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Chris and Charly Down Under

a travel blog by chrischarly

Bye bye tuk tuks
Bye bye negotiating
Bye bye, 'Hello Mister'
Bye bye long bus rides
Bye bye heavy backpacks
Bye bye savings...
And G'DAY 'down under'!

After plenty of time spent in South East Asia, we have just left Australia after having an amazing time driving around for almost 3 months in a camper and are now in New Zealand doing the same :)


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Enjoying the sunshine

Frankton, New Zealand


Makumba just before he goes to Oz
Got up and chilled for most the day in the gorgeous sunshine, reading books and drinking a few beers. Early evening we headed into the supermarket to get Christmas supplies, at the same time we found out that there had been two earthquakes in

Chris with a beer
Christchurch, exactly where we were just yesterday in New Brighton and Justine even felt it whilst lying in bed, but not being used to them, we were oblivious. We came back and Chris cooked yummy steaks with baked sweet potato, salad and pepper sauce. Yummy as ever.

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 23, 2011 from Frankton, New Zealand
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Christmas Eve

Frankton, New Zealand


Manakin modelling Justine's cast

Manakin we dressed up


Barbie zip-lining
Hung out at Justine’s and helped her organise the place for Christmas. It pretty much entailed a bit of tidying, lots of dressing the place up with some funky arty stuff, all mixed in with plenty of breaks in the sunshine. Chris then deboned the turkey which he was very pleased about and we had a nice chilled Christmas Eve.


Freaky

Cleaning the BBQ


Chris preparing the turkey

Mine and Chris' creation



permalink written by  chrischarly on December 24, 2011 from Frankton, New Zealand
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Merry Christmas!! :)

Frankton, New Zealand


A guy trapped in the sofa

Planking


Outside Justine's place

Mason breaking into the site opposite


Another manakin we dressed up and laid next to Justine whilst she slept!!
Got up and Chris got to work on food prep. Some early birds rocked up and we started on the cocktails early before a BBQ breakfast to ensure we could last the day. The whole day was a mix of drinking, chatting eating and having fun. Chris’s food went down really well and we all had a great time. Justine was clearly out of practice and ended up crashing about 5pm but did re-emerge later in the evening. Happy Christmas everyone…




permalink written by  chrischarly on December 25, 2011 from Frankton, New Zealand
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A little explore around town

Queenstown, New Zealand


An awesome road

Queenstown

The pretty lake

Mason
Although pretty hungover, we manged to get our act together and went for a nice tour around Queenstown with Mason, Justine’s son, which took in some of the nice parts of the lake and the town. We then went shopping for a few bits before headed back to base for a chilled evening.

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 26, 2011 from Queenstown, New Zealand
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Camping again

Albert Town, New Zealand


Me and Justine relaxing

Off-roading

We packed up the car and headed to Albert Town which is near Wanaka to camp. It was an amazing drive through the mountains and the views were even better than we had seen so far.


BBQ

Chris setting up the tent


Sunset
Found a nice spot and Chris setup the tent while we supervised and drank some wine. Later on, some of Justine’s paragliding crew turned up. They were running a course for two guys the next day at Lake Hawae. We cooked some tandoori Chicken and drunk more wine, then headed to bed as we had to get up at 7am to go support the paragliding course.



permalink written by  chrischarly on December 27, 2011 from Albert Town, New Zealand
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Paragliding and 4 wheel driving

Wanaka, New Zealand


Practicing paragliding

So pretty

Got up at 7ish and quickly packed up what we needed for the day before heading to the lake with the guys.


Our cars at the bottom across lake!

Waterfall in the mountains


Crossing a river

On the 4X4 trip


Views from Justine's car

Off-roading


Having a quick break

Awesome

Unfortunately it was too windy for the course so it was aborted after a few hours of waiting. We then decided to go on a 4WD tour around the lake which was amazing and the views epic.


So gorgeous!!

Sunset

We then headed back to camp; Chris and Dean went fishing whilst we went to town to get some more beer and food and had a chilled night. Good job we bought Salmon as Chris and Dean were rubbish at fishing!!

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 28, 2011 from Wanaka, New Zealand
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Another night binge drinking...

Frankton, New Zealand


Justine
Woke up, too windy again for the course so we cleared and packed up headed back to Queenstown picking up an Italian friend of Justine’s along the way. When we got back we dropped off Justine and headed into town to pick up Tracy,

Drinking cocktails...
another friend, brought a load of drinks including 2 bottles of vodka and spent the afternoon and night consuming way too much for 5 people, including sending Mason, Justine’s son into town to buy 2 more bottles of vodka. Lots of yummy cocktails were consumed and all in all a pretty messy night. No idea what time we went to bed.


permalink written by  chrischarly on December 29, 2011 from Frankton, New Zealand
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Recovering.... AGAIN

Frankton, New Zealand


Awesome views from a lookout point
After a fantastic night’s sleep, Chris and I woke up massively hung-over at 1pm and woke Justine as she was supposed to be going to a hotel with a friend. She eventually got up at 2pm and left at 4 a few hours later than planned and we spent a relaxing day chilling out watching films.

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 30, 2011 from Frankton, New Zealand
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End of the year

Frankton, New Zealand


Sunset in Frankton
The last day in 2011. Been a fantastic year, been to and seen a load of amazing places and collected some unforgettable memories. We didn’t do a lot today. Justine had plans with a few of her friends and as New Year’s isn’t exactly that special to us; just another day, we stayed in and had a few drinks together as we don’t spend enough time together as it is!

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 31, 2011 from Frankton, New Zealand
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Happy New Year!

Frankton, New Zealand


Justine enjoying the sunshine
Happy New Year!! With Christmas and New Year out of the way, we are now on a search for a new van! So the first thing we did was to get a lift into town and take back and replace the broken portable internet stick we brought yesterday with another one twice the price that also didn’t work. So after about 5 hours of Chris playing with it, he fixed it, this time himself. We then spent the evening searching for cars and vans, loads available but most of them pretty rubbish.

permalink written by  chrischarly on January 1, 2012 from Frankton, New Zealand
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