Queenstown: 28-31 October

It was a quick hour ride to Queenstown! We were used to the five to ten hour drives so this was a relief!

Feli came to New Zealand to travel for two months then work as an au pair and study English for three months then travel again for a month, then go teach English in Asia for three more months. An organization in Germany set up for Feli to meet her host family in Queenstown where she will be studying. So when we got off the bus the host Mom was waiting for Feli and we split ways for the night.

That night I again got settled in my hostel, Alpine Lodge, and made some dinner. I then caught up on some much-needed internet time and watched a movie with some of the other people staying at the hostel.

The next day Feli and I met up in the morning. We toured the town and walked around all day. It was nice to walk and talk. Queenstown is a beautiful city. Definitely a mountain town! For lunch we had the famous Fergburger. We got some onion rings to go along with it. It was a big burger but I would say it is an average tasting burger and onion rings compared to American. :)

Fooooooood

We chatted the afternoon away before her host Mom came to pick her up. I made some dinner and chatted with few other people in the hostel and finished a book. Nice relaxing night.

The next day I was motivated to do a nice hike. It looked like the Ben Lomond  hike was perfect! Instead of taking the gondola up, I hike up to where it was. That is where the Ben Lomond hike starts. About fifteen minutes into the hike I saw some wild goats!

Baaaaa

The first hour or so was pretty much just following the side of the mountain with a steady incline. It was a cloudy gloomy day so it was cool to have the clouds hovering over my head, but too bad that I couldn’t see the peaks of the mountains around.

After a long hard incline, I finally made it to the Ben Lomond saddle. This was about an hour away from the end of the hike to the summit, but I was basically already in the clouds that I didn’t want to hike up to the summit by myself with no views. But this place had spectacular views!

On the other side of the saddle. Queenstown is to my back. 

I met two nice men from Denmark at the top here and chatted with them for a while. He gave me his return ticket to the gondola because they were hiking to a different town and also gave me his business card and told me to stay in contact! He also offered his home if I was ever in Denmark and needed a place to stay. :P

After a nice picnic at the top I started to head back. On the way down I found a different trail to take. It followed the top of the mountain all the way down to the gondola. SUPER amazing. It was quite the hike. I felt like a goat at many times because I had to shuffle pass many cliffs and boulders.

In the middle of the picture, where the mountain dips, is Ben Lomond Saddle.
If you follow the mountain coming toward you to the left is where I hiked back.
(its more challenging then it looks :P)

I got to this one point where it had a great view of Queenstown and the surround mountains, “The Remarkables.”

Queenstown!

I ended up taking the gondola down, because when else would I get a chance to ride Queenstown gondola?

When I got home I took a much-needed shower. Feli and I then met up for dinner and a guy we met, Joram from Holland, in Wanaka also joined us. We had an easy night by going to a movie and eating too much popcorn. :)

The next day in Queenstown, I did another great hike! It is called the Queenstown Hill Walkway. It was a perfect day for a hike. This one also had spectacular views! I am starting to realize that wherever you go here, you will have a stunning view. 

Once I got to the summit of the hike, I did a 360 panorama picture.

I then wanted to keep walking so I went off the beaten track and went my own way for about an hour! This was great. Since no one was around and I had my head phones in I was singing away, or maybe no one was around because I was singing.... either way it was great! 

These hills ARE alive with the sound of music! 

After finding bones of some animal I thought it was a good idea to turn back. I got back made some dinner and then met up with Feli and Joram to get ready for Halloween night! They have something similar called Carnival where they are from, but this was the first time they celebrated Halloween! What a great, crazy night it turned out to be! It was the perfect night to say goodbye to Feli. I will miss you Feli!!

We kept the costumes simple because we have no money! :P

The next day was another sunny gorgeous day! That day I did laundry, ran some errands, and had a headache. After dinner I went for a relaxing stroll in the Queenstown gardens and watch the sun set behind the mountains.

