Dear Diary

So another spectacular week in Milford Sound. Does it really get any better than this? Blue, blue skies, sparkling sunshine and plenty of happy travellers enjoying their pleasure cruise in Milford Sound. Even working here, you have to continually pinch yourself to ensure you don’t take the breath-taking scenery for granted!

Summer not only brings some amazing weather to Fiordland, but we also get the chance to meet and say hello to our big cousin cruise ships that visit the coast of New Zealand, including Milford Sound.

On Waitangi day, (a public holiday held each year on 6 February to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document in 1840)  it was the turn of the Caledonian Sky to come into the Milford fjord. The Caledonian Sky is  a beautiful boutique cruise ship which along with its sister ship Island Sky, are said to be two of the finest small cruise ships currently at sea anywhere in the world, operating in the niche luxury cruise market.

Caledonian Sky was completing a 14-day cruise of New Zealand waters and turning around ready to embark on another 14 day luxury, educational,  cruise experience. It was a pleasure to meet all the passengers and in particular have the opportunity to spend some time with the crew whilst they enjoyed a short period of R+R onshore. We wish our new friends a great cruise, safe passage and an amazing New Zealand experience.

Until next time!

Love Lucy & The JUCY Cruize team xx

Dear Diary,

Hello again from Milford Sound! Wow – some absolutely incredible bluebird days along with thundery, heavy rainfall days.  A bit of a mixture, and that is why we love it here.

Two weeks ago we had a pod of Orca Whales venture into the Fiord to say hello. Was amazing!! A first for many guests and also for the staff in here.

If you are thinking about driving into our beautiful slice of paradise, get your cameras ready for a wild and exciting adventure.

See you soon.  Love,

Lucy & JUCY Cruize Milford Sound Team

Chances are, you’re cruising around New Zealand in your favorite JUCY Wheels to either jump from bridges, hike mountains, frollick through the vineyards, visit the local pub, or all of the above.

Whichever may be your cup of tea, you best stretch your tight buttocks and back when you stop for a cup of tea.  You wouldn’t want to pull a hammie before your sledging escapades, would you?

After extensive research with JUCY’s Coco the Social Cabana, we present to you our second series of stretches (with a fun twist to their names of course). This way you can stay loose and limber for anything, whether it be a stand up paddle adventure with dolphins or a late night dance party.  And if you missed Part 1 of this post, then you can check it out here

POP A SQUAT

Why?
-Stretch out your ankles, calves, groin, and lower back!
-Though passerby’s might get the wrong impression of what you’re up to, this is quite a restorative and soothing pose.

How?
-With heels turned in, toes out, lower down to ‘pop a squat’ with heels low to the ground.
-If this is too tight, widen stance.
-Lengthen your spine, sitting up as tall as possible, keeping your chest lifted.
-Place hands at heart center, tuck elbows inside of knees and press outward for a deeper stretch through the inner thighs.

SPREAD ‘EM
This picture was taken at the center of New Zealand, in Nelson. There’s no better place to spread ‘em, right?

Why?
-Ease up any backaches.
-Calms the brain from all the insanity you’ve been up to.
-Stretches your hamstrings, inner thighs, and spine.
-This can be done with arms your straight out to your side, but with the arms clasped behind your back you get a better stretch for your shoulders and chest. Yay!

How?
-Legs wide, feet parallel.
-Interlace fingers behind you (if this is too tight, clasp opposite elbows).
-With a flat back, hinge at hips forward.
-Shift weight into toes, bend knees if it’s too tight in the hamstrings.
-To deepen the stretch, engage your quads, drawing your kneecaps upwards.
-Relax your head (yes, your neck is tense).

SUPERSTAR (with a chest expansion)
Have you ever seen Saturday Night Live’s Mary Katherine Gallagher by Molly Shannon? Well you should, and then this reference would make a lot more sense.

