South Island Part 2: Christchurch

Day 6

Travel Day! We sadly said goodbye to Queenstown, but gladly said hello to Christchurch.

Oh how we love these vans that we have spent hours upon hours inside of!

Christchurch is a much older town, more historical and low-key compared to Queenstown. But, it is one of the three largest cities in New Zealand (Auckland and Wellington are the other 2), and apparently a necessary stop as American tourists. It also has some neat history because it is the last city people stop in before heading down on Antarctican adventures.

Today we went to a big market, half of which was in the town center right next to the cathedral. THen we had a big Dominos pizza night. We were a little shocked by how tiny the "large" pizzas were--maybe not even the size of an American medium--but it was delicious nonetheless.

Tomorrow is Waitangi Day, which similar to America's Independence day, except they celebrate the day when the Europeans and the Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi. We were lucky enough to celebrate by attending a huge show in the park--orchestras, ballroom dancers, singing/performing groups, Kappa Haka groups, and an amazing finale of fireworks and Bohemian Rhapsody. Quite entertaining.

Day 7

Church was lovely today. I started asking around about the "Burnetts" and I was directed a woman who had been around Christchurch her whole life. She told me that the Burnetts are known as one of the first LDS families in New Zealand. Another lady overheard that I was related to William and James Burnett, and kept saying, "Oh! Well, welcome home!" They said there really aren't Burnetts around there today because they all packed up and went to Utah. Then I found out that James, friend of the BYU program and bus driver, is also related to William Burnett! He said he'll look up all the details when we get back to Auckland so we can make the right connections. Cool huh!

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around the Christchurch and Lyttleton harbors and then up the mountains around the water. It was beautiful! I decided standing on top of a mountain and letting the wind rush through my hair is one of my favorite things.

We ended the day with a big dinner organized by Jess and I (it was so yum!) and then TIM TAM SLAMS. We have been talking about doing these since we got here, and we finally did it. You bite off opposite corners of a tim tam, suck milo through it, and then get it into your mouth without using your hands and before it melts all over everything. It was so much fun watching everyone try it. And, most of us were successful!

VICTORY!

Day 8

RAIN. all. day. We were supposed to go to the beach today, but ended up driving to Akaroa, a cute little French town. We enjoyed the scenery and some of the shops, and then made our way to the Musuem in Christchurch. We've seen a lot of museums, but this one had some really interesting exhibits. My favorite was the Paua Shell House. We watched a movie about how this cute little old couple transformed their house using paua shells, which are unique to NZ.

I don't think I would ever decorate my house with all these paua shells,

but it was neat to see someone else do it haha

I got to ride this bike, but unfortunately it was stationary...maybe some day I'll get to ride it for real!

One good thing about the rain...we spent a lot of time in the van with James, and he taught us (or at least tried teaching us) a bunch of polynesian songs. This was our favorite (and the only one we really know all the words to!)

Day 9

Because we got rained out yesterday, we moved our beach day to today. It. was. amazing. The weather was beautiful, and we just stayed there all day long! Here were some of the highlights:

• Learning the Hoe-down Throw-down. On the beach. I know it's ridiculous, but for only going through it a couple of times, I'd say we did pretty good ;)

• We saw some sweet as beach sand art!

• Lots of fun beach pictures :)

Some girls were doing aerials, but Christine and I were content doing cartwheels.

• I held a CRAB!! We were right by a pier, and on the end, we watched lots and lots of crabbers and fishermen. Jess and I seriously stood down there forever, so intrigued with these crabbers. We wanted to ask them if we could try, but none of them spoke English! Later, however, we made friends with new crabbers, and one old man let us hold the crabs. It was kinda scary at first with their intense claws, but once we learned how to hold them it was a piece of cake. The ones we held were pretty small, but we saw some that were at least ten times bigger.

This was our crabber friend...he was missing at least 2 fingers. So legit haha

Hold a crab and take a picture with it? Check!