The next couple of stops I am taking a tour bus. So I will be able to see the rest of the South Island I wanted to see in the next few days! So the next morning I caught the bus at 6 a.m. to head down to the bottom of the South Island. Off to Invercargill! 

Wanaka: 24-27 October

The drive from Franz Joseph to Wanaka was full of mountains, lakes, and waterfalls. Just amazing scenery!

We drove into Wanaka and I already knew I was going to like this town. We then said goodbye to the Amanda and Emma who were off to Queenstown.

As always Feli and I found our hostel and got settled. We got that routine down! We then took a walk around town to see what Wanaka had to offer. It is a very small town with only a couple main streets so it didn’t take us long to see most of it. We then went to the supermarket and got groceries for the next few days.

The next day we woke up early to get ready for our SKYDIVE!! It was a gorgeous day to be skydiving and what a beautiful place to do it!

This is a gooood look for me. :P

As soon as we got there, we got ready in our jumper suits and harnesses. The nerves started to get worse at this time. He gave me a few instructions on what to do while jumping out the plane and then he said, “Lets go!” OMG, OMG. Feli was right next to me in the plane and there were two people in front of us who were jumping from 12,000 feet. Feli and I were jumping from 15,000 feet!!!

Ich scheiß mir in die Hose!

I was looking outside the window at how high we already were when I heard the instructor tell Feli that we were only halfway to our jump. My jaw dropped. This was going to be one of the greatest things I have ever experienced.

So once we got to 12,000 feet we watch the two other jump out. OMG, OMG. The plane door opens and they just disappear. Then they closed the door to climb another 3,000 feet. The door opened and Feli was going before me. I was right behind her when in a blink of an eye, she was gone. AHHH! I think it is much scarier to watch people go before you because they literally are there and then BAM no more Feli. The butterflies in the stomach were very anxious to be set free by this time.

Feli trying to flap her wings! What a view!

My turn. He shuffled me to the open plane door at 15,000 feet. WOW. 1, 2, 3 JUMP! AHHHHHHHH!!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!! We free fell for 60 seconds. What a feeling!!!! Then the parachute opened and we had a nice, safe, relaxing, glide down to the earth. What a sight it is to see the top of mountains, lakes, towns, and the world from 15,000 feet!

Back at the hostel, once we found our stomachs, we made some lunch and then got ready to go to a local pub, Woody’s, I found that was going to play the Packer vs. Vikings game!! Quite funny to watch a Sunday night football game at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Monday! :P It was Feli’s first time watching an American football game so it was cool getting to explain the game to her. What a nail biting game! Feli was just as much into it as I was! I screamed at the TV, she screamed at the TV, and in the end we celebrated! The Pack came out with the win!! Woohoo! It has been a stressful day so far for our bodies!

Go Pack Go!

That night we met two people, Sophie from Washington State and Pierre from Sweden, who were going to join us on a long hike the next day! So the next morning we made a nice breakfast and packed a lunch and started our hike! Our first stop was at a small beach on Lake Wanaka. We all decided to take a quick dip in the lake!

Brrrrrr

Our legs almost fell off from how cold the water was! Totally worth it though! None of us had towels but the weather was so nice and the sun was shining that we were dry within an hour. We continued to Beacon Point and followed the lake around and eventually it turned into the Clutha River. We stopped in the shade along the river and had a picnic and relaxed for a bit. The river took us to a town called Albert Town.  From there we hiked a steep trail up to the top of Mount Iron. We had already been hiking four and a half hours already so our legs were pretty tired and then sun was baking us alive! But we made it!! And the views were great!

Wanaka!

We went down the other side of Mount Iron back to the Wanaka. Six and a half hour later we were back at our hostel! It was great to sit down, rehydrate, and take a long nice shower. That night was full of good conversation, many laughs, and a creepy old guy with a beret from San Francisco.

