Getting Up to Speed

I need to speed this up because I'm still about a month behind in this blog. I'll try to quickly cover everything to get up to the present, then go back later and elaborate.

Taupo: planned on only staying one night before leaving for the Tongariro Crossing, but saw a sign posted that the crossing was canceled due to too much snow (I happened to pick the same hostel that the Stray bus was staying at, hence the sign). So I booked a few more nights and lounged around the smallish town of Taupo for a few days doing nearly nothing. Apparently Taupo is one of the best places in NZ to skydive, so I'm definitely going to try to get that in on my way back up to Auckland in a few months. My roomates the first 2 nights were two British guys Andy and Chris traveling on their own by car, who I happened to see again in Queenstown and Christchurch and who are awesome.

Tongariro: did the Tongariro Crossing, a 18 and change kilometer hike along some volcanos, including a couple that are collectively known as Mt. Doom (I've heard each referred to Mt. Doom separately, so I'm not completely sure which is which). I took several hundred pictures, and the hike took me 6 hours and 50 minutes.

Wellington: Stray bussed from Tongariro to Wellington where I stayed for about 3 days. Highlights included climbing Mt. Victoria (only abuot 30 minutes round trip), riding in the cable car (one of the biggest attractions and TOTALLY not worth it, Te Papa Museum with some interactive photo/video thingy, and seeing Jackie (friend from WashU). While here I ran into Kenny (Scottish roomate from Auckland), and Tommy (Dutch roomate from Auckland). I saw Tommy again in Franz Josef and Queenstown and completely forgot to get his facebook info.

Abel Tasman: Took the ferry from Wellington to Picton (in the South Island) and hopped back on Stray to stay at Abel Tasman National Park. Hopping on the new Stray bus was a little bizarre and lonely (for reasons I'll explain in a future blog update), and the Abel Tasman accomodation was pretty crappy. I did the Golden Bay tour, which was definitely not worth the money.

Barrytown: Our next stop was Barrytown, population 42. We stayed at a pub with some shacks in back converted to dorm rooms. The highlight of Barrytown is that the pub has several big boxes of assorted clothing to be combined into costumes. Needless to say after some drinking and dressing in drag everyone opened up a little more. The next morning we did bone carving, which is pretty self-explanatory and made me really want to take a wood shop class.

Franz Josef: The only attraction in Franz Josef is the Franz Josef glacier (and the nearby Fox Glacier). It is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world at a rate of something like a meter a year. I opted for the full day glacier hike (about 6 hours glacier time). Other options included a half-day hike, an ice climb, and a heli-hike in which you fly by helicopter to the top of the glacier then just hike down. The climb was surprisingly warm and only moderately tiring, probably because I was an idiot and ended up in the 3rd of 4 groups based on pace and effort of climb.

Makarora: Went to middle-of-nowhere Makarora where I went on the most scenically beautiful run I've ever done. Tonight's attraction was karaoke at the hostel bar. Needless to say this was the best night of the Stray trip, at least up to that point. Even the people who knew they weren't going to sing gave it a shot, probably because everyone else was singing louder to every song anyway.

Queenstown: Queenstown is the adrenaline capital of New Zealand. It is known for having the first bungy jump site in the world, plus 2 other bungy jumps, a canyon swing, some jetboats, riverboarding, luge rides, and probably a few more weird New Zealand "sports". Because Dave Della Chiesa told me I had to, and because I had gotten it in my head from the start of this trip that I would, I signed up for, and completed, the Nevis bungy jump. The Nevis bungy jump is the 2nd highest bungy jump in the world, and some of the guides I had had earlier in the trip admitted to having done it but never wanting to do it again. It was amazing. More on that later.

Tuatepere: First we went to Milford Sound, which is supposed to be a very beautiful ferry ride through a fjord (not a sound), but it was raining and overcast all day, so we saw no seals or penguins and it really felt like a waste of time, but shit happens. We stayed on a farm where we took a tour that involved watching some sheepdogs herd some sheep, and then anyone who wanted to got to try sheep shearing. I sheared a sheep. Only a small portion, and I did a horrible job, but I sheared a freakin' sheep. Wtf am I doing here?

Stewart Island: Some people hopped off at Invercargill (the southernmost city on the South Island) but a few of us ferried down to Stewart Island. The main Stray attraction here is fishing where supposedly everyone catches like 30 fish, but the boat was in for maintenance, so a few of us rode around on mopeds instead. I really want to get a moped for grad school, also I was the only one who didn't crash, which I found highly surprising. Tied for first in the pub quiz and called it a night.

Dunedin: Back to the mainland and headed northwest to Dunedin, commonly known as a college town though it was a Monday night and the college presence was definitely not felt. We did a pub crawl consisting of a whopping two bars, both of which had karaoke, making this the 2nd most fun night of the South Island Stray tour. Also we took a tour of the Speight's Brewery. The tour sucked, but since no one asked any questions we had more time than usual to spend drinking free beer at the end of the tour. Each participant was given a small glass (~3 shots worth) and told to pour as we pleased from 6 taps. Since we had arrived in Dunedin just in time to make the tour no one had eaten dinner, meaning everyone got drunk pretty fast and had a damn good time.

Queenstown 2: Back to Queenstown. This time did took the gondola up to the luge rides. I was the only one who fell off on all 6 of the luge rides. With nothing left to do and a handful of free drinking vouchers and some money found on the ground, about 6 of us headed to the bars around 5pm and proceeded to get drunk. As the only American in the bunch I lasted the shortest amount of time. More on that later, but here's a teaser: teapots.

Christchurch: The last stop on my tour, meaning the last time I would get to see the remaining members of the 'family', a group of Strays who had been on the same bus pretty much since Auckland and who took me under their wing for reasons I'll never understand. We ate Indian food on Thanksgiving and drank for the 4th night in a row, which is really nothing on the bus tours.

Having finished the tour and selected Queenstown as my choice of workplace, I bussed back there and very slowly started looking for jobs. Fortunately a few days in I was able to secure a position working at the hostel in exchange for accomodation. So for the past week I have not been making money nor spending any (for the most part).

So that's roughly where I am right now. Next time I'll give a more thorough description of my post-tour situation in Queenstown, and over the course of the next month I'll try to go more in depth on the tour activities described above. Cheers.