For the entirety of our South Island trip, the other girls were looking forward to Queenstown, but it was kind of sad once we finally arrived because it meant the end of the trip. Literally as soon as we hopped off the bus in front of our hostel we ran into four American boys who live in our apartment complex. It was pretty funny. That was a Sunday night and I left Queenstown Thursday morning.
Queenstown is known as the adventure/excitement capital of New Zealand. It's a huge tourist attraction with the (first or second) highest bungy in the world, skydiving, jet boating, wine tasting, horse riding, luges, and of course plenty of snowboarding. Unfortunately I can't do a lot of those things so my time in Queenstown wasn't quite action packed. We checked into our hostel Sunday night, had dinner and then went out to meet the rest of the Stray people for drinks (we were staying at a different hostel, long story, totally not worth telling). That was somewhat fun/somewhat boring. We came back moderately early, nothing too exciting from memory.
Monday, a few of the girls went bungy jumping. I spent the day exploring the town (mostly shops although I got to the park another day) with Katie. We also met the two girls sharing our room with us in the hostel. They were very sweet and very British. I really enjoyed the random people we met during our travels. These girls had been living in the hostel for months and working to afford to live, drink and shop. Sounds like quite the fun life to me. We had a chill evening on Monday because we were going to Milford Sound. It's legitimately supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. We were worried that we wouldn't be able to go because the road to the Sound had been closed for the past three days due to the flooding. We boarded the bus for the five hour drive (each way) not knowing if the road we needed to take would be open by the time we got there. We needed to board the bus that morning in case the road did open so we could get there on time. Luckily, the road did open and five hours later, we arrived! There's no way my pictures could ever fully show you the beauty, but I'll try anyway:
And finally, one of the best part of my South Island trip available to you in video form:
When we arrived at the Sound we quickly boarded a ship for our two and a half hour cruise. It included commentary, a free muffin, and the opportunity to go underneath a waterfall. It was a really neat experience and worth the ten hour round trip. When we returned we got the world (or at least New Zealand) famous Fergburger. It was THE BEST BURGER OF MY LIFE. It was huge and amazing and delicious. Served with bacon, lettuce, tomato and avocado, it was totally worth the wait and $11. Look at Steph and her burger in all its glory:
The next day was fabulous. Some of the girls went snowboarding, but I had no desire and Katie decided she didn't want to either. While all the girls were spending the day cold, getting bruised, we decided we'd go to the spa and get relaxed. Katie and I decided to get exfoliating body rubs, it was so wonderful. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping. It was a really nice girl's day after a tiring but incredibly enjoyable vacation. At some point during the trip we went to Patagonia, an amazing chocolate shop with expensive, delicious gelato. I also bought Matt and myself a wasabi truffle each. That night we also went out again. It was a strange night, some random, 30-something woman kept trying to get me to dance with her in a deserted bar amongst other things. By the end of the night though, I managed to have a nice time on my last night on the South Island. Thursday, I left for the airport. Unfortunately they made me check my bag... and charged me $80 for it. I was really upset and had budgeted for my trip perfectly and ended up having to pay money ($2 for 15 minutes mind you) to use the internet at the airport in order to transfer money to my eftpos (debit card) and pay for my bag. BUT, the good news is that they had a Patagonia in the airport and I was able to try the legendary hot chocolate before I arrived in Auckland.Well that's about it for my South Island trip. I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Now I can actually start writing about what I want to talk about. Topics for the future include: Formal Dinner, shopping trips, dates with Matt, school, Kiwi-isms and more!
