Wellington

Like I said, we got to Wellington on Friday night and headed to our hostel. The picture below is a little blurry, but it is the only one I took of the city. In all reality, if anyone has ever been to Minneapolis or some other city, you could think this picture was from there. The only difference between this city and Minneapolis was that there were a lot more shops and everything was kind of outdoors. That's one thing I like about New Zealand...all the shops are in strip malls and you walk outside to get from one to the other. There is the occasional small little indoor shopping center, but it's usually only a few shops or like a food court. They don't have monstrous indoor shopping centers like they do in the States. It probably has to do with the fact that it doesn't get as cold here so it's easy to walk outside so much, but that's why I enjoyed it.

We had heard about a night market down in the city, so we decided to check it out on Friday night. We had to walk about twenty minutes, but it was nice getting to explore the city. When we got there, there was this Cuban Festival going on (on Cuba Street) where everyone was dancing and there was some band playing music. The music reminded me of the kind of music I would hear at a resort in the Dominican Republic. It really made me want to go lie down on a beach somewhere and relax. I think this kind of thing happens every week because there were so many people dancing the same way. It wasn't just random. It was fun to watch and very festive. Once we walked past this, there was another street to walk down which is where the night market was. This street had so much food! Usually markets consist of little crafts or other things people make to sell. This one maybe had one jewelry stand and one stand with someone selling like jam or something, and everything else just seemed like a food truck festival. There were so many wonderful smells and sounds. It was pretty overwhelming because I don't know how anybody could ever decide what to buy since it all looked so great. 

I wasn't too hungry, but eventually Shaina and Courtney decided on a Mexican restaurant that was right next to some guy playing some live music outside. It was a really fun place to sit down and eat some food. After the market we headed back to our hostel. We saw these huge lights in the sky and then heard some music over to the side, so we decided to go and check it out. It turns out they had an ice rink set up for a couple weeks for people to skate on (I think it's a pretty big deal since ice arenas aren't as common here as they are in the States). They had different competitions such as dance offs and there was a DJ playing music. We wanted to skate, but it was pretty expensive and since we were reaching the end of our trip, we realized we didn't have much money left. Instead we just hung out for a little bit and listened to music before continuing home.

We were all pretty tired, so when we got back to our hostel we just kind of hung out and then went to sleep. On Saturday morning, we had another market planned and we were going to explore the city during the day. We woke up and got a nice bacon, egg, and toast breakfast from our hostel. It was probably the best breakfast we had had since being on our trip. 

Our bus didn't leave until 7:30 that night, so we had plenty of time to go around and explore Wellington. We began by heading the same way we had walked the night before. We were told there were plenty of markets, so we set out looking for the Underground Market. It was a neat city with the ocean right there. So many people were running along the coast it was crazy. I always thought I was the only one who ever ran in this country, but so many people were running here. I would if I had such a nice place to work out.

We found the market and it was inside a parking garage. This market was a lot more like the kind of market we thought we were going to the night before. There was hardly any food except for a few stands scattered throughout. Most of the stands were handmade jewelry, clothes, scarves, or other little crafty pieces and decorations. 

It actually kind of reminded me of what inside the Grand Stand is like at the State Fair (only a lot less fancy). It was fun to walk around it, but since a lot of the items were homemade, they were really expensive. We couldn't afford much down there. 

After the market we headed to the Te Papa Museum. Te Papa is one of the most popular museums in New Zealand, so even though we knew we didn't have that much time, we definitely took the time to go and check it out!This museum was crazy huge. It was kind of similar to the Settlers Museum we went to in Dunedin, only instead of focusing on the history and origins of people and their inventions, it focused on various parts of history and earth. There were six different levels, and there were different focuses on each level. The second through sixth floor all had exhibitions. Some you had to pay for and others were free. The first area we looked at was on the second floor called "Mountains to Sea". It focused on different environmental features. There was a section dedicated to volcanoes, earthquakes, flooding, and then on New Zealand's land structure. It was really interesting. I got to stand inside of a little house that reenacted an earthquake. Maybe it's because I knew it wasn't real, but it didn't feel as intense as it was saying. It was neat because they had a bunch of different activities for the people to do while looking at the features. Plus, there were little things you could read about, and it talked about these environmental factors have impacted New Zealand. There was even a little room that talked about the Earth's core and allowed you to look at different elements and videos explaining it. 

