 |
| a glimpse of what it's like to drive down there :) |
Day 5 (Te Anau-->Milford Sound-->Queenstown):
We woke up to the beauty of Lake Gunn once again! We had booked our Milford Sound cruise for today, so we headed up that way and did a few short hikes/walks on the way. We thought our cruise was at 10:45, but it turned out that it was at 11:45. Better early than late though, right? Right. We hung out at the little café where I did not buy any of the $5 coffee or $18 breakfast buffet, but instead I sat at a table eating peanut butter and apples (the staple diet of this trip) and worked on some assignments I had brought just in case of down time like this (you know you go to Furman when…). 11:45 finally rolled around and we headed out to the cruise! The weather was misty/foggy and a bit sprinkley (sprinkley is a sophisticated NZ weather word… just kidding, I just made it up), but it turned out to be better that way because the only time the waterfalls come down the fiords is when it is raining! The cruise was nothing short of stunning AND there was FREE, I repeat FREE, coffee and tea provided on the boat! You bet I took advantage of that and had 2 cups of tea and 4 cups of coffee. Also I may have taken a few, or 7, tea bags for the road as well... oops :) Gotta take advantage of free jonesers in this country when you can! The fiords were so high that they pierced the clouds and came out above them. We passed by a huge waterfall and a patch of seals out there as well! Absolutely incredible.
After the cruise, we headed to Queenstown but stopped in town centre at Te Anau to check out the cute little shops real quick. Souvenir success! The drive to Queenstown was literally the most gorgeous drive ever. I feel like I’m going to say that about every drive. It is just so crazy to me that the scenery and nature here is REAL LIFE. It looks straight out of a movie backdrop or a calendar. It felt like a road in the middle of nowhere. We passed about 3 other cars every 25 km or so. The sun was setting as we got closer to Queenstown, so naturally we had to stop and do 30 second photo opps pretty often along the way. Mountains with snow on them, roads winding along the edge of the hills and a huge lake, clouds lit up by the sun that was setting behind the mountains... Picture perfect. I can’t even put into words how gorgeous it was so I’m not even going to try.
 |
| me taking a photo opp on the way to Queenstown |
We got into Queenstown around 6pm, went to the i-site (aka the city information center, there is usually one in every city and they are very helpful), double checked the bungy booking, yes I said BUNGY(!), and headed out to the DOC site. We started up the side of the mountain where we thought the DOC site was but we reached point where there was a dead end ahead, private property to the right, and a road to the left with cliffs on either side... no thank you, it was dark and we were in a huge van. We turned around and followed another campervan with high hopes that it was headed to where we needed to go as well. Success! Thank you fellow campers with good directions who didn’t know we were caravanning behind, you rock! This campsite had good bathrooms too, yes! I ate frozen yogurt (literally, apparently the mini fridge was set at too low of a temperature) and some of the instant noodles, babywiped, washed my face with lake water, and called it a night. Or so I thought. This night was super cold, so we piled all 4 of us in the bottom of the van in a double bed (thank goodness for my sleeping bag, that’s 4 unshowered bodies in one double bed, ew). WORST IDEA EVER! I’m not sure if it was the excitement of the bungy the next morning, the 4 cups of free coffee I had on the Milford sound cruise, or the snoring of one of the other people who shall remain unnamed, but I think I only slept about 3 hours that night. I spent most the night screaming the name of the snorer every other minute to wake him/her up (sorry I’m not sorry) and then proceeded to demand that someone hit/kick him/her. Let’s just say my investment in earplugs a few days later worked wonders... a few days later.
