Wild Wild West

Before I go into my Spring Break, I feel the need to retract my previous post on the whole Mom Approved: New Zealand business. Upon further consideration (ie the 7.3 mag Earthquake that hit the South Island earlier this morning) I have decided (with the counsel of my wise and beautiful sister) that New Zealand may not be so Mom Approved after all. My street cred could be on the rise after all. In all seriousness, the earthquake that hit did not do much damage to the town I live in, other than the damage to my wee heart from being woken up at 4 AM by shaking walls and rattling drawers for about a minute--although my raging imagination managed to work in my favor for once to convince myself it was just a dream and fall right back asleep. No one has been reported hurt yet, the most damage (mostly to cars, roads, and occasional buildings) occurred in the Christchurch area (a few hours straight north) where we have a few friends. Please say your prayers that the toll will remain injury-free.

Now, back to business...I can now say that I have survived not only an earthquake, but a cross country road trip! Barely. For 6 days, me, my two international flatmates from the States, another international student from France, and Dan--the lone Kiwi male who somehow was hypnotized into wanting to spend 6 straight days with 4 crazy girls, squished into a car and piled our belongings so high you could barely see out of any of the windows as we travelled the West Coast of the South Island. I outlined our trip in Purple on this tiny tiny map of the South Island--starting in the bottom right orange star in Dunedin, then up and over to the next orange star--Greymouth, below that is Franz Josef, and the bottom left orange star is Queenstown.

Day 1:

We left at 8 AM on a cloudy Saturday Morning, ready for a week of some serious travelling. Ok, we didn't leave at 8 AM, but we tried. We ended up leaving at about 9:30 I think, which is pretty good--at least we were within 2 hours of our time frame! Our goal was to make it up about half of the South Island and then completely across to the Western Coastline (see above map), passing through the Alps on our way. Normally this is about an 8-10 hour drive, even with stops we managed to make it in about 8, we have a speedy French woman to thank for that....

Our first stop was the Moeraki Boulders--home to the fascinating naturally circular rocks. I managed to scale one, and I have the battle scars to prove it. I'm all smiles here, but when I soon put my thumbs away and look at my bloody pinkie, not so much.

Next came Arthur's Pass, the daunting trek through winding roads barely contained from the steep incline of the mountain, made even more exciting by Mother Nature's onslaught of pouring rain and raging winds. Caution: driving across the South Island is not for the faint of heart nor weak of stomach.

The Weather changed almost instantly a few times up in the mountains, luckily (sarcasm) we handed the wheel over to our French Friend as she said she had mountain driving experience. Apparent English Translation: She can floor the gas pedal through mountain passes as we in the backseat appear to be headbanging in terror as we are thrown around the car waiting for the doors to give way under our incessant crashing into them and the inevitable plunge off of the mountain side. After some severe whiplash where we almost died the 200th time, the clouds thought it would be really funny to terrify us even more by completely dumping the roads with rain, and she slowed (sort of). We survived, somehow.

Day 2:

The Second day was filled with one of my favourite things to do, walk. Now, if you know me, you know I actually am not usually a big fan of walking. I don't dislike it as much as running, but still, if you ask me whether I'd rather bike or walk, it'd be bike; drive or walk, it'd be drive; segway or walk, it'd definitely be segway; ride a sea turtle or walk--I'd be jumping on that turtle... However, it turns out, when I have some beautiful jungles and beaches to admire, I like walking for the first few hours, after which I admit I sort of just got bored. We started out our walking by stopping at one of the gazillion beaches dotting the West Coast to check out the view.

Next, we walked to go look at more rocks. If you think you are having deja vu, don't worry about it, you are. We made quite a few detours to look at New Zealand rocks; don't write it off yet, they're pretty interesting. Anyway, like I was saying, we walked through the "Pancake Rocks" where the rocks have formed to look like stacks of pancakes, and so came to be called "The Pancake Rocks." Straight to the point, just how I like it.

After our second rock-sight-seeing of the trip, we did a "short" lively 4 hour tramp through the New Zealand Rainforest/Jungle/Jurassic Park. No dinosaurs spotted, only prehistoric birds and the faint sensation of being tracked by a pack of Velociraptors.

