The Spectacular South Island of New Zealand

Happy 2011! It's been an eventful one for us so far as we continued our drive around the South Island, and now we are working our way back North to start our next Wwoofing job. NZ's south island is full of natural beauty, long windy roads, and clear blue lakes and rivers. We managed to visit the following:
Arrowtown - A small town know for it's gold. It's a cute little town with an old western feel. We went for a riverside walk, watched kids panning for gold, and were amazed by the glittering river and rocks that were all over the place.

Queenstown - We decided to spend New Year's Eve in Queenstown, "The Adventure Capital of the World." It was one of our favorite citys so far, a hopping city and boardwalk on a clear lake surrounded by mountains. It had the scenery and atmosphere of Whistler, with a little bit of Vegas mixed in (just replace casinos with skydiving and bungy jumping). We had hoped to either skydive or bungy jump, but were put off by the extremely high prices. We decided that since we have both of these activities close to home, we could stand to wait until we have a steady income again and postpone them. Instead, we signed up for something we couldn't do at home, the Shotover River jet-boat ride. Jet-Boats are all over NZ, but this one looked like the most exciting. You sit in a boat with about 10 people, buckled in and holding on tight as you zip up and down a river at 50 mph. The boats are incredible, they can do 360 spins and cruise in 8 cm of water, all while going up a river darting through steep canyons. Incredible experience, we're glad it's the one we chose.
For New Years Eve, we decided to hit the world famous burger joint - Fergburger. We enjoyed giant loaded burgers and fries, definately worth the long line that wrapped around the building. After dinner, we made our way down to the nights events. The city of Queenstown puts on a pretty elaborate New Years festival that included two live bands (Sequin Girls and a rock cover band), a big stage with a dj and dance party, and a nice firework display on the lake. On New Years day we explored the town on foot, checking out the lawn bowling course, rose garden, and frisbee golf course. We have been keeping in touch with a nice couple we met in Fiji, Rob and Mel from England, and were able to meet up with them at Monty's pub for Nachos and drinks. It was so nice to see some familiar faces, and compare stories and adventures from our travels. We hope to meet up with them again soon.

Milford Sound - Milford is one of the top activities for NZ tourists, with its glacier valleys, dark blue waters, and dramatic peaks. It's full of dolphins, seals, and penguins, and also know for giant waterfalls. We chose to take a bus to the sound, because it's a five hour trip on pretty treachorous roads. This turned out to be a great idea, because our guide was wonderful and gave us so much information and stopped at many photo-spots that we would have missed. Unfortunatly, it was raining so we couldn't get any of the classic Milford reflection photos, but we did have a great time on the scenic cruise. The boats take you right under the waterfalls, it was thrilling to stand so close to such a magnificant force. We also saw a seal family laying out on some rocks, and took a trip to the underwater observatory.

Underwater Observatory - The observatory is a massive fiber glass cylinder that was built down into Milford Sound. There is a spiral stair case taking you to a viewing platform of the coral and sea life below. It was like scuba diving without actually getting in the water. One guy we met on our bus, Troy from Zimbabwe was very intent on seeing a shark. I was joking that we should move away from the big coral we were near because it didn't seem like a good shark hang-out. Just as I finished my sentence, Mike said, "There's one!" Sure enough, a shark darted right by the window. It wasn't a huge one, but still, pretty cool to see. On our bus ride back, our driver played some great theme songs (Titanic songs with commentary for our boat ride, TLC's Waterfalls while we drove by waterfalls...) For the last couple hours, he put on "The Bucket List" movie, we'd seen it before but it's a great flick that brought tears to my eyes and made us appreciate even more what we are doing.

Mt. Cook - After Milford Sound, we drove up another glacier valley to NZ's biggest mountain, Mt. Cook. We had planned for a long hike up the valley to see mountain, and were feeling really lucky because we had just missed a storm the day before. Soon we realized we weren't as lucky as we hoped, because the storm meant high rivers on the trail that were flooding over the pathway. We attempted to wade for a bit and scramble up nearby rocks, but got frustrated with the freezing glacier water and all of the sticker bushes, so we decided to head back and find a differant hike. We went to a drier area and hiked to Lake Tasman instead, which was so beautiful I'm glad we had the detour. Lake Tasman itself is very muddy, but it is at the base of a mountain, and in the summer, pieces of glacier break off and turn into bright blue floating ice-bergs. When we got to the summit, we were greeted by an evening sun, ice-berg filled lake, and a vibrant rainbow framing it all. It was the most breathtaking scene.

AJ Hacket Bungy Center - We visited the home of the world's first commercial bungy jump, and joined the viewing platform to watch people jump off of the bridge over a river. It is really fun to watch people ages 10-96 from all over the world take such a big risk and look so elated afterward. We watched a movie about the history of bungy, and found the story of AJ Hacket fascinating. He and a friend engineered their first bungy and tested it off buildings, planes, and even snuck onto the Eifel Tower. We got to hold the actual cord, which looks much different than I expected, not like the bungy cords you use to hold things down in the back of a truck at all, but more like hundreds of tiny rubber bands intertwined. A little like the inside of a golf ball. Like I mentioned, bungy jumping was not in the cards due to the cost, but we're hoping to plan a summer weekend to Whistler with friends and try it there... anyone interested? :)

Kaikoura - This was our last stop on the south island, it is one of the only places in the world you can watch for grey whales, orcas, sperm whales, and blue whales from the shore. It is also home to several fur seal colonys, one of which you can walk right next to them. It smelled terrible and a lot of people were getting much closer then we felt comfortable, but it was one of those "I can't believe we're doing this" moments. We also went for a hike along the Peninsula Track, which climbs over limestone cliffs overlooking the seal colonies, bird colonies, and whale watching boats below. It was one of my favorite trails in the world, even though we weren't lucky enough to see a whale. We did see hundreds of seals and birds of all kinds, including gulls, oyster catchers, albatross, and a seagull colony. I've never felt threatened by gulls before, but when the track went near a colony of hundreds of loud nesting seagulls we both felt nervous and walked a bit faster. Kaikoura means "Eat Crayfish," and they are known for having the best so we planned to have a beachside bbq until we saw that the cheapest one was $65, and most were higher. We opted for some much cheaper scallops and mussles, and decided crayfish is something we'll have to try another day. We also found out some very sad news while in Kaikoura - someone had visited one of the seal colonies and clubbed 24 seals including some newborn pups. I can't comprehend that, especially after watching the pups play in the water all day, and I hope that whoever is responsible is caught soon.

From Kaikoura, we took a VERY early morning ferry ride back to the North Island, where we are now making our way back towards Auckland. We'll be working on the farm until a couple days before we take-off for our next stop, Sydney, Australia! In other news, we're incredibly happy to say our good friends from Seattle, Brian and Martha have purchased plane tickets to come join us Thailand, AND my English Teaching placement has been officially confirmed in Thailand :) Best wishes and we will write again soon!