Let the Games Begin ... Again

It's been a while since I've posted about life in New Zealand, mostly because every day life has become just that. Work has been busy, running has become much more of a time commitment, and something didn't feel quite right about chronically all the time I spent with Cam.

Cam and I doing cool things like winning sunglasses at the arcade

Cam and I doing actual cool things like climbing a mountain :D

The hanging glacial valley Cam's looking at in the last picture

But traveling has started to pick up again and a few of American friends visited me last week/weekend. I was able to take a few days off work and we ended up doing a MASSIVE road trip around the southern part of the South Island. It was a lot of driving but the landscape is always changing in NZ so the drives never felt too bad. 

The girls arrived in Christchurch on Tuesday and I sent them in my rental car out to Akaroa - where I went on my first weekend here. 

Wednesday afternoon, after the girls explored Christchurch a bit, we drove to Queenstown. The drive is 6 hours long, down and across the country - past Lake Tekapo, my favorite- Lake Pukaki, a few small towns, and then finally to Queenstown.

Lake Tekapo - the most vibrant I've ever seen it

Church of the Good Shepard at Lake Tekapo

Welcome to New Zealand my love!

We made a stop in Cromwell (one of the small towns on the way) at a farm stand on the side of the road. The stand turned out to make my favorite ice cream AND have a beautiful rose garden in the back of it. The ice cream style is called "real fruit ice cream" - very creative- and basically they take fruit and a plain frozen yogurt and put it in a cone that pumps out a blend of the two with a soft serve texture.

Roses and Ice Cream - Happiest Girl in Cromwell ;)

It's amazing and my friends loved it. They kept asking to stop if we saw another place for it the whole trip. I told Cam that we stopped at this amazing place with a rose garden and he said his granddad is the rose gardener of Cromwell! He did a really good job with this one :)

After checking in to the hotel, we went down to the town for dinner around sunset and ate at the same restaurant that I went to with mom in December. (HIGHLY recommend Finz if anyone is traveling to Queenstown) It was amazing - again. I even had the same waiter - another american expat from Montana. 

First views of Queenstown (This trip)

Early Morning Run #grassrootsgear

Nothing beats Queenstown in the morning

The following morning we went on a paragliding adventure over Queenstown and had an  15 MINUTE trip from the top of Coronet Peak down to the plains below. (The paraglide over the town is 5-10 minutes, so we picked this one for the length). 

Ariel and I on Coronet Peak

Paragliding wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be and after running off the hill and taking flight, I enjoyed my flight with a veteran from the South African army. He told me he once took a paraglider to high five someone standing on the famous cliff in Capetown, so I felt pretty comfortable with his abilities.

Made it! Thanks for the ride Roland!

My friends had really great flights as well, so everyone was feeling good as we drove back to town and got on our way to Milford Sound.

Milford Sound is meant to be about four hours from Queenstown and we wanted to get there before it got dark so we left Queenstown around mid day. I had done about 3 hours of the trip before, to get to the Routeburn Track, but had heard that once you pass the start of the Routeburn track it gets even more amazing. This was definitely true. The mountains seemed to get more rocky and honestly just larger. My mom had told me from her two trips to Milford Sound that we should stop at Mirror Lakes along the way if it is sunny, and as luck would have it - it was!

Mirror Lakes!

After a few photos, we hopped back in the car and headed on. Next up was the Homer Tunnel, a one lane tunnel which serves as the only road to Milford Sound and can be closed in bad weather. Luckily we caught the timing well in both directions and the weather held up to keep the tunnel open. I expected it to be like any tunnel I had seen in the States, but the inside of it was actually completely exposed rock, with steel bracing every 10 m or so -- less man-made support than I had anticipated, making me a bit nervous.

