South Island of New Zealand

On April 18, I flew into Christchurch to join up with my tour of the south island with Extreme Adventures. When I arrived in Christchurch, I took a shuttle to the hostel where we were given accommodation. Given my dislike of sleeping in dorm rooms, I upgraded my room to a single hotel room. I then ventured out on the small town to do some shopping since I was told it was going to be very cold on the south island, and it was cold that afternoon. So I found a cool outdoors shop and bought some wool underlayers and a shell coat (rain proof). That night, I went out on the town and met a couple people. One was a guy name Ross who is an avid golfer (telling me of all the good golf courses) and superintendent at a local school. We had a great chat as he informed me of many of the highlights of the south island.

The next morning, at 7:00 a.m., I went to join our tour group boarding a bus bound for Frans Joseph Glacier. Since I booked the tour on-line, I was not certain who would make up the tourists, but once I found myself on the bus, it became perfectly clear. I was on a bus with 40 American college students studying abroad in Australia now on spring break. Within the first hour of the bus ride, the guides informed us that we were to come to the front of the bus to announce our name, where we were from and tell a story. I thought I was in hell. But, then again, what a great story to tell right.

At this point, I had met the woman sitting next to me who was Maggie from Norway and her friend Claudia from Austria. I was thinking, "That's cool, maybe there will be students from all over the world." Once the "show and tell" session began, however, it became clear that Maggie, Claudia and I may be the only non-american students on the bus. When it was my turn to "show and tell", I got up and made up a story related to another student's story of getting drunk, waking up on a park bench not knowing where he was with a note from a guy that had "helped" him. My story was that I "helped" a guy in the exact same situation and that he owed me $50...but then I came clean and announced that I was an American that was not on spring break. Then the guy in front of me got up and announced he was from Mexico. His name was Daniel and immediately joined our group (the non- American spring breakers).

Despite my shock of the fact that I was going to be spending the next ten days on a bus with 40 spring breakers, I enjoyed the scenery on the way to Frans Joseph Glacier (about an 8 hour trip).


On the way to Frans Joseph

When we got to Frans Joseph, I discovered that there was no option to upgrade to my own room, so I had to dorm for two nights. It was fine, since I was with four people on the tour and I could trust that they would not steal my stuff (I had left my laptop back in Auckland for safe keeping). The next morning, we woke up early to get outfitted to climb the glacier. After getting all our gear on (boots, ax, and spikes), we headed to the glacier. The glacier was beautiful.


The view of the glacier from the entrance

We divided up into a couple different groups and headed up for an 8 hour hike up the glacier. The climb was easy at first, but increased in difficulty as we got further up the glacier.



Climbing the glacier

At one point, we were trapped behind another group in a tunnel in the glacier. The entire time we waited we were standing in freezing water that also dripped on our heads. After freezing for 20 minutes, we then had a very difficult section to climb out. Although, I was frozen, the experience was exhilerating.


Trapped in the tunnel

Me in another tunnel (the ice is amazing)


After thawing out in the sauna back at the hostel (it was a very nice hostel), our group headed out for dinner and drinks. We had a great time eating pizza and drinking way too much. I think Claudia took a hundred ridiculous pictures of us after she downed several white russians. I will attach some if she sends me some.

The next morning we woke up early again to head out to Queenstown. Along the way, we stopped for breakfast at this beautiful lake that provided one the best views of the trip.



The entire 5 hour trip to Queenstown was filled with some amazing scenery.



Once we got to Queenstown, we checked into our hostel. This time I was able to get my own room in a house with the guides. The next morning, we woke up for a some adventure. We again boarded the bus on that very brisk morning to drive out to go white water rafting. When I was putting on my wetsuit I thought, "Shit, this is going to be cold." But, fortunately it was not that bad at all. Since the south island was experiencing a drought, we were not able to go on the regular river. Therefore, the guide informed us that, "The rapids are not going be very big so we need to make our own fun." And we did. Our guide was crazy. In addition to enjoying a couple of small rapids we also embarked on several missions to overtake the others' boats. These missions included jumping out of our raft on to theirs and throwing them overboard and taking their paddles. We were constantly jumping in the water and have a great time.

