The BIG Blog Post: South Island Holiday!

After my anticlimactic Christmas, it was time to head to the South Island for a REAL Holiday---a nine day Adventure Tour!

The company was appropriately called "Adventure Tours", and they specialize in smaller group, more personalized tours rather that the huge "here comes the big shiny rich tourists in the autobus" tours or the "i'm a student backpacker and only want to eat ramen and then get wasted every night" tours.

On Boxing Day (yes, it's a major holiday here!), I drove from Hawera to Wellington then flew to Christchurch, where the tour was to start. I got to Christchurch just FOUR hours after they had another earthquake! The city was quite silent and (pardon the pun) shook up.

Sign outside a bottle shop (liquor store):

Peering inside the shop windows..

One of the hostels in the city (fortunately not mine!) was condemmed due to the day's damage.  Check out the big ol' crack in the white part above the windows on the left.  Eek!

Fallen bricks just lying in random places..

The one still calm part of town was the Botanic Gardens, and the rosebushes proved to be earthquake-proof (and stunning!)

I might've missed the big shebang in the AM, but I still had some scary moments myself--- in the name of aftershocks!   First at 4:30 pm---I was in a teeny tiny bathroom in a cafe and had NO clue what was going on!  I'd compare it to being in a bathroom on an airplane when undergoing turbulence.  Next at 5:30pm while on a terrace at a pub--- the table next to me started cheering (they had bets on when next one would occur- loser bought next round of beer!).  Then again at midnight and 2am-- those buggers woke me up!

After a somewhat shaky start, next morning started the TRIP!

DAY ONE

Here is our van.  As I was loading my luggage in the trailer, someone said to me, "Oh, you must be the newbie!"  Here it turns out that most of the people have been travelling together seeing the North Island for the past 2 weeks already!   A little hesitant about the trip with that initial comment, but it turned out EVERYONE was so welcoming and it was no problem whatsoever blending in with the group!

We hit the road from Christchurch headed to the West Coast.  First stop was Castle Hill, a hill (duh!) full of limestome boulders that, if you use your imagination, are reminiscent of an old, run-down, stone castle.

Very fun to climb, play, and find fun seats on :)



Next stop was Arthurs Pass.   The weather was absolutely POURING down rain!  Arthurs Pass was created as a way for folks to get from the Canterbury/Christchurch area westward over the Southern Alps mountain range when word of gold on the West Coast was heard.

This was the Otira Viraduct, a 440m long bridge created to replace quite narrow treacherous roads prone to slips, avalanches, and closures.  Normally water just trickles out of the drain on top.  It was GUSHING!

 

After reaching the "rugged" West Coast, our first stop was Hokitika, a port during the 1860s gold rush.  

Gold has come and gone in this town, but now it's popular for its jade (aka greenstone or "pounamu" in Maori).  We stopped in a jade factory, which showed how it can be transformed from sheets of rock to beautiful jewelry.

From this...

to this! 

(thank you kiwitreasure.com for the borrowed photos)

All of the different shapes have symbolic meanings.

Hokitika is also the home of the "Wild Foods Festival" every year in March.  So if you don't have plans for the weekend of March 13th, come visit, because I *will* be there, trying rose petal beer and wasp larvae ice cream and all other sorts of wild food craziness!

   DAY TWO

That first night the area received 500mL in rain in 24 hours!   We stayed overnight in the town Franz Josef, the home of the Franz Josef glacier.  Roads were closed in and out of town due to flooding.  Good thing we were were staying there another night.

 

Here is the Franz Josef Glacier!   Its Maori name is "Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere", which means "Tears of the Avalanche Girl."  Legend tells of a girl who lost her lover when he fell from the local peaks, and her flood of tears froze and created the glacier. 

 

Most people just come to view and take pictures from afar.  Getting close up is dangerous.  You may get hit in the head with falling ice cubes :)

However, for those adventurous types, you can take a hike ON the glacier!   They fit you with crampons (don't worry I never heard of them either until moving to NZ) that are little icepicks for your shoes to make ice-walking easier.

Yay for crampons!

Hiking up the 12 km long glacier....

Some of my group members hiking along (it rained just about the whole day--- cold and wet, but still beautiful!)

The blue color of the ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier and then is compressed in with the glacier.  Light can pass through (if it couldn't it'd be white like snow), and can pass fairly deep, which loses the red end of the spectrum of energy, so only blue is left (I hope that made sense and not too boring of an explanation!) 

There were many tight crevasses to pass my big ghetto booty through, which were quite exciting and fun!

And in case you're wondering, if you stick your tongue to a frozen glacier, it WON'T stick :)

 

 

DAY THREE

We spent the day cruising down the West Coast.   There's another glacier in the area called Fox Glacier---- larger, but definitely not as beautiful.

We stopped at Lake Matheson, deemed NZ's most photographed lake.  It was actually formed as a remnant of Fox Glacier's last major advance, leaving a depression which later filled with water.   The water reflects so well because of its brown color, due to the tannins leached into the water from the surrounding trees.  Yay chemistry in action!

Some beautiful wildlife on the lake....

And some beautiful ladies!

Posing with Jess, Nicky, and Ansley, three of my new adventurous girlfriends :)

We stopped at this beach (sorry, forget the name).  Not a bad lunch stop, eh?

