On the road back to Auckland

Day 48
On the road again! It's amazing how blue sky's can really change your day and the scenery! When we stopped at Lake Tekapo we got awesome views of Mt Cook, New Zealand's highest peak at 3 754m. In 1991 this mountain lost 10m off the top! The southern alps are continuously growing and if they were made from something stronger than limestone they would rival the Himalayas in height! It's an ever changing landscape!
We arrived in Christchurch, the south islands biggest city, in the late afternoon. In February 2011, the city had a 6.3 earthquake and the city, especially the downtown, is still in a bad way. Because of this disaster Kiwi experience no longer stays over night in Christchurch but they did drop us off here. We were staying with another of Charlotte's Whistler acquaintances, Mike, for the night. He was a good host and made us a meal of fish & chips! That night we just hung out at this house while a few friends came around for some cider and beer.

Mt Cook

Day 49
Mike took us on the "earthquake tour" around Chirstchurch. I was surprised by the damage and the lack of rebuilding. We were told that most insurance companies require a minimum of 60 days of no earthquakes over 4.0 before rebuilding and the aftershocks have all been above this! Brick buildings and church's seemed to have taken the hardest hit. We also saw where entire cliffs just fell down and left houses ripped in half. He also showed us where a giant boulder crushed 2 construction workers. So scary! It is quite devasting and the downtown is still a fenced off redzone. It looks like the end of the world or the movie I am Legend. Beside the redzone they have constructed a shopping area out of shipping containers. It is a very bright and creative attraction to get people back into the city centre!
We are back on the bus too soon to leave Christchurch and go to Kaikoura, the "south islands best kept secret". It is truly beautiful
here with snow capped mountains on one side and the Pacific Ocean crashing on the other. We went for a walk down the beach and through the park as the sun set ...how romantic! Charlotte booked wild dolphin swimming for the next morning and I really had to contemplate not to go so I hope I don't regret that decision!

Christchurch earthquake damage

Kaikoura

Day 50
When leaving Kaikoura we drive the coastline for most of the way to Picton. Our only stop was to take a closer look at the seal colony on the Kaikoura peninsula. Once in Picton we caught the ferry for the 3 hour ride back to Wellington. I was super lame for a Saturday night and accidentally fell asleep at 7pm. Haha oh well!

Day 51
We got up and going this morning to the farmers market to pick up fruit and supplies for dinner. Why don't I do this at home? It's a good way to spend a Sunday morning! We later walked to a city beach called Oriental Bay and watched some beach volleyball. It was turning out to be quite a warm day outside so this called for ice cream, right? When eating icecream there seemed to be something going on close by so we followed the people to find a Christmas celebration in the town square! Christmas carols in 25 degree weather is odd but at the same time amazing!
Our night consisted of watching jello wrestling at the hostel bar. Highly entertaining...especially the male wrestling because they had to wear bikinis!

Oriental Bay

Day 52
We went to Cuba street, which is Wellingtons trendy street that has lots of shops and cafés. Wellington has more cafés and restaurants than New York City apparently! We went back to Oriental Bay to bask in the sun to read and write in our journals. Sun sun sun!!! Did you know that it only takes 7 minutes to burn in New Zealand? Gotta love the hole in the ozone!

Day 53
We had a long drive from Wellington to Taupo. We passed through Bulls again and leave River Valley behind. We then traveled along the desert road where we actually got views of Mt Ruapehu and the volcano used as Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings. It was Much better weather than last time we passed through Tongariro National Park hence why we could see it this time. Mt Ruapehu is the north islands popular ski field despite it being New Zealand's most recent volcano to erupt in 1995!
When we got to Taupo, Emma took us in again! She was back from School in Dunedin for summer holidays. She picked us up from the bus stop and showed us around again. We went to Huka Falls, the Prawn Farm, the lake and her work at Plateau restaurant. We had a drink before she started work for the night but only for us to return a couple hours later to get drunk at her bar. I forgot how much it helps to know the bartender! Deal!