Next we went to a section devoted to explaining the key facts about the places in New Zealand. They had the whole map of New Zealand on the floor on a grid. You could step on a square and then something would light up on the wall for you to read. It was cool looking at the different information you could find from looking at various places we had been around New Zealand. 

I don't really know what the point of the next room was, but it was fun. They had all these touch screen computers set up and you could take your picture or take a video. Then there was this huge screen along the opposite wall where you could drag your picture onto. It was crazy how it worked because there were all these pictures on the computer that people had taken. It kind of reminded me of outer space. You just had to search and drag the screen until you found your picture and then drag it to the place so that it would post on the wall. Then they had these magic wands that you could play with and you could do things like move the pictures, flip the pictures, and draw on the pictures. It was pretty entertaining and it was fun seeing our faces all over the big screen.

After that room we went up a floor that focused on the history of the people. There were a lot of different rooms that talked about the people as they settled here way back when. There was this hologram set up with a ship that was the story of a girl coming over on a ship. She explained how it all worked and then talked about what it was like. It was pretty cool. Everything else was similar to the Settlers Museum. They talked about the Maori people and the history that relates to that. It's interesting reading about some of the stories between New Zealanders and Maori people because it seems like it is pretty similar to the history of Native Americans and US people (although I'm sure it was much more peaceful in New Zealand). 

We went up one final floor and it dealt a lot with some recent history. One room that was cool was a fashion room. It was a long hall with a bunch of really abstract outfits. There had just been a fashion week in Wellington, so the dresses and outfits were created by students from that. They had videos of plays in which these outfits were being made. Some were really interesting because they were all made out of a certain material or representing something. They were definitely really unique. Other parts of the floor talked about issues from the 1900s such as abortion and birth control and gay marriage. It's interesting reading about how other countries dealt with these issues. They also had little sections devoted to just the general way of life of people in the late 1900s. It was pretty cool like all the other floors. There was so much we didn't do. You could seriously spend an entire day just on one floor, so we knew we wouldn't get to everything on all six floors in only a couple hours. We were still satisfied with what we went and saw though, so that was good! 

After the museum, we decided to just walk around and look for a place to eat dinner before we had to catch our bus. On the way, we ran into a building called "The Art of Dr. Seuss". Unfortunately I only have a picture of the sign because you can't take pictures inside the building. It was really only one room with paintings displayed. They had little descriptions about them and there were some plaques on the boards with some background information. The paintings were also for sale, and it was crazy how expensive some of them were. I think I saw a painting in there that was $7000. Now I'm sure this is pretty standard, but since I don't know anything about art or art galleries, that seems like a lot. 

We kept on walking and just checking out little shops until it was eventually time to eat. We had not eaten Irish food yet, so we found an Irish Pub to sit outside at and have our last meal of vacation together. I got Bangers and Mash since it seemed like a pretty Irish dish, and it was really good. It felt like a nice home-cooked meal which is why I liked it. Shaina and Courtney had been craving Fettuccine Alfredo and this restaurant had that, so everyone was happy! We took our time and then eventually had to head to the bus station. It was by our hostel (which we were luckily allowed to keep our stuff at for the day) so we picked up our stuff and headed over. 

They had a small little shop called 9 3/4 so of course I had to take a picture...and if you don't know why I had to take a picture of that then we can't be friends (Just kidding...kinda).

