The South Island

Photos: http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc311/rtwilli4/

So Wellington was pretty crazy. I met some wonderful friends that I will never forget and plan to see again in the future. People from NZ, Virginia, Montana, Maine, Czech Republic, Ireland, England, Wales, Aussie, Chile and so many more.

I met Scott at the backpackers in Wellington. At this point I was not sure what my plans were. Cameron and Nate had already left for the South Island and I was trying to figure out where I was going to go. I thought about Fiji again, or maybe another Pacific Island. I thought about Aussie as well. Since I already had a ticket to Thailand, this would end up being the end result but I wasn't sure what I was going to do before Thailand.

Scott had planned a trip in the South Island in a rental car. We had already become great friends at this point and so I decided to go with him. Wow, I'm am glad I did. The South Island is probably the most beautiful place that I have ever been. Not a single thing I did or place that I went was even worth trying to describe. Pictures will show you but this is another one of those things that not even pictures can do justice.

We drove down the west coast, which at the time I thought was the best drive in NZ...until I got down even farther, then I realized that the south part is probably the best drive in the world. The first half is on the coast, with rocky ocean and sandy beaches on your right, and huge bushy hills and mountains on your left. We made it to Fox Glacier, which is in the one percent of all glaciers in the world that are actually getting bigger. We did a 7 hour hike on the glacier, which was like being on another planet. Huge walls of ice everywhere. I felt like the Bear Grills from "Man vs. Wild" and did feel the need to speak like him a few times. The glacier is advancing quickly, because of the heavy, wet snow that the top of the mountains get. At the very top of the glacier, it snows up to 40 meters per year. Yes, that is over 120 feet, and over 1500 inches. For comparison, the best ski resorts in Colorado and Utah get between 400 and 600 inches during a GREAT season.

On the glacier, we met Simon, Nina, and Anja; a group of German travellers that we would hang out with in Queenstown and Milford Sound. This is probably my favorite part of traveling...meeting random people and traveling with them, learning about their lives and cultures.

From the glacier, we drove down into the Southern Alps of NZ. The sun was out, and very hot for the first time all spring. It was melting all of the snow and there were waterfalls EVERYWHERE. I think I saw 250 waterfalls in the course of a week.

We passed a few mountain lakes that were so clear and blue that it seemed fake. There were giant snowcapped mountains rising out of these lakes, straight up into the sky. I think we stopped the car every thirty minutes pretty much any time we drove anywhere. I couldn't stop staring at the scenery. And it changes so much. I saw Northern Louisiana, then the west coast of California, then the mountains of North Carolina, then the vastness of Montana, then the sharp peaks of the Rockies....all in a few days.

Every place we stoped was beautiful. We got to a town called Wanaka that overlooked a lake with Mt. Aspiring in the background. I almost told Scott to leave me there so I could find a job and live there. When I do come back to New Zealand (as I plan to do next June...maybe for a WHILE), Wanaka will be one of the three towns I will try to find work in. Wellington and Queenstown are the others.

Queenstown...reminds me of a small ski town out west. I fell in love immediately, as it mostly reminded me of Steamboat Springs, CO, where I spent the winter a few years ago. It is on the only flat spot for miles and miles...completely surrounded my mountains. Beautiful, but not the reason to go there. This is the town for adrenaline junkies. From the largest swing in the world, to a concrete luge type thing, to waterfall riding to the third largest bungy jump in the world, there are dozens of ways to kill yourself in this place, and that is how they make their money.

I picked the bungy jump. I have been dreaming of this forever, and it was finally time to do it. The Nevis Highwire is 134 (440) meters of free fall for the average person doing a swan dive off the top (see video to the right). You jump from a cable car type thing that is suspended by wires in the middle of this canyon. Just watch the video. It was the biggest rush I think I have ever had. Jumping off cliffs on a snowboard, jumping out of a plane, going 160 in a Vette...whatever you can think of, it does not compare to the bungy jump.

They strap you in, take your picture, and then you wobble to the edge like a penguin because your feet are tied together. I wondered, what if i trip and fall. It would still be a bungy jump, just a more scary version. You get to the edge...ONE, TWO, THREE, BUNGY! HUGE swan dive off the platform. Ground coming at you faster than you can even perceive, then you come to a slow stop, and fly back toward the sky. It is not jerky at all as long as you jump right. It is very smooth and comfortable. The problem is...you don't really remember it and it is over before it begins. This is why...I DID IT TWICE!