Mt Doom

Emma, Charlotte and I at Huka Falls

Day 54
After a good sleep in a real bed, we got ready to take Emma's boat out on Lake Taupo. It was rough waters because it was windy but Emma found a bay for us to anchor in. It was one of my favourite days in New Zealand! We ate lunch, sunned ourselves, went swimming in the freezing water and I went tubing for the first time ever! SO fun! I couldn't stop laughing :) Good weather, good people, good time! The good day continued with ice cream from our fav spot, kaffee eis, which we thought we left in Wellington. Later on, Emma's mom made us a home cooked meal! It feels good to be mothered when your so far from home.

Tubing in Lake Taupo

Day 55
That morning we left Taupo and basically went down the highway a bit to Rotorua. Charlotte and I went for a walk around to see if we missed anything last time in the rain haha but mostly to find a movie theatre to buy tickets for Breaking Dawn! TwiHards! Afterwards we took a city bus out to go Zorbing. This randomly was one of the few things I knew I wanted to do before I came to NZ. Zorbing is rolling down a hill in a large inflatable ball. I did 1 dry run on the straight track and 1 wet run on the zig zag track. This was just another activity that I just couldn't stop laughing while I rolled down the hill. Something tired us out when we got back because we had a 3 hour nap but it really just prepared us for Twilight! We were nerds and started the line up for the theatre haha And it was the best movie in the saga yet. Team Edward! I don't think I can wait a year until part 2...it will be so good!

Zorbing!

Now..back to Auckland!!!

"Twenty years from now you will be more dissapointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in you sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

Queenstown part II

Day 45-46
We are staying at Flaming Kiwi instead of Nomads this time around mostly because of the free internet. Over these couple days we just did laundry, chill out in the sun at the park and go to Brazz for $2.50 beers! Nice and relaxing days with great weather and beautiful scenery!

Day 47
Isabelle Grace Dodge was born today! (on Nov 8 at home) She was 8lbs and 2oz and mommy and baby seem to be doing very well :) Congrats Devin & Jen and Madeleine on being a big sister! I wish I could have been there and I can't wait to meet her in a few months!

Our last day in Queenstown was grey but we did go for a walk to the water and skip some rocks. We did a few of our favorite Queenstown things like happy hour at Brazz, FergBurger and going to World Bar.

I miss it all already! Goodbye Whistler...I mean Queenstown :) !

Roadtrip

Day 41
We checked out of Queenstown to get a shuttle to the airport to get our rented car for our roadtrip! Everyone could now know how cheap we were as the car had El Cheapo splashed across the side. Haha! Dunedin, a university town, was our destination of the day. Charlotte had a friend from Whistler named Emma that was letting us stay with her. She goes to school in Dunedin but she is from Taupo. When we arrived all of us plus her roommate jumped into Emma's car to show us around. We went up a couple hills to lookouts where we saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time since getting to New Zealand! We also went to the steepest street in the world, drove through the campus and shown where 'scarfies' live (student ghetto).
Doing as true students do we started drinking games with Emma and her 3 roommates early on in the night and continued till going to the bar at 12. They seemed to think the bars were dead because of exams but we still had fun out till 4 in the morning! Belated birthday celebrations for Charlotte! (she made me say that because she didn't want people thinking she was actually getting old haha!)

