New Zealand: Adventure Capital of the World!

By making these travel plans I set myself up for failure.  There is no way any future spring break will top the one I just had.  Because New Zealand is one of the most amazing places I have experienced in my life, hands down. 

Remember how I am documenting all my firsts throughout my semester abroad?  Well there were quite a few that happened this past week—the first and most obvious, going to New Zealand for mid-semester break.  So hold on to your hats as I attempt to recount all these adventures to you.  Bear with me, this is a long post.  Please get up now, grab a snack, make a hot beverage, and use the restroom before reading further.

Day 1- Friday, March 29

This day was fairly uneventful, minus my misplaced luggage fiasco which I won’t get in to, but was all kinds of terrible.  Anyways, we woke up at the lovely hour of 5am to catch our 6:45 am flight from Brisbane to Christchurch.  We made it to New Zealand unscathed, but very tired, jetlagged, and hungry.  In a city as well-known as Christchurch, we figured we could find at least a fast food joint for dinner.  But that was not the case.  You see, Christchurch suffered a terrible earthquake in February 2011, still experiences aftershocks, and is anticipating another quake to occur in the near future.  Because of all of this, the majority of the one million people who used to live there up and left so there is still a long road to recovery.  On our scenic hour long tour of the city in search for food we discovered remaining piles of rubble, half destroyed buildings, and roads closed off due to danger of falling debris.  Between this and the fact that it was Good Friday, Christchurch was a ghost town.  We ended up ordering pizza and tried to rest up for the next day when the real adventure would begin.

Day 2- Saturday, March 30

It was time to hit the road!  Saturday marked the beginning of our trek across New Zealand’s South Island.  The 16 of us American study abroad students that comprised the tour group met up with Sandfly, our guide for the week, and boarded the Stray bus that we would call home for the next several days.  

 As we set off on our journey to Franz Josef, a small town where we would spend the next two nights, I was not prepared for what New Zealand had in store for me.  Everywhere I looked was beautiful mountains, bright blue skies, and lakes with the clearest and bluest sparkling water I have ever seen.  Not bad scenery to look at for the hours of upcoming travel ahead of us!  We stopped for lunch in Wanaka where Sandfly highly suggested we try whitebait sandwiches and chips.  As adventuresome tourists, we decided to trust the kiwi.  And this is what we got:

After getting past the fact that the little whitebait fishes were staring back at me as I raised the sandwich to my mouth, I managed to eat it then try and forget about what I just ingested.  At least the chips more than made up for it, they were delicious. **Fun fact: fries are called chips in this part of the world.  And ketchup is tomato sauce** Don’t worry, the whitebait was fully cooked.  It just managed to retain its facial features.

We then continued on our journey and after a few other stops arrived in Franz Josef, which is a small town made famous by the Franz Josef Glacier situated between the mountains.  Of course, it was a beautiful place.  After dropping off our bags in the hostel, we set off to explore the town.  When I said it was small, I wasn’t kidding; it took us about 20 minutes to walk the length of the town.  The biggest highlight was stumbling upon a pastry shop that was about to close, so we got our choice of pastries for only $1 each.  Win!

Day 3- Sunday March 31 (aka Easter Sunday)

This was supposed to be the most adventuresome Easter in my 21 years of life, and while it still was, it was not as adventuresome as planned.  We woke up bright-eyed and excited to embark on our helicopter ride to Franz Josef Glacier where we would hike across it only to find rain and thick fog.  Needless to say, all glacier heli tours were cancelled that day.  It was quite a bummer, but we didn’t let the rain stop us.  We suited up in rain gear and hiked the 16K path to and from the glacier.  The cold and rainy hike was completely worth it.  The sun came out when we got there and we could see the blue glistening of the glacier.  At least we were still able to see the glacier and get some exercise at the same time!

Day 4- Monday April 1

As our luck would have it, we woke up that morning to clear blue skies…basically the perfect day for a heli glacier hike.  Thanks Mother Nature.  Unfortunately we couldn’t rearrange the itinerary, so we packed our bags, boarded the bus, and set off on our next adventure. 

