Queenstown and Bungy

I love it here!  Queenstown is an adorable ski town set in the middle of the south islands mountains on a beautiful lake. There’s a gorgeous view in every direction you look. It’s also been deemed the adrenaline capital of New Zealand so there’s definitely no shortage of things to do. I had a short trip, just a weekend, so I planned on doing the bungy jumping.

Literally, the most terrified I have ever been in my life! 10 times as scared as I was before skydiving. Julie, my friend from Wellington, and I decided it was because there was a lot more build up and anticipation involved. We decided to jump through AJ Hackett Bungy (the founder of bungy jumping) and chose the Nevice Bungy. The highest bungy in New Zealand, jumping from 134 meters, or 440 feet. Not only am I jumping from 440 feet, but I'm jumping from a suspended cable car being held up by tension cables into a gorge with a river at the bottom.

 The fear definitely started to hit me when I saw the gorge I was about to jump into, but it really didn't hit me until I stepped onto the cable car in the middle of it all. Definitely the point of no return. Julie’s entire body was shaking by this time, to the point that her abs were sore the next day. They make sure your harness is tight, which I made them double check and then it was sitting and waiting till our names were called. Honestly, one of the things I was nervous for most was the instructions. Since it was so high up you had to dive off the platform, not just fall or jump feet first and second you had to release your feet after you have bounced once or twice by pulling a cord. If you forget or can’t pull it hard enough you end up having to get pulled up feet first, like a fish, instead of just getting to sit in your harness.

Then the moment arrives. They call your name. While giving the speal one more time, they strapped up your feet and you’re ready to go. With my feet tied together, and a guy holding on to my back harness, I waddled on to a tiny platform jutting off of the cable car. The worst part was, since you could only waddle, you were forced to look down to make sure you didn’t trip.  Now or Never! They count 1…2…3…and without thinking, looking straight out on the mountains, I just went. From there it was amazing! 8.5 seconds of free fall towards the river below, you feel the tension and you’re pulled back up. The next part I was worried about...after two bounces I found the pull tab by my ankle and pulled. The first try didn’t work but I finally released my feet. It turned from adrenaline pumping action to peaceful (not that I still wasn’t pee-in-my-pants scared) but I bounced a few more times till I felt myself slowly getting pulled back to the cable car. I could just sit back and take in the gorgeous mountains and river plus the awesome feeling of what I just did.  It was Julie’s turn soon after, and I honestly thought she might back out because she looked so scared. But despite my surprise, she flung herself off the platform. Overall, GREAT EXPERIENCE!  

After that, the rest of the weekend was chill. Just enjoying the gorgeous weather on the beach, walking around the lake, and enjoying a wonderful hotel room. Lani, one of the girls I went with, her dad was in town visiting her, so we stayed in an adjoined room from his. A definite upgrade from sleeping in our rental car, which was our original plan for our weekend accommodations. We definitely took advantage of the big beautiful hotel bed and walking up to a TV. Hands down it was the best night sleep I’ve had since being in New Zealand, especially after jumping of a cable car.        

Rugby World Cup

USA v. Australia
We lost 67-5 but that really didn’t matter, the USA fans still seemed to out power the Aussie fans. We put up a really good fight for the first 30 min, but then made some big mistakes and fell apart (this I know because apparently I’m a huge rugby fan now, who woulda thought).  But the game was awesome regardless.  Most of the American exchange students got tickets so there was a huge group going, plus Alexa is on her spring break and came to visit! A lot of us got together beforehand to dress up as obnoxious American and “tailgate” before the game too, which was a lot of fun! Plus, thank you for the package dad.              

Abel Tasman

Map showing Wellington, Picton, Nelson, Ricmond and Abel Tasman

Set off on the ferry with Lani, Julie and Josie for south island bound for Abel Tasman. We didn’t go completely prepared, and almost nothing went right but the weekend turned out to be awesome!

