Here it is: the post you’ve been waiting for! (Or at least the first half). I know, the last was such a cliffhanger. (Except you already know I got home safely.)
The week after returning from Milford was a decently busy one. It was the last week of classes, so thankfully classwork was finally slowing down. I made it to my final flax weaving class and cranked out two more placemats for a total of four. I had quite a bit to carry on my way home from class and had to get a bit creative; Jessica found it pretty entertaining and snapped a picture. And yes, I got quite a few strange looks. Oh well; if it works, it works!
Outside of that, my time was largely spent planning what to do with my time in between end of classes and finals and studying for my early exam in New Zealand history. After the test was finished Thursday afternoon, ISA met up for our final get-together of the semester at the famous (in New Zealand) Speight’s Brewing Company in downtown Dunedin. We got a tour of the whole place and lots of information about its history and beer-making process, unfortunately far more than my brain could ever remember.
And of course, one of the best parts was the tasting at the end.
Believe it or not, it was my first ever beer. Definitely seems to be an acquired taste, but I did thoroughly enjoy their cider!
And things just kept going up when we got free dinner and a free drink after the tour! Steak dinner with cheesecake for dessert, no less! Plus, good company to top it all off. This girl was pretty much in heaven.
It was so hard to believe that this was the last time everyone from ISA would be together in one room. Lots of laughter, reminiscing, and toasts that night: a great way to send things off. I already miss you all bunches and can’t wait to see many of you again! Cheers!
After getting home that night, it was go time again: I was leaving bright and early the next morning on a road trip with my flatmate Autumn and had a lot of packing to do!
After a very short night, we were on the road headed for Bluff, probably the southernmost town on the South Island. Our main destination, however, was even further south: Stewart Island. We had to take a ferry to get there, which was about an hour long trip. Thankfully I don’t get seasick easily!
Stewart Island, though decently sizeable (half the acreage of Rhode Island), has just one tiny town, Oban. The island is most known for its history in timber and saw milling and the Rakiura Track, one of NZ’s nine Great Walks. If you’ve followed my other posts, you can probably guess what the main draw was for me…
After a brief stop at the DOC center to get some information on the track, we were off! Of course we had to take a picture with the kiwi (sign) we saw. Stewart Island is known as one of the best places to see a wild kiwi.
The trail was beautiful. It was a lot of ferns and greenery and had relatively few jaw-dropping vistas compared to the other Great Walks I had done, which I was initially kind of disappointed about. The track really grew on me the longer we kept going, however.
Somewhere along the stretch, we reached the point that was probably the furthest south I would ever be! Much further and I would be too cold.
After about 3 and a half hours, we reached the North Arm Hut, our home for the night. We had pretty good luck in terms of weather; just after we arrived, it started pouring. Thankfully it didn’t last too long, so we could go out and explore a bit.
Sharing the hut with us was Dan from Christchurch, Tim and Janet from Wanaka, and Janet’s dad Doug, who was from Australia. We bonded pretty quickly while trying to light a fire with very few dry materials handy. After we finally got it going and ate dinner, I spent a good while chatting with Dan and Tim about all the adventures I had been on that semester and comparing which hikes we had done.
The next day Autumn and I set out early, as we had about an eight hour hike in front of us. The landscape was pretty similar to the day before, though with a little more elevation.
To give a fully accurate representation of the track, though, I really have to show you these pictures. It was so MUDDY. No matter how careful we were, we were sometimes up to our ankles in mud… My boots were quite well camouflaged; see if you can spot them below!
Also rounding out the track were a couple of historical sites. I think I mentioned how Stewart Island was once a big timber and saw milling site, and luckily some old equipment was left behind. While the track was really beautiful, I think the history really made it for me. (I know, my nerdiness is showing)…
We definitely got more coastal views as we got towards the end of the track… So gorgeous! We even found a Paua shell! (An abalone only found in New Zealand)
After a long day of hiking (about 7 hours), nearly all of which we had perfect weather for, we made it to the end! Another Great Walk down!
Fortunately, we were able to call a taxi to take us the couple of miles back into town (especially since I soaked my socks taking that last picture… worth it!).
