We left Westport and slowly made our way to Lake Mahinapua. We made quite a few stops for some pretty scenery and view points. Ah, Kodak moments. We were having a fancy dress party (which was basically a costume party) that night so at one of the last stops people bought some items to get a little creative. The place we stayed was pretty much in the middle of nowhere and kind of expensive; however, the cost included the dorm, dinner, and breakfast so it really wasn't that bad. We had the opportunity to carve our own piece of jade, which I wish I would've done, but didn't as I wanted to take a shower before everyone else. I had a fit afterwards because the bug bites on my face and neck looked awful…like purple and red. After crying it out and hiding under the covers for about five minutes, I pulled it together and tried to make myself presentable but didn't dress up in a costume. Found a hat and put it on though…that counts as something, right? It was a fun night and it was really interesting to see how creative people got with their costumes on a budget and less than 45 minutes to find something at the last stop before our hostel. We had a minion, a cowgirl, a baby, butterfly, flapper, Viking, Rizzo, gangsters, Tupac, a hobbit…just take a look at the pictures below :)
Saturday, September 19
We got to sleep in a bit today, which I'm sure most people really needed after a night like last night. We headed to Franz Josef with a few stops for pictures and whatnot. We got to our hostel with enough daylight that I ventured out for a walk to a gorge. The water was so pretty…icy blue and clear. It was a strange hike too…it was hot and humid but kind of cold at the same time. After eating dinner, I joined everyone at the bar next to the hostel to find out who won the costume contest. The flapper and baby won a bar crawl voucher or something and the Viking won the big prize- a canyon swing. I stuck around and chatted for a while before calling it a night.
Sunday, September 20
Franz Josef day two. After having a nice sleep in and breakfast (and a short nap afterwards), I took a shuttle to the glacier walk path. Others walked from the hostel there, but I think the $12 shuttle was worth it…that's a long walk in my opinion. It was a fairly easy walk to the glacier view point. You couldn't actually get to the glacier unless you went by helicopter which I did not do since it was roughly $300. It was pretty amazing to be able to at least see it from the distance I got to see it. I can only imagine how even more amazing it is to be on the actual glacier. The ice was so blue and pretty. It was kind of hot walking the trail, but once I got to the end the wind started picking up and made it cold again. I went back to the hostel and chatted for a while before doing some laundry. I was annoyed to find out that the washing machine didn't spin the clothes enough making them a bit more wet than they should've been thereby taking longer to dry them. Excuse me while I just find something to bitch about. Haha Tonight was all you can eat pizza at the bar next door, but I made my own food to save money. Besides, I had all I could eat pizza when I was working at Sal's ;)
Monday, September 21
Early morning start to make our way to Wanaka. When I first started thinking about moving to New Zealand, this was the place I thought I would go work in a ski lodge, but then remembered immediately that I don't like the cold and I certainly don't like snow. It was a quaint little town, but I didn't explore it like I probably should've which means I didn't take a lot of pictures either. :(
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| Lake Matheson (Mirror Lake) |
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| Fox Glacier |
Tuesday, September 22
QUEENSTOWN! This little place is nice. I think maybe if I wasn't leaving I'd give living here a chance. It is very small…you can probably walk up and down every street in probably an hour if you didn't stop to window shop, but just walk. We had kind of a farewell dinner at a place called Red Rock since most of us have been together since Auckland and now that we've made it to Queenstown, this is where most of us will part ways. Kind of a sad thought, huh? I felt a little overwhelmed during dinner and started feeling antisocial. I don't like situations like that so I just shut down instead of dealing with it. I went to the bathroom to get a breather and pull myself together and started feeling better. Then it came time for everyone to go on the bar crawl which I'm sure would've been fun but seeing as I wasn't interested in drinking, so I decided to walk around aimlessly for a while…kind of thinking if I found a tattoo shop I'd get something. I saw plenty, but none were open. I eventually made my way back to the hostel.
Wednesday, September 23
Queenstown day two. I kept getting up with every intention of going out for the day, but I'd end up back in my room or in the kitchen. I went out for about 15 minutes and came back. The first half of the day wasn't a complete waste. I booked my flights from Los Angeles to Vegas and then Little Rock, booked my AirBnB, bought a ticket to Taste of Chaos, and chatted with a couple of friends on the phone. Finally, I made myself go out because I wanted a Dr Pepper. It is really quite annoying that it becomes long search nearly every time I want one and then it makes it worse when I can't find it. I went in every dairy (convenience store) before coming across this store with candy and stuff from other countries…lo and behold there was my beloved Dr Pepper staring me in the face. I continued walking around. I was getting ready to call it a day and head back to the hostel when I was walking past Starbucks and heard my name. It was the Israeli from my bus who left us in Wanaka! He was there with his friend and so I sat with them for a while and then they invited me to have dinner with them. They were staying at a different hostel than me…and this hostel had free soup so we had that, and rice with chopped meat. Tasty and filling. I'm glad that I got turned around/kinda lost on my way back or else I might not have run into them.
Thursday, September 24
Queenstown day three. Another hard to get going day. But again, I got some other stuff accomplished. I also helped Nikki with dying her hair and getting it to a nice color. After playing beautician we met some other friends at a place called Pig & Whistle where they sold jugs (pitchers) of beer all day for $8 which is pretty good. While sitting there we saw some friends that left us in Wellington and have finally made their way to us again. When everybody started leaving P&W, I went with a few people to the lake for a little bit before going back to the hostel to have some dinner and get ready for the night. Everybody (about 16 of us) met up in one of the 8 bed dorms for pregame. It reminded me of Tel Aviv and we'd go to Levinsky and everybody piled up in one room when there was a decently size apartment/balcony to spread out. We ended up getting kicked out of that room, moved to another room (mine and the girls) and got kicked out of that one as well which was fine because we were ready to go out. We went to a couple of bars…the first one was nice, but the second one was better. They were randomly having a themed night called "Ginger Thursdays" and even had orange shirts that said "Ginger Pride." We had two proper gingers on this trip so that made it even more entertaining. The bars were cool, but I felt kinda lame because I was sober and everyone else was getting silly; however, I'm really glad I went out. I didn't do much of that because I didn't want to spend the money and feel weird being the sober one. But this was our last night with nearly all of us together. It was a really good night out with everybody. I'll miss these kids. If any of you are reading this- come visit me in Tel Aviv and keep on spookin' :)