The three hour ferry got us to Picton. It was a gorgeous ride with views of the south and north island, but it was pretty cold so we spent most of it sleeping inside. We also couldn’t figure out why, but the majority of the passengers were South African Rugby Fans, which made for a good ride. Plus like most of New Zealand, the entire ferry was consumed by World Cup Decorations, flags and posters everywhere. In Picton, we supposedly booked a bus to Nelson. Somehow, and I still say it was the computer that screwed up, but my ticket was actually booked for the next day. After some begging the driver was nice enough to give me a ride as long as the bus didn’t fill up. We walked around Picton, but eventually got some advice that it was easier to hitchhike from Richmond, so we made it to Richmond for that night. We didn’t realllly have much of a plan for accommodations (we were thinking of a random park with our sleeping bags), which we told a man sitting behind Josie on our bus to Richmond. Out of some miracle, the guy offered us his spare room as long as he got the OK from his wife (no worries he had a 12 year old daughter, owned his own business, and lent out his spare room frequently to travelers). So we made the group decision to take him up on it.

The next morning we set out with a plan to hitch to Abel Tasman. In the end it took us 3 rides to make it to the entrance of the trail. For the first we had to split up, Julie and I got a ride with a dad and his awesome 8 year old son, on their way to the sister’s birthday party. While Josie and Lani got a ride by a Skydiving company heading to the airport. Then we met back up and a pickup truck gave a ride a little bit closer. Too much of our luck, for our last ride an ambulance pulled up! They were off duty, going in our direction and could fit 4 girls and their packs. And then like typical American girls we had to take pictures once we got out.  Overall, I was completely taken back by how trusting and open everybody was. We didn’t stand for more than 15 minutes for any ride, and almost every car that passed us by seemed to read our sign and consider where we were heading.

Thanks to the ambulance, we finally made it to the trail, the reason we came in the first place. Because the trail followed the coast line, there we beautiful views the entire way, until the trail would pop into the woods and looked straight out of Lord of the Rings (which I did FINALLY watch from the urging of friends…if you don’t know the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed throughout NZ) with options for side trails leading to different beaches.

The tramp (hiking in NZ) went well, until our next debacle that night. We were planning on staying in a hut, which were thinly placed throughout the trail. We planned on making it to Torrent Bay, which we did just in time for the sun to go down. Except there was a camp site at Torrent Bay, not a hut. We were pooped, the sun was setting, the other hut was a 50 minute walk back were we had come from, and there were no clouds in the sky. So we made the executive decision to just spread out our sleeping bags under the stars for the night. It was a fantastic decision until near midnight, when we were woken up by a light drizzle. We thought about our options; hike in the dark, suck it up, and the last resort of chilling in a port-a-potty for shelter. It was only a drizzle so we decided to suck it up, the rain let up and we just went back to sleep….until around 2:30 in the morning with a harder rain. Lani and Josie made a move to the port-a-potty, but Julie and I were just not to that point yet. We tried for about 40 minutes to sleep under the picnic table until us too, succumbed and took refuge in the port-a-potty. There’s a completely new level of friendship you reach when you have to share a tiny disgusting space with 4 people for multiple hours (I’ll save you from further detail), but luckily with no sleep we were all quite slap-happy and in good spirits. If we all don’t get infected with e-coli and nobody catches any port-a-sickness (a term we deemed the next morning, along with port-a-cough, port-a-sinuses, and port-a-cold) then the situation was incredibly funny.

We finished the hike (28 kilometers in the end) apologizing to everybody we passed for our port-a-smell, and was picked up by the water taxi and headed back to Nelson, where we booked a hostel, picked up some shampoo and soap, had an incredibly long hot shower and a nice bed (well a hostel bed) to sleep in.