Our last day in Wanaka was a relaxing day. I ran a few errands that needed to be done and then hung out with Sophie, Pierre, and Feli!

In the afternoon Feli and I caught our bus and we were off to Queenstown!

Franz Joseph: 21-23 October

It was a long nine hour bus ride from Nelson to Franz Joseph. One of the stops we made was at Punakaiki. This place is known for their pancake rocks on the ocean. The wind was blowing and seas were ruff! It was a very cool sight!

The name makes me hungry...

An awesome blowhole where water shot up from the ocean! 

We were about ten minutes away from Franz Joseph and what should happen? A flat tire… We got to talking to the people on our bus and met two girls from Sweden, Amanda and Emma. Very nice girls.

Whoops!

So we added an hour to our already nine our travels but we finally made it! Franz Joseph is a very, very small town with some stunning mountains at the end of a road! Oh yeah, and a glacier!!

The next day I went to go hike the glacier! What an experience this was! I did a full day hike so I hiked the glacier for about six hours!

We started out with 44 people on the bus. We then split up into four groups. Group one was the first to be on the ice that day and would be making the trail and be the quickest group, therefore four would be the slowest group. I, of course, was in the first group! :P This was great to be able to see how the guide maps out and makes the trail. Even though we were the quick group, we still had plenty of opportunities to stop and take pictures.

B-E-A-utiful! Not a bad place to stop for lunch!

So blue!

Tight squeeze! 

It was a beautiful sunny day full of exercise, ice, and breathtaking surroundings.

That night Feli, Amanda, Emma and I found a local restaurant and got ourselves some pizza. Then we went back to the hostel and had plenty of drinks, chocolate, and sweets. We invited many other people in the hostel to join us in some games and the night was lost in chatting, laughing, and pretending to be animals. ;)

The next day was a very lazy day and just hung out at the hostel and had a Leo movie day. :P I don’t think I have had a day like this since I have been in NZ, so it was nice to relax.

That night I made a chicken peanut sauté and rice dinner for Feli, Amanda, Emma and me and Feli made us chocolate mousse for dessert. Love cooking! A couple hours after dinner, we went on a small walk to go see some glowworms but the trail was close halfway through because of flooding. We still got to see a few glowworms though, so that was nice. 


Then the next morning we packed up again and got ready for another long bus ride to head farther south to Wanaka!

Nelson: 18-20 October

It was a beautiful ferry ride from Wellington to Picton!

Picton doesn’t have anything in it so as soon as we got off the ferry we headed to Nelson. The weather was perfect! Warm, sunny, and perfect! The hostel, Bug Backpackers, was SUCH an upgrade from the Cambridge in Wellington. Clean, roomy, friendly people, clean, free internet and free bike hire, clean, a very nice place! So of course, what did we do when we got into town? Go to the supermarket and get food for the next few days and I made Feli some Fajitas and Mexican rice for dinner! I introduced her to the movie “Fargo.” She now thinks we all talk like that. Lovely.

The next morning we got up and snatched up two of the bikes. The owner of Bug told us of some nice bike rides to take. We ended up taking one that was straight up hill… We decided to walk the bikes up the hill. :) Totally worth it!

Feli was kind enough to lend me her shades for this pic. :P

 Then we eventually rode the bikes down the hill. It was very steep and rocky, but we made it! We went through a nice sheep farm too and saw tons of baby sheep!

We went back to Bug for a quick lunch and then took the bikes again to go for a nice flat ride to the beach! This was an awesome day for a walk on the beach with fantastic scenery! I finally got to wear shorts!! We walked the whole length of the beach and chatted the afternoon away.

Sunny Nelson!

 That night we hung out with some other Germans and two people from South Korea. It is so awesome to meet people from around the world! So many different stories, humor, games, and we all get along so well!

The next day we walked into town and toured the streets and then made a hike to the center of NZ!

Smack-dab in the center!