I had forgotten my NZ Frenzy book, which has road side hikes that you might otherwise not know about, so I was pretty keen to stop at any brown sign indicating a short hike with interesting scenery. The next stop was probabaly my favorite: The Chasm. It was a short walk to a rapid waterfall where the texture and the color of the water was amazing. Equally as amazing was the formation of the rocks surrounding it. The rocks were smooth and the strength of the water had worn holes through them. In the photos I took, its hard to determine the orientation of the photo because the scene is so unfamiliar. I like to call these photos abstract art ;) . This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. 

The walk to the Chasm

Eventually we made it to the lodge and checked in to our room. We weren't sure if there would be food at the lodge so brought all of the essentials -- sandwich goods, cheese and crackers, and some wine :) My friends weren't the most comfortable at the lodge, but after some wine and a good game of New Zealand Monopoly, we all got a surprisingly good sleep.

Yes, I will buy the Christchurch Cathedral

Thursday AM we went out on the boat in Milford Sound. I was so surprised by the magnitude of the mountains and how rocky they are, since most of the mountains here are covered in grass. I think I'll let the pictures do the talking though...

Seals on the Rocks

Giant rocky mountains and waterfalls everywhere you look - beautiful day in Milford Sound

The rain created hundreds of absolutely amazing waterfalls. This is just part of one of them :)

Ariel and I in Milford Sound :D

After Milford Sound it was on to Dunedin. Dunedin is one of the places in NZ that I had convinced myself I needed to see. Everyone told me that I didn't absolutely have to make the trip, but for some reason I couldn't let it go. Dunedin ended up 100% meeting my expectations and was one of the highlights of this trip. My friends and I were describing it as a little like San Francisco for its hills, a bit like Boston for the brick covered streets, and a bit like Philly for its vibe - and also a little European with the Cathedrals in town. After an amazing breakfast at the Octagon, the center of town that is literally shaped like an octagon and full of cafes, bars, and restaurants, we drove out on to the Otago Peninsula and I decided Dunedin was just like Australia. Long story short, we absolutely loved Dunedin and by the end of our morning there decided not to compare it to all the cities it reminded us of and just call it what it is, Dunedin. 

Larnach's Castle on the Peninsula! Beautiful property and gardens!

The view from the Gardens of Larnach's Castle. We loooved this place.

After the Peninsula, we drove 4+ hours back to Chch, and based the length of this post, I'm sure you can imagine how exhausted I was.

We stopped at the Moeraki Boulders on the way home!

Naturally formed spherical boulders near Moeraki! Strangest thing Jenny Lenz has ever seen ;)

With a fantastic tip from Cam, we stopped at Fleur's Place in Moeraki for some AMAZING seafood

I used the little bit of energy left in me to grab a drink with the girls and my favorite Kiwi and fall right asleep... until the girls left at 3 am for their 30 hour trek back to the USA.

Thanks for visiting Ariel, Jenny, and Brooke! I had so much fun with you <3

xoxo

Stoked For Saturday

 This week was full of new discoveries. We discovered weekly 5ks in the park for $5, which include a free sausage at the finish line; I learned what a "busker" is and attended the world famous Buskers Festival right here in Christchurch; and finally we discovered an amazing New Zealand travel blog, stoked for Saturday and enjoyed an amazing Saturday of hiking, dining, and dance-partying.

There isn't much to say about the 5k except that we ran it, so I'll start with the buskers festival. CPIT, a university in Christchurch, actually has a circus school, so the busking/street performing culture is really big here. Once a year all the top street performers from around the world come to Christchurch for 10 days to perform. There are many free acts all day in the park, but the headliners cost $10-$20 in venues at night. The prices are really reasonable considering that when the performers have shows in London they charge anywhere from $40 to $80/show. On Wednesday a group from the office went to see three standup comedians and a hilarious Australian MC at the casino. I believe they were all British, and they were pretty funny. The first comedian had a joke about the way kiwis say "eh?" at the end of their sentences as if they're asking you a multiple choice question. Example: "the weather's great today a)?........ Or b) the weather fucking sucks" I ran this one past Cam, my resident kiwi expert, and he said that is, in fact exactly what they mean. Good. Thought so.