We hung out at the bus station for about half hour before our bus arrived. We were taking an InterCity bus, and it was taking us on an overnight trip back home. When it pulled up, we realized it had an upstairs, so of course we had to get a spot up there! I stood at the front of the line while Shaina and Courtney got my luggage packed underneath. We were the first ones on so we went straight up to the back row. It was perfect because we wanted to be able to sleep, so we had a whole 5 seats to ourselves. Unfortunately our bus kept making stops, so I gave some guy the window seat and just sat in the middle by Shaina and Courtney. We made a few stops around Wellington and then headed north. We went to Napier, Taupo, Rotorua, and then Auckland. We got to take a couple bathroom breaks and breaks for a snack, but it was the middle of the night, so everyone was pretty groggy. I didn't sleep very well because I was in the middle seat with nowhere to rest my head on either side of me. Eventually at about 6:20 the next morning (almost an 11 hour bus ride) we arrived in Auckland. We had about an hour before getting on our bus to Thames, so we walked to Denny's and had breakfast. 

After Denny's we were on another bus to Thames where Petro was waiting for us at the station. It felt good to be back in Thames, but obviously we were sad our trip had come to an end. It was definitely the adventure of a lifetime, and we couldn't have been happier with how it had turned out. After that, it was just two weeks of teaching and then time to come back home. We were all pretty exhausted that Sunday we got back. We just did laundry and lounged around. After dinner, we had to get right back into working mode because we were all headed to school and all teaching again in the morning!

Picton And Our Ferry Trip To The North Island!

Friday morning we woke up early to pack our things for the ferry. We were getting rid of Fran that day, so we really had to go through our food and other items to see what we were keeping and what we were throwing. It was really nice having our car for extra storage for the two weeks, so we had to figure out how to pack everything back up into our suit cases. We ate breakfast at Burger King in order to get WiFi to figure out where we were going, and then we headed on our way for our last mini road trip with Fran to Picton. Picton was only about half hour away from Blenheim, so it wasn't too bad of a drive.

When we got to Picton, we had about 3 hours before we had to check in to the ferry, so we decided to do some shopping. This town was much smaller than some of the towns we had been in while in the South Island. There was basically only one street with shops on it, kind of like how some of the cities are in the North Island.

It's pretty funny because the way parking works in these cities is that different spots along the streets allow you to be parked there for different amounts of time. If we were in one that was for a half hour, what you do is when you come back to your car you look to see if it has been chalked by the police. If it has, that means you have half hour to move it. If your car hasn't been chalked yet, you are still good. Basically the chalk says when they started counting the half hour. Well, we didn't know this when we were down in Dunedin. We had been parked somewhere overnight (we weren't sure if it was legit or not), but we just decided to do it since we were leaving early the next morning. I was about to eat breakfast when Shaina comes running in from outside saying "guys, I just saw a police man come up and chalk our car! I don't think we were supposed to be there. We have to go!" So we quickly picked up the rest of our things, jumped in the car, and drove off. That is definitely the fastest we had ever gotten out of somewhere. We didn't know what that meant at the time, so we thought maybe they were marking the car tire to get towed. We parked down the street and looked at our tire and the chalk was gone (which is the point of the chalk) so we felt a little better. When we got to Queenstown, we realized what it meant and then just laughed at ourselves. But anyways, by the time we got to Picton, we were pros at moving our car when we were chalked, so we just kept moving our car until we were done shopping. 

We walked down to the water which had a really pretty bay with a nice park. There were a lot of boats docked in the bay, and you can see one of the ferrys in the distance a little to the left. Picton is the only city you can leave from to take the ferry back, so I think this is what helps keep this small town going. We had a little snack before going to figure out the ferry situation and return our car.

The ferry company that we went with was Bluebridge. It worked out great because our car rental service allowed us to just give the ferry people our car key so we didn't have to worry about transporting our luggage. It was also super helpful because this place had free WiFi in all of their buildings and even on their ferry! I didn't really use it on the ferry, but it is still always nice when you can find somewhere with free WiFi.

We checked our luggage so we didn't have to deal with it and then picked up our boarding passes. If we had wanted to take our car we could have...the ferry was HUGE with a carpark and everything. It was more expensive to bring our car and we had decided we were taking a bus back to Thames from the bottom of the North Island, so we didn't need our car. Once we got onto our ferry we choose a spot outside to sit while we set off.

