In short, I’m spending my time in New Zealand as a policy
intern in the country’s capital, Wellington. But before my position there
begins, my sister and I decided to do a bit of a vacation on the South Island.
Here’s a map to put things into perspective.
So our first stop is Queenstown, near the south of the South
Island. Here are some highlights of our stay in and around Queenstown:
1) Showering after 25 hours spent on either a plane or in a terminal
2) Sort of climbing Ben Lomond (a mountain)
3) Hills, hills everywhere
4) Milford Sound
I don’t have a picture of me in the shower, but imagine me
covered in butter and then being hosed off. Actually wait, don’t imagine that
because just no. But honestly, I was feeling so greasy after that little
journey across some of Canada and the Pacific Ocean and the length of New
Zealand. I do, however, have pictures of the other three highlights from our
first four days in Aotearoa.
Emily and I decided to go for a little jaunt up THIS
mountain (yeah that big one in the distance).
It’s called Ben Lomond
and it is 1,748m high. We understood the time commitment before we started
climbing, but I don’t think we understood how steady the incline would be. And
I’m not sure if we factored in that this was our first full day in New Zealand
and we were still probably pretty jet lagged. Anyway, that’s where we aimed to
climb to.
Here is a picture of me looking majestic with the mountain
backdrop.
 |
| so majestic |
Anyway, we got up to the saddle (a flat part of the tramp,
which is the Kiwi word for hike, between the main walk and the steeper climb to
the summit) where we got a gorgeous view of the Southern Alps. It was terribly
windy up there, but it was so beautiful and worth it. It was nice to just look
at them. Here’s a picture of Em and I, so carefully composed (i.e. camera on
self-timer of a lovely makeshift backpack tripod).
The next day we headed off to the west coast of New Zealand
toward the Tasman Sea to visit Milford Sound (it’s actually a fjord but I won’t give you a geography lesson right
now). In short, it’s this gorgeous inlet with steep hills formed by glaciers
during the last ice age. Milford area was where scenes in The Lord of the Rings around Fangorn Forest were filmed. Note: I
will be referring to a lot of places we go as “that place in LOTR.” It is also one of the rainiest
places in New Zealand, so we got a cloudy day but the rain held off for our
actual boat tour of the fjord. Luckily, it had been raining earlier so hundreds
of waterfalls had essentially sprung out of the hillsides – it was quite
gorgeous. Below are a couple pictures of Milford Sound.
And our last pictures for this post is of Lake Wakatipu, the
body of water around Queenstown – the longest lake in New Zealand and one of
two in the world that has a tide! Apparently scientists say that the 200mm rise
and fall of the water every three hours has to do with air pressure between two
mountain ranges (like the other tide lake, Lake Geneva), but Maori legend has
it that there is a giant at the bottom of the lake whose heart beats every three
hours, causing the tide. Anyway, it’s surrounded by hills and hills so it is
quite a spectacular place to be.
We have been travelling all day via plane up to Nelson for
our next couple of days, so I am afraid that I will have to sign off for now. I’ll
be able to give a little more insight on my feelings about this wonderful
country (I assure you, they are all positive) later on this week when we settle
in for our twelve-week stay in Wellington. But for now, you’ll just have to
grin and bear the “travel blog” style for another few days. We’ve got an eight
kilometre walk in Abel Tasman National Park tomorrow so we must get some sleep…
you can Google image pictures or wait for tomorrow, for I am sure my sister
will be able to produce some more gorgeous photographs for you to enjoy.
I would post more photos, but these image files are huge and the postively glacial New Zealand internet doesn't help the process.
Haere Mai!
