So I had another awesome couple days this past weekend down in Queenstown (the adventure capital of NZ). We (myself and the other kids in the program I came over with) took a 7 hr bus ride down on Friday morning and arrived around 2:30-3:00 pm. More or less immediately after we arrived, we met up with the other Arcadia group who was there and we all headed out to Shotover Jetboats. If you don’t know what a jetboat is, or even if you do, watch some youtube videos because it was soooo cool. They piled 15 of us along with the driver into the boat, and we headed off racing down a river canyon enclosed by cliffs on either side. The driver was flawless and was whipping the boat within less than a foot of the canyon walls while we were going at least 60 mph. Jetboats can travel in as little as 4 in. of water, so we would drift turns over sandbars where my ankles wouldn’t even have gotten wet. The drivers are also quite good at spinning the boat in a full 360 while going full speed…makes for quite the adrenaline rush when you spin a boat that is roughly 16 ft. long in a 20-25 ft. wide river! After jetboating we went back to the backpacker lodge we were staying at and then headed down to a place we were all told by various Kiwis that we absolutely MUST go to. This place was Fergburger. As an American when a Kiwi tells you that a place in New Zealand has the best burgers of all time you’re not to apt to believe them. WELL let me tell you that Fergburger has the BEST burger I have ever eaten. If you check out their menu online I ordered the Big Al…It was by far the most food I have ever seen fit inside of a bun and every single bite was an amazing new flavor blast.(In case you can’t tell it was prettyyyy tasty) Saturday morning we headed out early and kicked off our hike on the Routeburn track around 9:30. Let me also mention that we had beautiful weather all weekend, blue skies and 75 deg the whole time.
The Routeburn was an amazing hike, winding you through moss covered old growth forests, over numerous suspension bridges, up through an alpine river valley and then along the river up to a hut by a waterfall where we had lunch, and of course where a few of us cooled off with a dip in the pool beneath the waterfall. After lunch we continued on up to the lake in the hanging glacier valley that was feeding the river, and from there up to the summit of conical hill. I really can’t get to descriptive while typing about this because I cannot think of words that would come close to doing justice to the amazing sights we saw. The only way to put it is we hiked through a National Geographic magazine….check out the pictures which will be up within a few hours. ALSO for all you Lord of the Rings buffs, we unknowingly walked right past a real Ent (tree person). I without knowing it at the time just so happened to take a picture of him and didn’t realize it until I got back to Christchurch, when you see this picture there will be no doubt that this tree is alive. In total the tramp was a little over 20 miles up and back, and took us about 9 hrs to tackle. Afterwards we were treated to an amazing gourmet pizza meal which we all attacked after a day of eating trailmix and PB&J.
Sunday did a pretty good job of rounding off the weekend with more adrenaline. In the morning we headed up the gondola on the mountainside overlooking the town and had a stunning view of the surrounding mountains and the lake that Queenstown sits beside. At the top of the Gondola we went Luging, although not the type on ice. We were in little carts on a cement track that winded down and around through tunnels and over bridges to give you a pretty thrilling time. The best comparison we came up with is to a real life version of Mario Kart racing for N64, which makes it pretty freaking sweet…After lunch we headed out to Kawarau Bridge to BUNGEE JUMPPPP. It was pretty damn fun if I do say so myself. You basically dive off of an incredibly high diving board over a river. I was hoping to get dunked but I only got my fingers wet, for some reason the guys running it seemed real keen to dunk the girls so their shirts got wet but not so keen for the guys...weird right? However after doing the 150 ft. jump, I wish that I had done the 450 ft. one out of the cable car…guess I’ll just have to go back. Anyways, the pics should be up in a little bit once I get them onto my computer and sorted out