New Zealand has been better then I imagined it to be. I’ve done things that I’ve never thought I would do. I’ve met some amazing people that although I may never see them again I know I will never forget. I’ve seen the most beautiful landscapes even though sometimes you forget that they are right in front of you. It makes me wonder though when I go back to the amazing life at home that I had, is it really going to be that amazing?
The one thing that is hard about travelling around especially when doing so with stray. Is making such great friendships in such little time and then having those people leave you again. Once and a while you get lucky and you know that you will see them again or even if you don’t, you actually do run into them again sooner then you thought.
For those of you who maybe don’t know a lot about my travels so far. I’ve been travelling with a company called Stray. It’s your typical hop-on hop-off bus system with lots of different drivers and lots of different travelers coming and going. It’s kind of a sister company to the Kiwi Experience which is maybe a little more well known in NZ. The difference for me has been that I happened to get a driver (Bubbles) who has never done the trip before. I think it’s a good thing though because it has made the whole experience an adventure!
As you travel with Stray you start to become friends with everyone on the bus and you never really want to get off. First of all you have just met about 24 new people that naturally you try to sort out where you fit in with. Then on top of that you travel to a new place and seeing new things with these people, who have also never seen these things and are learning about them along with you. But don’t forget these people are from all over the world and language barriers or maybe even just different names for the same thing also get thrown into the mix. Oh and did I mention that you are basically in a new place every day, with a driver that has never done this all before either. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it! Trust me its been AMAZING!
So my first Stray trip was from Auckland at the top of the North Island, to Wellington and the bottom of the North Island. This took about a week with about 6 or 7 different overnight stops and tons of other random photo and sightseeing stops in between. We don’t have all day or at least I know I don’t, as I’m actually writing this about to go to Gunn’s Camp in Milford Sound. So the short version is I met one really great friend Justine who is from Portsmith in England, and another Ingrid who is this super fun super crazy norwegian chick who has more energy than any one I have ever met! I can’t name everyone but we had a great group and by the time we reached Wellington we were like a little travelling family. It is amazing how close you get to people that you have to spend every minute with. Especially since you know that you won’t see most of them ever again so if they don’t like you that’s their problem and you can totally be yourself from the first moment.
Once I reached Wellington I decided I would stay for a little while. So I spent the weekend checking out Welly then moved on to Nelson. The arts festival was on while I was in Nelson so it made the week there even better. I stayed at the Green Monkey which is this really cute little hostel with only about 16 beds. I had two girls that were on the bus with me stay there with me, so that also helped make it nice. While in Nelson I walked up to the geographical center of NZ, applied for some jobs, walked around A LOT, we went to the beach and checked out all the jelly fish and saw a little penguin. In the end though, I have decided that Nelson is just not for me right now. Really great little place, but for what I want in New Zealand I don’t think I’m going to find it there. So I booked Stray for the rest of the south Island, this trip was going to have a hard time living up to my trip of the North but I must say I don’t really know which one was better now!
So I had found out a day or so before I was to get on the bus that I had managed to book myself back on Bubbles bus, probably a good indication of how good the south island was going to be! We spent the first two nights of this trip in Abel Tasman National park. The first night was shit! All I could think was these people suck and I want my old friends back. I did have a good catch up with bubbles and talked to a few of the people on the bus but wasn’t getting a good vibe. Luckily that quickly turned around I booked myself a full day of sailing and there were 5 others off the bus with me. There were about 8 more that joined us for the second half of the day off the bus also. The weather was great and all and all it did turn out to be another really great day as I got to get to know some of my new travel buddies.
From Abel Tasman we headed to Barrytown which is an experience in its self! But unfortunately for you guys what happens in Baz Vegas stays in Baz Vegas. Baz beer is the highlight of this little one horse town and really other than a place where we did some bone carving the next day, the only thing in barrytown. Population: 48 people and 3 goats and a cat.
After Barrytown we headed to Franz Josef where we stayed for the next two nights! The highlight of this local is its glaciers and they are really amazing! We got there and the weather was crap so myself and 3 others booked a Heli Hike and didn’t really think that we had much hope in actually getting to go. On our way to the hostel we had a really great surprise! Justine had missed her flight and was in Franz, and I thought I would never see her again! So we had a great night, and then early the next morning the sun was out! Took a helicopter ride to the top of a glacier where we just chilled for a few hours and took tons of pictures, then another heli ride back down. That afternoon we went and relaxed in some hot pools, then I helped Bubbles with our group BBQ and we all went to the pub for a rock, paper, scissors tournament which I made it to the Semi Finals in!
The next night we headed to Makorora for a night, compared to other days this was fairly uneventful, although we stopped a lot on the way to check out some really cool waterfalls and the boys skipped stones for a while, we also stopped at Lake Matheson which is supposedly really nice when the weather is better than what we had. Also a great night though as I think we were all ready for something a little more low key before we headed to Queenstown.
