Insanity on the South Island

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Yeah, that's me doing the biggest bungee jump in New Zealand - the Nevis bungee, 440 feet. All 3 of us came back to Queenstown yesterday so we could jump together, and at 8am this morning we found ourselves on a 40 minute, off-road bus ride up a mountain to the bungee site. It's hard to explain how utterly terrifying the jump was. The trick is to just forget every bit of common sense and human survival instinct you've ever had. If you can do that, it's no problem. I found it to be much scarier than skydiving, mainly because you see the ground rushing straight towards you during the 8.5 second freefall. Plus, nobody helps push you off or anything. All they say is "5-4-3-2-1" and then somehow you shut your mind off and jump into the air with a rubber band tied around your ankles. Highly recommended.

The few weeks since I left Christchurch have been amazing. I've really seen the side of New Zealand that everyone imagines. First, I rented a car to go meet up with Alan and Bryan and see a few things that I missed along the way. It was a nice surprise when I showed up at the car rental place and they gave me a free upgrade to a sweet sport version of the Camry. It had racing pedals and racing seats and felt like a rocket ship in comparison to the Goonebago. So I set out to drive over Arthur's Pass and head to the west coast, spending the first night in Greymouth. Arthur's Pass is a national park and the road running through it is considered to be one of the most scenic in the country (and fun to drive). Greymouth turned out to be kinda dead, but the Monteith Brewery was there so I stopped by for the tour and wound up drinking with a really cool couple from California that I met.

Besides driving on Arthur's Pass, the main reason I headed this direction was to hike Fox Glacier. You need a guide to walk on the ice, so I booked a tour and headed out. Aside from a couple old people slowing us down, it was good to have a guide because you gotta be careful where you walk and he tells you all kinds of fun facts about... um, ice.

I needed to meet Alan and Bryan in Queenstown a couple days later, so I stopped off in a chilled out mountain town called Wanaka for one night. The small towns down in that region are cool because even though there's not much to do, they're all right near lakes and mountains and it's really nice. Anyway, after I got to Queenstown and met up with the guys, Alan went off on a kayaking trip and I went with Bryan on a 3-day hike on the Routeburn track. It was easily my favorite hike I've done. Aside from some freeze dried food disasters at dinnertime, it had some of the most stunning, jaw-dropping scenery I have ever witnessed. The track is not circular, so it leaves you off in a different area than where you started. We planned on taking the last shuttle bus but it turned out to be full so I finally found a ride with these 3 guys from England who were driving a car so crappy that it made my van seem like a Rolls Royce.

We wound up in the town of Te Anau and located Alan. Bryan and I took a ride into the Fiordlands and did a 2 hour cruise of Milford Sound which is one of the most popular destinations in New Zealand, the fiords are just incredible. Conveniently that same night, the local pub was sponsoring the 4th annual Naked Tunnel Fun Run. We show up at the pub before the race and there are loads of people getting freakin smashed. Not just guys either, it was at least half girls too. So Bryan signs up and after the crowd was given their instructions of where to take their clothes off, they all got in vans and drove to the tunnel for the 1.3 km run. No spectators or cameras allowed, so I hung back at the bar until they were done and had the award ceremony for the winners. It was a riot. I wasn't at the race, but the report from Bryan was that most people weren't really running, they were just dancing down the tunnel and there was a guy playing bagpipes or something.

The next day I wound up splitting up with them yet again while they did some more hiking. I planned on driving to the Catlins on the very south of the island, then to the city of Dunedin for a few days. There was an Israeli guy at the hostel who was looking for a ride so he came along with me and we met a few other guys who we travelled with all the way to Dunedin. It was another Israeli, an Austrian, and an English guy. They are some of the most fun people I've met on my trip and we had a ball. The Catlins are seriously in the middle of nowhere. It's all about beaches and wildlife, everyone goes to check out the dolphins and sea lions and penguins. Dunedin is a really cool college town and there's lots of live music and bars and young people. It's very hilly too which reminded me of San Fransisco, but actually it's the sister city of Edinburgh, Scotland and has a somewhat similar style to it. It also has the Cadbury chocolate factory and the Speight's brewery so that was quality.

So now I'm back with the guys in Queenstown. Queenstown is a city seemingly built exclusively for tourists. It's all extreme activities and restaurants and shopping... and bars. Tonight I think we're going out with some people that we met on the bungee jump. I guess sharing a near-death experience makes you instant friends. Next mission is get to Christchurch and sell the van. We fly to Australia on April 20th.

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