More Cheap Thrills

So, after reading about my fun adventures in the South Island, you must be wondering, gee…does Sam have any other exciting trips planned? To answer your burning question, I do! As a matter of fact, next weekend my friends and I are planning a trip to Rotorua, the Las Vegas of New Zealand. The town is know for its cheap thrills so we are taking full advantage of it by going zorbing, parasailing, and skydiving (much to my father’s dismay whose pilot mentality reasons that one should never jump out of a fully functioning plane). I will let you know how it went as soon as I return.

Farewell to the South Island

Later that evening, we made our way back to Christchurch, where we spent our final night in the South Island. We ate dinner at Santorini, a lively Greek restaurant with superb music, great food, and lots of dancing. The restaurant staff performed traditional Greek dancing and then gathered their compatriots to join in on the fun. We did Greek line dances through the kitchen, around the back of the restaurant…everywhere! It was a great way to top off our memorable road trip adventure.

Mt. Hutt…More Like Mt. Suck

On our last day in the South Island, we all made a special trip to the Mt. Hutt skiing resort. Betsy, a competitive skier had been looking forward to skiing all week. Unfortunately, however, a considerable amount of ice melted away given the recent wave of warmer weather. This certainly didn’t stop Betsy, she still went skiing anyway, albeit briefly.

A Taste of Scotland

Dunedin has a heavy Scottish influence as indicated by the architecture of the train station featured here. Given its massive size, we were unable to spend much time in the city, though we did make time for a beer factory tour. Speight’s is one of New Zealand’s oldest and most popular beer brands to date. The tour was boring as hell but the cool part was the beer tasting at the end. Speight’s produces about six varieties of beer and once the tour was over, we were in charge of our own tap and were able to sample all six flavors! Here I am pouring a glass of the Original Ale.

Three Is Never Enough

Queenstown reminded me of a small Colorado ski town (or at least what I would imagine one to be). The majestic mountains and pristine Lake Wakatipu served as a beautiful backdrop to the tourist town’s bustling city center. Queenstown is New Zealand’s renowned adventure sporting capital and is a haven for thrill-seeking tourists and locals alike. My friends and I took skyline gondolas to the top of a mountain where we went luging, which is very similar to go-cart racing (as you can see in the picture). It was so cool to luge around the track while looking onto these white snow-capped mountains in the distance. We only purchased three rides around the track and it definitely wasn’t enough. Luging, though, was certainly one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Glacier Walk

Fox Glacier was the third destination on our seven-day adventure. We took a 3-hour guided hike up “mighty Fox”, as it is known – the largest and longest of the South Island’s West Coast glaciers. What’s really neat is that the glacier itself ends in temperate rainforest, 250 meters above sea level and a mere twelve kilometers from the sea! So one can see tropical vegetation just a few meters from where the glacier begins. Climbing on top of the glacier was one of the most exhilarating things I have ever done and the mountain views were spectacular. But even more spectacular was the food! Prior to going on the hike, we ate at a cute American western-styled restaurant, Cook Saddle Café/Saloon, where we ate the BEST burgers (mine was a veggie one of course) and fries. It was mmmmm mmmmmm good! In the group shot from left to right are: Erik, me, Rusty, Betsy, Anya, Christa, Becca, Julia.

Picton Perfect

On our way to Fox Glacier, we stopped in the quaint town of Picton where we spent time shopping (which we did A LOT of during the trip) and admiring the beautiful scenery. Located in the northern most region of the island, it’s where many of the ferry boats from Wellington arrive. Just as we were leaving this small town, a rainbow appeared right in front of us. If you look closely you might see it too!

Wine Country

Day two of our road trip was spent in Marlborough Sounds, the South Island’s renowned wine country. We did a number of tastings at area vineyards including Cloudy Bay, Winter Haven, Framingham, and Cellier le Brun. I learned a lot about wine that day and I am now a connoisseur of sorts. My favorite winery was Cloudy Bay and its 2003 Chardonnay was exquisite. The wine was sophisticated but lacking in pretension. It was smooth in texture and lacked the tartness that I found unpleasant in many of the other chardonnays (see, told you I was a connoisseur :-D). The first picture is one of Marlborough scenery and the other is of Anya at Cloudy Bay.

Interesting Fact

Sheep are in abundance on the South Island and we saw them everywhere! The sheep to human ratio in New Zealand is 33:1.

Big Pimpin'

Later that afternoon, we picked up the RVs we’d be driving that week. Did I mention there were Mercedes Benz RVs? Yeah, we were totally big pimpin’ it. All we needed were some chrome rims. To personalize our RV experience, we named the vans Heidi and Hans. Though they were both reliable, they did suffer from performance anxiety from time to time.

Everything’s Coming Up…Daffodils

Although it was the middle of winter when we visited the park, the Christchurch Botanical Garden was still bursting with color. Daffodils were scattered everywhere along with pink cherry blossoms and an array of other colorful flowers. Here’s a group shot of the ladies frolicking in the fields of gold; Christa thought we looked like flower children on the cover of a 1960s folk album. From left to right: Christa, Anya, Becca, Julia, Jess, Me.

Off to the South Island! First Stop – Christchurch

Sunday morning we flew into Christchurch, the South Island’s largest city and I fell in love as soon as I arrived; it was quaint, charming, and picturesque. There is a distinct English flair to the city with its traditional British architecture. More obvious, however, were the blatant British names of some of Christchurch’s locales i.e. Avon River, Canterbury County, Cambridge Street (the British weren’t very good at coming up with original names for its colonial cities). Anyway, that afternoon we walked around the city, took a trolley ride through downtown, and went shopping in the town center’s open-air market. We even went punting on the Avon. No, it did not involve sports of any kind; rather punting in New Zealand is another term for gondola ride (as made famous in Venice). My friends and I took a leisurely boat ride down the Avon River but since there were so many of us on the boat (eight), our rower became a bit tired and at times we sat still on the water for a few moments as he took a few breathers. The whole thing was amusing to say the least but we tipped him well as a gesture of gratitude for his strength!

All Blacks v. Wallabies

The day after we returned from the Cooks, my group and I attended an All Blacks rugby game. It was a momentous occasion since they were playing their archrivals, the Australian Wallabies for the title of Tri-Nation champion. I knew very little about rugby prior to attending the game (which was the first sporting event I have ever attended) but I quickly learned that it is one violent sport! First of all, the players don’t wear ANY gear – the game is full body-to-body contact. In New Zealand, rugby players are often stereotyped as being dumb (on account of the number of concussions they sustain) and toothless. I can now assure you that this isn’t far from the truth. The coolest part of the match, however, was when the All Blacks performed their haka, a Maori war dance that’s used as a means of intimating the opposing team. If you would like to see the All Blacks perform the haka, click on the first link to your right where you can catch a glimpse of the team’s war dance in an Adidas advert. Oh, yeah, the All Blacks won that evening and were crowned the 2005 Tri-Nation champions. Go All Blacks!