Well consider New Zealand conquered. I just got back from a week in Queenstown on the beautiful South Island. Of all the places I've been in my entire life, I think that New Zealand has been my favourite. I set out on my adventure with 3 fellow Badgers-RJ, Matt and Phil. Those three are roommates and had just spent a week driving up the East Coast together, so it took a little bit to get me into the swing of things.
Saturday-Our trip started with a very rushed trip to the Airport, I don't think in my adult life I've had a stress free journey to an airport, I always seem to be late or rushed or something. If you can picture 4 hungover dudes sprinting through from the McDonalds in the Sydney airport so we could board in time, you've got a pretty rough outline of how this whole experience began. A relatively short flight landed us in gorgeous Queenstown on Saturday afternoon. Upon arrival at the airport, we realized that we in fact had not made a single accommodation arrangement, or travel from the airport into Queenstown. I wish I could say that we had wanted to rough it like true backpackers, but fact of the matter is that between the 4 of us we all had kinda just said 'fuck it' i hope it works out. It did indeed work out, taking the bus into Queenstown and finding a local hostel worked out great. We meet up with a friend of ours and got some awesome pizza at a local hotspot called Winnies. If you are ever in Queenstown stop into Winnies for a Tui's Blonde and a large Montenara Pizza--literally one of the best things I've eaten while abroad.
Sunday-We all woke up a little worse for the wear, but excited to explore the city and plan our trip. The morning started with watching about 4 hours of the Masters, we were all cheering for Anthony Kim. We booked a few adventures in the morning and took a gondola up a huge hill that overlooked the city. At the top of this hill they had built a luge course. Not a true ice luge or even a street luge. It was basically plastic carts that you sat in and went down this huge twisty course. Now had i done this by myself it wouldn't have been that fun because it wasn't the course or the carts that made it fun. It was five 21 year old guys on these carts making an absolute mess of this course. We got yelled at every time because we broke every rule I think, but it was so much. There were a few cuts and some bruises and one flip, but other than that we were pretty legit.
Monday-Monday was kind of a transition day, we hung out for most of the morning and then picked up our rental car in the afternoon. We started our drive for the Franz Josef Glacier at around 2. The roadtrip was awesome, mostly because I drove most of the way through the most amazing scenery I've ever seen. Also because I got to drive on the left side of the road! We got into Franz Josef at around 8 or 830 and tucked in for the night because we knew tomorrow would be a long day on the glacier.
Tuesday-Today was the infamous glacier hike. We woke up early and headed to the guide station to check in. We had signed up for a full day hike as opposed for a half day hike, however when we got there they told us the full day hike had been canceled and we could either reschedule or do the half day. Because of our tight schedule we had to do the half day hike which was a tad disappointing but such is life. The half day hike was still fun, except that it poured the whole time, they gave us rain jackets and rain pants but it didn't matter, we were soaked to the bone. We finished up the hike and got dried up and back on the road by about 4PM and started the long drive back to Queenstown. The drive home was super fun and a wild night followed in back at our hostel.
Wednesday-Another quasi chill day. We by chance ran into another friend of ours and decided to play some frisbee golf or as its known in the biz as 'frolf'. That was a blast and we got to see some more scenery. After the frolf we went up the gondola again to show our friend the luge and hilarity ensued. I think had we gone down once more, we would have been kicked off the mountain. That afternoon we got a 'Fergburger'-a Queenstown must. It was so big, I suppose it wasn't too special just enormous.
Thursday-Adventure day. RJ and I had booked a 'Queenstown Combo' which put tons of fun activities together in one day. The morning started out with whitewater rafting which was less than spectacular but still fun because RJ and I literally made jokes the whole time. Everyone loved us. When they were splitting up the groups for boats the lead guide said that they might have to split up groups traveling together, he said not to worry he wouldn't split up married couples, old couples, or girls. RJ and I started laughing and RJ looked at me and said 'we don't have a chance' and sure enough the guy looked at us and said 'guys i'm going to be honest I'll try and make it happen but I'm going to pair you up last'. We ended up being in the same boat but it was just funny how it went down. I almost forgot, we took a helicopter ride to the boat landing, that was really really cool, flying through the mountains and down close to the water. After rafting we took a jetboat ride which was so sweet. It was basically these huge red boats that flew up and down the shotover river at like 80Km/hour and did 360 degree spins. They drove right up next to these rock walls and it looked they were literally inches away from smashing into the rock. The day finished with bungy jumping at the Nevis site. It is the second tallest bungy in the world and it was awesome. The bungy was probably the coolest thing i've ever done. I went first out of our group and I had such a mental block that I wasn't really even scared. I didn't get scared until i watched RJ jump-I didn't realize how far he fell and I thought he was going to die. Crazy that the fear didn't kick in until after i went. What a rush.
Friday-Friday was skydiving day. This was the second coolest thing that I did behind bungy. A totally different sensation than bungy because you don't make a decision to jump out of the plane, you're more pushed as opposed to bungy where you are the one who jumps. But still amazing nonetheless. Very cold and hard to breathe, however I can't complain too much RJ jumped in just his boxers and got a video of it...nuts. I couldn't believe it, but you only live once right? After so much adrenaline, we all just crashed in the afternoon.
Saturday-We got up and frolfed again this morning and then got on a plane home. What a crazy awesome trip. Again its so nice to be 'home' in my own bed, but if i have decided that if i was ever going to move to another country it would be New Zealand, it was so beautiful and untouched my pictures don't even do it justice.
