Bobbi's Australian Adventures...and more!: New Zealand

Sarah's brother, Adam, came to Brisbane to visit for a few days, before we headed over to New Zealand for a 7 day tour of the south island. When we were in Tasmania, we were told it was a lot like NZ, and that was for sure. NZ was just much bigger, and prettier, I think. We flew in to Christchurch, where we stayed one night and had enjoyed the beautiful botanical gardens and then dinner with Christine, a friend from high school who was living there at the time.

The next morning we got on a train and took a 4 hour ride over to Greymouth. This is supposedly one of the most scenic train rides in the world, and I would have to agree. We passed fields of sheep, through little bitty towns, through Arthur's Pass, saw Mount Cook, and finally arrived in Greymouth around noon. We had lunch there, rented the car that we would have the rest of the time, and drove a bit north to Pancake Rocks. These were amazing rock formations that literally looked like stacks of pancakes. We then drove south to our resting spot for the night at Franz Josef Glacier.

The next morning we just walked to the face of the glacier and watched as groups, all decked out in climbing gear, went past as they headed up the glacier. That was our one regret, that we didn't think we would have enough time to do a hike. I wasn't sure what to expect from seeing a glacier in person, but it was awesome. From stories we heard of people who had done a climb, it must have been amazing. We then drove to Wanaka, which was a picture perfect town on a beautiful lake. We stayed there one night in a sort of backpacker's lodge that is mostly used in the ski season for skiers. It was kinda neat because we had the whole place to ourselves.

The next morning we hiked up to a spot where we had a beautiful panoramic view of the little town of Wanaka. We then drove through Queenstown on our way to Glenorchy. Queenstown is a bigger and more commercialized version of Wanaka, in that it is a cute town on a big lake. The thing about Queenstown is that it is the capital of extreme sports. You name it, you can do it in Queenstown. I really really wanted to either skydive or bungy jump, but Sarah and Adam weren't feeling it...bummer. We did decide to paraglide though, and that was so much fun! It was a bit sketchy in retrospect. We show up at an information place, tell them we want to paraglide, the girl calls up with guy who ends up showing up to pick us up within like 30 minutes, takes us up to the top of a tall hill, without signing a waiver that says "in case we die we can't sue them", we jump off for a 10 minute ride down to the bottom. Ok, it really wasn't that bad. The main guy is actually a championship paraglider, and that's who I got paired with. The view was so amazing as we were hanging from a parachute, doing turns, going up and down. It was pretty fun. We ended up landing in a field with a bunch of sheep, and the guy I was with was actually telling us that those sheep can sometimes be mean to them when they land, coming up to them and causing trouble, especially the rams. Good thing we didn't have any run-ins with them. So, we then were on our way to Glenorchy that night.

nice views of Wanaka

sooo cute!

picture perfect

we are getting ready to go!

paragliding

another one of mount cook

The next day, we rode horses in Paradise (it's the real name of a real place). But these weren't just random horses in some random place. We were riding through where parts of Lord of the Rings was filmed on horses (well, Sarah's horse) that were actually in the movie. It was definitely very pretty where we were riding, but not being a fan of Lord of the Rings, I don't think I appreciated it as much as someone who had seen all of the movies might have. All went well with the ride, until the very end, when my horse decided to jump over this little stream. Me, not being prepared, and not having heard the guide tell everyone to hold on tight when the horse approaches water, went flying off, landing on my backside. I was alright though, just confused more than anything.

We then went back through Queenstown on our way to Te Anau, our gateway to Milford Sound, which we did the next day. So, we were on a boat that cruised through the sound, past seals, penguins, and some huge waterfalls. Once again, very beautiful!

From Milford Sound, we headed to the other side of the island to a town called Dunedin, where we were excited to see albatross and penguins. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time of the year to see albatross, because they were busy sitting on their eggs all day, and weren't out flying around. Oh well. We did get to go to a penguin sanctuary place where we saw tons of penguins! They were very cute!

Our last day we made it back to Christchurch where we hung out for a few hours before heading back home to Brisbane. It sure was a busy 7 days, but very very fun. I would definitely love to make it back to NZ and do the north island some day.