Day 47: Queenstown, New Zealand (whoah, its been awhile)

Hey everyone! Its been awhile since my last post, and there is tons to catch up on (namely that I've made it to New Zealand safely) so here we go. I hope everyone is doing well back home and that people haven't done anything silly and gotten themselves married or a tattoo of their dog's name.

Also, I enjoy reading the comments you guys leave, so leave more! Suggestions include "Mike why haven't you posted more updates" or "Give my phone number to the next girl you talk to", etc.

Well, I finished off in Surfer's Paradise in Australia, and took a day to learn how to surf. My first time was with Jeff in Cali about a year and a half ago, so you can pretty much say I'm a beginner. The lessons involved stuff like reading the surf to figure out where rips are (in bad cases, rip = sure death for us newbies) and how to paddle, etc. So after that boring useless stuff we got a chance to surf for real. Since the lessons had a wide range of people (kids to adults) they just had us surfing the foam of the broken waves without telling us that the faster you're going the easier the balance (like a bike). So for my second lesson I wet straight out to where the waves were breaking, somehow convinced my instructor I have had a few lessons (rather than just one that morning), so he showed my how to surf waves instead of foam. Needlessly to say I got beaten up almost as much as I would in the wrestling ring, but did manage to actually surf and make some turns. Anyone trying it should just think of snowboarding on powder snow, its the same technique for turning and balancing.

Then I flew to NZ (oh yeah, I went on a pub crawl in Surfer's Paradise for a last big night out, and met a bunch of people who's names escape me now, it probably had something to do with the free drinks at each club, except for a local hottie named Brooke who had a boyfriend, so there was no pretense of me trying to pick her up, even though I was still trying anyways). I stayed at the Surfer's Paradise Backpackers Resort which had a gym (in a dark and dank basement, very depressing, kinda like my fitness level at this point in the trip) and a basketball court (they don't play much here, so I had to shoot around by myself for an hour, pity me).

I landed in New Zealand in Auckland, took the bus in front the airport, had some chinese food and caught a movie (the Island, very good except the parts with needles and blood of course). No partying that night because my contiki tour started the next day (Aug 2). Oh yeah, its winter here and temps range anywhere from 0 (zero!) at night to a max of like 18 in the day on the north island.

A Contiki tour is basically a whirlwind tour that brings you from place to place by day, and lets you check out that place for about 1 or 2 hours before scheduled activities occur and you're sent out on the town for the night to drink and forget what you actually did and where you are (trust me, it actually says that in the brochure). I had a last and met some cool people who I'll be keeping in touch with and probably visit in the future some time, so for socializing its a good experience versus backpacking.

I'll spare the details of the tour for now and just go through some highlights:

Paihia, North Island: This was a chilled out place, it seemed kinda like a town you'd find up in Muskoka somewhere, with the big bay, islands, not many people but still something to do in the town in the evenings. I went a sea kayaking adventure (missed out on the one at Cape Tribulation, Australia) where we cruised along the bay a bit, then up a tidal estuary (basically a river) and under an ice cold waterfall. The partying there was a blast too, cause everyone on the tour got to know each other. We crawled along the strip both nights (meaning we went to 3 bars), and got to meet some of the locals as well. There was this crazy Maori (they are the aboriginals in NZ) named Trix (yep Trix, he wouldn't give us another name) who kinda hung out with us and gave a Haka (Maori war dance) which surely woke up the whole town at the end of the night.

Waitomo, North Island: Again Waitomo is a small little town in the hills somewhere. Their claim to fame is their natual caves and caverns below the ground that are inhabited by glow worms. So we went on a "black water rafting" adventure where they outfit you with a wet suit, boots, gloves, helmets, etc and send you into one of the caves (with a freezing cold stream in it! 8 or 9 degrees) for a couple of hours to float, (accidentally) bump your head against the stalagmites hanging from the roof and to appreciate the glow worms on the roof of the cavern which look like stars in the night sky. It was a good experience and I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind the cold or has claustrophobia. That night a group of us played a drinking game called 'kings' (now thats a good time), and at the end a buddy of mine named Max and I went out looking for more of a party in the town. We ended up crashing a party in some swanky hotel bar being thrown for the executives of Colliers International (a property managements company). So there we were schmoozing with the VP's and Management, while we were slightly tipsy and giving everyone there our thoughts on what to buy and what to sell. I should've asked for a job from them :)

Well, I'm out of time here... on our tour we must've seen hundreds of things in the two weeks of touring. I'll post more sometime later, but for now be contented with the following two recent stories.

The tour ended in Christchurch, and I wanted to come back down here to Queenstown, so I figured I'd rent a car. What I got was a station wagon for $1/day... no mistake there, $1/day. I was worried it'd be an old clunker with manual transmission and a missing wheel or something like that. It ended up being the brand new Ford Falcon pictured to the left... only 4 thousand km on it, and they're trusting me with it, hehe. It was a smooth ride down here, and I stopped on the way to hike to the summit of Mt. John (only 1000m above sea level) to catch a sunset over Lake Tekapo.


Also, after the tour I had nothing planned, so I kinda sat around for two days accomplishing no more than going for a scenic bike ride (contiki tours really end up draining you!). The last night in Christchurch, I was out at the bar and ended up entering a 'competition' at the bar with a girl I met there. So everyone was in teams of 2, and they told us it would be a 'race'. They didn't tell us, until we started, that it was a clothing race where each team lays articles of their clothing in a straight line and which ever teams clothing line is the longest wins a $710 tour around the south island. So I figured, if we win, I could go on the tour and not have to think about what to fill my last couple of weeks with, perfect! So, I did my best for the team (hope none of the pictures from that night turn up on the internet), and Julia (my teammate) did her best while maintaining a bit of dignity, but alas in the end we were beaten by 6 or 7 inches of underwears by two dudes who coincidentally seemed to have 8 layers of shirts on. Damn. However, they came up to me after asking if I wanted to buy the tour off them, so I did and saved a ton of money in the process for something I would have most likely bought anyways. Sweet. So the portion of the tour Im going on covers Milford Sound (most scenic place in New Zealand, the road was closed during contiki due to avalanche risk), Invercargill (most southern city in NZ), Dunedin (student town, I'm expecting something like Kingston :) and back to Christchurch. Wish me luck!