Pride of the Dirty South

Well, it's been a week since I last posted, due mostly to ridiculously slow internet connections and problems accessing webpages. It's been one hell of a week: Late nights, early mornings, little sleep, and lots of sights. In short, it's been a blast! I've circled much of the South Island of NZ, starting by heading to Lake Ohua. Stayed at a really isolated hotel overlooking the lake but unfortunately the weather didn't really cooperate with us, raining most of the evening, but still managed to have a good time. I was able to see for the first time how stunning the landscape is here. Even in less than ideal conditions, it was amazing. Moved on to Milford Sound on the west coast, caught a boat for a cruise and overnight stay, and was surrounded by cliffs hundreds of feet high on either side and waterfalls emptying in everywhere. Got to get off the ship for a bit and do some kayaking to explore some of the caves and decided to jump 20 feet off the top of the ship into the Tasman Sea--FREEZING. Temperature was said to be 14 degrees Celsius, but think New England ocean temps for a comparison. Needless to say, it was energizing. This was my first ever overnight on a ship and given the tight sleeping quarters, I was pretty surprised at how well I slept. To give you an idea of what I was looking at:

I then made my way to Queenstown for 3 nights. This town is awesome. Much smaller than I had expected but a lot of nightlife. Yeah, there is shopping and plenty of extreme activities to keep everyone busy (it is the birthplace of bungy jumping), but the nightlife is insane! Took a gondola ride up to the top of the town for dinner the first night, and was able to overlook the entire town and surrounding harbor. The first two nights involved some serious pub crawling, and the group that I am traveling with made outselves known from the start. We hit up a ton of bars, including Minus 5, which is a bar made entirely of ice and kept at -7 degrees at all times (20 or so degrees F). After 30 minutes in there, my entire body was shaking and could barely hold onto my drink (whose cup was made out of ice, mind you).

By the end of the night, think 5 am, we were all (yes, this includes me) dancing on the bar and getting sprayed by the bar tenders Coyote Ugly style! Flames were involved! It is safe to say that I was not pleased to have to set my alarm for 1 hr 15 min after I was going to sleep, but needed to get up for a jet boat ride the next morning. If you want to see what this is, check out http://www.shotoverjet.com/ but it was pretty cool, as the boats operate in just a few inches of water and do 360's on a dime. For those interested in Lord of the Rings, I saw where they filmed a bunch of scenes as well, but I don't like the films. I was so tired that day that I nearly fell asleep on a bench leaning agains a lamp post on the main street in town. I try to stay classy.

Feeling as though I had done Queenstown right, I left heading towards glacier country to get some excersise (something that crawls until 5 am don't really help with getting). This place was wild. All around us were temperate rainforest shrouded in mist and then there is the massive Fox Glacier sitting among it. I went for a hike, crossing some small streams, and found my way to the top of the it. I've done this before, but it never gets old walking around up there.

I spent the night in the small town of Franz Josef, which was surprisingly more fun than I would have thought for being in the middle of nowhere. The evening's festivities here were no different than the previous few, and waking up the next morning was less than enjoyable, but was a necessary evil as I needed to make the long trek back to Christchurch (where I began) before catching the ferry to Wellington on the North Island, which is where I am now. The hotel I'm in now is by far the nicest since beginning the trip, if for nothing else other than the fact that the shower has good pressure and a consistant tempurature throughout my entire cleaning. So far, I have experience, scaulding tempuratures followed immediately but numbing ones, pressure that more closely resembles someone urinating, and lighting that I barely allowed be to find my way around. So, this was a very welcome stop for 2 nights. There are a few things that I've come to realize: The showers are not going to be great, I will continue to average 4 or so hours of sleep per night due to consuming copious amounts of alcohol (no dad, I am really not an alcoholic), and there will be table dancing at every stop in New Zealand! Sorry folks, I don't have footage of me actually on there, but trust me, it has been happening.

Beginning tomorrow morning, my upcoming travels are as follows (all days for USA and on the North Island):

Tuesday: Taupo

Wednesday: Rotorua

Thursday: Waitomo

Fri/Sat: Bay of Islands

Sunday-Tuesday: Auckland

Keep the comments coming, I want to see more! If you want more bar stories, I already have plenty so let me know (pictures will follow as well).