This week was full, but good. Some highlights of the week:
- attending our first swing dance class session! We’ll be learning the Charleston and Lindy Hop. It’s slightly similar to East Coast swing but definitely has its differences.
- seeing Captain Marvel!! Go see it for yourself! I had my reservations about Brie Larson, but she was amazing…
- crossing the Taieri River in prep for Tramping Club’s Fiordland trip! Pretty easy stuff, but it was fun and nice to get out of Dunedin, if only for an hour or two.
- starting a Life Group with some Kiwi girls. Excited to get to know them!
Oh yeah, and classes seem to be going pretty well still!
The best part of the week by far, however, was visiting Queenstown over the weekend. For those of you unfamiliar, Queenstown has been called the adventure capital of the world. Bungee jumping, skydiving, paragliding, jet boating, canyoning… you name it, they’ve got it!
And did I mention that it (and the four-hour drive to get there) is stunning?
The trip was again with ISA, one of our last ones for a while. My bus left midday Friday and made a couple stops along the way, including a quaint coffee shop in Roxburgh and the Jones Family Fruit Stall near Cromwell.
So many things for the eyes to drink in here! I can’t get enough…
Once we arrived, we moved into our rooms at our hostel. First time in a hostel, and it was actually really nice. It helped that we knew all the people staying the rooms with us – and that it was located right off of the lake!
After settling in, we got burgers from the locally famous Ferg Burger – so popular, the line stretches out the door and down the street! Well worth the wait, however; I didn’t realize how much I had been craving a burger!
The rest of the night mainly involved looking through some gift shops and retiring to the hostel to play some Egyptian Ratscrew.
Next morning was the big morning: we bungee jumped. Off a bridge.
This one. (Not the one in the foreground, the one in the background.)
It was pretty sweet.
The funniest part was that just as I was about to jump, the bungee guy behind me told me to wait because there were whitewater rafts passing through on the river below me. You know, no big deal, just hang out for another minute or two on a ledge over a 43 meter drop…. It was kinda cool, though, because they stopped to watch me jump, and as disoriented and dizzy as I was while swinging, I could still hear them cheer and clap.
Of course we had to celebrate by getting donuts! I tried a passionfruit one… Did not disappoint!
Later that evening after I had somewhat recovered, I went on a jet boat ride, which was pretty cool. I only have pictures of some of the scenery, but we got some pretty cool views.
Also, here’s some pictures of Queenstown. (How many pictures of mountains are too many?)
The next morning we packed up and made our way to the Kiwi & Birdlife Park! We finally got to see a kiwi! (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google ‘kiwi bird’ – it’s one of New Zealand’s national symbols.) They’re such funny, adorable creatures! Unfortunately, they’re really endangered due to invasive species, namely stoats and possums. (Did you know that there weren’t any mammals in New Zealand before humans arrived?) Kiwi are also nocturnal, so we weren’t able to take any pictures; I hope a picture of a wood pigeon and the sign will suffice.
After that, we stopped in Arrowtown, a historic mining town, very briefly to get lunch. There was a little bakery there with some of the best pies…
Our last stop of the day was a tiny town called Naseby, which just happens to be home to a curling rink!
I was not very good… but it was still fun! It’s a lot harder than it looks, though I’m still not sure if the sweeping really makes any difference!
Alright, this post is already late (and long) enough, so I’d better publish it now. Catch up with you all next week!
Ray of Sunshine Travel 