Jackie's World Tour 2009 – Let the mayhem begin!

So in my last installment I left off at Wanaka. Wow , that seems like ages ago! I think it was really only a week and a half ago but with this kind of travel and all the stuff I have been doing that is like a lifetime ago! Wanaka was a lot of fun and a much needed break for me. It was quite nice cause Caroline, Chloe, Joey and I were able to snag a 6 person dorm room with our own kitchen and bathroom that was completely empty and stayed that way until we left. It was like having our own little apartment. We did group meals every morning and night and were basically one big happy family. We even had guests (other people we met on the road) over for dinner and breakfast. We decided to do a big shrimp dinner one night (which I cooked) and a huge chocolate chip pancake and eggs breakfast another morning. I certainly can’t say that I haven’t been eating well this trip. Anyway, we did go to that awesome movie theatre. It was so cute. They had couches and armchairs for people to sit on instead of movie seating and they put an intermission in the movie so you could go out and buy freshly baked cookies. Yes, I had milk and cookies at intermission! So good. Other than that I pretty much relaxed. I did not go on the Rob Roy hike with everyone cause my knee was hurting and I didn’t want to aggravate it further. It was a good choice cause I seriously needed a break from everyone and everything for a couple of hours. After Wanaka it was off to Queenstown. First off the one thing that I think every person should know about Queenstown is that you CANNOT buy any underwear there! You can buy a stuffed kiwi disguised as a sheep, a myriad of shot glasses with all sorts of NZ crap on it (yes, Rob and Amy, I got your first shot glass!), shirts with all stupid sayings on it and basically any type of sporting goods stuff that you can think of but no underwear. I realized in Wanaka after I lost a pair of underwear (wish I had a good story for that one but I just think the laundry monster that normally eats socks decided to be adventurous and eat my underwear) that traveling with only 5 pairs was kind of stupid. So, I spent a whole afternoon wandering Queenstown looking for some undies. Yep, didn’t happen but I did get some tank tops (needed those too!) and some yummy fudge! But that is besides the point. So my first bit of advice for anyone visiting Queenstown is make sure you have enough underwear cause you can’t get any in that town! Ok 2nd piece of advice if you are visiting Queenstown, Go and get a Fergburger the minute you get into town. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, well if you don’t have money you may want to stop at the ATM and then go directly to get one of these burgers! They are huge and AWESOME. After that, go down the street and get some homemade ice-cream from Patagonia. Again, awesome! You won’t have to eat for a week cause the servings of the burgers and ice-cream are huge. Ok, enough about the food. Last piece of advice when in Queenstown…DO THE NEVIS BUNGY JUMP!!!! The Nevis bungee jump, it is the 4th highest bungy jump in the world and the highest bungy in New Zealand. So I swore I never would do a bungy jump and it never really appealed to me cause I never saw the sense in throwing yourself off a bridge or building with nothing but a strap around your legs. But I found myself locked into doing it cause I promised Chloe that if she threw herself out of a plane and skydived I would bungy jump. Of course she was cruel and made me do the highest one she could find. I still can’t believe I did it. I literally was having nightmares a couple of days before the jump. But all that fear allowed me to be really in the moment when I did the jump and it was totally amazing! I was so scared standing on the ledge getting ready to jump. I seriously thought I was going to die. You know logically that you will be fine (they have never had anyone get hurt in all the years they have been doing this) but as you are standing with nothing in front of you except open air and a super long drop into a ravine, logic goes out the window. You can see on the video that I am shaking like a leaf. I only had to have the guy count me down 2x before I jumped which I am quite proud of. I can’t even explain the feeling I had. I felt like I was flying. I had my hands out in front of me and at one point I swear I felt like Superman. It was so cool. The one sucky thing about Queenstown was that I wound up losing all the people I was traveling with. Chloe, Joey and Caroline did not purchase the south pass so they rented a car and did some random hikes and what not around the Queenstown area while I boarded the bus and headed to Curio Bay and the furthest south part of the South Island. Well what to say about the South Island, it is cold with a lot of raw beauty and very remote. I am glad that we stopped in Invercargall, which is a small city, before we headed down south cause I picked up a sweatshirt which I basically lived in while in Curio Bay. Curio Bay was a mixture of awesomeness and A LOT of downtime. I decided to hop off the bus at Curio Bay (not a normal overnight stop for Stray) because I heard there was good surfing and I wanted to take some more lessons. Curio Bay itself is very small and quite beautiful. There is NOTHING to do except walk on the beach and relax. So the first night was great cause I got to take my surf