OH QUEENSTOWN!! They say it will take your last dollar, and I guess it seems to be the truth. Just before you reach Queenstown they take you to AJ Hackey Bungy and the location of the K-Bridge bungy (A 37 meter Bungy). While we were in Franz I had seen Justine’s pictures of her K-Bridge Bungy and decided that I wanted to do it too, and it looked like a lot of fun! So we get in to AJ and we watch a few people jump and then they show us a video about bungy. I had destroyed my knee while we were in franz and it had been swollen for the last few days and so I was a little hesitant to jump and just didn’t seem to be signing up. I still knew I wanted to do it though! Before we had gotten off the bus we had 3 people signed up to do the Nevis which is the largest Bungy in NZ (143 Meters). By the time I had talked to the bungy operators about my knee and if it was a good idea to jump, we had 10 people off the bus signed up. All my friends were jumping off a bridge naturally I was going to do it to! In total we had 12 jumpers and Greg who was thinking he would sign up tomorrow. Once you sign up and pay, if you chicken out they don’t give you your money back. The bus ride from AJ to Queenstown was an interesting one as we now had 12 very nervous people, who had to wait till the next day to Jump.
Queenstown is the adventure capital of NZ and it’s also just absolutely gorgeous! It has definitely taken a piece of my heart and became my favorite city in the world! After we had gotten off the bus and checked in to our rooms we had a little going away party at a local bar called Revolver we also got all you can eat pizza for $10 bucks, which for a backpacker is really great and tasted great too! Ingrid, and Justine just happened to be in Queenstown when we got here too! We all headed to bed fairly early because none of us wanted to be in ruff shape for the day ahead!
4:30 AM, the day of the jump, can’t sleep, freaking out, and can’t stop thinking why did I sign up for this??? This continued till about 5:30 when I feel asleep again finally.
8:30 AM… Go to the common room hang out on the couches and read anything and everything to keep my mind off it.
9:30 AM by now everyone has joined me and all we can do is talk about not talking about what is about to come.
11:00 AM Time to make our way over to the AJ Hacket main building so we can all be weighed and checked in, sent on a bus to face our fears! Time to for operation stop thinking about it!
12:00 Noon after a rather dodgy drive to the top of Nevis mountain its time to get our gear on and listen to the proper way of jumping off this thing!
Lets do this! The next chunk of time is a complete blur, All I remember is making a very conscious effort to not look down and also to just think about how nothing can really happen. They toss over a hundred people off this thing weekly and nothing has ever gone wrong. They toss me up on this ledge and chuck on the leg holder things, I wait for a few other people to jump before me and then it’s my go! Look up here, sit here, now go over here, you have to pull this when you bounce back up and look here for another photo………. I have no idea what he just said. Now penguin shuffle over to the edge and then 3…..2….1….. JUMP!
The feeling is completely unexplainable! It was the coolest thing I have ever done and I can’t wait to jump off something else! I really am at a complete loss for words that can even come close to how great the experience really was! I just need someone to fund my new habit!
I was on such a high for the rest of the day! We all got a free t-shirt and had to buy our DVD’s luckily the whole thing is on tape! We all got back went for a Ferg burger and then spent the rest of the day on the beach. That night there was a pink party (to raise cancer awareness) at World Bar so If you dressed in Pink you got a discount on drinks all night. So we ALL even the boys painted out finger nails Pink and tossed on our new shirts and went to spend the night celebrating our accomplishments. Totally one day I will never forget!
So this blog entry is getting ridiculously long and I have been trying to keep it short, but I have a lot to catch you guys up on! To keep it shorter…… the rest of my time in Queenstown has been really great too! We went on a million dollar cruise, had a BBQ on the beach, went up the gondola for some amazing views and it just so happened to be Halloween weekend! Some people left my second day here and it’s always sad to see them go! I’ve been missing you all like crazy. Some of us remainders took off and did the south bit of the trip which consisted of a night in Invercargill, and then a night at Gunn’s camp. Gunn’s camp was a real cool old minor camp that was stuck in a time warp and was yet another experience and an apparent favorite local for sand flies! We also went on a boat cruise in Milford sound which was absolutely breath taking and we got to see lots of dolphins, penguins and seals. After that we came back to Queenstown and spend the night drinking on the beach and it was the perfect night for it. Which finally brings me to yesterday. Another rather Chill day about 8 of us went to the movies and watch The Town which was good and I really enjoyed it. So this morning all the remaining people left me but one and there are about 3 or 4 coming back Sat night. I leave Queenstown Sunday morning, and by then I will be down to my last dollars and ready to get serious about my life in New Zealand. I’m going to go back to Welly and get a real job.
So for now…. Sorry this is going to take you forever to read and I’ll be making a better attempt to update more often and spare you all the pain of reading this all at once! ME!
