Adventures to the South Island: Part Deux

Day 7. This was bungee day. That's right, we went bungee jumping off of the Nevis jump; a 340 meter fall into a huge canyon. Surprisingly, no one in our group was freaking out too badly, as for myself I was just pumped to take the step off of the platform of the cable-car extended mid-air in the middle of the canyon. 

Pure joy. The first few seconds of free-falling were amazing and the up-down-up-down bouncing was just plain fun. The whole process only took about two hours, so we spent the rest of the day exploring the town. 

The next morning, after having cookies for breakfast, we walked around Queenstown once again not sure what to do with ourselves, until we realized all of the cool stuff there was on the way to our next destination : Milford Sound. We left as soon as we could, and embarked on the five hour drive up to the sound. We reached a free campsite right alongside a river and decided to call it a night, leaving more daylight to explore the next day. 

The road to Milford Sound is paved in...more ridiculously scenic places. We stopped alongside a huge valley carved out by glacial action, saw the mirror lakes, took a walk down Cascade Creek, and took a peek at Homer's tunnel, a really basic, well, tunnel, that was carved through a mountain. 

Once at Milford, we took a short boat cruise through the Sound, which is actually not a sound at all but a fiord, also carved out by huge glaciers during the ice age. Once again, the place was filled with postcard-worth photo-ops. Ever on the move, we then left to take of the six hours separating us from Dunedin, which is apparently a hapening town on a Saturday night. We pulled in around midnight and through the sleepy haze I was in I heard the distinct noises of college kids out drinking their faces off. The next day was spent exploring, we had heard of a cool spot called Tunnel Beach (can you guess why?).

In the meantime, one of the other group's spaceship suffered from some irreparable damaged caused by engine failure. They were stuck in Dunedin for the rest of our time on the South Island, as our ever reliable rental company could not supply them with another van.

We decided to live in luxury again that night, and booked a hostel room for the four of us. To our delight, this particular hostel also boasted free 'continental breakfast' the next morning. Turns out their idea of continental breakfast is cereal and bread with some spreads, but we weren't complaining. Fueled and ready to go, we set out for Oamaru, home of lots of different penguins. The town also had a very cute, very old part to it, filled with craftsman workshops and art galleries. We spent some time walking around the historic-looking place before heading off to make our reservation to see the blue penguins come in from the ocean. The penguins were very cute and the 'show' was very much a rip-off. We paid twenty dollars each to peer through the dark and see about twenty tiny penguins quickly run from the water across a few meters of land into shelters where they remained hidden. But, like I said, they were pretty cute. Photography was not allowed.

We drove that night (again) in order to lessen the distance between us and our final stop before Christchurch: Lake Tekapo. We arrived there in the early morning and immediately inquired about hikes to do in the area. We took on a 3-4 hour hike that brought us around the coast of the Lake and up to the summit of Mt. John.

We were exhausted by the end, but were afforded some great views throughout the hike. With no time to spare, we decided to try and make it to Mt. Cook- New Zealand's tallest mountain- before night fell. I am so glad we did, although we didn't have time to do any extreme treks to the top of the impressive mountain, we did get to walk up to one of the lakes in the area and see icebergs! The sun went down just as we made it back to the van. 

And that, friends, is where the adventure ends. We spent the night driving back to Christchurch, and caught our plane (all of us) on time. Now its back to rainy Auckland, and school. 

Adventures to the South Island: Part 1

The University of Auckland finds it appropriate to give all of its students a 'mid-semester study break' during the month of April. For study abroad students, this translates roughly to 'go somewhere really cool because you're in New Zealand.' So that's what we did.

It would be impossible- or at least exhausting- to recount everything that happened over the 12 days when I, along with 9 other Loyola students, an American from Wisconsin, and a Kiwi, went to the South Island. But I'll do my best.

The trip started off on a great foot; one of our group was missing the morning of our departure, and despite our best efforts of running around the 10 story building at 9 am shouting her name and knocking on random sleeping people's doors, we were forced to leave without her. Turns out she was asleep in someone else's room, who knew.
Another one of us was then scolded at the airport for wondering aloud what would happen if he were to say 'bomb' in an airport. We were truly a group of intelligent responsible individuals.

Despite all of this, 11 of us touched down in Christchurch, to be joined later that night by our missing 12th, who would come on a different flight. And so began our adventures in South Island.

We had a plan. We had travel arrangements. We had reservations for a handful of activities. And we had some setbacks. These were mostly a side effect of our transportation vehicles/living quarters/minivans. Having no other choice but to rent from a company dubbed 'Spaceship' we were equipped with 3 minivans between the 12 of us, two of which were meant to sleep 4 while the remaining van could only sleep two and hold a tent for the others (Spaceship ran out of 4-person vans). As to ensure that the entire country would be able to identify us as tourists, Spaceship rentals are kind enough to provide their customers with minivans of the brightest most obnoxious orange color complete with their logo slapped on either side. You can barely look at these things without squinting. The four-person vans were also equipped with a 'pod' on the roof, which could be cranked open at night for two people to sleep in.
And we were off. But not too far off because we had to wait around in Christchurch until 10 pm when our lost group member arrived at the airport. In the meantime, we tried to check out the town. This ended up being an impossible task as the whole city was barricaded and guarded by military personnel due to the recent earthquake that devastated the area.