I was actually surprised by the number of people who decided to sit inside. Maybe it's because they take the ferry a lot so it really isn't anything special to them. It wasn't super cold or anything, but it was kind of windy, so maybe people didn't like that. The view was really pretty though from up on top. I kept looking behind the boat and along side of the boat in hopes to see dolphins...no luck though.

Like I said, it was pretty windy outside, so it was really hard to take a decent picture without my hair blowing in my face. The ride started off in a little channel with mountains on one side and hills on the other, and then eventually we could see some land to one side and just open ocean to the other. It was cool.

The total ride was about 4 hours in length. We got some lunch down below and ate it outside and then we all kind of just did our own thing. I went to look around the outside of the boat at the different scenery and to look for dolphins while Shaina read her book and Courtney slept. It was cool going around and exploring the ship because I have never been on a cruise or anything so I've never been on a boat that big. I know that this ferry is not even close to what a cruise ship is like, but there were still different sitting rooms and compartments for people to sleep and different bars and cafes. I have been on a ferry before, but the ride was only like a half hour, so it was a much smaller boat. It was kind of like a mini cruise experience I suppose. 

Eventually the sun started setting which was really cool because it made for some really pretty views. As we were heading into Wellington, you could start to see the city buildings and the city lights turning on. Once the sun started setting, it was getting really cold, so I eventually went to go sit inside when I had already seen the city of Wellington from a distance. I was probably inside for about 15 minutes before our boat was docked and we were ready to get off of it. 

We got off the ferry and went to get our luggage. We didn't have a car anymore, but luckily our hostel was right across the street from where our ferry dropped us off. We headed over there and checked in. We didn't exactly know what we wanted to do in Wellington, but it was the largest city we had been in so far so we were excited! 

It was weird to be back on the North Island again, but we knew our trip wasn't over quite yet. We still had the rest of the night and the next day to explore Wellington before taking our night bus back, so we were ready to make the most of our last couple days! 

Blenheim

On Thursday, we left Christchurch without really doing anything there and headed to Blenheim. We drove along the East Coast. It was really cool because the scenery was so different compared to what we had seen the past few days. We could still just barely see the mountains of Arthur's Pass in the background, so it was sad to say goodbye to them. The drive was still really pretty because there was a lot of green and we were back to green hills like in the North Island. We drove through the city of Kaikora which was cool. We were right up along the coast and the shore was pretty rocky which was neat. I even saw some seals just chillen around in the rocks! It's always more fun seeing things like that when you know you could have missed it.

Luckily once we were in this area we were able to see some mountains again. Kaikora is well known for their whale and dolphin tours. We didn't have the time to take a tour, plus I'm sure it would have been expensive, so we didn't do it. It would have been really cool though to see a whale because the only time I've ever seen one is on TV or one time at Seaworld. We turned off onto a lookout, though and the view was incredible!

There were mountains in the background, green grass, and beautiful blue water. It wasn't a huge town, but it sure was beautiful.  It was really interesting being on the coast of the ocean and then seeing mountains in the background. It just seems like two things that I wouldn't think could be so close together. Maybe because the water was so clear and the grass was so green and it was pretty warm out, so it didn't seem like we should be seeing snow anywhere.

After taking the slight detour it was finally time to enter Wine Country. Blenheim and surrounding areas are well known for their white wines whereas the red wines are more common down south by Queenstown and where we bungee jumped. Since Courtney and I like white wine more and Shaina just likes all white wine, we decided to do our tour here. It is such a pretty view driving through vineyards on all sides of you. They take up so much room and it is crazy to think how much land these vineyards take up. We wanted to find our hostel first to see if he had any suggestions for where to go, so we headed to our hostel called Grapevine Backpackers (clever I know).

Since it was about 1:30 when we got there, we knew we wouldn't have time to go to many of the vineyards. He showed us a map and there were just TONS you could choose from all over the place. We were really hungry, so we asked him which one had restaurants attached. We ended up going to a winery called Wither Hills. We felt super classy being there since it seemed like a really nice place.