To top off the evening, we were taken through a short tour of the Monteith's Brewery in Greymouth (where our backpacker's hostel was located). The tour was, interesting... actually to be honest it was pretty boring, the tour site was more like a garage with some scary looking machinery than a brewery, and our guide wasn't really a people person. But afterwards, we tried all the different brews (not my cup of tea err beer, but the apple cider was delicious!!) and even got to pretend to be bartenders and pour a few of our own.

Day 3:

Our third day, we wandered off the beaten treks to a little known spot hidden behind acres of farm land and sheep. We were searching for Natural Hot Pools in the bed of sand surrounding an eroded river bank. Although we did not find any large ones, and didn't have any shovels to dig them out if we had, we managed to find a few smaller ones to soak our feet in.

Our next stop was at the "Roadkill Cafe"--I did not partake of the "Bambi Burger" nor the "Roadkill Toasted Sandwiches," I just observed the eatings from afar.

Afterwards we rushed to our Kiwi Stalking appointment. Yes, you read that correctly, we went Kiwi stalking. Turns out even though Kiwis are only found in New Zealand, they're pretty near impossible to see up close in the wild, and that was our mission, to get close to a wild Kiwi. We succeeded. After running out in the woods to make it to a spot before dusk (Kiwis are nocturnal) we sat/stood for about 45 minutes as it got dark outside a Kiwi den (our guide had a red light to shine on the Kiwi so we could see her without her seeing us). Sure enough, the Momma Kiwi came out, got a whiff of us with her long beak pointed to the sky, and waddled into the bushes. We spent the next few hours stalking her and some of the other Kiwi, but only managed to hear their terifying Angry Cat Screeches as they warned us we were in their territory, and get scared by rustling possums. Although it was freezing cold, and after a few hours the tip toeing in mud got a bit overrated, looking up at the night sky was enough to distract me from this for the few hours. I have never seen so many stars in my life. They were twinkling so much I thought I'd have a seizure. It was absolutely breathtaking.

(The only Kiwis I was allowed to take pictures of--our Kiwi guide, and Kiwi friend leading the group into the Wild Unknown before the Sun went down)

Day 4:

Seeing as we had spent a whole day without looking at rocks, the next day we travelled to the Franz Josef glacier to walk across a desert of rocks (where the glacier used to extend but retreated, leaving behind a bed of rocks that won't grow vegetation for a long time). The glacier was not what I expected. It was icy--that I expected--but it was spring ice, very dirty and really unstable looking. There are tours available to hike the glaciers, but our wallets weren't thick enough to indulge in that danger.

My own tour of the glacier. I'm charging $200 a head to take groups onto this wee glacier for about 30 seconds. I think it'll be a profitable business venture.

One of the many many waterfalls dotting the landscape, complete with rainbow, pot of gold is not included.

The Kea-- aka Forest Parrot who rips the roofs off of cars, just for fun--they weren't hugged enough when they were little I think.

Day 5:

On our last full day of Road Trippin' we drove about 4 hours down to Queenstown--otherwise known as the adventure capital of the world, where the first Commercial Bungee Jump originates (Bungee Jumping in general originates from a tribal rite of passage for boys to enter "manhood," in case you were curious). On our way we stopped at another glacier--Fox Glacier.

Afterwards, we went Penguin Stalking to a beach where supposedly New Zealand Native Yellow Eyed Penguins make their homes. Unfortunately, the Penguins were off catching their lunch, but I did spot a baby fern!! In Maori, the symbol of the curl of the fern symbolizes a new beginning, and is often depicted in Maori artwork.

Of course, because we were taking to the winding roads again, it downpoured.

Queenstown! And more importantly CookieTime--a locally owned Kiwi chain dedicated to the happiness of humanity achieved through the selling of delicious chocolate chip (among others) cookies.

Queenstown at night

Day 6:

For our final day, while my companions risked their lives and spent their moneys jumping off of ledges tied to a measly rope, I walked around Queenstown and enjoyed some gourmet chocolates and freedom.

Goodbye Queenstown!

All in all, we had a wonderful trip. We made it safely to all of our destinations, had a lot of fun, and none of us wanted to kill the other one, yet. Perhaps my luck is on the rise along with my street cred? Only time will tell. Happy New Zealand Father's Day!!

Cheers!