 World's Steepest Street

 Dunedin

 Charlotte, Emma and I

Day 42
Once our day got going we said our goodbyes to our Dunedin friends and went on the Cadbury World tour! Mmmmmm chocolate! I felt like I was in the Willy Wonka movie...no umpa lumpas but there was a chocolate waterfall!! After we jumped back into the car we drove north of Dunedin to the Moeraki boulders. It's a mystery how the 60 million year old boulders came to be these large smooth spheres scattered along this pretty beach but it's cool tourist attraction none the less! CHECK!
This is where this day takes a cold turn. On our way back through Dunedin to get to Invercargill, the most southern city in the world, it started snowing! Almost the whole way was like a blizzard! Didn't I leave Canada to avoid this weather?! We arrived late into Invercargill therefore all the hostel receptions were closed meaning we were going to sleep in the car on our coldest night of the trip. We parked in a McDonalds parking lot and embarrassingly enough got a knock on the window at 2am asking us to leave. Kicked out of a McDonalds! We got very little sleep as it hailed all night while we shivered in our little car on a side street.

The 2nd most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere - Dunedin Rail Station

 

Moeraki boulders

 

Day 43
It's hard to tell where the previous day ended and this day began. In the early hours of the day we decided to drive to Bluff for the sunrise. Bluff is known as the end of New Zealand. The saying goes to Cape Reinga to Bluff. The only other reason to go to Bluff is Sterling Point to get a picture of the landmark sign. CHECK! After the sunrise that didn't really happen because it was cloudy of course we went back to Invercargill to check it out in the daylight. There is nothing much to see here except the water tower, as we were told.  We then started our drive to Milford Sound. There was lots of snow on the ground and sanded roads. This was a scene I would expect to see in November in Canada not New Zealand. When we got to Milford Sound I was overly excited about a nice warm bed to finally sleep in.

Day 44
We went on the Milford Sound cruise at 9:15 this morning. The weather was not as bad as the day before but since we were on the west coast it was raining. An advantage of the rain is that there was several pretty waterfalls, like the 4 sisters, that wouldn't be there if it had been sunny. The landscape reminded me of Jurassic Park or Avatar with the floating mountains in Pandora ! Also, our search for penguins is over since we saw 2 pairs of Fiordland Crested penguins, one of the rarest penguins in the world! CHECK!  Milford Sound is spectacular how massive mountains come straight out of the water and although some peaks took imagination to see because of clouds it was still beautiful and worth the trip!! CHECK! On our way back via the Milford Hwy we stopped a couple times for a few short hikes and lookouts since we couldn't appreciate the trip the day before because of snow. We had lunch in Te Anau, which is about a halfway point between Milford and Queenstown. With a total of about 4 hours we were back in good ol' Queenstown late afternoon!

The 4 Sisters Waterfalls

Milford Sound

Roadtrip over! :( We were back in Queenstown a couple days before getting back on the Kiwi Experience bus!

 The road back to Queenstown

Queenstown

Day 34
Queenstown today!!!
Before leaving Wanaka the bus went to Puzzling World. This could have provided us with hours of entertainment but in our hour and a half stop we looked around all the optical illusion rooms where balls looked like they were rolling uphill and people looked like giants or midgets. There was also a maze that we ended up having to go through an emergency exit because we ran out of time. It is the only 3D maze in the world!  On to Queenstown! Upon arrival we went to the AJ Hackett Kawarau Bridge to book our Nevis bungy and watch our bus mates bungy off the bridge! It was hard to believe what I was going to jump from was 3 times as big! Ahhhh! Next we were taken to the lakefront to take a group picture of our bus! How sweet! Great group of people! After checking into Nomads hostel we went to a budget shop to get costumes for another dress up party we were going to with some Irish girls from our bus that had lived in Queenstown for the season! I settled on being a bunny, Charlotte was a cat, Kaioei a ladybug, AnneMarie a devil and best for last Jill was a bindiver aka a garbage picker. Once picking our costumes we went down the street to the world famous Fergburger!! Not as good as the Works but the burger is definitely bigger! I thought I was going to be sick by the end. That night we partied it up at the house party and later went to The World Bar for our last night with our bus! We had a few too many teapots (shooters in a mini teapot) that night!

Day 35
Hungover!
Charlotte woke up in pain and her eye swollen. We went to the walk-in clinic to find out she scratched her cornea. I could really sympathize with this discomfort! Ouch! This meant she was out of commission for awhile-lots of sleep and no drinking!