When we got there, it as once again a beautiful day so we wanted to sit outside. Our host told us that they had just filled the last table outside with people which bummed us out. However, then she said we could sit and have some food and wine on bean bags right in the sun. How can you turn that down?! This made us feel even classier.

Once we ordered, they let us go do a free tasting while we waited for our food. We then picked out a bottle that we all liked to share. I got a vegetarian cheesecake to eat. It sounds weird I know, but it was basically a mixture of vegetables with a few different cheeses and a crust (maybe some of you could have worked that one out on your own). It was so good and went perfectly with our beverage. I would definitely go back to that place! They gave us a center bean bag with a wooden board to set our food on so that's what we got to eat on. It was such a fun and different experience. 

Because we know that wine and cheese go well together, we went to another winery called Geisens for a tasting and then bought a cheese and vintage platter. We got some sea food, some bread, some dips, and plenty of cheese. We definitely didn't need it after our lunch, but it only seemed appropriate. This one had a different feel to it than the other one. It felt more like Italy or something. I like the first place better, but this one still had a neat environment as well.

We headed back to our hostel to figure out what to do in the town of Blenheim. We eventually decided to just go out for an appetizer (way after eating everything for lunch) at a place suggested by the guy working at our hostel. It was cool because we ended up meeting two more Americans! They were a bit older than we were, but we were like the only people at this place so we just joined tables and hung out. They were originally from Chicago and are brothers. Now one lives in Washington D.C. and the other lives in Japan. It's always fun hearing people's stories as to why they are in New Zealand. These guys were just traveling, but it is still fun to hear. Once it got pretty late we decided to go back to our hostel to crash. 

The next day we were headed on the ferry in Picton back to the North Island. We couldn't believe we were already leaving the South Island, but we still had a couple days of our trip left so we were ready to make the most of it!

Arthur's Pass

On Wednesday morning it was time to depart from Franz Josef and depart from Nathan, Mitchell, and John for good. They were headed back to Queenstown and we were continuing up the coast and then driving back to Christchurch along Arthur's Pass. We left pretty early in the morning to blue skies and nice crisp weather. We knew we had quite a bit of driving ahead of us so we gave ourselves plenty of time to stop for air and to walk around. We didn't really know what to expect on Arthur's Pass, but everyone was telling us that was how we should get back across to the East side. 

We left Franz Josef and then headed back along the coast. We drove up the West Coast for about an hour before it was time to head down Arthur's Pass. The roads were really windy, but we were getting used to that. Again, people back at school were so shocked to hear that we had really good weather because I guess it is usually pretty crappy on the coast. The beginning of the drive was really pretty, we could see mountains all around us, and the view was great since the skies were so blue. There were a couple of places where we stopped to take a look out. 

Although Arthur's Pass is the name of the road that took us from one side to the other, there is also a town along the road called Arthur's Pass. We decided to stop here and ask someone where a good walk was. The lady we asked told us to go and do the Devil's Punch Bowl. We drove to where she told us it started and then began our walk. The walk only took about 30 minutes, and then we were at a nice waterfall that I would assume was the Devil's Punch Bowl.  I really don't know why it is called that. It was a really pretty view.

The walk felt really nice since we had been in the car for a couple hours, but once again it was time to continue our journey. The roads were really curvy still has we drove up and around the different mountains. We found a fun place to stop and take a picture, so we took advantage of that! You can see how wonderful the weather was. Even people we talked to here who have driven on Arthur's Pass before were amazed by the view.

Since we were getting pretty attached to our car, Shaina thought it was the perfect place to stop and get pictures with her. It almost looks photoshopped, but I swear it's not! I'm not the only one who posed with Fran, Shaina and Courtney did as well. We were tempted to send the pictures to our rental car company so they could potentially use them as advertisements! If only, right?

Once we had that out of our system, we kept on driving. We came to this place called Castle Hill and I saw some rocks in the distance that looked pretty cool so I had Shaina pull over to look at them. It turns out that you can actually walk up to them and explore, so we did! They were so cool because they seemed like they shouldn't be there. I have no idea why they are there or how they got there. The only piece of information we found was that the Mauri people used to use some of them as shelter during storms and other bad weather.