lesson. It was me and 2 other people taking the lesson so there was a lot of personalized attention. I did really well and loved every minute of it. I was actually catching the waves before they broke and I can’t wait to move onto a smaller board. Now when you catch unbroken waves you need to paddle yourself out a bit further than if you were catching the broken waves. This becomes important to my surfing experience because the other thing that I have not mentioned about Curio Bay is that it is home to about 20 Hector dolphins (very rare)and two types of penguins. The dolphins swim very close to the beach and you can see them all the time surfing the waves and playing around. So I paddled out to catch some waves and was sitting and waiting when about 4 dolphins came and swam around and under my board for about 3 minutes. It was amazing! They are so damn cute and it was amazing to just be sitting on my board with these dolphins swimming around me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to surf again because a storm came in and the waves were too big and unpredictable. So I was stuck walking around the rocks and watching the waves crash into the rock formations. It was really peaceful and gave me a lot of time to think. It was the first time this trip I actually felt lonely. But at the same time I gave me uninterrupted time to really sit and sort things out in my head. I guess I needed to do that cause I found myself sitting on the rocks for hours. When I wasn’t at the beach I was at the hostel reading. I blew through 2 books in 2 days at the hostel. Like I said, there was a lot of downtime. Quite a change from all the other places I have been considering the crazy pace and all the adventurous stuff I have been doing! After Curio Bay I traveled to Dunedin which is home to the New Zealand Cadbury Chocolate manufacturing plant. So of course I had to go for the chocolate tour. The tour was kind of lame but you got a lot of free chocolate which was really yummy. I am totally chocolated out BTW! I need to go through chocolate detox after all the crap I have been eating. I even gave away all of my chocolate when I got to Queenstown. Yeah, I know, I gave away chocolate. I know you all must think that I have lost it but really if I eat anymore chocolate I am going to turn into a Cadbury egg or something. Actually, come to think of it, I am starting to resemble the general shape of a Cadbury egg with the way I have been eating lately! LOL 😉 Dunedin is actually a pretty cool city. There is a lot of gothic architecture which is really quite beautiful. I didn’t get to see much of it because it was a bit spread out but I can tell you that the Stock Xchange bar is a lot fun!  Did some dancing on the bar, drinking and karaoke. It was a fun night. After that it was back to Queenstown! I was excited to be coming back to Queenstown cause Caroline was still there and I was able to stay in the same room with her again. We had 2 nights together which was awesome. The bonus plan was the 2 hot Swedish guys that were in our room. Not only were they hot but they were a lot of fun as well. Sweden is moving up the list for me. They bring us H&M, Ikea and hot men!  Of course they were only eye candy for me cause they were both 19! DAMN being 34 and hanging out with young hot people! I am going to start saying I am 25. LOL That is usually what people guess as my age (thanks Mom and Dad for my awesome genes, although Mom we need to talk about the big butt gene you gave me!) The last night in Queenstown was a lot of fun. About 15 of us from the hostel headed out and did a bar crawl. Yeah lots of drinking and dancing. Very fun night and a great way to end off my last night with Caroline. After Queenstown it was time to move along to Christchurch which was a somewhat larger city. I wasn’t a huge fan of Christchurch as it seemed that it was a bit seedy. Not much to report there except I bought a new pair of flip-flops. Whoo-hoo!!!! Yeah, the excitement level is winding down here a little bit. Oh wait, there was also the used condom that I found next to my bed in the hostel when I was looking for an outlet. Totally made my night! Gotta love used contraceptives laying around the room you are sleeping it. First time that has happened and I am hoping it is the last. Probably won’t be but whatever; it is not like I am paying a lot of money for these rooms. So moving on from Christchurch…. Next stop Kiakoura , which was much better that Christchurch. This girl Stephanie and I walked to the seal colony which was about an hour away from town. It was a nice walk and the seals were cool. We also stopped for some fresh fish on the walk back. You wouldn’t expect such good stuff from a little shack on the side of the road but it was pretty damn good. Right now I am back in Auckland. Got in yesterday after a 12 hour bus ride. UCK!! ! Now I am gearing up for Fiji! I leave tomorrow at the butt-crack of dawn. I can’t wait. Fiji is supposed to be amazing! I think I have figured out where I am going but I haven’t booked anything yet except for my first night accommodation. I will figure it out when I get there. So I think I will be without internet for the 2 weeks I am in Fiji so this will probably be my last post for awhile. Ok, gotta go meet my friend Mike for some dinner. I’ll be talking to all you guys in 2 weeks unless I find a way to get online in paradise..I mean Fiji. Big hugs and I miss ya! 

