First Stop: New Zealand

Prior to my arrival in Australia, I toured the South Island of New Zealand with eight of my friends from Colgate.  For ten days, my friends and I visited numerous mountains, waterfalls, glaciers, and other beautiful sites.  It was truly an amazing trip!


I arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand (yes, the place where there was just a huge earthquake) on February 6th around 11:30 p.m.  We stayed in a hostel with about 25 other people from around the world; everyone was very friendly.  However, it was a strange thing to be living in a room for two days with total strangers.  Almost immediately, I realized that every non-American could recognize that my friends and I were Americans right away, sometimes before even speaking with one of us.  At one point a man sitting next to me on the Christchurch shuttle asked where I was from; I responded "I'm from the United States."  He responded, "Yes, I know. I mean what part of the U.S."  I don't know if it was the accent, the clothes, the hair, the loud/emphatic speaking, or something else. 


After our group of nine got together during my second day in Christchurch, we picked our rental car and headed out toward Hokitika, NZ.  Below is a picture of the route we took through NZ.







Before Hokitika, we drove through Arthur's Pass and went on a hike to "Devil's Punchbowl" waterfall.

After arriving in Hokitika, we checked in to our hostel, which was situated right on the beach!  At night, we went to a glow worm dell.  The dell looked like a cave without a roof (semi-circular walls of vegetation); there were tiny worms that glowed a neon blue color.  Very cool!

While in NZ, we picked up on many interesting phrases.  Everyone said "cool," which was similar to saying "okay" in the U.S.  People said "ring" instead of "call," "good on ya" was like "good for you," and "thanks for popping in" was a popular phrase.  After leaving Hokitika the next day, we visited Franz Josef glacier, one of the only glaciers located in the middle of a rain forest.

Before visiting Franz Josef, however, we stopped at Pakihi Walk in Okarito.  The walk took about 25 minutes down and back (or a 25 minutes return as the Kiwi's say) and we ate lunch at the top of the mountain, overlooking the Tasman Sea.  After visiting the glacier up close and personal, we went on the Sentinal Rock Walk and the Lake Wombat Track, both walks located around the glacier.

After leaving Franz Josef, we drove to Lake Matheson, had breakfast in a cafe there, and walked around the lake.  This is one of the more famous lakes in NZ because when the dark water is absolutely calm, there is a perfect reflection of Mt. Cook (the highest mountain in NZ) in the lake.  When we were there, the water was semi-still, but you could still see a reflection of the mountains in the water.

We left Lake Matheson and continued on to Queenstown, which was my favorite destination in our ten day tour.  All nine of us stayed in a flat together; we cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner together--what a happy family.  There were three young Norwegians staying in the flat below ours; they were between the ages of 20 and 24, on "holiday" (or vacation) from school.  They knew an incredible amount about American culture, politics, and history; we knew nothing about Norway.  This was the first time I realized the world knows a lot about America, but America doesn't know a lot about the world (or at least the American primary and secondary school system does a poor job educating young students about world cultures). 

The next day I went on a run through Queenstown, past all the shops and stores, next to the beach and Pacific Ocean.  We went to the beach, which actually turned out to be a lake in the middle of mountains.  We had to drive through several kilometers of grazing sheep to find the lake!  This was our first day of actual relaxation, void of driving several hours and taking walks through the forest.  That night, we went on a pub crawl, which took us to various pubs throughout Queenstown.  Everyone loved the Americans!  Following this, on Saturday the 12th, our group went white water rafting .  The forty-five minute drive from the raft stop point to the beginning of the river was through mountains on a ledge, leading to sometimes 300 foot vertical drops.  Needless to say, the drive was almost more scary than rafting itself.  Our raft guide, Andy, was an Aussie, originally from the UK.  You find that a lot here-- Aussie's who traveled from Britain (either to vacation or to stay). 

After leaving Queenstown, we headed to Lake Tekapo, which was about halfway between Queenstown and Christchurch.  The next day we left Tekapo and arrived back in Christchurch.  We checked in to our hostel and walked around Cathedral Square. 

The following day, our group went to Hanmer Springs, a hot spring formed by the separation of the Hanmer fault.  There were several hot pools, each one degree hotter than the next (ranging from 30 degrees Celsius to 41 degrees Celsius). 

The next day we headed on to Sydney, Australia!  We left our hostels at 4:30 a.m. to catch our 7:00 a.m. flight.  In my next post I'll provide updates about life in Oz!