As we ventured up, the rocks just kept getting bigger and bigger. It was so amazing We spent a good chunk of our time just climbing up them and exploring them. There was such a huge area where the rocks were that there was plenty to keep us busy. I found the prime relaxing/ reading location!

I think the weather definitely helped to make this place seem pretty magical. It was by far one of Shaina's favorite spots. I know I talk about how nice the weather was, but we were told before going down to the South Island that it would be cold and rainy most of the time we were here, so we just kept getting so lucky!

When it was time to go back down the hill, we hit some trouble. We didn't want to go back down the way we came because we had to climb on some rocks that we would probably not be able to climb down on safely. We kept following little paths, but sometimes we hit dead ends where we would have to jump like 15 feet, which I didn't think I could do successfully. I also realized how strong I was when I was able to prevent this rock from rolling down the hill.

After wearing ourselves out playing in the rocks, we headed back to our car and continued to Chirstchurch. When Zac had given us ideas of things to do in the South Island before we left (since he used to live in Christchurch) he told us where a really good pie place was on Arthur's Pass. In all reality, Zac basically gave us a food tour...the Cadbury Factory, Speights Tour, custard squares to look out for, cupcakes in Queenstown, fudge in Arrowtown, and now the pies in Darfield on Arthur's Pass. We found the city and bought some pies...they were of course DELICIOUS! That is one thing I am definitely going to miss about New Zealand, their pies. It's not just sweet pies like apple or strawberry. They make pies with like mince and cheese, steak and cheese, pepper and steak, thai chicken, and the list just goes on and on. They are such a hearty meal and really not too expensive (although I'm sure they're terrible for you). They are essentially chicken pot pies with the various fillings inside. 

Once we were stuffed and satisfied, we headed into Christchurch. Unfortunately we hit traffic which was like the first time since being in New Zealand. I was driving and I've driven in plenty of traffic, so it wasn't too bad. We had booked a hostel at the YMCA. We had our own room (which was awesome) and it felt more like a hotel than a hostel. We didn't mind though since it was nice getting a bit of luxury. We knew we were headed to a new city in the morning, so we really didn't have anything planned for the day. We watched a movie and then went to sleep. It was a very adventurous day, so it felt good to just relax in our own room. We only had a couple more destinations on our agenda, so we were off again in the morning!

Franz Josef Glacier

So these next couple days in Franz Josef were so relaxing and amazing. We left Wanaka at about 8 in the morning to head up the west coast. We had been told that it is almost always raining on the west coast and you rarely get a good day. However, just like our trip had been going, we had a beautiful day to drive up it! We even told some of the staff that it was a nice day when they did this and they were so surprised. I swear we were taking the good weather with us. It had started off kind of gross outside when we left Wanaka and drove through the mountains, but once we were clear of those it was wonderful. The drive was probably about 3 to 4 hours total to Franz Josef. 

On our way, we got stopped by a farmer moving his cows. Now, I never really realized back home that cows switch paddocks every so often to eat different grass or whatever they do, but after seeing all the huge paddocks here all belonging to one person, I figured out how it all kind of worked. I thought it was interesting that they moved because I have never actually seen a farmer move his cows before...until now. I was driving and I looked ahead and all of a sudden I see a bunch of cows trotting towards me. I slowed town and stopped and then saw the farmer. They came towards the car, and then the farmer turned them around to go the other way. It was crazy because he was like talking to them and doing things with his hands and they understood that it meant to turn around. It was so weird. Then the dogs jumped off the four wheeler and started running around and bringing them together. It was so cool seeing how well trained all the different animals were. Then they all started marching in the other direction and we just followed closely behind. Luckily we weren't in a rush because we were delayed by like ten minutes (I know that's not even that long). It was also interesting watching the cows because they would swoop into the gate of a paddock, realize it was closed, and then just keep going forward. Eventually they found the open one and just went in. Some people may find this really boring, but I've never really experienced anything like it, so I enjoyed it. Plus, if you've heard the song Wobble (speaking now to the younger people reading this if there are any), that song was playing in our car, so we were crying laughing because the way the cows were trotting had their hips bouncing to the beat. It was great.

