The Scenery of Sarah

The scenery in New Zealand is like nothing else. I have traveled to a lot of beautiful places, but here it’s different. It’s so much more surreal, almost fake. I’m not sure my words could ever describe it or my pictures will ever do it justice. From the rolling hills and mountains (they almost look 3D at times), to the waterfalls and lakes, and the sounds to the glaciers. NZ scenery is breathtaking and never ending.


Amber and I didn’t have one thing planned for this portion of the trip. All we knew was we were going to rent a car from the airport and drive; make plans and find accommodations as we traveled. We knew there would be a lot of driving involved, but until we rented a car and got some advice from an extremely friendly NZ couple on the plane and the car rental agent, we quickly realized 10 days was not going to be enough. There was so much to cover and we ended up being on the go and moving everyday, which took away from our hopes of a relaxing, chill trip.


First Stop (1 night) - Lake Tekapo (Tee-Ka-Poe)
We had hoped to arrive and enjoy a little bit of time in Lake Tekapo for our first night, but it took a little longer than expected. How we managed to get turned around when there is literally only one two lane road that pretty much runs to each major destination in the South Island, is beyond me; but we did. Amber’s first time driving on the left side of the road (she took it right out of the gate at the car rental agency, eager to give it a shot) and my re-adjusting, made up for part of the time and the rest of the time, I can honestly say was due to missed signs or poorly marked road direction changes. Signs in New Zealand are scarce. There is one in each town giving the highway number and the kilometers to the next town (Australia and NZ use kilometers vs. miles). That’s it. It’s rare there is even a sign on the road that details what road you are on. But I always like to see the brightside of things and our hiccups in the road (literally) ended up leaving us driving into the most beautiful sunset as we arrived into Lake Tekapo. It was definitely our first sign of many more beautiful things to come.


Lake Tekapo ended up being a quaint little town. We got to the backpackers (Note - Hostels are referred to as backpackers in Australia and NZ, which isn’t necessarily grammatically correct, but with the bad rap “hostel” gets, I prefer using “backpackers” over “hostel” these days as well) pretty late and there wasn’t much happening in this little town. We decided to finalize our plans for the week and get a good night’s rest for our busy day on Monday. We woke up the following morning and went on a nice run along the lake. We found a cute little park with a teeter tauter and thought “why the heck not”? We were giggling like little school girls – so fun! After our run, we went to Alpine Swim & Spa for a relaxing dip in the hot pools. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect and the pools overlooked the beautiful lake. After the pools, we got on the road to Queenstown, with a quick stop in Twizel for lunch.

Second Stop (2 nights) – Queenstown
Queenstown was originally named because it was fit for a Queen (Queen Victoria), which is a little bit of a contrast to now, as it’s considered the action capital of the world. From bungy jumping to jet boating, 4WD adventures, hiking, and skydiving; they have just about everything. Amber and I preferred to lay low in Queenstown. In addition to it being an outdoor playground, it is the coziest little town and probably my second favorite after Bondi Beach in Australia. Queenstown’s city centre sits right on the lake. It’s cobble stone streets are filled with shops, cafes, and bars. We stayed in a nice little apartment that sat on the lake just up the road from the city center. The first night we had a ton of fun on a mini bar crawl throughout town. Amber decided to go missing for a little while and as I went to go find her, she popped up behind me. She had a smile from ear to ear. She had found Ferg Burger – which are world renowned in New Zealand. Once again we found ourselves laughing and eating and stumbling our way back home – well actually we took a cab, which we were not allowed to get into until we put the Ferg Burger away. Was the cleanest cab I’ve ever seen in my life. Lol!


The following morning we went for a nice long run along the lake and through the beautiful botanic gardens. We had a nice brunch at Joe’s Garage and did a little bit of shopping. We got ready and headed out to the wineries near Queenstown with a quick stop to watch some of the bungy jumpers at the first spot it was started. OMG! Those people are nuts. Amber and I were ready to skydive, but both of us agreed we could not bungy jump. The jumpers were terrified. As they plunged off the bridge, they were dunked into the river below them. Watching was terrifying enough for us. Next stop, Gibston Valley winery/cheesery, which was AMAZING! One of my favorite things in the world is to sit and relax with a glass of wine and nibble (or gorge in this instance) on different types of cheeses, nuts, breads, fruit and spreads. The sun was shining and the atmosphere couldn’t have been more perfect. Unfortunately due to export taxes, it’s extremely expensive to send wine home to the states, so we figured we would by a couple bottles and find a BYOB. That night we headed to town to an Indian restaurant where we enjoyed our bottle of Pinot Gris.