We got settled into our cozy hostel, then set out to find Dan, Janet, Tim and Doug, who all happened to be staying at our hostel! (To be fair, it wasn’t that big of a coincidence… Oban is pretty teeny!)
Our North Arm Hut reunion started with a short walk to an area of town nearby where there had been several kiwi spottings the last couple nights. We had no such luck, but it was a pretty walk with a good view of Oban.
We then went out to dinner at the hotel nearby, where we got some really big portions for a pretty good rate. Even after having backpacked the last two days, I still had leftovers of my loaded potato wedges!
After dinner, we headed out one more time to try to find the ever-illusive wild kiwi. This time we searched a rugby field quietly and diligently with our red flashlights (kiwi can’t see red light). It wasn’t too long before we all got impatient and cold, and one of us got the bright idea of shining their super bright headlamp all across the field. Still no luck. I think my favorite quotes from the trip occurred then: “That’s how we’ll get to see them, we’ll just blind the little buggers!” and “If we can’t see them, nobody can!” What a riot. I was really glad to meet these incredible people, and even more glad we could reunite with them. What a great bunch!
The next morning, it was up early again to catch the ferry back across. After reaching the mainland we headed back north again towards Te Anau, stopping briefly in the scenic town of Invercargill along the way. It’s home to possibly the fanciest water tower I will ever see.
Our primary destination at Te Anau was the glowworm caves. If you haven’t heard of these, they’re these teeny little worms that live only in New Zealand caves and put off a blueish greenish light. This had been on my bucket list for a good while, and Te Anau was supposed to be one of the best places to see them.
To reach the cave, we had to take a cruise across Lake Te Anau. Once we arrived we were split up into groups to go inside the cave. After walking a ways through the cave, we were ushered into a little boat, and the lights were turned completely out. After bumping around in complete darkness for a minute or two, our eyes adjusted and we were able to see clouds of little blue pinpricks floating in the black. Of course, I couldn’t take any pictures, but it was pretty cool. Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.
After we emerged, we were taken to the Cavern House, where we got to learn a little more about the history of the place and about glowworms. I won’t share the gory details here, but glowworms are really sort of primal creatures (I don’t think that’s quite the right word, but I couldn’t come up with it…). Feel free to Google them if interested, but make sure to at least look at pictures!
To be honest, I enjoyed the ride back across the lake almost as much as the glow worms! It was a gorgeous night.
To top it off, we got to find a letterbox just outside of town! It was my first one in New Zealand, so I was pretty psyched. For those of you unfamiliar, it’s basically like a treasure hunt where you’re looking for little boxes with a stamp (usually hand-carved) and a logbook inside. If you find one, you take a print of the stamp and leave a print of your personal stamp inside. It’s pretty similar to geocaching if you’ve heard of that.
After finding the box, we headed off to Queenstown to spend the night. While most hostels I stayed at just had a bunkbed layout, this one was really unique: each person had a totally encapsulated pod to themselves within a larger room. I found the personal space and noise barrier really nice, especially since it’s hard for me to sleep when people are snoring…
The next morning it was off for another round of Queenstown adventures. The first item on the itinerary? Paragliding!
We rode the famous Queenstown gondola up to the top where we met our instructors/pilots. They got us saddled up and the parachutes all straightened out, then gave us a couple of instructions and off we went!
Essentially, once my pilot got the parachute up in the air, he just told me to start walking and then running on his cue. So basically, we just ran off the side of the hill: not really scary at all! It really felt like flying, or at least what I imagine flying would be like.
Unfortunately, the winds were a little too strong for us to travel too far out from the mountain, but the views were still gorgeous, and he took me on a bit of a roller coaster ride as we neared the bottom. Overall a cool experience!
Afterwards, we took the gondola back up the mountain and enjoyed exploring the chalet at the top for a bit. They apparently had a thing for jelly beans; in addition to a Jelly Belly store, they had replicas of some famous artwork made from jelly beans!
We also enjoyed some really yummy hot chocolate…
…and some classic Queenstown views.
