Milford Sound

The day is Easter. And what better way to spend Easter than on a bus. The bus ride from Fox Glacier to Queenstown was about 8 hours, though we probably could have made it in 5-6. We stopped every ten feet to look at another waterfall. I mean, waterfalls are great, but they get old after awhile. Nonetheless, we arrived in Queenstown around 4PM and then basically hung out the rest of the night. We stayed at the The Last Resort, which is a converted brothel. There were only 18 beds in the hostel, so it was a nice homely atmosphere.

The next day, we had to wake up early for a 7AM departure to Milford Sound. It is supposedly the "eight wonder of the world." We'll get to that later. Anyways, the bus ride to milford sound took 4.5 hours. We stopped at several places to take photos of waterfalls and "the chasm," which was kinda interesting. However, I forgot to charge my camera after the glacier hike, so it was basically dead. I did, however, get a photo of a rainbow that we saw:


Well, 4.5 hours later, we finally arrived at the Milford Sound Cruise station, where we boarded our boat. We ate lunch, and then headed up to the top deck of the boat. The weather, however, ensured that we didn't stay up there too long. The rain started...and never stopped. Not wanting to get drenched and be freezing the rest of the day, we all headed inside. I'm sure if the weather would have cooperated, Milford Sound would have been a beautiful place. However, we got no such luck, as the rain poured and the fog crept in. According to one of the rest stops we stopped at on the bus ride from Fox Glacier to Queenstown, it rains 252 inches a year at Milford Sound. I did manage to get one photo before my camera officially died:


I did buy our group photo though, which came with some professional photos:


We spent 2 hours on the cruise, and then 4.5 hours on a bus back to Queenstown. Had we known how much time we were spending on a bus, we probably wouldn't have paid that much to go. But, there's nothing we can do about it now. That night, we went to a bar made completely out of ice, even the cups. It was pretty cool. We could only spend 30 minutes in there though, cause it was quite small. Here are some photos of that:


The next day was another long one, but it was an awesome day filled with firsts. More on that coming soon, maybe even later tonight...

Glaciers...Now with 75% more pictures

Well, classes are starting to wind down.Only 2 weeks of classes left, and then 3 weeks of finals. I just got finished with one of my papers for Aboriginal studies, and what a paper it was. Not much substance, but I guess it's right on par with the course...very little substance. I'm not even sure what I am supposed to get from this class. Definitely needs a major overhaul and a warning to overseas students that it's not what you think it is. The official class name is "Introduction to Aboriginal Studies." One would assume that means that you are going to learn about Aboriginals. Not even close. It's a class studying about studying about Aborigines. In other words, a bunch of mumbo jumbo, feel sorry for us, we're nothing like American Indians, waste of my time class. But do please forgive us Americans for trying to understand your plight by using what we know in American Indians. There's no need to be offended. We seriously aren't trying to offend you. My other classes are good though. Marine science hasn't really lived up to expectations, but it's gotten better in recent weeks.

Anyway, back to spring break. Last time I wrote I believe I left off at the end of our time in Christchurch. After Christchurch, we were off to Fox Glacier. We took the TranzScenic train through the mountains to Greymouth. On the way, we got some beautiful photos of the scenery. After arriving in Greymouth, we took a bus to Fox Glacier. Agaian, we took some photos of the scenery. It's just too bad I don't have any personally, because somewhere along the route to Fox Glacier, my camera grew some legs and walked away. I've stolen a couple of photos from Facebook though.


Fox Glacier is a quaint little town of about 250. It gets almost all of its business from tourism. The nearest town is Franz Joseph, which is a town of about 400. Both towns have glaciers. The two towns also have a sort of rivalry going on, with both claiming their glaciers to be the best. But anyway, the hostel we stayed in was, well, a hostel. Nothing fancy, but we had a room to ourselves and everything worked, so I can't complain.


