Last Wednesday, J.D., a guy I went to Creighton with, and I began our adventure around the South Island for holiday. J.D. has been living and working on a golf course on the North Island since January. Since he doesn't have much work during the winter months, he decided to do a bit of traveling. As for myself, I wanted to travel before leaving this beautiful country, I just didn't want to go by myself and have to maneuver my way around alone... perfect opportunity for the two of us to connect and have an adventure together! AND since neither one of us knew each other that well in Uni, it would be a good opportunity to formally meet and get to know the other better.
Here is a brief outline of our trip and what we did!
Day 1: Drove from Christchurch to Queenstown! We basically took the scenic route through Linnis Pass and stopped in a couple small towns to get petrol and grab some food at cute little cafes. Driving through the Canterbury plains doesn't look like much, but as soon as you start driving through the middle of the country, you start seeing more dryer mountain terrain. Really pretty and nice colors around this time of year. Once we arrived in Queenstown, we basically just parked the car and walked around the town square. It's a really touristy town, so we just explored shops and sat down to relax and have a coffee before finding a hostel to stay in. That night, we stayed in a hostel right outside the town square called Bungi Backpackers - I highly recommend this place to anyone staying in Queenstown. Super affordable, private, and clean. J.D. and I both slept really well this night after a long day of driving.
Day 2: We got up nice and early, got breakfast and coffee, and headed to the A.J. Hackett Bungy office in Queenstown. Yep... we were both headed to our first bungy jumps! There are heaps of places around Queenstown people can bungy and do adventure sports, but both of us decided that if we were going to do a bungy jump at all (and pay for it), we might as well go big or go home. Compared to the 35-43 meter jumps one could do around town, J.D. and I booked the Nevis Bungy Jump - a 134 meter jump out of a cable car in the middle of mountains and a valley. 8 second free fall. Second biggest bungy jump in the whole world. Was I nervous before jumping? Nervous would be a huge understatement. I was never planning to do a bungy jump EVER... but I did... and it wasone of the greatest experiences of my life. I don't even know how to fully describe the feeling of free falling toward the ground, but it is beyond exhilarating. I was seriously speechless for a good 20 minutes after the jump. INCREDIBLE. I would recommend this to EVERYONE. That afternoon, we walked around Queenstown some more and then took the Skyline Gondola up the mountain and did the luge track. Really chilly and cold up on that mountain, but the luge was so much fun - plus, the view was worth every penny! This night, J.D. and I left Queenstown and drove to our next destination Te Anau.
Day 3: Left our hostel early in the morning to meet up in downtown Te Anau with our tour group/bus that was going to take us to Milford Sound! Turns out, not very many people want to travel to Milford Sound in the off season... there were only four of us (plus the bus driver) on the bus. J.D., a cute Irish couple, and myself. It was kind of awesome though... had some good chats and got to stop heaps along the way, seeing lots of beautiful landscapes and sites through Fiordland National Park. We even got to drink glacier water from a stream... probably some of the best water I have ever tasted. Once we got to Milford Sound, we got on the boat, had lunch, and just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon exploring the beautiful fiord. This is definitely one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Massive mountains just coming right out of the clear water with cascading waterfalls everywhere. Better in person than I ever could have pictured in my head. We headed back to Te Anau this evening and just walked around town a little bit. This night, J.D. and I went on a tour of the Glowworm caves - super interesting even though we had the WEIRDEST tour guide ever who yelled at the two of us for talking too loud and too much and disturbing the glowworms. Big surprise there... not.
Day 4: Left Te Anau and drove south to Invercargill. This part of our trip was spontaneous and not planned at all... we just figured if we are traveling, we should see it all. The south is a lot of farmland and rolling hills... really really beautiful even though there wasn't much to do! Stopped for lunch in Invercargill and then we drove to Bluff, the southernmost city of mainland NZ. We continued east and drove along the Catlins Coast to see some spectacular ocean views, including Nugget Point. We ended our day in Dunedin on the east coast where we stayed with some incredibly gracious and hospitable friends of mine - Thanks David and Phillipa!
Day 5: Went to Tunnel Beach off coast in Dunedin, explored downtown Dunedin a bit, and climbed Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world! J.S. was a jerk though and made me walk all the way up the hill while he drove it. Loser... kidding... but not really. That afternoon, we decided to make a big move and drive all the way to Wanaka, which is not far from Queenstown. Once we arrived in Wanaka, we drove straight to Puzzle World... WHICH IS AWESOME. I love puzzles and mazes, so I thought this places was great. They had illusion rooms filled with puzzles and other crazy mind blowing things... kind of cheesy, but good fun. Htowever, the coolest thing about this place was the giant maze/labyrinth in the courtyard. Once you entered the maze, you were challenged to find the four corner towers and they estimated it would take between 30 minutes and an hour. Apparently it is only about 1.5k to get through, but most people walk anywhere between 3 and 5k. It took J.D. and I over an hour to complete the task/maze and I am guessing I ran (yes, RAN) about 7k. We thought it was going to be some simple, light-hearted maze, but oh no, this was the maze of death. What started as a little competition and race between him and I turned out to be a race for our freedom since there was no way to leave except to get back to the start of the race... which proved to be much more difficult than we both anticipated. As tiring and confusing as it was, it was still heaps of fun. This night, we bought our dinner at the grocery store, watched the sunset at Lake Wanaka, and headed to our next hostel.
Day 6: We hiked up Roy's Peak in Wanaka near the Diamond Lakes. Afterward, we continued our journey west toward Haast. We had heaps of time on our hands, so we stopped a lot at different points a long the way, like the Blue Pools and various waterfalls. It was fun going on a lot of little hikes and walks throughout the day and exploring the vast, mossy, green temperate rainforests of the West Coast. We were going to stop in Haast for the night, but when we SAW Haast, we laughed and decided to move on. we were expecting a bigger village with heaps of interesting things to do... Nope... not at all. We drove through it and it took less than 30 seconds. No joke. We ended up further up the west coast in Franz Josef for the night.
Day 7: Hiked to the Franz Josef glacier this morning! We had the option of hiking ON the glacier itself... for $125... so we skipped and just decided to hike to it. When I come back to NZ, I would love to hike on it, but it was still gorgeous and super cool from what we got to see. This afternoon, we decided to make our way back to Christchurch... which meant another long day of driving. We got to see some incredible things along the way back. The west coast beaches, mountainous landscapes, Knight's Point, Aurthur's Pass (where we met some very eager Kea birds), and Castle Hill. Castle Hill is probably my second favorite spot in New Zealand now. Later this evening, we finally made it back to CHCH exhausted but thankful for a busy and event-filled holiday week!
It was so great being able to travel around and see so much of the country. I have basically seen 85% of the South Island and I am just blown away by how beautiful it all is. You really can see every type of terrain here... Mountains, rain forests, beaches, snow-capped mountains, rural farmland, dry deserts, etc... it's just unbelievable. I can't wait to come back, see everything else, spend significant time on the North Island, and get to do a lot of the adventurous, outdoors stuff I didn't get to this time around (Ski in the mountains, paraglide, skydive, hike Franz Josef) and probably bungy again, ha ha!
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