Our first stop was at a town called Fox, which is home to Fox Glacier (quite original right?), Mount Cook, and Lake Matheson.  While part of the group skydived, the rest of us who had either already jumped out of a plane, planned to later, or were just straight up chicken (just to clarify, I am NOT in that last group. Check out my earlier blog post if you doubt me) embarked on a hike around Lake Matheson.  This lake is one of the stillest lakes in New Zealand and has a perfect reflection of Fox Glacier, Mount Cook, and the rest of the Southern Alps.  Lake Matheson is also known as Mirror Lake because on most days it is hard to distinguish between the actual mountains and their reflection in the lake.  You decide, is this picture right side up or upside down??

After this cool brisk walk to wake us all up and combat any hangover from the night before, we boarded the bus again and continued on to Wanaka, a town made famous by none other than Lake Wanaka. Especially stunning was laying on the shore at night, mesmerized by all the stars that lit up the sky.  This was actually one of my favorite moments of the trip, made complete when my newfound friend Brad and I stumbled upon a shopping cart on the way back to the hostel.  Naturally I hopped in and after a short photo shoot, Brad pushed the cart with me still in it back to the hostel.  Fun fact- in Australia and New Zealand they are called shopping trolleys.  It sounds much fancier doesn’t it?

Day 5- Tuesday April 2

First thing on the agenda was a stop at Puzzle World, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  If you are curious, check out their website: http://www.puzzlingworld.co.nz/

We were told that the bacon breakfast sandwiches were delicious, so between that, the amazing smell of sizzling bacon, and the fact that we were all bacon deprived since leaving the U.S., we forked over $3 for a sandwich.  What we got was a piece of warmed ham between two slices of cold, white sandwich bread.  So much a hot, greasy, crispy bacon breakfast sandwich.  Pretty much every time you order bacon in Australia and NZ, you end up with ham.  We were all hoping for an exception to this, but no luck.  I guess the employees thought we would need energy to complete The Great Maze or thought it would be funny to see it regurgitated after experiencing countless optical illusions. Seriously, check out their website to see what we were subjected to first thing in the morning: http://www.puzzlingworld.co.nz/attractions.html

The next stop was far more pleasant and satisfying for the taste buds.  After a couple hours’ drive we made it to the town of Cromwell, which is known for its delicious fruits and is what inspired the giant sculpture that beckons visitors to the town:

 We all stocked up on fruits, which were delicious, and indulged in some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted.  I have tried a plethora of ice creams, so I consider myself to be a credible ice cream critic.  I ordered hokey pokey ice cream with kiwi fruit mixed in with it.  Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.  In case you don’t know (and I didn’t before by Australian/NZ adventure began, so don’t fret if you are wondering what in the world it could be), hokey pokey is honey flavored ice cream with bits of honeycomb in it…it is very popular in Australia and New Zealand and I will miss it dearly when I return to the U.S. 

Next stop: Queenstown, aka adventure capital of the world!!  But before we got there, the gods of New Zealand had other plans for us (yet again) and we made an impromptu stop…in the middle of the highway.  Why?  We happened upon a blasting zone.  In order to prevent rock slides, parts of the mountains near the road need to be blasted away periodically.  As a result, the road was closed for an hour and there was no convenience of a detour.  So we channeled our inner junior high camp activity knowledge and started games of ninja, human pretzel, etc. in the middle of the highway.  Hey, it made the hour pass quickly!  We even have a group photo to prove it:

 

As if we didn’t already have enough adventure for one day, we made our entrance to Queenstown an eventful one.  After checking in to the hostel, we took a gondola ride up a mountain to feast our eyes upon amazing views of the most beautiful city I have seen in my life.  Queenstown sits right on a crystal blue lake and is surrounded by mountains, some of which are called The Remarkables because they are, well, remarkable.  It is impossible to capture the magnificence of Q-town, but here’s a shot!

This is where our first adventure in Q-town occurred.  The purpose of the gondola ride was to take us to the luge track where we would ride down part of the mountain.  Don’t picture an ice track, this luge was more like a wheeled cart that we steered down a twisted, paved path.  Everyone was excited to race down the hill except our friend Brad, who was confident that he was going to crash and fall off the luge.  We told him that small children survive unscathed and assured him he wouldn’t fall.  Well shame on us, because guess what.  Brad crashed his luge and dislocated his shoulder.  So Brad, Sandfly, two friends, and I spent the evening in the ER.  It was quite the bonding experience.  Our friend Evan and I bought Brad a shot glass from the luge gift shop as a get-well gift and managed to pick the worst one possible…it had the luge logo and said “because once just isn’t enough.”  Well, for Brad once was more than enough.  Poor kid, but he was a trooper!  Especially with putting up with our jokes the rest of the week.  Needless to say, this was one of the longest and most eventful days of the trip!