After that there was really only another half hour or so before we got to Franz Josef / Glacier Country. Since the American guys wanted to go to the glacier as well, we booked a six person hostel with them at a place called The Chateau France. It was by far one of my favorite hostels. It really felt like a resort where we could all just hang around. It was really cozy and had free wifi which was a huge plus for us since we were always trying to find it. They also gave us free toast and cereal in the morning along with vegetable soup for dinner each night. It was a great hostel because it didn't even feel like one. At this place I really felt like I was on vacation.

At this place all six of us shared one hostel with it's own bathroom and mini fridge. It was like we had booked a Hilton Suite I swear. Plus since we knew everyone staying there we were a lot more at ease with our things (hence the huge mess...don't judge. Mom and Dad you'll be pleased to know that none of that is my mess!)

We checked into the hostel and since the weather was kind of blah (not terrible by all means, just not the greatest) we were just going to hang around the hostel and then go to the glacier the next day. We didn't want to risk it being gross weather on our way to see the glacier so we were all find with a day to just catch up with ourselves. Right away one of the workers pulled out a slack line and had us all practicing walking across it. He gave us an hour to practice and said if we could make it across from one side to the other on our own then we could have a free nights stay. I can barely walk well on land, so I knew I wasn't going to get the free night, but John got pretty close. I think the pressure got to him in the end. I wasn't too bad when I could hold on to Courtney's shoulder. I could maybe take like a step and then fall. I was afraid of falling and breaking my ankle since you fall kind of dramatically since you never know how bad you'll lose your balance. It's really hard to get up onto it without holding onto someone. You really have to have good balance. It was actually pretty addicting. We all just wanted to keep trying. Unfortunately, we all had to pay for our night's stay.

After the competition, the worker said that he knew someone who drove a Hummer Limo and that we could have it pick us up if we wanted. Of course we were all for that! We went to the store to get ingredients for dinner so we could be all ready to go by the time the limo was there. We made a pasta dish with vegetables and bread. It was really nice having a home-cooked meal for once. You can see me and Shaina hard at work while all the guys did the cooking!

After dinner the limo came and picked us up! It was really fun because we all felt super fancy. It turns out our limo driver's name was Bang Bang. We really didn't go far in it. It basically drove us around for a few minutes and then dropped us off at a place where we could play some free pool. Although it was a short ride, it was still pretty fun!

We just hung out after that and made our plans for the next day. It was supposed to be really nice again, so we knew it was a great day to go and see the glacier. There are two glaciers within an hour of each other. One is called the Fox Glacier and the other is the Franz Josef Glacier. Since we found a hostel in Franz Josef, this is the glacier we decided to go and see. We were told that both are pretty similar so it didn't really matter which one you went to. 

On Tuesday morning we got up and got our free breakfast. Then we headed to the glacier. It was about a twenty minute drive since we had to go over a ton of speed bumps. It really wasn't that far from our hostel. Then once we parked it was about a half hour walk up to the glacier. It was a really pretty walk with more waterfalls! I've seen so many on this trip but I'm still not sick of them. It was a really clear day out with blue skies so everything always seems so much prettier.

We eventually got to the closest point to the glacier possible. You can see it in the background (the white thing). Unfortunately we couldn't go any closer because they say it's not safe to venture closer. They have it roped off and have a bunch of signs with news articles about tourists dying because they ignored the sign and then got smashed by ice or something.  You can't really tell in the picture, but it looked more blue than white and it was really just a huge chunk of ice. It's pretty sad because the next time I come to New Zealand it may not be there anymore. In 2008 the glacier was all the way where we are standing in the picture. You can choose to take helicopter tours that take you onto the glacier, but these were too expensive. I would have loved to because I think being up on all the ice would have been such a fun experience. I did hear though that one of the factors to the fast shrinking of the glacier is due to the fact of people landing on it constantly which is too bad.