Day 36
I walked around the stores dreaming about all the clothes I would want to buy if I had money. Sigh! In the afternoon a bunch of us sat on a grassy area in the market with live music and ice cream. It's nice to be surrounded by mountains again! Charlotte and I hardly had to be convinced when Lauren asked if we wanted to go to Fergburger again. Yummmmmy! We went out again to World bar and Cowboys for some people's last night in Queenstown! Not a big night considering Charlotte couldn't drink. Sad to see people go though!

Day 37
Since Charlotte still wasn't feeling her best we kept it low key while walking the town and Queenstown gardens. We checked out the frisbee golf course and sat on a bench watching the baby chicks. After traveling for 3 plus weeks we were beginning to get frustrated paying ridiculous prices for Internet so we went on a mission to find free internet. We did eventually find a spot but not without the cost of us looking homeless sitting on the sidewalk outside a store.  We spent a long time here catching up with emails, facebook and banking. Nothing else exciting for the rest of the day, just free BBQ and watching movies at the hostel.

Day 38
Queenstown is claimed to be the adventure capital of the world and we were ready to finally take that on. Charlotte and I went on the Shot Over jet boat today. It was on the Shot Over River...who would have guessed?! It was good fun swerving through the narrow canyons where you feel like your going to hit the sides and holding on tight during the 360* spins! Once getting back we borrowed frisbees from the nearby arena and played 18 holes of frisbee golf in the Queenstown garden. The best part is that it's free!! I think we need to play with a handicap since +22 and +27 are not scores to brag about haha! After dinner we got ready for halloween night. We struggled trying to come up with different costumes with our own clothes but just ended up swapping outfits from a couple nights before. We had a good night out on our hostel Halloween barcrawl ! 5 bars 5 shots and cheap drinks!

Shotover Jet

Halloween Pub Crawl

Day 39
We woke up and decided to climb up Bobs peak via the Tiki Trail. I should have taken the gondola! It was a not enjoyable  hour and a half of going all uphill. For those of you who have done it are thinking what is she complaining about but it just goes to show how unfit I am. Especially since my knee is still screwed up. I guess it was somewhat rewarding to get to the top and take in the view of the town, lake and the Remarkables. When we got down from the hill we treated ourselves to lemon meringue icecream and Ferg Burger again...oops!

Day 40
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLOTTE!!!!
That also meant it was BUNGY DAY!! I had been looking forward to this day for awhile but now that it was here I was a little nervous. We were driven to the jump location with songs like Vertigo, Jump!, and Dont worry be happy to calm the nerves. We arrived and got harnessed up before our first proper look at the Nevis jump and believe me it is high!!!! The highest in New Zealand at 134m!!! Char and I were in the first cable car across. Charlotte went before me and had mini panic attack but was told she wasn't allowed to cry on her birthday! Lol! I'm 7th to jump and shuffling to the edge was so hard and looking down made my weak knees a whole lot worse. Good thing your only on there for a few seconds because they countdown.. 3..2..1..BUNGY!!! Ahhh 8 seconds of free fall! Im pretty sure i was in a catatonic state just screaming the whole way down! Scariest but most fun thing ever! I want to do it again!!
After that adrenaline pumping we kept it normal for the rest of the day.  We walked around while Charlotte looked at menus to see where she wanted to go for dinner. Finally a restaurant called Brazz was picked and it was a good thing because wine was only $3.50. We will order 3 please! We shared calamari, Charlotte had steak and I had half rack of ribs. Nomnomnom! Happy birthday Charlotte! Charlotte didn't want to party on her birthday (she must be getting old ;) ) especially since we had to wake up early for our roadtrip of the southern south island! Woo hoo!

