I'm Home!

It still feels a bit surreal, but I'm home. I managed to stay up until 11pm last night, despite having flown for over 24 hours.

The last few days were great. I tried selling my car which was an interesting experience and packed up my stuff. Sean was sick, so I tried to spend as much time as possible with him, but he was a bit boring. We had dinner on Mt. Eden (where we had our first date) as my last meal in NZ.

Sunday night I had a potluck with all my friends. We had so much food I felt like I was going to burst and almost couldn't fit in dessert. Somehow I managed and we had a great time. I was really glad I got to see everyone before I left.

To throw in a surprise for my mom when I landed, I decided to die the ends of my hair pink before leaving. Sadly it faded a lot quicker than I expected, but it was still enough to surprise her.

I got a phone number today, so if you want it, let me know. Can't wait to see everyone and catch up.

My Final Days: South Island

The trip to Queenstown started off amazing. We were hoping that my weather luck would stay with us and it sure did. Not a cloud in the sky when we arrived. I'm not normally a fan of taking pictures out the window, but the mountains were too cool not to.

We picked up our beautiful rental car and went for a drive along the devil's staircase. It was beautiful, but the sun was starting to go behind the mountains, so its still not on par with the beauty I first saw it in. There was so much snow around that I didn't really expect, but it was cool to see the city in a different light since this was my 4th trip. The next day we woke up and did the gondola and luge, followed up by some frisbee golf, despite the temperature hanging right around freezing all day. Spenser stayed in Queenstown for a few more days and Sean and I headed off to Dunedin.

On our way to luge with the city in the background

The luge track!

The roads were quite icy and we left in the midst of it snowing, but we made it safe and sound, though a bit behind schedule. There were some beautiful towns along the way and we took some photo stops to get a break from driving.

Its snowing on us!

We arrived in Dunedin just in time to sneak in a Speights brewery tour. I mistakenly thought the time was an hour later than it was, so we ended up walking around the city for a bit first. Even though I had done the tour before, I learned some new things and it was fun to do again.

The next day we did the Cadbury tour, walked around town again, went to the art museum and then headed out to the peninsula. We did some really neat walks, despite almost being blown over and then headed to a beach where we watched a few penguins come in for the day and some sea lions laying about. One of them almost tried to chase me down.

Wouldn't you want to be one of these sheep?

Its so windy that the trees are just permanently at an angle.

Sandfly bay

This was fun to walk down, and not as much back up!

Penguin!!

Dunedin at night!

Baldwin Street, the steepest residential street in the world

Tuesday we spent the day driving to Mt Cook. We stopped at the Moeraki Boulders, naturally rounded boulders that have come ashore. We also stopped at the Elephant rocks, the natural landscape used as Aslan's camp in the Narnia movies. We accidentally drove past it first and stumbled upon another trail with a really neat landscape. We finally got to our room for the night set right on Lake Pukaki right near the base of the mountains with a perfect view of Mt. Cook. We got extremely lucky with the weather again and got some wonderful views of the mountain, which was good because it was clouded in the rest of the time we were there. The lake has a natural bright blue hue due to the glacier rock sediment.

Moeraki Boulders

Elephant Rocks - Where Narnia was filmed

Lake Pukaki with Mt. Cook in the background

We woke up early the next morning and tried to do a hike in the mountains to the base of a glacier. We made it about halfway into the 4 hour return hike and decided to turn around, but we had seen everything we wanted to. The trail was quite icy and the rain was coming in, so we decided it would be best to turn back around instead of hiking an additional two hours in the rain. It was incredible how the mountains were in a giant cloud and overcast, but just as the mountains ended there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The mountains were too pretty, so I took WAY too many pictures, but I have tried to narrow them down.

We did another short walk to the base of the tasman glacier and then headed off to Lake Tekapo for the afternoon.

Tasman Glacier

Blue lake - Frozen over

Lake Tekapo was absolutely stunning. The lake is known for its blue color and the pictures I took don't do it justice. We were really lucky it was a sunny day out (my weather luck was still with us). I thought the view by the water's edge was as pretty as it could get, but then we drove up to the top of Mt. John and had even more stunning views. It was the only pictures Sean took the entire trip (other than a few of the sea lions fighting). I could have stayed up there all day (minus the wind and cold).
 

There was a chapel on the waterfront and this was the view from inside

This is the chapel from the previous picture

The view from Mt. John

We drove the next day to Christchurch to fly home. We stopped at Peel Forest along the way. The trail we wanted was closed, but we were able to do a short trail to a massive tree. We got into Christchurch early and walked around a bit. A lot more of the city is accessible from the last time I was there, so it was interesting to see the progress (and a lot more of the destruction). It was interesting how much effort they have put into making the construction sites of the city center pretty. Most of the fences have decorative patterns on them and construction walls have been painted. Even shipping containers on the side of the road put in place to protect drivers from potential landslides have been covered with different artistic displays. Despite many road closures and extremely confusing maps, we managed to make it to the airport on time and catch our flight home safe and sound.