The comedians were so good, we decided to go to another show. We had heard that one performer, "the boy with tape on his face", was particularly good and wins this festival all the time -- this was also verified by my resident kiwi expert-- so we bought tickets to see him. His show, which here costs $15 NZD, goes for $40 pounds in England. That's $82 New Zealand dollars! He's essentially a mime with a production team so there's a good amt of music and lights that go along with his act and the show is 90% audience participation. It was really entertaining but I think I preferred the stand up comedians.

Those two buskers events kept the week moving really quickly. The last thing I wanted to do early Saturday morning was to get out of bed and go on a massive hike -- but hey, when in New Zealand.

We found a blog this week called Stoked for Saturday- written by two engineers who moved to New Zealand, work during the week, and explore the country on weekends. Sounds pretty familiar eh? (Or b) not at all). This weekend we didn't have a trip planned but couldn't let a gorgeous weekend go, so in true #stokedforsaturday fashion we had a really epic Saturday. Mike and I met Jen and Keith at their house Saturday morning and we drove about two hours in the the center of the country.

The hiking crew -- Same group minus Nick who did the Routeburn

The New Zealand Southern Alps run up the middle of the country, but you can pass through them by using either Arthur's Pass or Lewis Pass. I drove through Arthur's Pass early in my time here and had been wanting to go back for a hike, so was thrilled when my coworkers suggested doing Avalanche Peak this weekend.

Arthurs Pass back in October

The hike is meant to take 4 hours to get to the top of what is called "Avalanche Peak", so five minutes in when I was climbing a nearly vertical rock wall, I was nervous. I had expected a much more well maintained track, like the Routeburn we went on in November, but if I've learned anything in NZ, it's that nothing is going to go as planned. We continued on and made it to the top in two hours. DOC time estimate crushed again :) .

The first thing you see coming out of the bushline

The views at the top were amazing. I couldn't believe we were on top of the mountains and we could see the tops of all of them as well as the Devil's Punchbowl Falls. 

Found a Kea!

Avalanche peak actually had has two paths to the top. The first, Avalanche Peak Track, which is steep and rocky is the one we took up. The other one is Scott's Track, longer and less steep but with better views. We took Scott's track down, as as promised the views were awesome.

 

By the time we got to the bottom, all of us were exhausted and so we quickly got in the car and rode home. 

It's rare for us to come back to Chch on a Saturday night after being away, so we were all in group-travel mode and wanted to keep hanging out.

Kentucky Sours making us feel right at home

We went to Boo Radleys, the bar above Tequila Mockingbird (Get it?) for a cocktail and Keith put a $2 coin on the table in case anyone wanted to play pool. Instead, I suggested we save the coin for the Dance-o-Mat that I had been to with Cam and his friends the night before. All of my friends said they had seen it but never tried it,so we decided Saturday was going to be the night. After some amazing mexican food we went down to the Dance-o-mat. 

What's a dance-o-mat? Just another reason to love Christchurch. (Skye, I wish we had gone!!)

In one of the abandoned lots in downtown Christchurch, right next to the partially collapsed cathedral, there is a dance platform with a laundry machine and when you put a $2 coin in, lights come on to light up the dance floor and you can play music from your iPod for half an hour! When we stumbled upon it in Friday, Cam's friends didn't go for my tswift suggestion, so my friends and I started the dance party with some "Shake It Off." Jen DJ'ed for a few more songs until the Christchurch curfew turned off the dance-o-mat -- definitely not the city that never sleeps. 

After a busy day and a busy evening, I was ready to walk home and fall asleep. Pretty awesome week if I do say so myself. Can't wait for the next one. #stokedfornextsaturday

Just one more thing... Christchurch and it's port hills/mountains were beautiful this week.

Christchurch from an early morning run in the porthills

Hagley Park

Sumner Beach

Lyttleton