Day 6- Wednesday April 3

Wednesday was our first full day in Queenstown and we took advantage of being in the adventure capital of the world by going white water rafting!  The bus ride to the river was arguably scarier than the rafting itself because we had to drive on one of the world’s top 10 most dangerous roads to get there.  Imagine driving on a gravel road on the side of a mountain in a 16 person van with rafts attached to the back, only feet away from falling into the valleys with no guard rail to give any sort of protection.  But hey, when in Rome… Anyway, we survived the bus ride, suited up in wetsuits, and entered the 9⁰C water.  The rapids were great and luckily no one fell in!

After we returned and indulged in a hot shower, it was time to explore the town and do some shopping.  We found an awesome store called Cookie Time just in time for happy hour—half price cookies!  Needless to say, we stopped back many times over the next couple days.  It was then time for the dinner we had been waiting for for days—the world famous Fergberger.  It was huge…almost the size of my face.  Delicious!

Later that night we hit up some Q-town night life, which was a great time.  On our way home we heard American country music blaring from a bar so of course we detoured to check it out.   They were even offering free drink vouchers at the door.  Sold!  Once we walked in and realized the four of us tripled the population of the bar, we realized why we were bribed with free drinks.  But hey, no complaints about enjoying a free drink with friends!  After that it was time to head home for real to rest up for the most thrilling, adventuresome, terrifying, adrenaline pumping activity that was to take place the next moring.

Day 7- Thursday April 4

This was the day.  The day I was going to do the scariest thing I have ever done.  Scarier than skydiving.  Even scarier than sitting in the Pitt student section wearing a West Virginia jersey.  I was going to do the Nevis Bungy. 

For those of you not familiar with the Nevis Bungy, at 134 meters it is the highest bungy in New Zealand.  Some wacko thought it would be a good idea to create a business out of harnessing people by their feet and having them throw themselves off an itty bitty ledge into a canyon upwards of 300 meters deep.  Well, that wacko is now a very rich person. 

Full of nerves, we took a gondola ride out to the ledge where we would jump.  This ledge is basically a small room suspended by cables in the middle of a canyon.  As the wind blew everything would sway.  Terrifying, right?  I got all my harnesses situated and the worker guy walked me out to the ledge.  I can’t tell you how I jumped, I just knew that if I hesitated or looked down I never would.  So as the guy counted down 3-2-1-BUNGY next thing I knew I was plummeting towards the ground.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening, but finally pulled myself together, realized what was going on, let out a loud scream, and was able to take in the beautiful surroundings.  Within a few minutes I was pulled back up to safety with the biggest sense of accomplishment I have felt in my entire life!

As if that wasn’t enough thrill for one day, we raced off to go canyoning after getting back from the Nevis.  Canyoning was a great adventure that involved rock climbing, abseiling, ziplining, cliff jumping, swimming, and hiking through a canyon with 37⁰F water.  Having done the Nevis that morning made the cliff jumps seem like cake!

Day 8- Friday April 5

Today was spent making the seven hour drive back to Christchurch where we would catch our flight back to Brisbane early Saturday morning.  It was fairly uneventful as the week of adventure, little sleep, and hangover from the previous night’s pub crawl caught up with us.  We did stop at Lake Pukaki which the has brightest blue shining water I have ever seen.  It looked as though there were lights illuminating it from beneath the surface…it was unreal.  Right on the shore was the Church of the Good Shepherd, which is a small chapel built from stones from Lake Pukaki.  Pretty cool!

 View of Lake Pukaki from inside the Church of the Good Shepherd

 Lake Pukaki

Day 9- Saturday April 6

Unfortunately, this is the day our New Zealand adventure came to an end.  We were on the road by 4am to get to the airport to catch our flight, still in a daze from being up at such an early hour.  We made it back to Brisbane safe and sound and proceeded to sleep for the rest of the weekend to try and prepare for upcoming exams and assignments.  This basically consisted of countless hours in the library staring at the gibberish that is my notes, reminiscing about the activities of the week before and wishing I could be back.

If you made it through this whole blog post, give yourself a pat on the back!  Thanks for bearing with me, I know it was a long one.  Until next time, cheers!