 |
| successful face washing! |
Day 6 (Queenstown):
After waking up to another beautiful lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains, we headed out to the BUNGY place! Kelsey and I were the only ones jumping off the 134 meter (439 ft, 147 yd, .08 mile) high ledge that morning, so the others just hung out in the city. After signing our lives away, we boarded the rickety bungy bus and rode about 45 minutes out of the city, up the side of a mountain that I was convinced we were going to tumble off of. The weather was perfecto up there! Kelsey and I rode out to the little hut via a pulley cart, which was stationed in the middle of mountains and above a river, which actually looked more like a measly little stream from up there. We were in the first group, but I was about 8th to go. With these kinds of things, I am usually always more than willing to do it. Don’t get me wrong, I did get nervous, but I knew that I would do it. The guy put the jonesers on my ankles (in conversation I learned he had been to Savannah before! I love Georgia connections over here, of course), I watched Kelsey jump (and survive), and then it was my turn! They had me sit in a chair in order to get all the cords and such strapped on to me. I was harnessed in around my waist as well as my feet, no worries! The guy explained that I was supposed to pull the red cord near my ankle in order to sit up on the way back up. I made him listen to me as I repeated his instructions to make sure I had it right. I got up out of the chair (this must be where people start to freak out because he hurried me to the ledge pretty quickly) and felt that my harness was not very tight. I said, “Wait, is this tight enough?” yes “Wait, are you sure it doesn’t need to be tighter?” it’s good “Do you promise?” yes. That could have been my last conversation ever. I shimmied out to the ledge, they counted down, and I JUMPED! I started to scream but then decided to just take it all in on the way down. Not gonna lie, it was kind of scary to literally be free-falling with the feeling of landing splat in the river below. The bungy rope eventually caught me in time, I went back up, back down, back up again, pulled the cord, and just sat there. It was most definitely the biggest adrenaline rush I have ever experienced!!! The ride back up was equally as awesome though. I felt like I was on top of the whole world. AMAZING!
 |
  |
| on the way back up! |
Click here to see the bungy video!
Still on a bungy high, I walked around Queenstown and checked out the shops. Queenstown is a cute little ski town that is pretty high class compared to the other cities I have seen so far. I made my way out to the lake-front, which had snow-capped mountains in the background of course, and did a little walk around a portion of it.
Tonight was a holiday park night aka shower time! (Sidenote: DOC sites have at most a toilet and sink and range from $5-$10 per night per person, but holiday parks have laundry, showers, bathrooms, kitchens and usually range from $15-$20 per night per person. We used DOC sites when they were available in the area, but holiday parks only twice. Therefore, only 2 showers. 2.) SHOWER. A REAL SHOWER. I had a minor .5 sec freakout while I was in the shower that I had accidentally used body wash as shampoo, but no worries, it turned out to be shampoo indeed! You better bet I savored every last second of that glorious shower.
I ate a mushroom and ham fritatta that I had picked up at our grocery run for dinner. YUM! Real food! One of my favorite things was to make friends wherever we went and our neighbors (a couple in their late 20’s) turned out to be very interesting to say the least. I made conversation and asked where they were from, what they were up to in the south island, etc… this is how it went between the girl and I:
“So where are yall from?”
--“Bay of Plenty region in the north island.”
“Oh so what brings you down here?”
--“We got a good deal on a new van and we’re trying to sell our car. We’ve been here at this holiday park about a week or so. Also I’m a politician.”
“Oh really? What do you mean?” (If this hippie girl qualified as a politician I’m pretty sure I could pass as a doctor)
--“I’m about to go on tour in New Zealand to legalize cannabis.”
She came over and showed me her itinerary for the next few months. I later learned that cannabis is marijuana. Good luck lady... And good luck selling your car in a motor home parking lot as well. Hope that works out well for ya. Let’s just say the Germans in the Jucy van on the other side of us were a bit more normal. Oh and then this self-proclaimed politician asked us if we knew where to get any weed around Queenstown. Um no. “I thought you might know since there was a group of you here” was her reasoning for asking. Do groups of people equal marijuana dealer knowledge? Again, no.
 |
| our holiday park set up |
These posts are more detailed than I thought they would be… phew! More to come another day!
No comments:
Post a Comment