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Thursday, May 2, 2013

South Island!

Here I was minding my own business in the North Island all this time... Little did I know how AMAZING the South Island is!!! For our mid-semester break I took a week long trip to the South Island and it was incredible! Laura, Phil, Anna, and I started by taking a ferry to Picton where we rented a car, driving on the left side of the road isn't too bad, except when you go to make a right hand turn... or go through rotaries... or back up... jokes, jokes it really wasn't too bad, you get used to it pretty quickly. The first night of break we drove down to Franz Josef. The first problem of the trip was that I forgot our itinerary at home, aka we didn't have the names of any of the hostels we booked. Once we got to Franz Josef we took a guess that we booked at a YHA, we pulled off, it had just gotten dark out, we rolled down the window to ask someone at a store where it was. He looked at us confused, "just continue down this road, its right there." by chance we turned on to the right road! How awesome are we!? That next morning we woke up very early, like before the sunrise early, and went to this place called Lake Matheson, if you get there early enough in the morning the water is still and you can see a perfect reflection of the back side of Mt. Cook in the water. We took a joyous walk around the lake, taking our time and taking lots of pictures. It was a beautiful spot just off of a cow farm, there was a ton of mooing. I think the cows were upset by our presence. From there we drove over to the Fox Glacier, we walked up a path that led us to a lookout from which we could see the glacier but the rest of the path was roped off. In the distance we could see people taking tours on the actual glacier itself. In a moment of insanity we took a chance, and snuck under the rope. We were then on a mission to "touch the butt" (Finding Nemo reference, at some point we decided that touching the glacier was like the fish in Nemo daring each other to touch the butt)  walking down the path we passed two guides, nervous that they would tell us to turn back we paused to pose for some pictures, but all they said was to be careful of falling rocks. YES! So we continued on down towards the glacier. At the base of the glacier there were two more guides, both of which congratulated us on making it to the base of the glacier, saying that most people were too afraid to come down. WHAT? We definitely thought they had control to send us back, but they described it to us by say that its not like in America, they don't own they glacier, they can just recommended that you pay for a guided tour which would be safer. Victory was ours! At last we got to touch the butt! What a cool experience standing on a glacier that wont be there years from now! It was thrilling! I stood on a glacier!
That day we had another long journey ahead of us, we were off to Te Anau about a 6-7 hour drive from where we were. However it didn't feel nearly as long as it was because it was just such a gorgeous drive! We drove around these beautiful blue lakes with tall mountains and cliffs surrounding all sides, we stopped frequently for pictures and side of the road dance parties. We arrived in Te Anau ... in the dark... with no leads on what the name of our hostel was.... as we drove down the road we had our eyes peeled for something that would tip us off, then out of nowhere, BOOM! Beachfront Backpackers! That's it! We turned in and sure enough we had reservations there. What a stroke of luck. The next morning we woke up early again to make our way to Milford Sounds and the Fiordlands where we took a cruise through them. It was incredible! the mountains shot straight out of the deep water which was a rich blue. We got to see some seals, and waterfalls and where the water opened up to the Tasman Sea. This area was more beautiful than I could possibly describe! I legitimately felt as if I were in a dream. The mountains were twice the size of the Sky Tower in Auckland. On the drive there and back we drove through a tunnel in the mountain, little Matildia (our car) had a hard time making it back up as it was very steep and we were four people and 4 backpacks in a tiny tiny car. But she made it after a small gas shortage scare.
Next stop Queenstown! This was an adorable little town, very busy with lots of tourists but it was quaint at the same time, not city like at all. It had a lake on the edge of it and you could walk around it to the gardens where we found a bunch of elderly people playing outdoor bowling which was adorable! On our first full day in Queenstown Laura and I did the Nevis Canyon Swing, the highest canyon swing in the WORLD. I was totally all talk... leading up to the swing Laura was saying how she was going to be really scared and I would need to pump her up. The whole time leading up I was psyched, super excited, and ready for it. As we arrived at the canyon I was still pumped, we walked out on to the ledge and I was taking video with the gopro, still ready to swing. It was when we got to the edge and I was getting strapped in that I started freaking out. My hand flew to my mouth as I repeatedly said, "I'm gonna throw up." I lost my cool to say the least, the drop suddenly seemed 100 times more scary. What was I thinking!? We were lifted into the air in preparation of the swing, I could hardly breathe, 3... 2... 1... free fall... for a long time. I couldn't breathe let alone make a sound. What a cool experience! Swinging through the air over the canyon, it was wonderful and beyond thrilling! The next few days in Queenstown was relaxing, we found a killer Mexican restaurant and a this place called Patagonia's which had a huge selection of Gelato! Can I just say YUM! One night we did this thing called a Kiwi Crawl where we were guided from bar to bar in Queenstown and faced with some relay races where I won a jet boat cruise! My competitive side definitely came out that night, I refused to lose! The Jet Boat was awesome, it took me back on the rivers behind Queenstown giving mc access to beautiful sites that you cant see from town. As the weather didn't cooperate our big event got canceled that may or may not have included me jumping out of a plane.
Our plan was to spend the night in Christchurch on our last day because our plane left early Saturday morning to get back to Wellington. We arrived after another long drive in Christchurch at sundown... Navigating though the streets was difficult, there were lots of roads still blocked off from the earthquake in 2011, the city is definitely still trying to get back on its feet. We ended up driving in a complete circle looking for our hostel, this time we remembered the name of it. Working our way through the city a second time we finally came across the hostel...... at this point you might think we were excited.. but you didn't see what this place looked like. In short it was dirty, the car across the street's window had literally just been smashed in, and when we went back to our room you could tell the bedding was dirty just by looking at it. The man who was in the room was probably homeless, as he was talking to us he mentioned how he was "just heating up his pie for dinner" he was literally heating up his meat pie from a space heater on the floor. NOPE! We got out of there faster than you can say run! By now it was almost 8pm and we decided to get some pizza and just head to the airport to spend the night there. I surprisingly got about 3-4 hours of sleep on the floor with my bags tucked around me, much more sleep that I would have gotten at the hostel, the man just looked like a snorer. We got to see a terrific sunrise on the plane just as we were taking off to head back to Wellington. Laura, Anna, Phil and I talked about how nice it is that right now Wellington really feels like home. :)













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