Why?
-Opens up your chest and shoulders after all that kayaking, mountain biking, and driving. -Give your hips some love, they deserve it! This is an amazing stretch for your hip flexors and quads.
-Strengthens your thighs, abdominals, glutes.
-Improves balance (so when you walk along the narrow ledge of the Auckland Sky Tower over 1000 feet in the air, you’ll be able to strike a yoga pose, no problem!).

How?
-Place right leg forward into a lunge position.
-Front knee is directly over your ankle.
-Back heel is lifted.
-Hips and shoulders squared off towards the front.
-If too tight in the hips or back, bend your back knee (as seen here).
-Draw your tailbone under slightly to avoid over arching your back.
-Either lift arms high to the sky (a proper “Superstar” pose) or interlace hands behind your back for a chest expansion (as seen here).

*SPECIAL NOTE: Don’t forget to give your JUCY a hug.

These awesome stretches and tips were brought to you by Jaime Komer.  Jaime Komer is a certified yoga, pilates, and spin instructor, and an Olympic Silver Medalist in Water Polo. You might see her testing out her own crazy stretches while traversing New Zealand’s roads in JUCY’s Coco the Social Cabana. Her most recent adventure: The Sweaty New Zealand Challenge at www.athleteyogitraveler.com.

Love
Lucy xx

Get down and dirty. Get the blood flowing.

You’ve been cruising along in your JUCY mobile, the “pimp my ride” company of car & campervan rentals. As much as you love your bright green and purple set of wheels, you definitely don’t like the uncomfortable imprint you’re a** is making in the seat. Sorry, it’s inevitable, you’re driving.

Awkwardly stiff legs and achy backs may be a side effect of touring around on a fun adventure for hours, but do not be dismayed, there is hope!

Next time you stop your snazzy ride for a fuel up (mental, physical, or purely for petrol), don’t let your inhibitions stop you, it’s time to strike a pose!

Here’s the first set in a two-part blog on yoga poses that will help lengthen and open up all those achy, tight spots. Your lower back and hip flexors are begging you. Come on don’t be shy, do it for them.

High Plank to Downward Facing Dog

Why?

-Lengthens your spine.
-Stretches your hamstrings, calves, achilles tendon, shoulders, and spine.
-Strengthens your wrists, hands shoulders.
-Calms the mind (= less road rage. Phew)
-Feels like you grew an extra inch!

How?

-Plant your hands on the ground and come into a pushup position also known as high plank.
-Hands shoulder width apart and feet are hip width apart.
-Engage your core (the entire area wrapping from around the front of your abs to your back).
-Your body is in one long, straight line from heels to the crown of your head.
-From this high plank, keep hands and feet where they are and lift your tailbone to the sky in a downward facing dog.
-Reach heels towards ground, reach chest towards thighs.
-Now transition back and forth. Inhale to high plank. Exhale to downward facing dog.

Three-Legged Dog

Why?

-Hip openers are so yummy and highly needed after being in a seated position.

How?

-Lift right leg high to the sky, allowing hips to open and rotate to the right side.
-Bend right knee.
-Even though hips rotate, try to keep shoulders squared off towards the ground.
-If you’re feeling super flexy, you can look for your right foot underneath your left armpit.
-Repeat on left side.

Bonus: Add in a Tricep Pushup!

-While in High Plank, add tricep pushups for some upper body love.
-Elbows hug your side tightly as you lower down.
-Only lower to your elbow height to protect your shoulder joint.
-Avoid letting your hips dip too low.
-If this is too wild today, you can do these on your knees.

These awesome stretches and tips were brought to you by Jaime Komer.  Jaime Komer is a certified yoga, pilates, and spin instructor, and an Olympic Silver Medalist in Water Polo. You might see her testing out her own crazy stretches while traversing New Zealand’s roads in JUCY’s Coco the Social Cabana. Her most recent adventure: The Sweaty New Zealand Challenge at www.athleteyogitraveler.com.

Love
Lucy xx

We’ve had a very JUCY time cruising up, around and down the Fiord here in Milford over the past few weeks. It has been crazy with the road closures of late – tipping the daily routine into a mix bag (spice of life!).