Third Stop (1 night) – Milford Sound
Once again, we got up early to drive several hours to get to the Milford Sound (A sound is a fjord – a long inlet with steep sides in a valley, created by glacial activity). There is one road in and one road out to get there, so we had to do the drive twice, but at least the drive wasn’t boring. Winding roads, waterfall after waterfall, and snow capped mountains. As we got closer to the sound, it got cooler and rainier. Many say the sound is actually much better to see when it’s raining because you see more waterfalls (hundreds). The cruise was nice, but a but underwhelming. This is supposed to be one of the top things to do in NZ, so we can’t quite figure out why were weren’t impressed. Maybe b/c it was raining and foggy and it was difficult to get a good picture of what the sound should look like? The people on our boat weren’t the most exciting either. We did a little kayaking (my first time), drank wine and played some scramble. We definitely agreed that a day trip to the sound would have sufficed.


Fourth Stop (1 night) – Wanaka (Won-a-ka)
The only plans we had for Wanaka were to skydive, but unfortunately, the weather was cloudy with a chance of rain, so they wouldn’t take us up. We were bummed. There really wasn’t much for us to do in Wanaka, so we decided to get on the road to the glaciers a little bit early in hopes to find a place to skydive when we got there.


Franz Joseph Glacier/Fox Glacier (1 night)
Franz Joseph was a town with 1 street of options for leisure. Amber and I found a cozy bar with outdoor heat lamps and finally some good food. Healthy food was quite hard to come by in NZ. All we craved were vegetables and salads, which we finally found here. We had a nice dinner and decided to turn in early for our big day. The following day we woke up early and went on a hike to the Frank Joseph Glacier. At 12km long, it is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. We got to put on spikes and climb pretty far to the top. It was an amazing experience. Our guide used his ice pick to pick away a trail for us as we climbed. There were some little coves that were cut out that we could walk through and get pictures taken. The ice in these spots were the most beautiful blue color. It was definitely a very unique experience.


After the hike, we headed to Fox Glacier to skydive. The weirdest thing was that we weren’t the least bit nervous, just excited that we were finally going to do it, as we both had this as our top priority for NZ. We pulled up and the skydive site was hilarious. Just a few little shack houses and trailers. Looked a bit sketchy to us… But the people were really great. Amber and I had to dive tandem (instructor strapped on our backs) b/c it was our first time, but we were able to fly up together. The pilot literally fit Amber and her tanduem, me and my tandem (all sitting on the floor of the plane) and our pilot. Tight squeeze! The views from the plane were amazing. You could see the glaciers, snow capped mountains. We were only at 3,000 feet and it felt so incredibly high, yet we had another 9,000 to go. We paid for 12,000 feet, but the pilot actually took us to 13,000. When they opened the door, is about the only time I got nervous for a slight second. Hanging out the plane looking out, all I could think was “Am I crazy?”. But it was absolutely the most unreal experience. The freefall was probably 50 seconds to 1 minute. The view over the water and glaciers and mountains were beautiful. Once we pulled the parachute, my tandum let me take out my camera. He got up real close to Amber and her tandem (parachutes almost touching) so we could say hi and take pics of one another. It was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done and can’t wait to do it again (although not sure anything can be as spectacular as skydiving over glaciers in NZ)….


Greymouth (1 night)
That night we drove to Greymouth just to stop and sleep for the night so we didn’t have to drive the full 7 hours to Nelson the next day. Pretty uneventful in Greymouth.


Nelson (1 night)
Nelson was a nice little town. Our main objective was to go to some of the wineries. We hit a few (none that were as exciting as in Queenstown) and headed back to our backpackers. We stayed in a tepee that night which as so fun. There were too mattresses on the floor. We told some ghost stories, made some shadow puppets on the wall and fell asleep to the forest ambiance music on my iphone.

Kaikoura
On our drive from Nelson to Christchurch, we stopped n Kaikoura which is known for whale watching and swimmnig with the dolphins.  Amber and I chose to swim with the dolphins.  As many of you know, groing up I was sort of a freak about the ocean, dolpins, and fish.  Being a swimmer myself, I just loved the water.  But still 31 years later, I had never swam with a dolphins (just fed and pet them at Sea World).  This was my chance.  We took a tour with about 20 people to a few different spots.  The dolphins came out of nowhere.  Hundreds and hundreds of them swimmnig along the boat, jumping out of the water, doing flips in the air.  It was like nothing I've ever seen before.  They dumped us off right in the middle of the ocean and we swam around, making the most ridiculous singing noises to get their attention.  If I could make eye contact with them underwater and swim around in circles, they would swim around and around me until they wore me out.  They were everywhere, just eager to play and tease us.  Definitely a highlight of my trip.


Christchurch (2 nights)
The last 2 nights we spend in Christchuch. We were ready to just chill out since we had been on the go every day. Just excited to be in one spot for more than 1 night. I was under the weather with a bad cold, which was not fun. I found a Dr. in Christchurch (as I wanted to be sure I didn’t have anything crazy before heading to Asia). The Dr. in Christchurch was amusing. I won’t go into details. But basically I was in and out of there in about 10 mins. I just decided to relax. We had a nice dinner at Winnibegoes Pizza one night which was tasty and I got to Skype with my family finally!!


Next Stop. Thailand!!