En Route to Queenstown

Continuing from Franz Josef...

On the Way to Queenstown
The goal of the next two days, essentially, was to get to Queenstown. We stopped a few places, but Queenstown was firmly in everyone's mind.

The rest of the day out of Franz Josef was mostly spent in transit. We stopped at a place that had extremely blue water. It was pretty neat. See:

We eventually ended up in a small town called Makarora. On the bus, one of the deals that were offered to us was a nice meal that the bus driver valued at $25 for $10. I didn't really feel like cooking that night so I took him up on it. All of the girls I was traveling with decided to make their own meal so while they all made dinner, I hung out with one of the other groups of American exchange students. As much as I love those girls, it was pretty nice to get away from them as well. Dinner was tasty: we got lamb shank, carrots, peas and mash. We also were offered mull wine, but I thought it was horrible. Does anyone like mull wine? It's wine that is warm. To me it tasted sweet in your mouth, but when you went to swallow it, it turned harsh and ultimately hurt my throat. I'm not a fan. After the meal, I stayed around—it was a cafe/lodge place where we also paid for our accommodation—and a group of us played euchre. With nothing really to do and feeling tired after a day of traveling, I hit the hay early.

Wanaka
The next stop during our journey was Wanaka. A small town, reminiscent of my perception of Colorado, it was very nice. We stopped there for some down time and for lunch. We went into a variety of shops and I bought my mother yet another gift (that woman is going to be spoiled upon my arrival, I swear). For lunch we went to a place called The Ritual Cafe. It was one of those places where the atmosphere just kind of spoke to me and I knew instantly that's where I wanted to go. I got an amazing pasta salad with green pasta noodles, feta, red capsicum (bell pepper), pesto and a bunch of other vege (it's vege, not veggies in NZ). I had been craving pesto so it totally hit the spot! On the way out, I picked up a pumpkin and chocolate chunk muffin I had been eying throughout my meal. I just couldn't walk away. (I must have been really hungry when I wrote this entry!)

Onwards
The next stop we made was at a lookout point close to Queenstown. Here are some pictures from the site:

It was so windy up at that hill it was insane. I was afraid I would literally be knocked over. Next up was an amazing fruit and vege store. It had an awesome tasting table and I had the tastiest kiwifruit I've ever had in my life. One of the greatest things about fruit and vege shops is other than how tasty it is, it's so bloody cheap! I got two or three kiwis, about two perfectly ripe red capsicum and a large fruit leather for under $5. Shortly after that, we arrived at the AJ Hackett bungy.We watched a video about the making of the bungy. In case you didn't know, the bungy was invented in the 1980's by AJ Hackett and a business partner of his in New Zealand. The place where we watched the video was the site of the very first bungy. One of the girls from our bus decided she couldn't wait a moment longer and that she needed to bungy jump then and there. It was cool to watch her jump, but it was kind of annoying because then we had to wait for her. In the meantime I had to resist urges to buy things from the gift shop. I eventually bought myself a new pair of funky sunglasses because I sat on my other pair while sailing in Abel Tasman. Below is a picture of Milford Sound (which I will get to in my next post) reflected in my new schnazzy sunglasses. Photo credit goes to Ashley Chin.
Well the next and final stop of my south island trip is Queenstown. I'll tell you all about the thrill capital of New Zealand and stop at Milford Sound, a glimpse of which you got in my sunglasses above. Much love from NZ!

That One Time, When I Climbed a Glacier

Good news! This coming week is the last week of classes. That means that will have nothing to do other than study and hang out and write in my blog. So I give you permission to bother me about writing another entry. Now onto Franz Josef.

Franz Josef

A tour of Franz Josef Glacier in 1906


When we arrived in Franz Josef, we stopped at the Franz Josef Glacier Guide place. They showed us a video about the options and what we'd need for the next day. I double checked that I could do the hike with my back. They told me that it might be a bit tough for me since there were some tight spaces and low caves, but that we should be able to figure it out. I felt up to the challenge.