When they brought me back up to the cable car, the guy asked me if I had been doing drugs because I was on such an adrenaline kick. I told him it was better than drugs and that I could do it all day. He immediately said, "OK but only if you do it bullet style." "Hell yea!" I say, and get back in line.

Bullet style is a bit different, as you can imagine. With the swan dive, you jump out, toward the horizon, with your arms out. This is a natural skydiving position that causes your body to stabilize in the air and slowly go into a nosedive as the bungy cord starts to get tension on it. With the bullet, you put your hands behind your back, and instead of jumping out, you fall forward as far as you can, keeping your feet on the platform, and jump directly at the ground at the last second. The idea is that you sill start of in a nose dive, with no arms to create resistance. You are actually a bullet, heading straight for the ground. You fall MUCH faster, and get MUCH closer to the ground. A few people told me that they have never seen anyone get any closer to the ground as I did. The guy who explained the bullet to me told me it was perfect, and now I'm addicted. There is a bungy that is almost twice as high in China...I will certainly be there before the end of this trip.

Next was the famous Milford Sound. There is a hike that is so popular that it must be books months in advance. It is very regulated, and pretty much full of tourists. I'm sure it is amazing, but not worth having to book it so far in advance. I never even know where I'll be 2 days in advance, much less 2 months. The drive from Q town to Milford Sound is the greatest drive I have ever done. We had amazing weather, as we did for the entire South Island. This is very uncharacteristic, especially for this time of year. It is supposed to rain all the time and according to the locals we were very very lucky. The entire drive is through giant canyons with dozens of waterfalls trickling down the rock. My neck actually began to hurt. Again, you will have to look at the pictures to understand.

The actual sound was even more amazing. We took a boat ride through the sound, out into the Tasman Sea. The sound is actually a Fiord, which is Swedish for a huge gorge carved out by ice. The fiords that line the southern west coast of NZ were all created by fiords, and are breathtaking. There are stone walls rising straight up out of the ocean and many peaks reach over 5000 feet above the sea. The mountains have no topsoil, but many treas and vegetation have created a blanket of roots, using cracks in the rock to anchor themselves. They grow very aggressively, because of the 7 - 10 meters of rain that Milford Sound gets each year. The wettest parts of Washington state get about 2.5 meters of rain per year (Seattle gets less than 1 meter of rain per year and is not even in the top ten wettest cities in the US). Sometimes during huge storms, a tree will lose its grip on the rock and cause a huge "tree avalanche" that leaves a bare spot on the rock for up to 70 years after the slide. The wind in Milford Sound is also crazy. The more intense the sun gets, the more the mainland heats up. The hot air rises, and sucks air through the fiord like a funnel.

Finally, Lake Pukaki and Mt. Cook. This is the craziest lake I have ever seen. It is hard to see in the pictures but the water is a bright aqua blue. It does a wonderful job of reflecting the image of the mountains behind the lake, which are the tallest in NZ. Mt. Cook is named for Capt. James Cook, the explorer who found, and charted most of New Zealand. Scott and I actually stopped for a view of the lake, got back in the car and drove for a few km's, and turned around for another look.

OK, so I said finally, but I have one more place to talk about. We drove down the West Coast, so we decided to drive up the East Coast. More great coast line, not so many mountains, and very intense sun. The hole in the o-zone that you always hear about is actually right over NZ, as it is very close to Antarctica. The sun is about 4 times as dangerous down here. I am pretty sure I will get cancer on my arm just from the time it hung out the window while I was driving.

We stopped in Kaikoura, which is a peninsula with beautiful, clear water, and an abundance of wildlife that is hard to see anywhere else in the world. Scott went whale watching and saw three sperm whales and hundreds of dolphins. I went kayaking and chased dolphins and seals, and watched birds dive under the boat to catch fish. The water was so clear that you could see down to about 7 meters. The scenery was amazing; paddling in ultra clean water while looking up at snow capped mountains is not something you can do in the US. However, I was blown away by the wildlife. We had seals pop up out of the ocean to look at us...so close I could have touched them. We chased the dusky dolphin, and were surrounded by birds that dove under our boats for fish. The coolest thing I saw was a gamet, which is a bird that tucks its wings and dives from about 30 feet in the air into the ocean to look for fish. It was like watching a kamikaze. Apparently they have reinforced skulls. Dumb people used to nail fish to pieces of wood and bait the birds into diving onto the block of wood. I never found out if this was a way to hunt the bird, or jsut have a good laugh.

The South Island. Probably the most diverse, amazing place that I have ever been. I have so much more to tell you about it but I can't type forever and I know you can't read forever. If you ever get a chance to go anywhere, go there!