New Zealand has been so amazing. I am finally in the South Island and it is just as much fun as the North Island but way more picturesque. It is filled with many mountains, waterfalls, glaciers and gorgeous forests. I have done some great things while in the South Island but a little less extreme than the North Island. I am trying desperately to stop the neverending flow of money going out of my wallet but man it is hard! There are way too many cool things to do and way too much good beer to drink! I have found my new favorite beer, Tui. It is brewed in New Zealand and I am turning into a pretty big fan of the drink. The bonus is that it is always included in the happy hour specials! Whoo-hoo. Oh yeah, did I mention the Cadbury chocolate? You know, the people that make all the chocolate eggs and easter chocolate in the US? Well it is really big here and for some reason it tastes much better here than back home. Yeah, so that has been added to my arsenal of bad things I love to eat almost everyday. It goes hand in hand with the huge Cookie Time cookies. Gotta love a cookie named Cookie Time. I mean it is always cookie time, right?!?!? I thought you would all agree and if you don’t all you need to do it try to cookie time cookies and you will be a believer as well! J Ok, enough about my cookie, chocolate and beer habits for today. So I do have to say that I am bummed that I missed President Obama’s inauguration. What a historic moment that must have been. I am so proud to be an American at this point in time. I was part of the population that helped put our first black president in office. It is quite amazing really. I do have to say that it has totally raised non-American’s opinion of Americans. What I have been coming to find is that many people think that American’s are stupid. When talking politics in particular they really think we are stupid. I have gotten a lot of how could we have elected someone like Bush into office and then reelect him for a second term. I don’t really disagree with them. But that is besides the point. People are changing their opinions since we elected Obama. Non-american’s really, really like Obama. Let’s see if he can live up to the hype. Ok, back to the trip. I am sure no one really cares about my political views. And I really have no problem talking about how freakin beautiful New Zealand is. So when I last left you I had just completed my 3 days of crazy adventure. So after the caving, skydiving, rafting fun it was onto Tongoriro National Park and Mt. Doom! For those who are not into The Lord of The Rings, Mt. Doom is this huge mountain/volcano from the movie. I can’t remember the real name of the mountain ( I think it is Narahoe) but it is part of this really hard 6 hour hike called the Tongoriro Crossing. It is an amazing hike that goes in between 2 active volcanoes. One of those volcanoes is Mt. Doom. It is mostly an uphill climb that is really kind of hard but the views make it totally worth it. I didn’t climb Mt. Doom but I could have if I had the time. It was incredibly steep and I am sure that I would have reenacted the parts of the movie where Frodo is saying her can’t go on anymore cause it looked like an almost vertical climb. Anyway, after Mt. Doom the hike is still very strenuous but the landscape is breathtaking. There are 3 lakes called Emerald Lakes which come about half way through the hike as you start the first descent. They are these beautiful emerald/turquoise pools that just defy what you really think is possible from the color of water. So amazing. The hike then passed another huge lake and then went past some more steaming hot springs fed from the volcanoes into this lush forest with a river running through it. Yeah, breathtaking. That hike was really strenuous but it was so worth it. That is one thing I have to say about NZ, it has some of the prettiest forests I have ever seen. I have done a lot of hiking in my time and NZ blows all of it away with Maine and Arizona in a close second. NZ is so diverse which I love. Half the times it looks like you are walking through Jurassic Park. You’ll see what I am talking about when you look at the pics.After the crossing, Chloe and I decided to