Day 10

Today was the last day of our excursion. We were all exhausted. Luckily, we didn't have any specific plans, so we just got to walk around and explore. We got a tour of the cathedral, and Jess and I even stayed for one of their communion services. We were the youngest ones there by 50 years, but they were all so nice during our very interesting experience. Right outside the cathedral is this huge Rugby World Cup Countdown. I so wish we would be here for it!

My favorite part of Christchurch was the Botanic Gardens. The flowers and plants were absolutely gorgeous. And the garden was HUGE, so we spent most of the day exploring all of the different flowers. LOVED it!

Begonias! In every color!

Yes, the begonia garden was definitely one of my favs!

Incredible rose gardens!

I'm pretty sure I will blow this picture up and put it in my house someday :)

The last thing we did before heading off to the airport? Eat dinner at Denny's of course! We were all pretty excited, especially since New Zealand Denny's is a couple notches above the American Denny's.

South Island Part I: Queenstown

This picture was taken as Anna and I stood on the luggage conveyor belt. Good thing it didn't turn on :)

Day 1

A taxi van picked up wayy too early this morning (5:30). We were flying out of Auckland by 7:20 and into Queenstown by 9. The airport security for domestic flights SHOCKED me. We literally just walked through in our jackets, belts, shoes, everything. We were never asked for any form of identification, and we could take any liquids we wanted. What a concept.

Queenstown is BE-A-UTIFUL. It had the best of both world...lake/beach and mountain. We could even see know on the mountains in the distance! Big event for day 1 was meeting Brian and Josh. They approached Jess and I as kiwis-accents and all-but ended up being Americans living out a of van as they explored NZ. Needless to say, it was an interesting encounter haha.

Dear, dear Brian and Josh and their graffitied previa van. You can't tell from the picture, but Brian has a moustache that he curls on each end...every few minutes. It was ridiculous.

Highlight of the day was the Shot Over Jet. It was one of those things that I probably would not have done on my own because I would not have known ho amazing it was. It was like motorized white water rafting high adventure style. Surprisingly nerve-racking because the driver goes right up to the rocks as if we're going to run into them, and then spins around out of the way. One of the best parts was the Chinese man sitting right behind us. Listening to him freak out made the ride a thousand times better. "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. OH NO NO NO!....Please. Please save my life!!!" Hilarious.

We just loved wearing these stylish black robes ;)

We also had our first Lord of the Rings site encounter on our drive through Glenorchy. It was absolutely beautiful scenery!

I had heard that there were more sheep than people in NZ and I finally believe after this trip. We saw them everywhere. Jessica got $5 from JJ for chasing a sheep down to touch it. It was quite entertaining.

Day 2

Did you know that there are Salvation Army stores in NZ? We explored one in Queenstown today hoping to find some good deals, but we were disappointed when the prices were barely lower than anything brand new.

Sunshine Bay. Doesn't that just sound wonderful? We hiked along the lake and then up toward Sunshine Bay and it was wonderful. LOVED seeing both Anna and Jess do a head stand on the tree stump :)

Just taking in all the beauty of the earth!

On our way to Wanaka, James (an old friend of the BYU study abroad groups who travels with us and drives one of the busses) stopped us at a fruit stand where we got HUGE bags of cherries and peaches for only $5. And it was the most delicious fruit I may have ever tasted. In Wanaka, we explored "Puzzling World." This place was full of optical illusions, rooms of mirrors, a giant human maze, and so many puzzles and mind tricks that my head really did hurt as we left.

FERGBURGER. My friend Parker King told me that the one place I HAD to go in Queenstown was Fergburger. We had all heard good things, but I was not expecting it to be as amazing as it was. Best burger I've ever eaten. LOVED it. So much so, that we all ate dinner there twice (and some girls thrice!)

Day 3

BUNGY JUMPING. I already put up the video but here are some exciting pictures from my exciting jump :)

That's me!

SO excited we did it!

SO excited that all 16 of us did it!

These were the signs on the bathroom.

Haha. yes they did.

As if bungy jumping wasn't enough excitement for the day, JJ bought us tickets for the gondola and luge for today. We saw breathtaking scenery on the way up and down in the gondola. The luge ended up being similar to the Alpine Slides, except much more fun because you drove it down a wide track and actually got to steer (as opposed to only pushing the lever back and forth to stop and go). There were lots of turns, u-turns, tunnels, and big hills where you could some major air if you were going fast enough. We had a blast racing James down the course. SO fun.