We had our first experience with Spaceships superior performance capabilities as we attempted to leave the airport after picking up our lost friend. AA (New Zealand's version of AAA) had to be called to jump the battery of our van which was apparently 'faulty'. Upon calling the Spaceship rental company who so graciously told us they would not charge us for the call only because it was the first day we had rented the van, also ensured us that we should 'just keep driving it.' Comforting. The ordeal- the first of quite a few- gave us a good laugh and we were on our way to destination number one: Kaikoura.
Our itinerary looked something like this:
Day 1: Christchurch, Kaikoura
Day 2: Kaikoura, Nelson
Day 3: Abel Tasman
Day 4: Greymouth, Hokitika, Ross
Day 5: Franz Josef
Day 6: Wanaka, Queenstown
Day 7: Queenstown
Day 8: Queenstown, Te Anau
Day 9: Milford Sound, Dunedin
Day 10: Dunedin
Day 11: Dunedin, Oamaru
Day 12: Lake Tekapo, Mt. Cook
Day 13: Christchurch and Auckland

If you aren't familiar with the South Island's geography, the route we took basically followed a circular shape all around the island. There was a lot of driving involved, mostly at night. There were possum and rabbit casualties.

Anyway, back to Kaikoura. It was our first destination and as soon as we arrived and figured out a place to sleep (empty parking lot) we discovered that our benevolent rental company had, in addition to providing us with a not-quite-functioning van, forgotten to include the crank with which one can open the pod. Too late to call anyone or figure something else out, we were forced to squeeze four people into a sleeping space that barely fit two. But worse things could happen. We spent the next day searching for a mechanic to make a crank from scratch and, that being a successful venture, went to the seal colony for which Kaikoura is famous for. Far from a touristy attraction, the colony was off the side of the highway and we simply hopped out and walked around on the wet rocks where dozens of seals lay around, apparently asleep. They took little notice of us or the few other human visitors to the spot.

After dallying with the seals for a bit longer, we drove on, and on, and on. I fell asleep in the car but was slightly aware of the fact that we arrived safely in Abel Tasman, a national park in the northernmost point of the South Island. The next day, we spent six hours hiking along a coastal track that terminated at what is referred to as the Separation Point, where trampers can see the coast of the North Island in the distance. Though exhausting, the trek was beautiful, and had us crossing from dense forest areas to sandy beaches.

Surprise Seal!

That night, we continued driving to our next stop and spent the night on the side of the road in the town of Murchison. I managed to snap a picture from our van when we woke up in the morning:

We visited a swingbridge that the town boasted as being the world's longest, and from there we continued driving (and paying ridiculously high prices for gas) into the little town of Hokitika. It was a little ways off of our path, but we had been told there were a few places to hike and see some falls. We drove down an unpaved road until we reach Dorothy Falls, which required only a short hike to reach.

Not thinking about how long of a drive was ahead of us, and not realizing that gas stations in New Zealand close very early, we nearly ran out of gas on our way to Franz Josef. Luckily, though we were driving though the middle of nowhere for quite some time, we happened upon a single gas station that remained open at 8pm, and filled up. We made it to Franz Josef, home of the Franz Josef glacier, that night and found a picnic area to sleep at. 

The next morning, we wok early to arrive at the Glacier Hike building, from which we would depart to climb the famous glacier. We had reserved this activity in advance, which was a smart move considering how popular it was for tourists. The hike consisted of an 8 hour day, with about 6 hours spent on the glacier itself. We couldn't have had better weather for the hike, it was sunny and warm; very warm considering our proximity to the glacier. I learned that Franz Josef was one of three glaciers in the world that was considered 'warm'. The very specialized climate of New Zealand allowed for the giant ice mass to form, while the outside temperature remained comfortable enough to wear shorts. Stepping onto the glacier was like stepping onto another planet, and our guide carefully led us up across crevasses and man-made ice stairs. 

The trip was definitely worth the price, and I doubt I will ever do anything much like that again.

That night, we embarked on another long stretch of winding New Zealand Highway to reach our next destination: Wanaka. Our driver had a bit of a crisis and, despite her best attempts at swerving and possibly killing us all, ran over and killed a rabbit. Like good friends, we all condoled her by telling her she had probably killed the Easter Bunny. Crying ensued. The next morning, we pulled into Wanaka, another one of the countries many unbelievably picturesque lake towns. After walking around a bit, we make a spur of the moment decision to book a 2-hour horseback riding trip for that afternoon. A short drive out of town, the stables were found in the middle of a rolling countryside.

Glad to be back in the saddle, our little equine excursion put us all in a great mood for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, we couldn't ride our Appaloosas into Queenstown, so we were forced to part and resume travel, spaceship style. That night was particularly special as we had the luxury of staying in a campsite with hot showers and even a communal kitchen, which was great because cooking outside in the freezing cold gets a bit dull after a while. We went to bed that night feeling spoiled.