Greetings from Queenstown! It's been so hard to find any time to write anything down over the last week, so bear with me as this post promises to be sporadic and difficult to read.
So we last left off in Nelson. We woke up on Monday, watched the Super Bowl, an crammed on to a new kiwi bus with an awesome driver named Gary who has dubbed his bus the garage sale. We were all pretty panicked because there wasn't enough room on the bus and it looked like we were going to have to stay in Nelson for longer, but Gary being the stud that he is worked it out.
The first person I met on the bus was a fellow Canadian named Ryley (not riley) who loves hockey and is basically exactly like the boys. I also made my first friend from Portugal, Ricardo. He is quite lovely and quite then ladies' man.
The bus was headed for Kaiteriteri, and when we got there we realized it was going to be an awful place. The hostel room was miniature and it was in the middle of nowhere. Very thankfully, we only had to stay there one night. All we did there was go to a pretty generic beach and play a game of 21. We did however meet some new great buddies: Annie, Laura and Owen from the UK and Angelo from holland.
Next we got back on the bus and jetted off to westport. It was a cool little local town not meant for tourists and sadly we only stayed for one night but we had a bus beach bonfire and then headed to the one local bar where our new crew absolutely shredded the dance floor and established ourselves and the number one party crew on the bus (at least in our own minds).
Once again, back on the bus. This time to lake mahinapua. This was maybe a township if it could even be called that. I didn't see a single person other than our group the whole time we were there, and we stayed at the only hostel (which was actually a bar) within like 50km or something like that so we were all anticipating a pretty horrible stay. In the end it was actually an awesome night. Our bus driver made a theme for the night (called "p for p" which basically means you can be anything starting with a p) and everyone got really into it. I dressed up as a present with my new German friend Karl, josh and mike were prisoners, Annie was peace, Laura was pregnant, Karan was a piñata, and rishi was a penguin. Our new friends Jess and will (obviously from the UK like everyone else) taught us a new drinking game called arrogance and the night ended with anther dance floor shredding. I'm seeing a theme here talking only really about the nights but the truth is that we didn't really get to do much in the days because we've been doing extremely long drives every day. We did get a chance to go to the beach though where the waves were extremely aggressive (Karl ate it at one point) and Karan's bag was almost stolen by local ATVers who blew by us.
After a long long bus ride, we got to Franz Joseph. This is where the most famous glaciers are in new zealand. We stayed for 2 nights and on the 2nd day we did a kayak through this reflective lake where we were supposed to be able to see the glaciers. Sadly it was overcast and we couldn't see them but we had a great time with everyone having kayak wars and racing. In the end the champion kayaker was actually a random old guy in our group. We also went to the glacier hot pools and checked out the biggest hot tub in new zealand.
We then headed to wanaka. This place was pretty awesome and we definitely would have stayed longer if we didn't want to stay with all our buddies. Jess, Ryley, will, Karl and I went to the beach and swam out to a dock and took 100 jumping pictures. We made one of our famous giant pastas for dinner and contemplated going out. I didn't, but some did. When we woke up we went to puzzle world and we played around in there for a while. Karl and I did the maze together and it was actually very tough. Luckily he basically guided me through it using his height to look over the walls (fun fact, the average height in our group for boys is 6'3" and we have 3 who stand at 6'5"). Sadly Ryley roofed my frisbee in puzzle world and alas it is now gone forever thanks to the grumpy employee who refused to let him climb up and get it.
This leads me to Queenstown, which Is basically the tourism/adventure/party capital of the country. We've been here 3 nights now and are staying for 5 more. On our first day we went to the beach and played around there for a bit. We then had our first night at World Bar which is this massive tourist bar and we liked it so much that we have been going every night since (despite efforts to mix it up). We also reunited with will and lizzie that night and had an amazing time with them! We have also done some shopping and a lot of walking. Yesterday Karl, Karan, Rishi and I went to do the Nevis Bungy, which is the highest Bungy in the country standing at 134 meters. When we got there everyone was freaking out and we had to take a trolly from where the bus dropped us off to the platform giving us like 4 minutes to just stare at how high up we were. On the platform the music was blaring and I had to wait until the very end to go so I had maximum time to think about it. When it's your turn, they walk you out to this ledge and say "3,2,1, Bungy" and then you have to jump so there's not really any time to hesitate. It ended up rig the coolest, scariest thing I've ever done in my life and I can't wait to do another one!
Today we are climbing up the tallest hill/baby mountain in NZ and spending out last real day together as a group. Tomorrow most of us are heading to Milford sound (supposedly the most beautiful place on earth) and then having our last night out before Rishi and Karan leave. Rishi actually feels like my older brother now and I'm already dreading seeing him go :(, and then after that everyone is kind of breaking up slowly.
That's pretty much all that's coming to mind right now, so I'll leave it at that. Miss you and our beautiful homeland !
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