Our view as we luged down the mountain.

Day 4

Milford Sound. We started very early this morning, and drove 4 hours down to Milford Sound, one of the most famous tourist sites in NZ. This fiordland (or fjordland as we would spell it) was breathtakingly beautiful. And we even got to see some seals and dolphins! We thought we would be disappointed because it was raining, but the rain only added to the magnificence of the waterfalls.

I really did take this pictures with my camera. It was beautiful.

Hands underground, my favorite part of the day was the ride back through the mountains--there were literally thousands of brand new waterfalls from all the rain. We tried capturing the moment, but the pictures just don't do it justice. It was one of the most amazing things I have seen in nature.

Day 5

Every day I have been in awe of the beauty I see in all of my activities. Today did not disappoint. Half of the girls rented bikes for the day and we took a scenic journey around the lake.

We discovered secluded beaches and waded through the crystal clear water. We swung on a rope swing over the lake and laid out on a dock. The weather was the best it's been all week and we enjoyed every last second of it :)

Jess, Emily, Nicole, and I decided this is going to be our signature pose from now on.

This is where we stopped for lunch. Amazing.

One of the girls, Nicole, turned 21 today. We all had dinner together to celebrate (with Fergburger of course) and then we sang to her in one of the grassy areas in town as she stood in the middle of us and danced around. We didn't intend to cause a commotion, but all of a sudden, an entire Asian tour group came up and started taking pictures of her. Even after we had stopped singing and she had stopped dancing. It was hilarious. We can always count on those Asian tourists to take a picture of EVERYthing. I mean, really, how funny is it going to be when they go and show their vaca pictures to their friends and they try to explain that one. haha. Also to celebrate, we went down to Altitude, the dance club in our hostile for a 15 minute dance party. We flashed our passports to get in, went up to the front, and started dancing. The funny thing was, NO one else was dancing. That didn't stop us though, and soon enough everyone was dancing. Our 15 minutes were a blast :) I LOVED Queenstown. If I ever come back to New Zealand, it will definitely be on the top of my list.

I SURVIVED!

I'm back! The South Island of New Zealand was A-MAZING. I LOVED it. Most importantly, I survived BUNGY JUMPING at the World's very first bungy site! It was 43 M off the Kawaru Bridge just outside of Queenstown. It was the one thing I knew I absolutely wanted to do on this South Island excursion. Crazy? Probably, but I was SO excited. Almost all of the other girls were not looking forward to it. (Every single one of the 16 girls ended up jumping...it was a pretty big deal.) Some of the other girls had already gone sky diving, but they were more nervous about bungy jumping than sky diving! The only time I felt a little nervous was as I hopped to the edge of the bridge and Ozzie--the bungy specialist--asked if I was ready. I couldn't even respond because all of sudden I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do it. I had been informed, however, that I needed to jump as soon as possible because the longer I waited, the less likely I was to jump. So, I just did it. I held out my arms and fell head first. That free fall feeling was incredible. Exhilarating. I loved it. Definitely a highlight of my kiwi adventures so far :)

Thank you Janet for taking this exciting video of my bungy jump. Most girls just got a video of their jump, but Janet got bits and pieces of the whole experience. Enjoy! (Also, I just realized that when I posted the video it cut off some of the top. I don't know how to fix it, so hopefully you don't miss too much!)

So, I have been gone for almost two weeks now. I wish I could have blogged about each one of the days I was gone separately, but I didn't take my computer (we were only allowed to bring one backpack for EVERYTHING we needed) and I had limited internet use at the internet cafes along the way (I didn't really want to pay, so I only used the 3 free minutes they would give me haha). With 16 girls on the trip, that also means we had 16 cameras. 16 cameras means a TON of pictures. In order to curb our obnoxiousness we didn't use all 16 cameras for every event, meaning I will not have all of the pictures I want to put up until tomorrow. So, be excited for a huge post tomorrow with LOTS of excited pictures and stories :)