Sweet As, New Zealand

On September 24^th our group of 12 began the spring break of a lifetime exploring all the adventures that New Zealand’s south island had to offer. From the nearly 30 hours of driving, no formal showers, countless spaceship/sheep jokes, early morning drives, and disturbed sleep patterns came the best vacation of my life. I’ve traveled to many places and seen a lot of beautiful things, but New Zealand is unmatched to anything.

After landing in Christchurch and sleeping in the airport under the florescent lights and cold wind tunnel until morning, our spaceships were finally at our fingertips! Daniel, Sonya, and John took a bus to grab our homes for the next ten days.  Seeing a bright red row of spaceships equipped with names to fit (Jay, Qui-Gon Jinn, Ophirous) amped my smile to another dimension. They were obnoxious, loud, and so perfect.

Our adventure started with simply finding a grocery store to stock up before hitting the road. Our spaceship, Jay-Ez, was put to the test to wind around the earthquake devastated Christchurch. After several U-turns we finally found one and needless to say our GPS privileges and leading abilities were revoked. Regardless, we made it and after a quick lunch break we were on the road to Nelson to find our home for the next three nights.

From our very first day traveling, the common question “Where are we?” was a huge topic of discussion. While we may have driven for close to 7 hours, the views provided endless entertainment and awe inspiring conversations. One characteristic associated with NZ is the insane amount of sheep with a statistic of 9 to 1. Woah! I can definitely vouch for this…they are everywhere! Surprisingly though we never got to touch one. Our plan was to pull off to a shoulder and hop a fence, but that never happened. I’m blaming the lead spaceship for  not stopping…cough*Daniel*cough. J Regardless, they looked adorable and shup (our made-up singular form of sheep) humor was rolling the entire time. On our drive to Nelson, we stopped a few times to stretch our legs and take a few photos. Jay’s favorite spot was finding a seal on the beach! Anna nearly fainted when she saw it, and Robby instantly proclaimed it was a puppy, as he calls any animal…Pre-med major? Robby’s attempt to touch him was unsuccessful several times. Who knew seal’s were that quick? As night came, we finally rolled into Nelson. We stopped in a Countdown (supermarket) parking lot and set up shop for our first cooked dinner time. Anna and I made warm pasta which was great for the cold NZ temperature. Our next task was to find a place to sleep, this was our greatest downfall of the trip. We drove around aimlessly for about an hour before folding to a local park. From countlessly watching the spaceship video, Anna and I worked our spaceship like it was our job and had our bed ready in no time! By the end of our trip we didn’t even have to open doors to the cold morning air, we could fold everything and be ready in under 30. Trust me that’s impressive J

Abel Tasman National Park

The next day we drove to Abel Tasman National Park, about 2 hours from Nelson and explored for the day. The park is absolutely breath-taking. The blue Caribbean waters mixed with snow capped mountains in the background created the best views. After a few hours of hiking, we sat on the beach and enjoyed PB&Js while a few of the boys went onward exploring. We found several waterfalls, caves and artsy photo spots along our hike. Once we were out of energy, we ventured back to our space station to find our “accommodation” for the night. We settled on a beautiful campground between Nelson and Abel Tasman that was right on the water. We had our first “shower” and ran around the playground until sun down. That night, we had a fire on the beach, got to know each other a little better, and did some intense stargazing. I saw the entire Milky Way!

Tuesday began our Rugby Cup extravaganza. We started our day slowly with a pit stop at McDonalds to recharge cameras and get a quick internet fix. Then we drove in to town, bought all the essentials for epic American outfits and settled into a spot for tailgating. Ironically the most stereotypical tractor was parking in the lot where we were creating the best AMURKA! pictures to date…and probably made our country look extremely classy. “I apologize for my present and future behavior.” The game was epic to say the least.

Moses began the game with an amazing quote that stuck around the rest of the week. “My name is not Timothy, my name is Moses and I part the blue sea, and beat Italy on weekends.”

To hear my national anthem sent chills down my spine, and the environment was much what I imagine an Olympic event to be. Unfortunately, USA is still in the building stages of a solid rugby team, but we still managed to have a good run. Italy 27, USA 10. That night we drove to a spot the police mentioned to camp, only to be woken by a park security guard in the middle of night, forcing us to move back to our original park location. And after all of this, our 4am start was extremely unpleasant.

Wednesday was one of our longest days in terms of driving. We drove all the way from Nelson to Fox Glacier before noon then to Queenstown. Along the way, Anna took over driving and we ruled the road with our slap happy conversations and rock out DJ moves. Epic quotes of the day: “I feel like this is our runway, oh wait our Launchpad…spaceship lingo at all times” –Anna. “Careful pressing the buttons, we might blast off!”

The drive was really pretty and went from snow capped mountains to scenes from Jurassic Park, it was sick! Once we reached Fox Glacier central, we were given guidance about the glacier and gear. We felt like little kids being dressed for a blizzard, IT WAS AWESOME and we were finally warm for once! This was also the start to an epic game of life, started by Baden, our fun-loving Kiwi. If you haven’t heard of the game, every time someone says the word M.I.N.E. they have to do 10 pushups, where ever they are. So basically from this point on if I talk about anything we did, pushups were involved by multiple people, multiple times, and in the most obscure places possible. I’m sure people either found us completely hilarious or just annoying.

