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Published: February 14th 2010
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Queenstown
I made it! Back in Auckland,
After hitting the bus lines hard and traveling to Queenstown from Lake Tekapo and back to Christchurch with a hop in the midst consisting of a plane flight to Auckland I have made it through my New Zealand adventure. I now sit in a hostel/hotel watching the winter Olympics awaiting my plane flight early tomorrow morning back to Sydney and back to the heat!
Upon Eva (German girl) and my departure we had 2 Israeli guys that wanted a ride to Mt. Cook as well so we through them in the back on the way up. Eva and I ended up just doing some easy short hikes here and there trying to get a good vantage point to view Mt. Cook and surrounding glaciers. We ended up hiking for 4 hours or so and were pretty tired for the ride home. WE left the Israelites there because they were hiking up to the snow line to stay the night in some hut up in the mountains. We then returned home and got some pizza to cook and some beer to drink and hung out with other solo travelers in the common room. I had two ride
mt cook
view of one the glaciers options lined up for my departing day from Lake Tekapo; one was from Eva to Lake Wanaka which is 2 hours from Queenstown the other was from my bunkmate Elliot (who was a 40 year old guy from UK.) Since everyone said I HAVE to get to Queenstown I took the ride with animated Elliot. We made a few stops on the way down. A bottle shop and a salmon farm in which we fed the fish and he bought some smoked salmon. They also sold whole fish as well as sashimi. On our arrival to Queenstown I bought him a few pints for the 3 hour ride down and he dropped me at a really cool hostel which was a new apt. complex that had been transformed into a hostel because they couldn’t rent them out. The only down thing was I only had 25 hours in Queenstown.
I booked a rock climbing adventure for the am the next day as well as a bus back to Christchurch and then roamed around a bit. I found this bar called the Ice Bar or something and everything inside is made of ice! The seats, glasses, sculptures, everything. I saw the
mt cook
along our hike price to get in and it was insanely expensive so I just decided to help myself and walked in in board shorts and sandals while everyone inside was dressed like they were in Antartica! I got kicked out about 10 seconds after I walked in and was informed I couldn’t come in without being fully clothed. I don’t think she knew I didn’t pay either. I continued on and as I was walking down a street I heard some reggae music coming from a 2nd story. I roamed up there and it ended up being some band sound checking for a concert tonight. I figured out how to get tickets and ended up going to a reggae show!! It was super fun but I got home pretty late and I had to be up to go rock climbing.
Come morning I met with my guide Rupert and I ended up being the only one signed up today. So I got a private climb above Queenstown Lake with this guy and it was super fun! Climbing up this rock and looking out to see huge mountains surrounding the lake scattered with light low clouds and green ferns and greenery everywhere. We
had a pretty good time and he wanted me to belay him on a couple climbs which I thought was very trusting of him considering he just met me.
After that I hopped a bus to Christchurch (7.5 hours) and got in to find out that there was a huge rugby match going on that night and all the hostels and most hotels were booked!!! Luckily the 2nd hotel I went to let me in a room and cancelled someone else’s room that hadn’t showed up yet. It was nice to have some privacy and my own bathroom! I didn’t leave the room the whole night and just relaxed and got to watch some TV.
I caught my flight to Auckland today and upon arrival found a good deal in the airport on a nearby hostel/hotel that had free 24 hour airport transfer. Considering my flight is at 5:50 am and it was only $21 US for the shared room I went for it. New Zealand is quite less expensive than Australia and its going to be sad to leave in that sense. I will see ya in Australia!
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Mom
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carrgal@aol.com
ok it's up now. Loved all the pics, I was trying to pick my favorite and decided it was all of them...lol...miss you.