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| Where we camped that first night |
I had a lot of trouble choosing how to title this post because so much happened this weekend that no one-liner can really encompass it. When we left for the airport on Thursday night, I can say with full confidence that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. We flew into Dunedin on the South Island Thursday night and I had planned for several of us to stay in a hostel together. What I didn't realize until after booking was that the hostel had a cat which I am highly allergic to. I was only in the
hostel for 10 minutes to check the group in and I was really struggling. Since I couldn't sleep in the hostel, I instead got to have my first experience camping. While Marissa, Megen, and Sydney stayed in nice comfy beds, Brian, Thomas, Gibbs, Nick, and I had our own adventures camping.
In New Zealand the middle of nowhere really means the middle of nowhere. As in no people, or plumbing, just sheep. That's how we found ourselves driving down a gravel road Thursday night towards the South Island's coastline. Our destination was another group's Air B&B where we planned to camp in the yard. It turns out that their Air B&B was a hut with a few beds and no bathrooms, but
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| The view when we stopped on the side of the road. |
they were located right where the river meets the water with the entire Milky Way above their heads. The stars that night made camping beyond worth it; I've never seen stars like that in my entire life and I may never again. The next morning it was time to head out to Queenstown which is known as the adventure capital of the world. Along the way we had to stop on the side of the road because even driving here is just beautiful.
Now I'm not known for my adventurous side, but my goal this semester was to do things that challenge both me and my comfort zone. The Nevis Swing was the start of that goal. The Nevis
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| Nervous laughter before the Nevis Swing dropped us 120m. |
Swing is the world's biggest canyon swing with a 120m rope length and a 300m arc. For someone as intensely afraid of heights as I am, this was a big challenge. I didn't watch any videos of the swing before we got the location just so I wouldn't chicken out. Once we were there, I had to watch people do the swing for 2 hours before me, but at that point there was no turning back. To put it lightly the Nevis Swing caused me A LOT of stress, but looking back I am so glad that I did it. I wouldn't necessarily say I had fun, but I met a personal goal and made quite a few memories along the way.
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| The beginning of the Rob Roy Glacier Hike. |
Post Nevis Swing, we ate some very well deserved Fergburgers. They are extremely well known for their gigantic burgers which was exactly what we needed right in that moment. Later that night we checked into our hostel named Sir Cedric's Southern Laughter. You would've thought that would've clued me in that this place would be weird, but nope it didn't. The entire place was covered in bizarre quotes and pictures that I now wish I had taken pictures of, but the hostel itself was pretty nice.
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| Rob Roy Glacier. |
On Saturday our group of 8 split up. Megen, Sydney, Marissa, and Brian drove to Milford Sound (a fjord) to do a boat cruise while Gibbs, Thomas, Nick, and I went to tackle the Rob Roy Glacier Track. Ironically, the hardest part of this hike turned out to be getting to it. When we were still 17 miles away from the carpark, we passed through the last town before the hike and the road turned to gravel. We thought the washboard road was bad until we started fording streams in our rental car. Just getting to this carpark, we forded about 10 streams, but our little car and Nick, who was driving, rocked it. Safely in the carpark (but knowing we'd have to return the same way), we began our hike. The Rob Roy Glacier Track is an approximately 7 mile hike that took us through a
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| The view with our backs to the glacier. |
beech forest, alongside a river, through a valley, and to the base of some stunning glaciers. The beginning gave me some minor flashbacks to the Nevis Swing when I had to cross a suspension bridge over the river, but the rest of the hike was so beautiful and definitely worth fording streams for. Towards the beginning of the hike one of the warning signs read 'Avalanche Warning!' I found this amusing since there was no snow to be seen right then. However, right as we approached one of the glacier lookouts later on, we actually saw an avalanche! The snow looked like a huge waterfall tumbling off the mountain into thin air. After spending some quality time with the glaciers (which pictures cannot do justice), we headed back towards the carpark. To our surprise, we were hiking with a bunch of cows after we
crossed back over the suspension bridge. Like I said, in New Zealand middle of nowhere takes on a whole new meaning.
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| Always making friends on study abroad. |
Nick, having already mastered the washboard road and streams, got us back out to pavement post hike and I immediately passed out in the backseat. To my surprise when I woke up, we were pulled over on the side of the highway with a flat tire. It turns out our little rental made it through the washboard road and streams TWICE, but then encountered a giant nail on the highway that punctured our back left tire. Now if it had just been me in this car I would've been so screwed. I had no idea how to change a tire. However, I wasn't alone, I was in a car with three remarkably calm engineers. They jumped out and went right to work getting the
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| My engineers in shining armor. |
old tire off and putting on the spare donut tire from our trunk (which thank goodness we had). Within 15 minutes we were (slowly) driving down the road again. So how many engineers does it take to change a flat? Well probably one, but I was lucky enough to have three!
We eventually made it back to Queenstown on our donut tire and I immediately fell asleep. The guys didn't have a hostel and had to go camp, but I had my nice bed. The next morning after an awesome brunch, we were having some trouble figuring out what to do about our donut tire car. It was a Sunday so going to get our busted tire patched wasn't a great option and Jucy (the rental car company) said their Queenstown location didn't have any spares. We really didn't want to drive the 4+ hours back to
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| Tasting wine the right way...with chocolate. |
Dunedin under 60 km/h so we drove to the Jucy location in Queenstown anyway. The woman working there for sure made our day because she just switched out our poor tired car for a new rental and sent us on our way!
With all the extra time that gave us, we stopped at Gibbston Winery on our way out of town. Gibbs was super excited about this one since his name was in it, but the rest of us were pretty excited to go to a beautiful vineyard set amongst the mountains too. When we got there and looked at the wine tasting options, we saw a wine and chocolate tasting option which I obviously had to go for. There were three different wines each paired with a different chocolate made in a famous chocolate factory nearby and they were all incredible. After the winery, we made it back to Dunedin with just enough time to check out the Tunnel Beach Walk. Turns out this 'walk' is
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| Beautiful Gibbston Winery. |
ridiculously steep, but gives some incredible views of the cliffside near the ocean. The guys ran all the way down to the beach and even got in, but I got hit hard with allergies and had to
stop about halfway. Unfortunately my allergies are way worse in New Zealand than the US and even with allergy meds can cause a bit of misery. I still got to see some beautiful views without going all the way down though which was nice.
Once we got to the airport, we were able to get some dinner and hop onto our plane. It turns out the
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| Tunnel Beach in Dunedin. |
plane was only half full so we could just spread out and nap which was so incredible. Back at Weir House now, I look back at this weekend and am overwhelmed by it all. I learned a lot (like how to change a flat), faced some fears (still afraid, but hey I did it), saw some incredible views (hello glaciers!), and spent some time with some really great people (nothing like fording streams to make friendships). Now it's time for some much needed, and much deserved, sleep. Until my next adventure...
~S
