End of an era

It's over. I don't want it to be over. Right now, if I could, I would take another 26 hour journey back to New Zealand. In a minute.

To catch up:

The first day in Queenstown, we tramped on part of the Routeburn track. The whole thing takes 3 days one way. We drove an hour to the track, and unloaded the bus. The track was very interesting. There were 4 or 5 spring bridges, which are probably the scariest things in the world. They move way too much when you walk across them. The moss everywhere was a bright green, there were shield ferns everywhere in one section of the forest. The track followed the Routeburn River, which was a bright aqua blue. So beautiful.

The next day was my free day in Queenstown. I went to breakfast at a small place with a few girls from the group. We went to the botanical gardens after breakfast, then went shopping. It was a nice, relaxing day. We went to Fergburger for dinner, and I had the lamb burger, again.

We left Queenstown the next day and travelled to Te Anau (pronounced tea ahh-noo). It snowed on the way there, and everything was white. We took a cruise through Milford sound in the Fiordlands the next day, which was beautiful. It's very controversial, because Milford gets so many tourists that it is having a negative impact on the place.

The next day we travelled though to Aoraki/Mt. Cook. Many roads were closed because of the snow and ice. We hiked through Hooker Valley the following day. I think it might have been the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

We had to leave and go back to Christchurch. It was our last coach trip, and no one liked that. We drove through the beautiful countryside, back into the city. I had kebabs for dinner, then watched a movie in my room. It was the first time I had had a room to myself. No roommate. The next day was a free day, and I did a little shopping with a friend. We went to a place called the Honey Pot for breakfast, which had the most amazing pancakes. The final day was our exam, which I think went well, and we had our last group dinner at a restaurant called Two Fat Indians. Not really spicy enough... but still good.

The flight home was long. Because we crossed the international dateline, I had to live June 3 twice. Quantas is still probably one of the nicest airlines. No bags were lost.

hello from queenstown

It's been a while since I've had internet access. We've been in some pretty rural areas, and it was awesome. Since I was in Nelson, we drove north to Motueka, where we stayed for 2 days. We kayaked and hiked in the Abel Tasman national park. It was really awesome. We learned about some of the trees there, including the Kahikatea and the Totara. I also bought a book on NZ geology while I was there.

I don't remember if I've mentioned this, but we saw LOTS of baby seals in Kaikoura. I have some video!

After Motueka we headed down the west coast. Our first stop was in St. Arnaud, which has a population of 80 people. A group of people went and hiked a really intense trail (I went on the easier track). They were out past dark, and it was really dark there. We almost had to send out a search crew.

We then went to Hokitika, where we had a lecture on the beach. It is the best place to buy pounamu, which is the Maori jewelery made out of greenstone (serpentine in geology terms).

Our next stop was Fox Glacier, where we stayed for 2 nights. We hiked up 700 stairs to get to the glacier, where we hiked even more stairs with crampons (spikes) tied to our shoes. Hiking on the glacier was the neatest thing ever. It was "sweet as" (that's kiwi lingo).

Today we drove 5 hours in the rain to Queenstown. There is a big weather system coming through. They're supposed to get 25 centimeters in 2.5 days. And that's nothing. One area got 17 centimeters in one hour last week. It washed out a couple roads and caused a landslide. We drove through some of the areas where they filmed The Lord of the Rings and 10,000 BC.

We are now in Queenstown, which is a big skiing place June-August. They are just now getting the first snow, so it might be a wee while before anyone can ski. Four girls bungy jumped today, and 10 other people are bungy jumping tomorrow. I'm hiking part of the Routeburn Track tomorrow. It's normally a 3 day hike, so I'm ok only doing part of it. We get to stay in Queenstown for 3 nights, and that's a real luxury. Some places we've only been staying for one night.