That evening we unpacked at our hostel, made dinner, enjoyed the giant hot tub (the size of a small pool), got ready and went into the bar by the hostel. It was a very nice bar, with a nice, chill atmosphere. We had a great evening and met people from the Kiwi Experience bus (another tour company) and some locals. The next morning, we woke up and got ready for our glacier hike. In New Zealand, one says gla-see-ur, rather than glay-sure like we do in the States.

We walked over to the place and it was unfortunately pissing (pouring) down with rain. We were trying to bet if the hike would be canceled. Luckily it wasn't. I wore many layers in order to stay warm: a tank top, polypro long underwear, my really warm knit sweater (from Gap, you know, before they changed their logo) and a raincoat of my own. They supplied us with a waterproof overcoat. On my legs I wore Matt's rainbow polypro pants and the waterproof overpants supplied to us. They also gve us wool socks, gloves and a hat. Unfortunately, I accidentally left my gloves at the place, so I didn't have them for my hike. At first my hands were freezing, but they generally got used to the cold/went numb so it was okay. The worst part for my hands was when we'd have to hold onto a rope and I'd be gripping the soaking wet rope cord.

The hike was a really amazing, once in a lifetime experience. We took a bus up to the carpark (parking lot) closest to the glacier. Believe it or not, but we had to walk through a rain forest to get to the glacier! New Zealand really is an incredible place. Once we were at the rocky ground in front of the glacier, they split us up into two groups: one that was more confident and wanted a more challenging hike and one that wanted a bit more leisure and perhaps some help. I knew that it would be best for me to go with the second group so I made sure to split myself off, regardless of what the rest of my friends were going to do. Luckily, four other girls joined me. Our guide was named Jack and was extremely handsome. EXTREMELY. Don't believe me? Below is a picture of myself, my four friends and beautiful Jack:


He taught us a bit about the Franz Josef glacier and its history. Over the years it has retreated and advanced, it seems unrelated to global warming. The night before, it snowed the most in three years. IT was the first time our guide had ever seen so much snow in his career at the company.


We climbed the part of the glacier that didn't have ice on it. That part was horrible because it was straight uphill. Once we got part to the snow and ice, it was time to put our crampons. We kept them on our bum bugs. They are called bum bags, NOT fanny packs because a fanny in New Zealand is well, a body part you just don't talk about with just anybody. Crampons are little spiky attachments to our shoes. They help your feet not to slide around on the ice and snow. They took a bit of getting used to to walk with, but it was quite easy once I got the hang of it. It was really important that we lifted our feet up straight and put them down facing forward so we wouldn't twist an ankle. Below is a view from the glacier looking down.

The climbing experience was really neat. There were steps carved out of the ice. Often times they needed to be re-carved a bit, which is where Phyllis, the guide's ice pick (see group picture above) came in. He would fix the steps or make new ones. We went through an iris, which is a wall of ice that's being separated, but essentially doesn't want to be yet. You can't quite tell in the picture below, but the ice is actually blue. There's nothing in it that's causing it to be blue, but rather its so dense that the ice just looks blue. Normal ice is 7% denser than water, but blue ice is around 97% denser than water.
This iris was one of the wider ones we went through. The walls were often so close together you'd have to actually face them, suck in and scrape by. I'm not a very claustrophobic person, but when your pinned up between two walls of ice and are exhausted, but have no room to breathe (pretty much literally) until you get yourself out of there, it kind of freaks you out.

Overall, the hike was an enjoyable, but challenging experience. We carved out a spot in some snow for our bums while we ate our sandwich. We had plenty of snowball fights against the other groups. Six hours later, we were tired and on the bus back into town.

That evening we had tim tam slams (which I will explain in my Kiwi Vocab chapter) and went back to Monsoon bar. It was an interesting night.

Onwards
The next morning, we woke up and were absolutely freezing. The space heater was off and we couldn't figure out why. Then, our phones didn't have any reception. We were quite confused. We hadn't had reception for much of our trip, but I had been texting Matt the night before so I know I had had service at one point. Soon enough, we found out there had been a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch. It was the same magnitude as the one that killed thousands in Haiti earlier this year.

