westcoast and up towards Greymouth. We are now back where we started at John's cousins Robin's place just outside Christchurch. We will post all of our southern road trip in the next few days as we now have available internet. Talk again soon, John and Emily

We were fortunate enough to be able to go for a 3hr helicopter flight around Queenstown, thanks to Helitours company.

"ground control to major tom"

Flying over the mountains around Queenstown

Ariel view of Queenstown 

Emily downtown queenstown, on the water front

John and Paul looking at the historic steam ship on the lake

The local Lake Hayes A&P show

John entered the lawn mower race and was lent a ride on by one of the mower representatives.

Unfortunately John was out powered by altered race mowers and came 2nd last.

Emily and Jasper the horse, who we later watched jump

AJ Hackett bungy, the first commercial bungy jump in the world

Long way down (46m down to be exact)

Emily was the brave one on this day as john opted out

Emily sending her last regards before she takes a leap of faith

The Kawarau river that runs beneath the bungy

Emily being pulled to safety after her plunge into the river

Cromwell, Cherry capital of NZ. Emily and I worked for 4 weeks here picking cherries, and then did a short stint on a vineyard.

Some of our fellow cherry pickers

A little Canadian flare in our car

A standard night at our accommodation, people from all over the world. No one knew much what the other was saying because of the language barrier but we always seemed to have a good time.

John with the Czechs

Emily taking on Lucas in an arm wrestle

Emily needed some help from Anna to take down Lucas

The cherry bucket. We were payed between $6-7 dollars to fill one of these buckets at the orchard. On a good day you could usually pick between 25-35 buckets, netting you a cool $200 plus dollars per day. Not bad for picking fruit.

What we saw when we closed our eyes at night, CHERRIES haha

We were payed a $1 kilo to pick these cherries and then Jones orchard would export them to Japan for $50 a kilo

Snapshot of the pickers, Emily and I were busy picking when this picture was taken so do not bother trying to find us. The majority of the pickers were from Argentina and or the Czech republic. We were the only Canadians there.

The bridge that we jumped off on our way out of Cromwell. We had been building up the courage to do this for a few weeks, as the bridge was quite high (10m roughly)

John and his friend Ian about to jump

Emily ready to go

It took all of us a few countdowns before we actually jumped.

John in mid free fall, you had time to look down and see the water coming towards you, it was quite a rush