That night, however, is when the drama began. We were going through our paperwork for our glacier hike the next day when we saw that we had to reconfirm our reservation for the hike 24 hours in advance, or we would lose our spot. Well, the 24 hour deadline had passed, but we called anyway and go their voicemail. While I was leaving the message, I noticed that our confirmation email had the wrong date for the glacier hike. I basically hung up without completing the message. They guy who's name the reservation is under called them again and explained the problem on the voicemail. Needless to say, we weren't happy that night cause it seemed we wasted $90 on a hike we weren't going on.

The next morning, we woke up early and called them as soon as they opened. They basically told us there probably was no chance of us getting a spot or a refund, but we could show up and take a chance. Well, obviously we were going to take a chance. Then we came across another problem. We were in the opposite city from where we needed to be. When we booked the hike, it mentioned a shuttle to the place, but in actuality, there was no shuttle. We couldn't walk either as it was too far a walk. Well, luckily, a man overheard us talking and offered to give us a ride for $40. We took it.

Well anyway, we got to the hike place, and the lady at the counter said she was able to book us into a hike, but then she saw that there were 4 of us. Apparently, the booking company only told them that were 2 of us. Well, we waited, and then finally she got us into the first hike of the day. That left us little time to get all of our gear and head out. In the rush of the morning, we had forgotten to pack anything for lunch, so we went without lunch for the day.

But anyway, enough of the negatives, the hike was awesome. We elected to go in the fast group (though Nathan and I had to convince Charlie), which in retrospect, was probably the best choice. We got to see more in the fast group. Our guide was Nikki. Here's a pic of her with Nathan:


The scenes were unbelievable. Franz Josef glacier, which is the one we hiked on, and Fox Glacier are both unique in the fact that they are both surrounded by rain forest. Ice and rainforests, not a common thing to see together. But anyway, I can't really do any justice describing the hike, so I'll just give you the photos.


After the glacier hike, we had no way to get back to Fox Glacier, so we went around trying to bum rides off of people. Finally, we found the gas station attendant who agreed to take us all back for $20 a person. Expensive, but at least we got back.

Christchurch and the journey there...

Well, at this rate, I might just get to the end of mid-semester break by the time I leave to come home. So much to write, and so little motivation. Then there's the internet. I can't upload anything from my computer because for some reason the internet is blocking it. I could try to call them and get it fixed between their business hours of 1:25-1:30PM and ask them to repeat everything a million times (amazingly, they're Australians, but I still can't understand them), but it just seems much easier to put all the photos onto a flash drive and go to the new computer lab on campus to upload them. Besides, the internet there is 3 million times faster and I can do it in my down time between classes. So, no photos until next week.

Anyway, back to why you are really here reading my wonderful blog (unless you really like my mindless banter). It's Wednesday the 8th of the Month o' showers (according to pirate facebook). I had just completed my midterm in the science of sex. Now, it's time to leave to go to the wonderful country of New Zealand. With all my paperwork printed out and organized, I headed to the airport with the 3 other guys I would be traveling with the entire trip. More will join us later, but for now it's just us four.

Nathan was one of the first guys I became friends with on this trip. We were one of the 13 lucky ones to make the plane to Cairns and roomed together for the program introduction. He's a cool guy. Loves the alcohol a little too much, but that's to be expected from someone who lives in Pittsburgh. Haha, just joking. He loves his Pittsburgh though, that's for sure. Can't say the same about Dayton unfortunately. It IS dying, sorry Dayton Daily News.

Charlie is your typical yank. City boy, obsessed with his appearance, and likes the Yankees. I mean, yuck! Haha, I guess it's a good thing to make sure that you look respectable. However, a little dirt can't hurt. But to like the Yankees, I mean that's just wrong. In fact, all of New England is just wrong. Boo Yankees, Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, etc. and Boo Steelers!