Another scenic lookout/leg-stretching location of which I forget the name :)

On our way to our night-stop in Makarora, we passed through Mount Aspiring National Park.  One of the "101 Must Do For Kiwis" is see the Blue Pools of Haast Past.  Here there is a short walk complete with suspension bridge over the Makarora River to some stunning pools. Normally the pools are clear/blue, but due to the crazy rain, they were kind of murky and green.  Still beautiful, though!

A walk across a suspension bridge isn't complete without some psuedo-gymnastic works :)

DAY FOUR

Our van turned inland to the lakeside town of Wanaka.  Some vacationers choose to holiday here as an alternative to the craziness of Queenstown.   There's a great hiking trail to the top of Mount Iron, which overviews both Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. 

One of the great things about travelling with like-minded touristy people is that there's never a shortage of fun creative photo opportunities :)

We spent the next part of the day cruising along to Queenstown, the Adventure Capital of the World and the birthplace of Bungy Jumping.   We watched Mark (guy on far right, above) bungy jump off the historic Kawarau bridge, the original bungy site.

The Bridge!

The flying Mark!

Once I saw Mark survive, and then got to feel/test the actual cord (they cut them into tiny pieces and trash them after every 50 jumps or so), and heard about the "100% safety rating", I signed myself up for the big jump!

DAY FIVE- New Years Eve!

Queenstown is a beautiful city, surrounded by gorgeous mountains and water. 

The water is Lake Wakatipu, NZ's 3rd largest lake.  It's deepest point is 377meters.  Holy cow, that's THREE times more than my bungy jump freefall!!!!

The majority of the day was spent getting (physically and mentally) ready for the jump!

Waiting for the cable car....

The glass floor....yipes!

Going...

Going...

Going....

Gone!

Then it was party time, complete with bars, dnacing, live music and fireworks on the lake!!  An excellent way to end 2010 and start 2011!

DAY SIX

While most people are in bed hungover New Year's Day, my friends Amanda and Pete from the North Island and I headed out for a hike!  Ben Lomond is a mountain just northwest of Q-town.   The trip to the summit was 8+ hours, or 6 to the saddle. It was a tough climb!

Taking a break on the way up and taking in the views...

That's the peak (1700m)!  If we had another hour or two of daylight, we could've made it.

Reaching the saddle was still quite an accomplishment!  Pete brought beer to celebrate :)

Gorgeous views of Lake Wakatipu!

DAY SEVEN

Today we headed to Doubtful Sound, a remote and majestic fiord in Fiordland National Park, southwest of Queenstown.  For those like me who never really studied geography (too busy with chemistry/physics/etc!), a fiord is a long narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs in a valley created by glacial activity.

I say that Doubtful Sound is remote because it took us two boats and a bus to get there!  But what a way to preserve its beauty.

Here's the little boat that then took us to the bus that then took us to the big boat :)

Once on the big boat we were wined and dined and had our own personal nature tourguide.  We had some time to kayak on the sound (the sandflies where KILLER!)  Look what we saw before dinner---A fur seal colony! 

There were bottlenose dolphins the next morning, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera at the time.  They were chasing the boat- so cool!

After sunset, we had a crazy game of International Pictionary.  I give mad props to all those contestants playing a game where English is not their first language :)

Words can't describe how beautiful this place was.  The pictures will explain themselves.

DAY EIGHT

We left the gorgeous Doubtful Sound and trekked through Central Otago.  A stop in Arrowtown, a quaint place that boomed when gold was found in the Arrow River.   While many perused the touristy things in town, my girfriends and I rented pans and tried some gold-diggin ourselves!!

We stayed the night in Naseby which is known for the great sport of Curling!!! Guess what we got to try?  Oh yes!!!

Here's me "delivering a stone".  The game is called Curling based on the spin one places on the stone during the deliver and the direction the stone then "curls." 

Did you know those babies weigh over 25lbs each?   They don't look that heavy on TV  :)

Here are my teammates sweeping the ice free of obstruction to make my stone go further and get closer to the tee.

Sweep girls, sweep!

Sexy earmuffs and hats graciously provided by the curling rink :)

We only scored two points and lost to our opponents, but "Team Single Ladies" had SO MUCH FUN!



Gold panning and curling in the SAME DAY-- life doesn't get much better than that! :)

DAY NINE

The Otago Gold Mining Region had a Central Railroad which linked all the small mining towns.  Gold times have come and gone, and the rails were then replaced with a 150 km bike trail!   We had bikes to cruise along 32 of the 150 km for a nice day's ride.

A nice historic hotel/cafe at the end of our journey to grab a refreshing drink :)  

Then came the long drive back to Christchurch.   As a group, we had our final dinner at a MEXICAN PLACE!   I was thrilled--- my first mexican food in 5 months!  Tasty vegetarian quesadillas and Tapatio sauce on the table!  It wasn't too bad, actually.  And a real treat to have a Dos Equis as well.

To my incredible tour group and fun and fearless tour guide, thanks for an AWESOME trip!   What a blessing to be travelling with two dozen folks from all over the world- from NZ, Australia, England, US, Finland, France, and Sweden-  your travels thus far in life inspire me to keep on travellin!!  It was wonderful to be with such diverse, free-spirited ADVENTUROUS people!  I miss you all already!  Come visit NZ (and me!) again soon!