It's going to be a busy few days, but hopefully it will keep me from being sad about having to leave. I'm excited to get to see everyone and can't wait for some good Texas heat.

My final days: North Island

My leaving day is looming close. My bags are out and starting to get packed. With four days left, it's all getting real. Fortunately I was able to spend the past two weeks traveling around enjoying myself and soaking up as much of the country as possible. I did a lot and took way more pictures than reasonable, so I'm going to do it in two posts.

The first Saturday Sean and I went to Waiheke Island. It is just an hour ferry ride off the coast of Auckland and full of beautiful scenery and wineries. When I was waitressing one of my customers tipped me a free lunch for me and a friend at his vineyard restaurant on the island. We had tried to go a few times, but it never worked out, so I was quite excited that I finally got a free day and the weather was absolutely beautiful (which it hadn't been in about a month, so that was somewhat surprising).

Can you believe it's the middle of winter?

We arrived at the island, explored a local beach a bit and then headed to the vineyard. The view was stunning and we were greeted in the most friendly and personal of ways. Though it was indoors, all of the walls were glass so the view wasn't inhibited. When the hostess realized I was sitting with the sun in my eyes, she quickly dug up a few pairs of sunglasses for me to borrow and a large hat selection in case I was interested. I asked what my "free meal" would include, expecting restrictions, and they said whatever we wanted. The menu had a selection of tapas and a few mains that each fed two. We each ordered a glass of wine and one of the mains and the waiter insisted we order more. He picked not one, but three tapas for us to have as well. I was a bit nervous because they were all vegetable dishes, and if you know me, I don't eat vegetables, but I said I would try them. None of the plates had anything left on them in the end. It was all incredible. Then the pork dish came out. It could have fed three people, but it was so amazing we somehow managed to demolish that too. The waiter told us he had more drinks coming for us as well (we had already had two glasses and finished the meal). I don't drink white wine either, but the pinot gris I had was one of best glasses of wine I have ever had. I tried to buy a bottle but they said they were too low on stock so it wasn't for sale anymore. I bought a bottle of the wine Sean liked since it was his birthday the next day and both the waiter and the hostess came running over because they thought I was trying to pay for my meal. They kept insisting I couldn't pay for anything and calmed down once I told them I was buying a bottle to take home. The hostess ended up being the wife of the man who gave me the tip and we had a lovely conversation about the winery and what her husband does. In the end we didn't have much more time to explore the island but the both of us were so satisfied we didn't care too much. We totaled up what our meal would have cost and it came out to around $180. I was absolutely stunned at how well we were treated, especially considering we weren't paying anything for the meal. Best tip I ever got!

The winery

The view from our table

We found awesome chairs carved out of old tree stumps.

On Sunday my friend Spenser arrived from the good old USA and we did some exploring around Auckland. I managed to find new places I hadn't seen before. It was another beautiful day out, despite the forecast.

 
Monday we headed to Rotorua and stopped at Mt. Maunganui along the way. We got a great deal on white water rafting in Rotorua, so despite the fact that I forgot to bring my bathing suit along, we headed down the river. We went down the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world, at 7m high, and had some fun in the rapids. It was the last day of the season before they dumped some of the water out of the river, so we rafted it at its highest level possible.

View from Mt. Maunganui

and then the rain started coming

yep, that's us

Hot spring in Rotorua

We explored town a bit and then headed down to Taupo. One of the girls on our rafting trip was from Hawaii and she ended up hopping in the car with us and heading to Taupo as well. On the way we stopped and did a hike at the Rainbow Mountain Track. The views were incredible and it was probably my highlight of that leg of the trip.

In the background you can see Tongariro

You can see Lake Rotorua in the background

We got into Taupo and saw a lot of the things I did last time, so I didn't take too many pictures, though it was just as cool as the first time. We happened to be in the area of the dam around the time it was due to open, so we figured we would head over and watch it. It was absolutely gorgeous and we were glad we got to see it. It was incredible how quickly the water rose and how intense it got.

The pool of water under the dam right before the water got to it.

On our way back to Auckland from Taupo we stopped, at Spenser's request, at Hobbiton where they filmed the shire scenes in Lord of the Rings. It was really neat to see the detail they put into the set. The amount of work they put into something that was maybe shown for half a second was incredible. After the first movie the sets were all removed and fake duplicates put in place, but after the Hobbit movie they decided to leave it all up. It was really cool to get to see the original sets despite not really having seen the movies.

We got really lucky with the weather again and it started raining just as we were leaving the tour. We headed up to Auckland to unpack and repack for our flight to Queenstown the next morning. See the next post for those adventures.