We have since had a whole week of sunshine which was AWESOME.  Everyone was outside soaking up the spring sun. Occasionally an evening storm roared and help create waterfalls that went up (watercups) instead of down, and staggered across the mountains – definitely an impressive way to experience Milford Sound!

At the moment the Fiordland Crested Penguins are in breeding season, so we have been seeing them regularly throughout the cruises – very exciting for us the crew, and of course for our JUCY guests!

The JUCY Cruize Milford Team have been thrilled to have shared our beautiful home with so many people these past weeks – guests from all around the world (Germany, Turkey, Malaysia, Scotland, Israel and Australia, just to name a few).

For those of you yet to venture into Milford Sound – we can’t wait to see you!

Cheers
Alex, Tristan, Courtney, Dave, Lou, Roger  and of course Lucy! xx

Meet Daniel & Elliott (pictured left) who are the latest lucky people who got to take Coco, our Social Cabana away for a free adventure around the South Island of New Zealand.  It sounds and looks like they had heaps of fun!  If you’re keen to check out more photos from their trip you can do so here.  Jealous?  Then apply to take Coco away on an adventure yourself.  She is FREE!  Check out www.jucy4free.co.nz to apply! Love, Lucy xx  Read More

Meet Kathleen & Hannah who are the latest lucky people who got to take Coco, our Social Cabana away for a free adventure around the South Island of New Zealand.  It sounds and looks like they had heaps of fun and even faced their fears of driving on the “other side of the road”!  If you’re keen to check out more photos from their trip you can do so here.  Jealous?  Then apply to take Coco away on an adventure yourself.  She is FREE!  Check out www.jucy4free.co.nz  Love, Lucy xx

P.S  If you want to follow Kathleen on more of her personal adventures you can follow her own blog here neverhaveievernz.blogspot.com

Okay folks, I have really hit the ground running with this whole “try something new” game I’m playing. Today I drove on the left side of the road. And no one got hurt. Not even any sheep!  This is how this came to be…

So, once upon a time there was this little thing called “Twitter” where people were free to post sarcastic, funny, self-deprecating, sometimes mean, sometimes nice things about the people and places in their lives. Businessmen and advertisers (sometimes also considered “people”) also use this service to make themselves known in the lives of us mere citizens. When I decided I was going to NZ, I promptly began following a number of NZ affiliated Twitter accounts (including but not limited to: New Zealand Wine, and the NZ Rugby team All Blacks).

This brought me to JUCY.  And although the Twitter account was labeled “JUCY LUCY”, a name I have reserved space in my mind (and heart) for a particular beef + cheese item, I was intrigued. And you know what else? They had chutzpah. Maybe it was just the green and purple website, who can say for sure, but I decided they needed to be followed by me. On Twitter.

Turns out they are a car rental company. Didn’t see that coming.

After months of helpful advice and the kind of sassy tweets I have come to expect from this service, this arrived in my newsfeed (or whatever the Twitter version is called):

And I was like “ME! I feel like a free roadtrip!” Because A) free is my favorite price and B) it is called “Coco our Social Cabana”, how can I pass something like that up? I entered the contest and the rest is history–except that I should really mention how incredibly helpful they were!  They responded in lightning speed fashion and emailed back and forth with me until we were able to find a date that would work for all of us; me/Hannah, the JUCY staff and Coco the Social Cabana.

So here we are. After making initial plans to start in the North Island, this fabulous opportunity had us racing south, to Queenstown, to pick up Coco for a week long luxury vacation.

We step off the plane in Queenstown and are immediately struck by the insane beauty; gorgeous snow capped mountains surround the area. Then I become struck by fear and anxiety as I begin to realize that I will soon be placed behind the wheel of a vehicle, on the right side of the car, driving on the left side of the road. This was my overall emotion as a I sat behind the wheel, willing myself to drive out of the parking lot.

After what seemed like at least 32 roundabouts/rotarys we were on the main road that lead us to Wanaka, luckily it was a straight shot, no turns needed! I  started to relax and by the time we made it to Wanaka I think I was downright confident in my driving abilities.

