Life as a Kiwi

Hello everyone! Finally at school now with stable Internet and an actual computer so the blogs should be coming at a steady pace-hopefully!

I'll try to fill everyone in from where I left off last time!

That gorgeous place is Milford Sound. Steph and I were so lucky with the weather on our travels and were there for another gorgeous day! It was AMAZING. There were hundreds of waterfalls everywhere and the sound actually opened up into the Tasman Sea! We took a cruise around in there and went out to the sea and then to an underwater observatory center. I cannot even begin to describe how pretty everything is in New Zealand but it was just absolutely awesome. This was a whole day trip, as it took us nearly four hours to get to Milford and another four back. So worth it though!

We stayed in Queenstown for a total of 6 days and it honestly wasn't enough. I absolutely loved it there, it had a little bit of everything. We were lucky enough to not have to switch rooms at any point in the stay so we let our bags explode all over the room a bit-oops. While we were in Queenstown we did a little bit of everything. We bungy jumped, as I previously mentioned, which was awesome. The bungy just wasn't enough for us though so we went canyon swinging and that was the perfect mix of awesome and terrifying at the same time. I tried to upload a video of it soo if it works, watch it, if not ehhh oh well.  We went out with the friends we made on the Kiwi bus almost every night which was always fun. Everyone was from different countries so we all danced differently which always made the nights interesting. One night didn't end too well for Steph and I however. They have a lot of boxed wine in New Zealand and Australia and they call it goon-terrible stuff. The word Goon comes from the aborigine word for pillow because when the bag of wine is empty it blows up into a pillow, how creative! So Steph and I managed to drink the whole box(4 litres) and had massive headaches the next day. Oops. We decided we were allowed one crazy night though! We did a lot of shopping and went to the beach, basically just enjoyed the town a lot. On our last night we went on a little date to a nice restaurant and treated ourselves to seafood.

It was definitely the most interesting plate of seafood I have ever received. I wish I would've snapped a photo of it before I ate it all-shoot. But everything came in shells and the prawns still had their heads on and everything! I had NO idea how to even begin to dig into my food, total tourist move! Look at all those shells! Needless to say the food was amazing.

We met so many awesome people on our trip so it was sad to leave everyone we met on the bus and in Queenstown, but it had to be done. We left Queenstown on the morning of the 6th and traveled to a tiny tiny town called Geraldine. We didn't actually stay in Geraldine but traveled to a little farm about 30 minutes outside of town. All the farms in New Zealand are just MASSIVE and are actually called stations. The little old man that took us out to the farm was telling us about how everything worked. His family had owned the land for over 150 years and their station is about 15,000 acres! I couldn't even imagine farming that much land, and they only have 6 people that work on the farm! Talk about hard work! Most of the farmers there have sheep, red deer, beef, and field grass. Since the land is very hilly the animals just roam as they please and come back in for winter, just mind boggling.

ANYWHO. So we went to this farm and stayed in the Rangitata Rafting Lodge. It was in the middle of no where but such a cute little place. For the rafting package we booked we received three meals, a hot dessert, a ride to Christchurch, a place to stay, and the rafting tour. It was a nice little deal, and the rafting was awesome! Weird thing about it was that they had group showers instead of individual ones and the dorms were 9 sleepers so the bunks were three high! I would've been so scared to sleep on the tip-top!

The rafting was really really fun though. We rafted on the Rangitata River, which is formed from glacier run off so the water was ice cold but a super pretty blue. We actually had to raft ourselves instead of a guide doing everything which made it more fun I think. After rafting we got to swim in the rapids and float down the river and do some cliff jumps. I oddly became a bit of an adrenaline junkie on this vacation!

After rafting we went to Christchurch to get ready to fly back to Australia. The city suffered a MAJOR earthquake last summer and the devastation is unreal. The city has just died, it was so sad to see everything.



If only I had a video recording of what I am about to tell you, you would all laugh hysterically at us. We made the mistake of taking the train to Newcastle with all our luggage. Dumbest idea I think I've had in a  long time. I had three rolling bags and two hands, if you can visualize this in your head just imagine the biggest struggle ever. The 10 minute walk to the train station turned into a muscle building, sweat accumulating, blister forming, 40 minute pure torture walk. Trying to drag my bags through an extremely busy Sydney train station was hell. By the time I got to the ticket stand I was dripping in sweat and my arms were pulsing with pain. It took us another three elevator rides and 20 minutes before we even got on the train. Needless to say that when we fly back out I will be taking a taxi the whole way to the airport. I hate luggage officially now.

I am finally in Newcastle though! It is amazing to be settled-ish into my room and the campus is gorgeous. I love the privacy and the set up of the dorm. I'll clean my room and take pictures of it so you can all see later. Forewarning: it looks like a jail cell from the 70's kinda. But I'm enjoying it and that's all that matters, right?