South island

Day 24
Monday was the day we left for the south island. We had to wake up early to take the 3 hour ferry ride from Wellington to Picton. We had decided to be dropped off in Nelson even though it wasn't a designated overnight stop. This was our first time at a non chain hostel and it was worth it because there was free breakfast and soup for dinner. And we all know its always about the food ;) Nelson is the sunshine capital of New Zealand so we were looking forward to that, until we arrived and it was raining! We had an early night after watching a couple movies.

Day 25
Sunshine in the sunshine capital! We explored the town and tried walking to a beach but ended up just eating our packed lunch on a bench by the water because it was too far. We were told by one of the girls on the kiwi bus that Nelson was having an arts festival and that she recommended we go to the urban art show. The "New Zealand's Biggest Urban Artshow" was near our hostel  so we walked down to the park mid afternoon. It was very cool with art ranging from school kids to Banksey pieces! I was really happy Kayleigh told us about it! Did my cultural thing of the day :) !

Day 26
Started off as a nice,sunny morning so we sat by the pool in shorts! Only like the 3rd time since getting to New Zealand surprisingly! We had booked a winery tour with Bay Tours that started at 12. We went to four wineries: Te Mania , Waimea, Brightwater and Milcrest. Our lunch stop was at Waimea, where Charlotte and I shared a platter filled with meats, cheeses and olives. Mmm..went well with the wine tastings! I definitely feel more educated about wine or at least New Zealand wine. For example, I actually don't hate all reds I just hadn't tried the right ones or that 2009 and 2010 were really good years for the grapes so you can notice how much better they are compared to 2011. I ended up buying a 2010 Pinot Gris from Brightwater that is still in my backpack waiting for a special occasion. Also did you know that our tastes change every 7 years...then it was the joke about thats why its called the 7 year itch haha. Anyways, after the wineries we had extra time so our tour guide also took us to a brewery called McCashins. We got to try beer, cider and vodka. They had very original kinda of vodka like fig, chili pepper and Mars bar. They also inspired us to put a package of Skittles in our vodka mmmm! Awesome day! We went back to the hostel and played cards and darts later on.

Day 27
Nelson is the site of the centre(north, south, east and west) of New Zealand. The centre is of course a 30 min hike up a big hill on a trail called ZigZag. Once we got up to the top we enjoyed views of Nelson and the Abel Tasman National Park in the distance. The centre of New Zealand was the most exciting part of the day because the rest was spent laying in hammocks and watching movies.

Day 28
Friday was our last morning in Nelson. We sat by the pool because it was another gorgeous sunny day. We had to carry our backpacks far to get to the kiwi experience pick up point so we stopped for lunch for a break at the locally famous Sprig and Fern. Once we got to the pick up point we waited for over an hour since the bus was late! From Nelson we went straight to Kaiteriteri about 45 minutes down the road. The beaches are beautiful here and I was very excited for the kayak trip we booked to explore the Abel Tasman.

Day 29
We woke up to a grey and rainy morning in Kaiteriteri. I thought we would have our kayak trip canceled because the whole point of the trip is to appreciate the views. After asking around we found out the kayak company wouldn't refund our money if we canceled. Not cool! So I called into the company and managed to get half our money back! I'm turning into my mother!
The bus left Kaiteriteri to head to the west coast of New Zealand. The entire west coast is home to only 40 000 people but also includes some if the best variety of views of the country. Our overnight stop was a small town called Westport. The bus driver organized for our group to meet at Cricheron Bar for drinks, killer pool and dancing. It was a pretty random night with a bag pipe band coming into the bar and then I got involved in my first girl fight haha not to worry though I just pulled off the girls hand who was pulling Jill's hair. Hilarious! It was a good night getting to know our new bus that we would be spending until Queenstown with!