Back to the Reef

We booked a snorkeling/ scuba trip through our hostel and ironically we booked the same boat I had already been on. On top of that, the night before in town I saw a guy I met, ryan, on the boat, and he was also going back out. So alexa and I got up bright and early ready to snorkel. The down side was the weather was pretty awful; it started raining as soon as we boarded plus the wind was making the seas really wavy. As a result, alexa spent most of the ride to the reef curled up in the fetal position with a sea sick bag in her hands at the back of the boat; she was definitely not alone either. I couldn’t even tolerate being in the inside, it was a tossup between fresh air or getting wet. Eventually Ryan and I ended up sitting on the top of the boat outside in the rain with suckers in our mouth (there supposed to help with sea sickness) to keep from joining Alexa.

Eventually we made it to the reef, and the clouds cleared up a bit.  It actually turned out to be a great day; I took one dive and then snorkeled with Alexa the rest of the time. Some of the passengers switched over to the overnight boat, so we said goodbye to Ryan who was going to work over there. The way back was just as rough as the way there but we were more prepared this time. Alexa and I sat with an Australia Josh that we met that day and a Scottish guy Cam I met my first time on the boat. We all took turns buying rounds of lollipops and trying to distract ourselves from the tousling of the boat. It actually worked pretty well, Alexa didn’t even grab a puke bag.

After we got some dinner with Josh and explored the town a bit. And by keeping in American Style, by explore the town, I mean get dinner then go search for Reese’s peanut butter cups (which virtually don’t exist in Australia), then go get ice cream. We basically converted him to a fatty American.

The next day was pretty lazy, we were hoping to head up to the Daintree Rainforest but there wasn't a bus and we couldn't find anybody who would rent a car to under 21 year olds. So we ended up just laying by the lagoon and taking it easy. I left in the middle of the next day, while Alexa was going to go back out on the reef and then leave that night. I, however, had a miserable 15 hour overnight layover in Sydney where I had to write a paper worth 10% of one of my grades due the next day (I seem to keep forgetting i'm over here for school). In the end, I finished and turned in the paper on time and managed to catch a little bit of sleep on the airport floor. The wierd part was how excited I was to get back to New Zealand, after only 2 months I was considering going back to Wellington as going home.

Skydiving over the reef

Didn't get any actual action pictures (sadly)

Waking up early to catch the bus was nothing, because Alexa and I were going SKYDIVING today! It hadn't comletely hit me yet that I just paid money to jump out a perfectly good plane with a complete stranger strapped to my back, so I was more excited than nervous. The 2 hour bus ride mostly consisted of signing my life away..their not liable blah blah blah...aware of the inherent risks blah blah blah...all that stuff. We finally got to their office, they paired us off with instructors, gave us a 5 minute tutorial and then strapped on our harnesses. Surprisingly I wasn't too scared yet. However, when we pulled up to the plane things changed a bit.

The tiniest little plane, that looked like it couldn't fit one pair of people let alone the 6 that were supposed to squeeze in. It was also now that Sinno, my instructor, lets me in on the fact that we are jumping first. Now the nerves are working. Cause were going first, were the last ones in the plane sitting by the door, and by door I mean plexiglass roll up panel which was open the whole time during take off. We climb to 14,000 ft. Way above the clouds, which i think made it easier because you were just jumping into the clouds, the threat of falling to the approaching ground wasn't really on my mind. The scariest part by far was when he opened the "door". Keep in mind I am stapped as tightly as possible to Sinno, so if he moves, I move. His job once the door was open was too lean out of the plane and look down, no idea why, I guess making sure we were in the right spot. So he tells me to stay in the plane! of course i want to stay in the plane! but as this 200 lb man is leaning out and im strapped to him, how am i supposed to stay securely in the plane! Those 20 seconds were by far the scariest part of the jump and I hadn't even jumped yet! Finally, I threw my feet over the edge, looked down and tumbled out of the plane. The 60 seconds of free fall was the most amazing feeling. The first bit was falling through the clouds then you break the cloud line and your just falling to the ground. Out of no where the shoot  pull and your yanked to a halt. From there it all turned peaceful, just gliding to the beach. He pointed out different islands and several parts of the Great Barrier, before we landed on a little beach. It was an amazing experience! and would love to do it again!