spend an extra day in Abel Tasmin which is New Zealand’s smallest but busiest National Park. It is home to the Golden Sand beaches which didn’t impress me too much cause the color of the sand is the same color as the sand back home. But the water is much nicer than back home. It is a gorgeous turquoise blue and you can pretty much see your feet on the ocean floor. We took a boat ride along the whole length of the Able Tasmin Park up to Golden Bay. Able Tasmin is known for it’s coastline which is littered with gold sand beaches and lots of different rock formations. It is a super popular place for sea kayaking and backpacking. I didn’t do either but the boat ride allowed me to see all the beauty of the coastline. We also saw George the dolphin. He was hanging out in one of the bay’s and he apparently is a loner dolphin. He followed the about 2 feet behind the motor. Apparently it is like a spa bath for the dolphins but if you ask me it is a death wish. One wrong move and George would lose his nose! Anyway, got in some nice relaxation and beach time which was much needed. Oh yeah, also got really close to some seals as well. They were pretty cute. The other thing I wanted to write about was ice climbing at the Franz Josef glacier. The Franz Josef glacier is beautiful. It was a pretty cool hike to even get to the glacier and then once you are there you need to strap on crampons to ascend the glacier. That was a lot fun but hard work. Walking up a glacier is as hard as it sounds. We went up about ¼ of the way and stopped to start the ice climbing. OH MY GOD!!! Ice climbing is one of the hardest physical things I have ever done in my life. It is so physically taxing. I found the hardest part was getting the axes to properly stay in the ice. The basic form for ice climbing is as follows: 1)Swing right hand axe into ice so your arm is fully extended 2) then swing your left hand axe into the ice so arm is fully extended 3) tug the shit out of the axes to make sure they are stuck into the ice 4) pray your axes don’t fall out of the ice as you kick you foot into the ice with your toes so your foot sticks into the ice. 5) Pray again as you move your next foot above the other about 8 inches apart 6) Go to take out your axe and repeat process often times falling completely off the vertical sheet of ice cause you only think you have secured your axes and feet into the ice but really haven’t. I think I need to have a better relationship with the man upstairs cause it seemed that all of my praying didn’t help that much and I fell off quite often and usually it was when I was pretty far up the wall. Sigh….it was still awesome even though I sucked at it. Might I stress again that it was so hard and strenuous. My arms and hands felt like they were going to fall off cause I had a death grip on the axes the whole time I was climbing. So my suggestion to anyone who is going to go ice climbing, eat your Wheaties before you leave the house, you are going to need it! JWell, now I am on the bus heading to Wanaka. Myself, Chloe, Caroline and our new convert, Joey are going to spend 2 nights there. There is supposed to be a really cool movie theatre that has couches for seats and an intermission in every movie where they come around and hand out home baked cookies. Should be fun. We are also going to do an amazing hike called the Rob Roy hike the day after. It should be fun. Then I lose Chloe, Caroline and Joey and head down to the deep south where I am hopefully going to spend a couple of days at Curio Bay surfing. Chloe and Caroline are talking about renting a car and meeting me in Curio Bay so we can all surf together. We’ll see if that happens. It would be way cool if it does. But if not, I guess I will just have to make new friends on the beach. Ok, that is enough for now. Thanks for reading about my adventures. I know a lot of people have written me emails and I promise I will write back. It is hard to spend a lot of time on the computer because it winds up getting expensive. A lot of places charge $2 for 15 minutes on the computer so I try to limit my time on the computer as much as possible. I WILL write back but please give me time. J Thanks and hugs to everyone.