We had a nice little picnic here and it is conveniently located at the top of a hill so it had amazing views of Nelson and the surrounding area.

It was a nice relaxing night because we had another early bus ride the next morning to Franz Joseph! Again we had a good time hanging out with the other Germans staying at the hostel! Such an amazing experience that many don’t get to have the chance. I will cherish this forever. 

Wellington: 14-17 October

Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, a big city again! We checked into our hostel, the Cambridge Hotel (it was a hotel and then added a backpackers part). This place has potential with its wooden walls, high ceilings, and tiled bathrooms, but it is cramped which therefore everything gets dirty very qucikly. Everywhere was cramped; the room, the kitchen, the common area, so I really didn’t like this hostel. Live and learn!

Feli and I got settled and then set out to the streets to see what Wellington had to offer. We walked down Courtenay Place and saw that Macbeth was playing by the NZ Opera at the St. James Theatre. We went inside and found out they had a great day of performance deal! We got the best seats in the house worth $200 for $27!! After purchasing tickets, we walked the streets for a bit longer, got food for the next few days, and found a great burger/chicken sandwich pub for a buy one get one deal! So we stuffed our faces and filled out stomachs. Close tot his pub is a place called Kaffee Eis. WOW, they have the best gelato I have ever had. I have it ever day while in Wellington. Oops! So we found some room in our stomachs to fit some of this mouth watering gelato and then headed to Macbeth! It was very well done with a stunning set and spectacular voices!

The next day was filled with tourist activates! We started out by going to NZ’s Parliament. They have this building where all the officials work called “the Beehive.” It recently got voted one of the ugliest buildings in the world. And yes, it is. :) We didn’t go into that building but we Chamber of the House of  Representatives, saw one of the committee rooms, and toured some of the hallways of the building. It was free though! 

Bet you can't guess which one is "The Beehive!"

After a short tour there we went back for lunch and then headed to Te Papa, NZ’s largest and most famous museum. This was a very good museum. It had everything from history to art to free internet!! :P Much better then the $3 for half an hour at our hostel…another reason to dislike that hostel! :) So we spent a few hours there and took advantage of the free internet!

That night we made a big yummy steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and salad dinner to get ourselves ready for the night out in the big town! Again, it was a great night full of many, many memories and many different pubs and clubs!

The next day it was hard for Feli to get out of bed. I wasn’t feeling the greatest either but can’t waste a day here! So I went and took advantage of Te Papa’s free internet again. I had the morning and early afternoon to myself and just wandered around the town. This was when I decided to book my return flight back to the US. So I found an Air New Zealand office and tired to book it as close to Christmas as possible. That option came out to be December 6. It is getting hard to live out of backpack and from hostel to hostel, town to town. Living with 6-12 other people in bunk beds isn’t what I could do for nine more months either… I am loving every second of this experience and still am very happy I decided to take this opportunity to do it!

I found out that Wellington’s rugby team, the Lions was playing a game this night! Before I leave NZ, that is something I HAD to do. So it was the perfect timing! I went back to the hostel to find Feli still in bed :P and asked her if she would want to go. Surprisingly she said she did! Trooper! We went for a walk after she crawled out of bed and then got some sushi. It was in this really cool sliver of a restaurant. You sit around an island with a conveyer belt that goes around with sushi and then you pick the sushi you want as soon as it was in front of you! So cool! :P

Its hard to resist from grabbing
every single plate that comes around...

Then off to my first rugby game!

Tough guys...

The next day we got to see why Wellington’s nickname is “Windy Wellington.” Add that with rain and it turned out to be a typical NZ day! We still got out and went on Wellington’s famous Cable Car.

At the top there is a large botanical garden, it would have been nice to see if the weather was nice, but we didn’t want to walk around in the windy rain and decided to go back and plan our travels for the next couple of weeks. The next day we had to catch an early 7 AM bus to get to the Internislander ferry. We were crossing the Cook Strait  to Picton to start our travels in the South Island!! 