Wanaka is a beautiful lake down, dedicated to the life of skiing and snowboarding. One of Hannah’s friends has been living in Wanaka since July, so we popped on over there to check it out.  After two nights in Wanaka, and a hike to the top of a hill for a wine tasting at Rippon Vineyard, we decided we needed to actually fully utilize the free van we were given, so we headed north to check out the famous Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.

The drive north took us nearly four hours through some winding roads. I held my own though and made it through, continuing to keep us safe on the left side of the road. We stopped at the famous Blue Pools, then continued to the glaciers. As we walked toward the glacier it felt like something straight out of Land Before Time (or Jurassic Park I guess, whichever one you identify with more, picture that). As with most everything, it costs money to go on an actual tour in which you are able to touch the glaciers and walk through them. Seeing as how we have minimum amounts of dollars, we decided to do the free version, so we were still quite a few meters away. But we felt/saw the beauty, even from afar!

Afterwards we drove to Okarito a tiny tiny tiny “town” where we were able to set up camp and stay the night. We were able to make dinner in the back of Coco and enjoy the company of a lovely Kiwi/UK couple fishing for whitebait, which is apparently a type of fish that “Doesn’t taste particularly good and you don’t use it for anything” yet it is an expensive commodity…

The next day as we began to fill up our gas tank, we realized that gas is actually extremely absurdly priced here in this lovely little island. SO we decided to head back towards Wanaka for some cheaper activities.

We decided to tramp (hike) through Mt. Aspiring National Park and stay over night at one of the huts located on the hike. It was a two hour tramp from the car park, through a beautiful valley. Walking just a few feet away from cows and sheep, fording rivers and climbing lots of rocks. We arrived at the hut, which is used primarily in the summertime (remember its winter here right now people!) as a pit stop for trampers as they continue on.

Because we are super smart and clearly very well prepared in all aspects of life, we somehow thought it would be a good idea to begin the tramp at 4:45pm. (Our late arrival was also in part due to the sheep blocking our way!) Meaning we arrived about 10 minutes before the sun set, reealllly cutting it close! There was no electricity, just a bunch of mats to sleep on and a fireplace. Again, this is meant to be used primarily during the summer months…and now we know why.

We quickly built the fire (thanks to all of our cumulative girl scout skills) and promptly huddled around it (along with the bottles of wine that are obviously important additions to any long hike) all night long. The fire of course went out in the middle of the night, just as a massive rain storm came through the valley. The next morning we had to hike back….still a two hour hike…through rain rain rain and winds reaching close to 70 or 80 mph. If you recall, it seems as though the only way I like to hike, is if I am going to end up being in miserable pain the next day; 35 mile overnight hike. This experience wasn’t nearly as bad as that though, it was actually pretty amazing, the land was virtually untouched making 360 views constantly breathtaking.

For our final night we drove to Queenstown, the location where we were meant to return the vehicle. Queenstown is the “adventure capital of New Zealand” but we didn’t have time to take part in any of those crazy activities, stay tuned in the coming months for those…

It was sad to see our purple gas guzzling monstrosity go, but it was time for another lucky few to have their way with her. She definitely earned her stripes as we drove through the Crown Range and up the West Coast. She provided a lovely sleeping facility + kitchen + lounge PLUS she was FREE so it was really beyond splendid.

Check out the official “The Daily Dump Snow Reports” bringing you updates from all the major events in New Zealand this winter. We’ve hooked these guys up with some JUCY Wheels to get them around while they are filming the reports. Here is the footage from the last few days. Enjoy! Love Lucy xx

Ohau Turns it On, its a Powder day! 11th Sep, Day 36. from The Daily Dump Snow Report on Vimeo.

Olivia Jones and Lucy Hayes, both 14 years old and local Wanaka Grom’s. 14thSep, Day 39 from The Daily Dump Snow Report on Vimeo.

SNOW is the word around Milford at the moment look – just look at these photos. We have had all weather this week, snow, storms, hail and avalanches. It’s been great fun in a winter kind of way!