Day 30
A short drive from Westport the bus took us to Cape Foulwind and Tauranga Bay where we went on a 45 minute walk to a seal colony! It is here that we are at New Zealand's closest point to Australia too.  The coast is very pretty here! A little farther up the road we stopped at Punakaiki Pancake rocks. Charlotte and I walked the 25 minute trail around these rocks that have eroded to look like piles of pancakes. Next, the bus stopped in the biggest city on the coast, Greymouth. We were meant to get supplies for our themed party that night, which our driver decided to be tight and bright! Finally, we made it to our final destination for the day which is Lake Mahinapua at the Pu Pub to meet Les Lisle. Les is a crazy old man that has led an interesting life and has even been on 60 minutes! We were told the story that awhile back he started telling people he had a Moa in his shed. Moa is an extinct giant bird, kind of like an ostrich. Apprarently tv stations and journalist came out to witness this moa. When he went to reveal the moa he opened his shed door and all was there was a rusty old mower! As I said he is crazy! Anyways...the Pu Pub is in the middle of nowhere so most of us just walked to the lake and then to the Tasman sea. If you look out from the beach there is nothing between there and South America! Once getting back Les and our driver, Rich made us steak, venison stew and salads! After dinner it was time to get ready for our tight and bright party. Charlotte and I attempted and semi succeeded at making Post-it and cling wrap dresses hahah! Can't say that's not tight and bright! And just when you thought we couldn't fit anything more into one day...it was the rugby world cup finals!!! We all crowded around the one and only tv in our outfits to watch the All Blacks beat France 8-7.  Woooo! Almost as good as Canada winning the gold medal but I just wish we were in Auckland for it! Also, I won the pool for guessing closest to the final score! $50 richer!

Cape Foulwind

 

Pancake Rocks

 

Tight and Bright/Bad Taste Party at Pu Pub

Day 31
This morning starts with a drive to Pukekura to visit the Bushman's Centre. The centre is a museum about hunting and trapping in New Zealand. The cafe here sells possum pies too...yuck!! This place was random with not only possom pies but had funny quotes and articles posted all over the cafe. 
Going south we get to Franz Josef glacier village. The glacier walks have been on every New Zealand to do list I've seen so in order to check that off we booked a full day hike for the next day!

Day 32
RAIN RAIN RAIN! Franz Josef was meant to get one third of England's annual rainfall in one day. This isn't unusual for the area since it is surrounded by rainforests where it rains for two thirds of the year! All 4 layers we were meant to wear all got soaking wet! But about the glacier walk...it was a 6 hour hike in cramp-ons (spikes on the bottom of your feet) going through caves, icefalls and small crevices. There is tons of blue ice which we learned is condensed ice.Cool! The glacier is 12 km long and it descends from the Southern Alps to less than 300m above sea level. Franz Josef is one of only three in the entire world to do so. CHECK! After a day of being wet and cold we all went straight to the glacier hot pools across from our hostel. Warmth and sitting amidst the rainforest was pretty fun! That night we went to Monsoon bar while I'm almost certain there was a monsoon happening outside! Highlight of the night was the Rock, Paper, Scissor competition! Didn't win the prize though :(

Day 33
Wednesday we started out early to stop at Lake Mathison. The lake is known for it's perfect reflective surface. Unfortunately we didn't get the full effect since some clouds were mostly blocking New Zealand's highest peak, Mt Cook. Charlotte and I were determined it was going to clear but after a half hour wait we had to get back to the bus. We still got a few good pictures! This was the last we would see of the coast as we now headed through the scenic Haast Pass. The bus stopped a couple times for picturesque moments and a stop at Thundercreek Falls. We stayed in Wanaka, a small quiet version of Queenstown. There was a thing on our list to do in Wanaka and that was to go to Pardiso cinema. This is a famous movie theatre for having couches and a car to sit on and having an intermission when they serve warm chocolate chip cookies. It didn't even matter what movie we saw because it was more about the experience. But we did see a British film called The Trip.

 Lake Mathison...what its supposed to look like

Driving the Haast Pass

Queenstown is the next update! We spent 6 days there and did some fun things like jet boating and bungy jumping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.
Anais Nin