After we warmed up in the sauna at the rafting headquarters, we ate and headed down to another river for some jet boating. The jet boat was pretty fun as we clipped along nearly hitting the canyon walls, but the most interesting part was that we did it where they filmed the Lord of the Rings river scene with the two huge statues on each side of the bank.


Jet boating.

Once we were all done jet boating, we got into several vans and headed up the mountain to go biking. The track we went on was awesome. I love to bike down mountains--I did it in Whistler in Canada a couple years ago.



That night, I went out on the town in Queenstown which is a very touristy town of maybe 3000 residents. Queenstown is a very popular skiing spot in the winter as well as adventure spot in the summer. Since I needed a little time away from the tour group, I went out by myself and met some people. One guy I met was a Irish guy now living in Queenstown running the most exclusive hotel. After way too many drinks at this cigar bar, some of us went to his hotel for more drinks. The hotel was very elegantly quaint.

Despite drinking too much the night before, I woke early to go on the most extreme day of our trip. After weighing in at the head quarters in town, the bus drove us out the bungy jumping site. Yes, bungy jumping. It was crazy.


This is the platform from which we jumped. Yes, we had to take a gondola out to it. And yes, it was very high.


me getting strapped in

Ahhhhhhhh.....

Once I recovered from the Bungy jump, I watched some of the others do their jump. Just when I thought I was ok again, I boarded another bus to take us back to Queenstown to ride up another gondola to the top of the mountain over looking the town. When we got up there, they weighed us again. We walked over to another platform and the guide explained what were about to do. I got strapped into a harness and then clipped myself to a wire that slid me down away from the platform, high above the town suspended over the mountain. I was then instructed to unclip myself from the wire and pull a release cord. That was scary. I pulled the cord and fell until the cord caught me and swung me out flying off the mountain.


That's me swinging.

I think the swing was actually scarier and more thrilling than the bungy jump, probably due in part because I was not expecting it to be. After the swing, we went lugeing down the mountain in these little cars. They were like go-karts. We had a great time racing down the the hill, crashing into each other and generally completing the action packed day.

Needing a break from the extreme adventure and its crew, I took a side tour to Doubtful Sound. The tour included a two and half hour bus ride to a beautiful lake where we boarded a boat and crossed it. An hour later, we got off the boat and boarded a four wheel drive bus that took us to the sound. Once were were there we were on our boat for the night.

Our boat
The sound was amazing. Actually it is a fiord, but they call it a sound for some reason. A fiord is formed when a glacier carves out the earth allows the ocean to seep into the valleys. The cliffs of the valleys were mostly covered in forest with waterfalls pouring around them into the sound. Once we reached a cove in the fiord, the captain anchored the boat and we kayaked around the sound. I loved it.



Since it rains in the area almost every day, the sound has a very misty, mysterious look about it.

After kayaking, we showered and sat down for an excellent three course meal. One of the guides showed us a slide show and then a couple people I met on the trip and I played cards. The next morning we woke early to see the sunrise and toured out of the fiord. On our way we saw some penguins. I really enjoyed the whole trip.

The next day, I rejoined the tour group and we left Queenstown enroute to Mount Cook.


Daniel and Claudia

Mount Cook is wonderful. The night we arrived we went on a short hike up one of the rivers cascading down the mountain.


The next day, we all got in helicopters to the top of one of the mountains and hiked down. The ride was short and the hike was long. At the top of the mountain the hike was challenging, but we had too large of a group and we had to stop every 10 or 20 minutes to let everyone catch up. As we descended down the mountain, it also got very hot. Since they told us the weather would be very cold and to dress accordingly, I was sweating my ass off by the time I got down. Although some of the sites on the hike were beautiful, I think I was just ready to be done with the tour.


Helicopter ride to the top of the mountain.

Claudia, Daniel and I hiking down the mountain.

After the hike we boarded the bus one last time. Three hours later, we were back in Christchurch. I booked a single room and headed out on the town. The next day, I toured the city a bit and caught a ride with one of the guides who was driving a rental car to the ferry that took us to Wellington.

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