We walked back to our car and then looked up our next hike. Our next adventure was checking out some old gold mining tunnels near our hostel. There was one really common one that a lot of people go to. We were told that there may be some water inside of it so we may have to go in our sandals or barefoot. We headed to the track and began our walk. It took us about half hour again to get to the tunnel, but we eventually found it!

It actually terrified me to go in because I hate being in the dark and one of my biggest fears is to get trapped somewhere with no way out. Unfortunately there was water, so we all changed into our flip flops and stepped in the water. It was FREEZING but there was no way any of us were going to chicken out and not go. We headed into the tunnel and I was in the back because I'm slow and stumble a lot. We had one head light and some people had their phones, so we were able to see in the tunnel luckily. It was pretty chilly and almost eerie feeling inside of the tunnel. 

After walking through the tunnel we eventually made it to the other side! If you looked behind you while you were walking you could see the opening getting smaller and smaller. You could see the yellow of the sun getting smaller and smaller and then eventually it was just gone. It was cool. One bonus that we weren't expecting is that we got to see glow worms! Now, it was nothing like the caves where there were just hundreds all over the place, but we did get to see small clusters of them which was cool. It's always awesome seeing something you weren't expecting. Although the caves we went to before were the natural habitat of those glow worms, these glow worms seemed more "wild" and more surprising to see. The end of the tunnel didn't have anything too exciting. There was a wooden bridge that you could walk about 20 feet on and then there were signs saying to go back. The way back didn't take as long since we were a lot more comfortable with walking through the caves. Once we got out of the caves we let our feet thaw out a bit before putting our tennis shoes back on and walking back to our car.

It was Mitchell's birthday in a couple days and since we wouldn't be with them anymore, we bought them party hats and had our own little celebration. We had a BBQ with mashed potatoes and salad and had a wonderful meal. Then we went back to the room to play some cards.

Once it got nice and dark outside, Mitchell, Courtney, John and I all walked to go star gaze. We had to walk a little further than we did last time, but Franz Josef was such a small town we didn't run into any other people. Apparently the best place in New Zealand to star gaze is Mount Cook. We weren't able to make it there since it is pretty far of a drive, but in actual distance it's under 50 miles away I think. You can't just take a road straight there and you have to go around it which is why it takes so long to get there. Therefore we figured we'd see some great stars since we were pretty close to Mt. Cook. We brought a sleeping bag and headed down to some big rocks by the river and just lied down. It was probably one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen. You could see the whole Milky Way just stretched out across the sky and there were stars EVERYWHERE! It was so dark that some of the stars seemed to really be twinkling. It was so pretty and I don't even know how many shooting stars I saw. As we were walking there, we could see two black spots which were mountains in front of us with a patch of sky in between. I was in the middle of a sentence when all of a sudden the biggest shooting star basically went from one mountain to the other between the gap. I just stopped talking and started jumping up and down. It was so cool! It must have been going for like 3 seconds which is pretty good for a shooting star, and the trail it left was big and bright. It was so wonderful it almost seemed like it was fake and had been staged. After that it was mainly just little shooting stars, but they were still amazing. Eventually we were cold and figured we should head back. It was so peaceful I didn't want to leave. One of the reasons I love NZ is because you really have no animals or anything to really worry about at night. The stars were so amazing that I can only hope to see something as spectacular as that again somewhere.

On Wednesday it was time to say good bye to the guys and good bye to Franz Josef. This city was so amazing and we had such a great time! It really felt like a separate trip. Almost like a vacation within a vacation within a vacation. The scenery was beautiful and we got to really enjoy being outside. The only bad thing that happened here was that my laptop went absolutely bonkers and shut down. I thought it was a goner for good but it eventually turned back on again (although I'm still getting it checked out when I get home because it still has it's moody moments where it tells me a problem has been detected and then freaks out again). Other than that, these few days were wonderful and I'm really glad we took the time to stop here!