Fox Glacier 

Fox Glacier was everything I had imagined it to be. The enormity of ice was incredible. Once we reached a certain part, we stopped to put our cramp-ons on our boots and used walking sticks. This made it 10x less scary to walk on the ice, knowing that you had metal cleats digging into the ice. We were guided around the glacier and taken to a cravass to explore. So cool! Once I was in the crevasse, I looked up and kind of got intimidated at the size of ice surrounding me, but definitely worth it! We got to fill our water bottles with glacier water and walked through an ice tunnel. Fun fact: If you only drank glacier water, your body would shut down after a few days due to the lack of minerals in the water. Interesting! I always thought pure water was better for you, strange! Once we got back, it was to the spaceships we went for a long drive to Queenstown. That night was a great night of bonding for Jay-Money. We went back and forth telling some pretty intense stories about ourselves making me love everyone in our car even more. I love deep conversations!

The next morning we drove to Milford Sound, one of our most “challenging” drives according to the Dept. of Conservation. Ironically I took on the road as my first left-side drive ever. It wasn’t bad at all. We wound through mountains and a cool tunnel, but nothing worth writing home about (but I guess I am now, so..). The drive was spectacular avalanche zones, and the fiords had beautiful waterfalls. The fiord was unique because it had two ecosystems within it; the bottom consisted of salt water which allowed dolphins and turtles to live amongst it then the top was freshwater. It was a beautiful tour complete with complimentary coffee/tea. Don’t worry we were wired by the end of the trip making Te Anau glowworm caves a blast and a half.

At the caves we acted about the same age as our shoe sizes. Sorry Mom I promise we were polite! Since our group was so large we got our own tour through the caves with the best guide ever! God bless his soul for putting up with us. Or shall I say for dealing with Zack’s poor digestive system that nearly killed us all in the middle of the cave. Even after all of that, our guide said we were the “best group ever.” After a little walk through the cave, we sat down in a boat that took us even deeper into the cave to reveal the most spectacular natural phenomenon. After a few minutes in shear darkness, making me inch a little closer to John on my right, the glowworms lit up the cave like the night sky. It was something from Disney! Our guide even gave us a little behind the scenes action by lighting up the cave so we could see the actual glow worm! Anna was in heaven and she also had to do pushups in the cave…J After the caves, we drove to Queenstown to our home park and finally were privileged to sleep in for the first time in days! 

Friday, a few of the boys went bungy jumping at Nevis while we went to McDonalds to shower and recharge. Yes…I said shower at Macca’s. We finally had warm water, and the hand dryer made our hair look like a million bucks J While we started our day chilled, the most unfortunate thing happened as we drove into Queenstown, Jay’s driving shaft broke! Luckily we were in one of the largest cities in New Zealand and a space station was nearby to solve all of our problems, but we still had to deal with the hassle of waiting for a tow truck and roadside assistance to handle the situation. Kay became our new home and not only did she come with a full tank of gas, but she had fancy patterned bedding! Oh spaceship humor. That night we ate our one and only meal out at Fergburger, the most happening place in QT, and chilled at the Ministry of Sports to watch a game of the cup.

The next day we split into groups again with most going to mountain bike, while about four of us hiked a nearby mountain trail. Thinking about the bike rides I had under my belt and how every downhill ride made me think about my teeth dying…I decided to go for a hike. And while the bikers had a blast, the views from our hike were beautiful. Once we all got back together, we drove halfway between Queenstown and Christchurch to make the next day’s return easier.

Lake Tekapo

For our last night we had an epic campsite. We were in the middle of nowhere with a campfire and stream to our backs. The stars were brighter than ever and everyone was glowing at the amazing adventures the week had brought us. We got to bed at a decent time and drove to Lake Tekapo the next day.

Although I was upset that we didn’t get to go to the blue pools, Lake Tekapo was something to be seen. I never knew water could be such a beautiful vibrant color. We spent a little time taking in the scenery and going through a cute little church on the rocks, then made our final trip to Christchurch to return our spaceships!

Once we returned our spaceships, we were left to wander the Christchurch airport aimlessly all day and night until our 6am flight the following morning. Some would call our behavior loitering, but what else were we going to do? We all took our first full body shower since leaving Wollongong and life was the best. I think I could tell you every detail about the airport now. Resume building J

The great thing about our group to NZ was the diversity we had with 11 Americans from eight different states (Indiana, North Carolina, California, Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Alaska) and one Kiwi from the North Island. It made for an interesting conversation when someone would ask where we were from and how we knew each other.

Overall the trip was unbelievable. We planned extremely well and stayed to a very conservative budget; spending $35 on food the entire week and well under $1000 for the whole trip! That’s impressive for the amount that we saw and the adventure we went on. I expected tempers to collide and have some conflict in the huge group we had, but everyone was amazing and just pulled closer together. It was the best trip I could have asked for leaving me wanting more. New Zealand cannot be described in words, its beauty and atmosphere is unmatched to anything I have ever experienced. This is one place that I believe should be on everyone’s bucket list, even above Australia.

Our family for the week!