Jon is from New England...strike 1! He likes the Red Sox...strike 2! And...well I can't think of anything, but...strike 3! He plays football for UMass-Dotmouth (yea, it's Dartmouth, but that's how they pronounce it). Big guy, ripped all my DVDs to my computer. He doesn't eat red meat, not because he doesn't like it or anything, but because someone introduced some substitute (can't remember what it was) and now he will only eat that. He also doesn't eat chips (french fries).

Anyway, we decided to take the train to the airport, as it's the quickest option besides a cab. Little did we know that the fare was gonna be $15 though. A bit pricey for a ride 5 mintues outside the city. It costs $3 to get to the city, and then $12 to get to the airport. Price gounging if you ask me. We arrive at the airport and get in line to get our boarding passes. At the counter, they go through the normal drill of passport, how many checked baggage, etc. Then, they ask for proof of a flight out of the country. Luckily for me, I printed out my intinerary and could prove I was leaving the country. Unfortunately, Charlie didn't print out any of his flight information. They can't give him a boarding pass until he shows them documentation. He disappears to a internet cafe for awhile and finally comes back with his itinerary. Lucky Charlie.

Security, board, etc. On the plane, Jon, Charlie, and I are all in the rear of the aircraft and had the pleasure of sitting next to a family of four in 3 seats (they had a baby). They were definitely not from Australia or America. First, they brought on enough carry-ons for 30 people. As they were in the last row, the space in the apartments above them were limited and there wasn't enough space for all of their bags. When the flight attendants came back and saw all the bags just sitting on the floor, they told the guy to please put them in an overhead compartment. He told them that they were all full around him. The flight attendant then told him that they were then gonna have to go into a compartment further up in the plane. He gave her the bag and said, and I quote, "Let's just make that your problem" and then sat down. Towards the end of the flight, the flight attendants came back to make sure that everyone was ready for landing. They asked the family to buckle up, especially the baby. The guy pointed to the seat belt light and said "It's not lit yet." Not a pleasant family at all. On the bright side, I met a girl across the aisle from me. She's from the northeast somewhere (yuck). She had malt balls or something similar. On landing, they all fell out and rolled down the aisle all they way to the front of the plane.

At the airport in Christchurch, there was a guy standing there with my name on a dry erase board. It was kinda cool. Too bad there wasn't a limo involved. Anyway, we headed to jail after that to stay that night. Yes, a jail. It was an old women's jail, and they converted it into a hostel some years ago. It was pretty cool. We dropped our stuff off there and headed out to go find something to eat. However, being midnight, not many places were open. We went to a bar and talked to the two bartenders. They told us to go out to the Japanese makeshift grill to get food, but nothing looked appetizing (I mean, who wants duck?), so we headed back in to order food at the bar. As we found out later, they only sent us there to see if they would serve us. In fact, one of them got food poisoning after eating there once. So basically, the two bartenders sent us to get food poisoning. We never let them live that down.

After eating we headed back to jail to get some sleep before our scheduled hot air balloon ride. It was about 1AM by this time. We had to get up at 4AM for the hot air balloon ride. Well, only one of us got up at 4AM (thankfully not me) and found out that the hot air balloon ride was canceled. Boo. Well, instead, I slept in til 10. Real late, I know. I got my 8 hours of sleep that it seems is all my body wants. The other slept in til noon. We then headed out to the city centre to catch a bus to the gondola up the mountain. The views from atop the mountain (it obviously wasn't a high mountain) were spectacular. It's just too bad I don't have any photos of it. More about that to come in a later post. We then mountain biked down. For a normal person, it takes about an hour. But for us, we had to stop every 5 feet for another photo op. It took us 2 hours to get down, and by the time we returned to the gondola station, night was in full swing.

Jon, Charlie, and me

After getting back to the jail, we headed to the bar again. We didn't eat this time, but someone did get mugged right outside the bar. Fun stuff. They closed early though for Good Friday since it started at midnight. National holiday rules...blegh. We returned to jail and dwaddled around before going to bed.



The next day is another story for another time as we left Christchurch. Adios