Kuranda Koalas

Checklist for today:
1) Hold a Koala
2)Feed a Kangaroo
3)See Alexa

I met up with Eva and Andreana to head to the Kuranda, a rainforest just outside of Cairns to a Koala wildlife zoo type thing. I got to hold a Koala (which is illegal in Melbourne and Sydney) and then got to feed some Kangaroos and Wallabies, but see some other pretty cool wildlife inbetween. Then it was back to Cairns. It was a pain in the butt, but i then got a bus out to Lindsey's apartment (about a 35 minute bus ride) to pick up my bags. Lindsey got a kidney infection and wasn't feeling too hot so I told her alexa and I would stay in a hostel to give her some space. Then i had to take the stupid bus 35 minutes back into town to meet Alexa.

Keep in mind I haven't seen her in just about 7 months, let alone half way around the world. I was pretty psyched. We meet up, did a quick catch up but then had to find a place to stay for the night. We did eventually find a hostel to stay right in the middle of town. However, we did share our 4 bedroom room with a guy and a girl who met while working a carnival....they turned out to be incredibly "interesting" roommates to say the least.

Scuba Diving the Great Barrier!

Our group (from the left John, Georgie, Me, Paul and a
 french couple that only did 2 dives with us)

Kind of hard to tell, but the reef from the boat

Bright and Early the next day I was at the dive shop. The company has two boats, one of which is the day boat which I boarded in the morning then took a 1 and a half hour ride to get to the outer reef. Then I met my instructor Paul, a Belgian guy, and the two other people getting certified John, a Brit who’s working for a year as a travel agent at a hostel in town and Georgie, a Norwegian guy who just finished a couple of months of farm work somewhere in Australia to support his travels. I was INCREDIBLE relieved to hear they were staying overnight too so I would not be completely alone on the other boat. We did first dive on a place called Norman Reef  and then had an amazing lunch, keep in mind though that I have been eating mostly Peanut Butter and sandwiches or cheap Fish and Chip Takeaways so my standards weren’t too high. Then we took our second certification dive, seeing the reef in the process. It was beautiful! Later the day boat parked next to the overnight boat, Oceanquest, to unload supplies and swap the overnight passengers. It wasn’t nearly as intimidating as I expected. I met a bunch of people of people on board, crew and passengers. The boat holds around 40 but they were sitting at about 22 people that night so in a matter of hours you basically knew everybody. Plus my roommate Maria was great. She was a Spanish girl, who quit her job and bought a round the world plane ticket, and has been travelling for 4 months so far with just her backpack.

Over night boat, Oceanquest

Anyway, we did 1 more dive off the overnight boat before dinner (which was even better than lunch!). Once sun set, there was an option for a night dive. Sadly since none of my group was certified we could go. Instead John and I joined one of the crew on the top of the boat. His job was to keep watch of the divers, but from the top you could see the different groups of divers swim around by the glows of their lights underwater, plus you could see all of the sharks swimming in the boats spot light. Needless to say, one of my major life goals is a night dive now, I even considered staying another night on the boat to be able to do one. The night was pretty chill, most of the dive instructors and some crew plus a few passengers just sat around with a few drinks, swapping stories and talking.

Day boat, Reefquest

The next day, our group had our last certification dive, which was really just exploring the reef more. And finally we were done with our course. Plus we got one “fun” dive before we got back on the day boat. So John, Georgie and I went out without our instructor. It took some getting used to, mostly because we just followed Paul to the best spots on the reef but now we had to find them on our own. We did find a tunnel through the coral which was the goal of our dive.  Sadly after a few hours of diving, sun bathing , and reading, it was time to go back to Cairns. Besides missing the night dive I wasn’t too sad, mostly because Alexa, my friend from highschool was coming the next day!