Had 2 lovely honeymoon couples coming on our cruise this week. One on our Jucy coach from Queenstown and the other on our Jucy coach from Te Anau and both on the same day!  Seals and penguins still around this week, which has been awesome.  We love it when we can show people wildlife!

Hope to see you all down here soon to come and look at beautiful Milford in the snow and have a play, just like these guys…..

If you have already cruised with us and loved your JUCY Experience then please vote for us in the Golden Backpack Awards.  You can vote under the NZ section as the Best Activity/Tour Operator  here

Love
Lucy & the JUCY Cruize Milford Sound team

Amelia, one of our JUCY Crew members headed down to the South Island last month.  She faced her fears and took the plunge, skydiving from 12,000ft with our mates at Skydive Wanaka (they are one of our JUCY Deals partners).  Below is a bit of a summary on her Skydive Wanaka Experience.  Enjoy!  Love, Lucy xx

I will start from the beginning.  Well the beginning is actually a few weeks ago when I knew that I was going to be coming to Wanaka, which meant I knew that the amazing team at Skydive Wanaka were going to persuade me to jump out of a perfectly good plane from 12,000ft – attached to a beautiful stranger as they like to call it.  Now knowing this a few weeks in advance, and me being the “worry bug” and “over-thinker” that I am, this gave me more than enough time to work myself up into a real frenzy.  Yes, I think that is a good way to put it.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I was in Wanaka and the night before I was due to jump it was all I could think about.  What if I’m sick?  Will my ears hurt?  What if I pass out?  I am actually going to jump out of a perfectly good plane!  OMG!!!!  These thoughts were constantly running around my head right up until I arrived at Skydive Wanaka’s HQ.  Although the nerves were still there, I must admit that everyone I dealt with was nothing but supportive, re-assuring and made the whole experience the best it could be.

After a quick briefing, some forms (to sign my life away), a weigh in and some time choosing music to have my video edited to it was time to suit up, harness up and meet my tandem master….Geoff!  Geoff was my beautiful stranger, and he was awesome!   Before I knew it I was all ready to go and sitting inside a bright orange plane ready for take off.  For the record, at this point I am still completely terrified, my palms were sweating and I kept on asking Geoff questions about the banana position……..legs back, head tilted…..yes – I had it, I was ready to jump!

The flight up to 12,000ft was the most amazing scenic flight yet the most nervous flight I have ever had.  Geoff did an amazing job at distracting me from the skydive nerves and focusing my thoughts on the amazing view.  Snow capped mountains, rivers, lakes, fantastic blue skies – it truly was amazing.  Looking back at it the flight is awesome! As we approach the 12,000ft Geoff tightens my harness, gives me some goggles and a funky little hat and it was GO TIME!  Door opens.  Heart Races.  People infront of me start leaping out of the plane with their beautiful strangers, and before you know it I’m there at the door, feet hanging out bent into the banana position and…………I’m out!

Check out a short video clip of my skydive below…

WOW.  WOW.  WOW!  Whan an amazing feeling.  I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to be able to fly.  And that was what I was doing – flying…..well free-falling but it has to be similar right?!  45 seconds of freefalling was a thrilling and overwhelming experience and before I knew it Geoff realeased the parrachute and we were floating and able to take in the amazing sights of Wanaka with a birds eye view.  I can’t think of a better place in New Zealand I could have had this experience – where else do you get views like this!?

Heart racing, and with a sense of major achievement and pride we came in for landing.  I had done it, and it felt FANTASTIC! If I had to give you three words that described my skydive experience they would be Overwhelming, Amazing and Thrilling.  If I had to give you three words that described the team that looked after me and made it all happen I would say that Skydive Wanaka are Awesome, Professional and Memory-Makers!

Thanks Skydive Wanaka for helping me face my fear, tick something off my bucket list and for being part of my memories forever and one of my highlights of 2012 by far! I will leave you with this quote from H.P Lovecraft -  “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”  So, face those fears – because trust me, once you experience the thing that scared you so much you will realise it’s really not as bad as you thought it was going to be.  It could infact be AWESOME!

Love
Amelia