We got ready to go to the next place, but first we had to check out. I saw the ice cream freezer by the reception desk and I said to the woman, "So if the power is out... the ice cream is going to melt anyway, right? Would I possibly be able to get one?" She said that she really couldn't because they didn't know when the power was going to come back on and that it wasn't a good idea because of stock checks. She also said, "What do you want it for anyway? It's the morning." I looked at her, and said to her (in retrospect it was a very pathetic voice) "for breakfast..." She gave in and I had a delicious hokey pokey ice cream bar. It was awesome.

Well it's 1 a.m. here and I'm tired. I'll continue this soon hopefully. We're finally getting to the end of my South Island trip. Guten Nacht!

The Town with 25 People In It

More on my South Island Trip:


Barrytown
Yesterday, we arrived in Barrytown. Our bus driver/guide, Trouble joked that he would give us a tiki tour (brief, tour, the highlights in Kiwi). Turns out the tour took all of five seconds. You see, the population of Barrytown is literally 25 people. We stayed in a 'hostel' behind a bar, which also doubled as our place for dinner. I had a tasty chicken burger for dinner, which came with a voucher for a free beer. We moved in our stuff and headed down to the beach to watch the sun set. The walk to the beach definitely looked shorter than it really was. On the way, we passed plenty of cows roaming the pasture on the left, as well as the Barrytown cemetery on the right. In the graveyard, in addition to the gravestones and graves, were more sheep! It was absolutely hysterical, one of those "only in New Zealand..." moments. After a second or two I realised they were attached to leads, like the ones we put my dogs out on in my backyard back home. Katie even went into the cemetery to try and pet the sheep, but they were quite skittish.



When we finally got to the beach, the clouds were in the way so the pictures didn't turn out the best. I got some pretty colours out of it nonetheless:

After the sun had set, we returned to the bar. Barrytown is known for its "fancy dress" nights at the bar. The walls in the bar are covered with the most ridiculous (and sometimes nude) pictures from these nights. Fancy dress, really just means dress up. For example, our night in Barrytown we were having a "P Party." Our outfits had to start with the letter. P. There was a semi-dodgy closet, which we could build the contents of our outfit with. I tried to be a prep. Katie was a pirate, Meg was Paco the construction worker, Ashley was a pimp and Melissa was her prostitute.

"Paco the Construction Worker"

"Katie-Pi-rate"

The P Party wasn't nearly as exciting as we hoped it would be, so we went to bed not-too-late. The next morning, we woke up early to carve a bone necklace. It was frustrating because we were told to be ready at 8 a.m., but no one came to get us. It was cold, rainy and windy and no one could be found. By 8:30 we were annoyed and woke up our bus driver. He showed us where the house where we'd be doing the carving was and we walked there (it was just down the street). The woman had a full blown shop in the back (think a wood shop) and apparently wasn't expecting us until 9. The first think we did was pick out the design we wanted. I chose one of the fish hooks. I thought it was pretty aesthetically pleasing and it stands for strength and safe travels over water. After that, the woman picked out a piece of bone that fit nicely with design and we traced the design onto the bone with a pencil. Then, she made the piece smaller and carved the intricate curves out of the center. The rest was up to us, though she of course guided us, showed us how to use the machines and what to do. We trimmed the piece of bone until it was at the line we had traced and was curved. The rest of the steps were all about perfecting the piece of bone. We used a drill to smooth and round out the edges and used several different types of sandpaper. I was literally sanding for hours. I also added a line as a detail. It was a meticulous process. The whole experience took about four hours, ending with her polishing the bone by rubbing it on a fine sandpaper machine.

Working so hard made me really appreciate and care about the necklace. I originally thought about giving it to a friend of mine (I wonder if he'll read this...), but I might just keep it for myself. The woman who helped me explained to me that if you're planning on giving it to someone you're actually supposed to wear it first. That's because the bone will absorb your oils and so by the time you give it to someone it has the oils in it. In a way, you're giving him/her a piece of yourself.

After the bone carving was done, I headed back, packed up, ate some random snacks that were laying around in my bag of food and boarded the bus for Franz Josef.

That's all for now. Franz Josef was an amazing time. I climbed a glacier! Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog entry. Sorry they're so scarce, but the semester is wrapping up here and so I don't have very much free time. Miss you all!