Next up we tried luging. The best way I can explain luging is probably real-life Mario Kart; you basically have a cross between a scooter and a wagon and ride it on a track. I really wasn’t expecting much, but Autumn talked me into it, and I’m so glad she did! It was a blast!
Afterwards, we went on a bit of a hike, where we caught some killer views of Ben Lomond (a nearby mountain) and some other paragliders. What a stunning day.
After many hours atop the mountain, we finally took the gondola back down and headed out to nearby Arrowtown, which I also had stopped at on my first trip to Queenstown. I was really hungry for another one of ABC’s pies, and it did not disappoint! (The “M” is for mince, in case you were wondering.)
I also wanted to spend more time exploring the town since my last visit here had been short. Arrowtown was once a mining town and had a large population of Chinese miners, who were asked to come fill the vacuum of Kiwi miners who left after the large chunks of gold ran out. We learned in my history class that the miners faced a lot of obstacles, including ridiculously high poll taxes, and were treated poorly, yet were so hard-working. It was pretty humbling to see how they survived in such itty-bitty homes.
We then retraced our steps to Queenstown, where we were hoping to see Luma, Queenstown’s annual winter lights festival. Though it was pretty chilly, there were enough really neat displays to make it worthwhile.
Although I couldn’t figure out how it was related, one of my favorite parts was a garden gnome decorating exhibit. From what I could piece together, it sounds like several artists were given blank gnomes and free reign to decorate them however they wanted. The results were quite creative!
I think Autumn could have stayed for ages (she loved it!), but I was pretty cold, so we eventually headed out. Our hostel that night was in Wanaka, so it was on the road again.
Tuesday morning, we woke up to snowy mountains in Wanaka.
After sleeping in a bit (what a luxury!), we had to head out for the Rob Roy track pretty quickly. What we didn’t realize was how quickly the road would deteriorate from pavement. We may or may not have had to ford a couple pretty deep streams… Thankfully, we didn’t get stuck, and no bill from the rental car company yet! Despite road conditions, the scenery was as usual magnificent.
The track had a decently steady but not too steep incline. It followed a river for part of the way, which was a gorgeous Listerine blue (not Gatorade blue, as Autumn corrected me!).
The endpoint was the Rob Roy glacier. It was kind of hard to spot and was covered in snow, but still really pretty.
We made it back to the car in about 3.5-4 hours and rushed back through the fords to try and make it to our next destination before it closed. Of course, this just happened to line up with a quintessential New Zealand experience:
We probably spent a good five minutes creeping along behind those sheep. The poor things were so confused: first they were going away from us, then towards us, then away again! They’re not lying when they say sheep aren’t the brightest creatures. Thankfully the farmer wasn’t far behind us to tell us to just drive through them and they would move out of the way.
We rolled into Puzzling World with about an hour until closing time and raced inside. We quickly worked out a plan: explore the indoor portion of the museum, which was filled with puzzles and illusions, then head outdoors to complete the giant maze. Below are some of my favorite illusions and puzzles from the indoor portion. (If I didn’t include Towers of Hanoi, would I really be a computer science major?)
We made it outside into the maze just before closing time and were left to our own devices. (Don’t worry, there were emergency exit doors! But that’s cheating.) We were tasked with making it to each of the four corners of the maze, which all had a tower, and then finding our way to the exit. Making things even more challenging was the fact that we quickly ran out of daylight. We made it out in a little less than an hour, though!
After a decent hike plus a couple more steps in the Maze, we were pretty ready for dinner, so we hit up a taco stand in celebration of our last night together. Tasty…
Wednesday morning we were on the road again, this time before it was even light. I nearly missed seeing the famous Cardrona Hotel on the side of the road, but I caught it just in time to pull over and snap a picture.
Sadly, our adventures together were coming to an end. Autumn had to be back in Dunedin to perform at a concert, so we planned for her to take a bus back from Queenstown that morning. I still had a couple of days before I had to get back and get serious about finals, so I was going to travel for a bit more. Cheers to the first half of my travels and a good travel mate!
Shew! This post is already ginormous and there’s still a lot to cover, so I think I’m going to split this trip up and leave you hanging a little bit longer. Hold tight, almost there!
Ray of Sunshine Travel 