Napier: 11-13 October

I got off the bus around 1:30 in Taupo and looked around for Feli. She wasn’t around. I no clue which way to go so I chose to go right because that was where the Lake Taupo was (NZ’s largest lake). When I got to the cross walk, who did I see in her typical Bench jacket, Feli! I screamed her name and she saw me. We both got great big grins of out face! It was so good to see a familiar face! She had been in Taupo for the last two weeks working for accommodation at a hostel. So she wanted to get out of Taupo ASAP. She took me to her hostel and showed me a bit around town. We then went to the lake. Across the lake were some snow-covered mountains! So beautiful!

After seeing a bit of the town, I was fine to leave right away as well. We booked a bus ticket and then got some food at Burgerfuel. The burgers or chicken sandwiches here are the size of your face and they go so so great with sweet potato fries! At 5:30 we were off to Napier!

The weather leaving Taupo was windy and rainy. It was like this the whole bus ride to Napier as well. Rain turning into sleet, back to rain, to snow, back to sleet, all with wind. Quite the bus ride! When we got to Napier the weather had calmed down but it was very chilly out. We got settled at our hostel, Archie’s Bunker, which did look and feel like a bunker. It was night out so we walked around town for a bit and went and got some groceries. We had a night full of laughs and wine. :)

The next morning I was craving a real full on breakfast because I had been living off toast and cereal for breakfast for the last three weeks… We found a very good place called Café Ujazi. Yum Yum Yum. I had the typical bacon, eggs, and toast but they made it different then how boring it actually sounds. Feli had some of the most delicious blueberry and banana pancakes I had ever had. These cakes had to be at least two inches thick! This day we decided to go to the aquarium in town and then do a nice hike. The weather is so sparatic in NZ that even if it a nice morning it can turn out to be rainy and windy an hour later, and that’s what it was like throughout the day. So the aquarium was an overpriced bust. Oh well. The hike turned out to be a very nice one though. We walked up to and around Bluff Hill and then walked back down through Napier’s Botanical Garden. It was very beautiful with many of the bush flowers in full bloom!

Feli!

Love Spring bloom!

That night again was full of laughs, a yummy dinner and then a movie where we finished a large soda, large popcorn, and a bag of peanut M&M's. Oops! Everywhere we go people think we are a couple… I am starting to see why. :P

The next morning we had planned on taking a 35km bike tour to some wineries, a chocolate factory, and an alehouse. The morning was a misty, rainy morning but we decided to start the bike tour and suck it up because we figured the weather would change. Change it did not. We were about 45 minutes into the tour, completely soaked from head to toe, and cold. So we turned around and went back to the bunker. Immediately took warm showers and made some lunch and tea to warm up. After lunch, the owner of the hostel felt bad for us so he lent us the hostels van to go do the tour! We ask a girl, Gabriel from Israel, who was staying in our room to join us and she did! We all had a blast trying to drive this manual diesel van. It was the first time Feli and I drove on the roads in NZ! Woohoo!! :P

Lovely drive...

Oh boy...

OHHH boy...

Since it was afternoon we only had time to make it to one winery. We went the Church Road winery. We did a cellar tour there and saw how and were they made their wine. It was a very good tour!

The red wine room, a.k.a. my favorite room. :)

Yes, I quite agree.

After that we drove to the chocolate factory to have a highly recommended Hot Chocolate Extreme. WOW, it was amazing.  Basically it was melted chocolate in a cup, covered with whipped cream and pepper flakes to add a spicy touch. Mmmmm.

Mmmmmmmm.

Yep, yep, yep.

By the time we got the alehouse it was closed. So we headed back to the bunker and made another yummy dinner. The next morning we had an early bus ride to Wellington so it was a nice chill night with of course, more wine.

Cram. Shove. Squish. Zip and off to Wellington!