Sep 2007

Yes. Thats me. Yes, I too had to look at that pict again and again and realize that it is really me. Thanks to Lauren for the FANTAB photo! Okay, before I came to write this I had to sit and think of how to describe what I just did. Half of me is still speechless, the other half is awesomely excited... and still speechless!! Queenstown is known for its MANY MANY adrenaline activities. Going here, I knew I wanted to bungy. We talked to people and I was going back and forth between different 'jumps,' but alas, people said that Nevis, by AJ Hackett (pioneer of the bungy) was the BEST, the 4th largest jump IN THE WORLD (in case your curious this bridge in Colorado is the largest of 400 something meters, then Macau (near China and hmm... which we will happen to be at the end of Oct. Interested Char? ), Nepal, and then here in NZ. So after our bus stopped at the Kamarora (sp) bridge (the first official bungy jump in the world)

we were then shuttled into this room to see a video all about bungy. GREAT marketing ploy. I was already in, but they got Lauren too, who was adament that she was NOT going to do it. Next thing you know, with credit card in hand, we both purchased a jump for the next day. Eeek!! So we were nervous, but excited. That night we went to a pub to watch the All Blacks, New Zealand's MEGA rugby team (the reason I say MEGA is because they are expected to win the whole thing) play against Portugal. It was cool to finally get to see the Haka, the infamous dance they do before each tournament. The game was SUPER fun to watch, although I felt kinda bad for Portugal because they got crushed. And these NZ players are BEASTS if I ever saw anything. They make American footbal players look like ballerinas. Okay, thats a little farfetched, but you know what I mean.

Anyhoo, that was a little off track and random, but just to update you on our whereabouts. Back to the Bungy... we awoke and were ready to leave at 10am for the jump. They were super organized and after 15 min. of anxiously waiting to get onto the shuttle to take us there, we had another 45 minutes to anxiously get to the Bungy site. The bus was pretty quiet. Nerves were high. BUT as soon as we saw the High Wire station in between the canyons, everyone got all excited. We stepped off the bus and immediately got into the harness. Then we were weighed (cord strength). This High Wire was suspended in the middle of the canyon and there was this mini, 6 people, very mini 'gondola' that whisked you to the High Wire.

This whole time it was definitely exciting, but it still was like, "okay, I can do this" with my heart pounding only slightly. See, I've done bungy before, but it was something like 14-15 years ago off a bridge in Costa Rica. QG... you know what I'm talking about. But although it was awesome I had a little snafu and somewhat embarassing experience, but I put that behind me! hehe! So I had to redeem myself with this MEGA jump.

Anyway, it probably wasn't until we got into the station and looked down into the canyon and river that I really thought "HOLY S***!!!!!! What the *** am I doing?!?!?!" Up until then, I think I was calm? So you are in this little space and get to watch people leap out and jump, which is kinda fun, but your blood pressure is slowly creeping up each time someone goes off and you know you can't be too far away. I was getting more and more anxious. You get started with these snug vest straps (umm... is it tight enough? "sure sure" says the person helping you. Hmm...)

then they come to you and put on these ankle harnesses. Blood pressure goes up even more. They go by weight, and before I knew it I hear "Ellen! Its your turn!" Thats when my heart really starting pounding out of my chest. They sit you in this cushion seat while they strap your feet into these ankle harness and he is giving a whirlwind of instructions.

Basically, its cooler (and looks better!) to swan dive off the bridge, and when you get to the bottom and on your 1st swing up, pull horizontal on this cord by your feet and that releases the ankle and you are sitting up. Much more comf, but the hanging from your feet is fine too... and blah blah. By then my head was cloudy and I could hardly breathe. Everything just happened sooo quickly! Soo then they are like, "okay, lets go!" So you literally have to shuffle your way to this little edge, and thats when I almost had a heart attack.

That was probably the scariest part because then its really you... and nothing in front. As you can see from the pict, I was totally gripping the guy like "i'm going to fall out!" haha! Yes, even though I was just about to jump. So oh my gawwdd... i just can't describe the next feelings. It was just absolutely crazy. Almost shock-like. I was almost shaking, my heart was pounding, and next thing I hear is "3..... 2..... (oh my gaawwwddddd)..... 1!" Then everything just let go and I JUMPED! I did the swan dive (which, under the circumstances actually turned out okay!) and.... screamed like no tomorrow! Here is the pict again...

AUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! The canyon surrounding me... seeing the river coming closer and closer...... AUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! I screamed some more. Then the bounce.... bounce up.... "WHHOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" Back down again... a bit slower "AUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!" Then back up again "WHHHOOOOOOOAAAA!!!!!!!!!" Then I tried to get the stupid thing off my ankle to release it into a sitting position. I was tugging and tugging, and alas, I couldn't get it. So then... and by the way, Lauren and I both strapped our camera's onto our wrists and video taped this. Lauren's is AWESOME and I know she will post it. She did a good job of getting herself. Mine is mostly scenary but I will still try to post it. So I'm hanging there hanging by my feet and then they start pullling me up. It was SOOOOO AMAZING to be literally in the middle of this canyon, by yourself, hanging from a rope. Nothing around you! But yes, it still felt good to be pulled up and get on my feet. When I got back up.... I literally almost couldn't stand my legs were shaking so bad.

From being upside down I was teary and flushed, and just... shaking from excitement. As you see, I had to grip the handrail because I almost fell over my legs were shaking so bad. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cool and AMAZING and SUCH an adrenaline rush. The fall itself isn't that crazy. Wait, who am I kidding? It is CRAZY, but honestly, the HARDEST and most SCARIEST part was scooting to the ledge, looking at nothing around you, and just jumping. There are even NO words to describe it! Even now thinking about it I am almost shaking. I can't believe I did it! Lauren was several people behind me and she was like "are you okay?!?!" after I "surfaced" because I was all red and barely cool stand up again.... and of course my face was mega still flushed and teary. And it continued like that for a little bit. Oh my gawwdd... WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!!!!!! I'm hooked now!! Maybe I'll go again DOUBLE the distance (SERIOUSLY, this was 134 meters, or 440 ft into NOTHING) and in Macau its double that! Although I almost had a heart attack, it was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo worth it and I recommend it to ANYONE! It is an experience you will never forget, and just thinking about it I almost get the shakes... but from excitement!!!!!! And it was a TOTAL E-drenaline rush!! Hahahah!

YEAAAAA!!!! And QG, nothing happened to me this time and I TOTALLY thought of you and wish you were with me! :-)

Hikes, walks, why not climb a glacier? Lucky for us, there just happens to be a glacier right here in NZ. Unlucky for us, it was raining and wet the whole day, BUT it was still wildly beautiful!

New Zealand is a land o mystery because there is just sooo much diverse landscape and scenery in such a small space. I just can't get enough of it!! One day you are in the forest, the next amongst glaciers, the next amongst mountains and lakes - its soo amazing! Well, after our un-intended day in Greymouth we finally caught up with the Stray bus to head over to Franz Glacier. Stray bus is a hop-on, hop-off type thing (there are other companies such as Kiwi Experience, which is pretty popular, etc). So since its 'winter' here, its slow season so on the bus there are just about 11ish people. With this bus, there is a set route and you pretty much can come and go as you please to places. Since we are on a tight schedule, it worked out the best for us (although we have had some 'wasted' days) to do something like this. Plus, we are always up and ready to meet new people. They people on our bus did turn out to be pretty nice, which is cool. The bus ride to Franz Glacier was beautiful and we passed through many mountains and beautiful crystal clear lakes. Since we are such a small bus, our driver was pretty cool and relaxed with us taking our time to take picts, etc. So all was fine and dandy UNTIL we started approaching Franz G, it just started raining. And raining. And raining. Umm.. it pretty much rained 48 hours straight and all the time we were there. What a bummer! Anyway, we arrived safe and sound, headed to this local restaurant/bar convienently called "Monsoon" with the slogan, "when it rains, we pour." We had a nice dinner and met some nice people (Irish, which is becoming our theme here), and had a good time. We called it an early night because we were doing a 6 hour climb up the glacier that next day.

We awoke to... what else? Cloudy skies. Would it rain? Who knew? We went to the store and got climbing boots, ice spikes, wool socks and gloves, hat, and gortex pants and jackets. I guess that pretty much said what kind of day it would be, cold and rainy. They shuttled us to the glacier and the minute, seriously, the minute we stepped off the bus it started raining and didn't stop till the next day. Trying to keep spirits up, people were still staying positive ("its going to be beautiful!)." We had about a 1/2 hour walk to get to the base of the glacier, then we put on our spikes and off we went! Lauren and I went on the "slower" group... reason being that 1. We didn't want to rush and have the time to enjoy and take picts, and #2. We were already behind with the short 1/2 hour hike! So the glacier hike was a quite a hike, and quite rigorous. We climbed and climbed,

and walked through these 'steps' made by the guides and/or 'glacier men,' as I liked to call them (Franz Josef employees) who were nicely perched at the top of a little climb looking down at us as we huffed and puffed up these steep steps. Early on we had decided to tough it out and do the full day hike because the 1/2 day you had a nice view, but as you climbed further, the glaciers were more pristine and you could see more scenery. And it was true! The coolest part was literally squeezing ourself through these tunnels that was probably just about a foot wide where you had to place one foot in front of the other and kind of shuffle your way through it.

Then here's me ... are we there yet?

If you tried to bring your other leg over, it wouldn't make it. With my broad shoulders, I really had to squeeze my way through (or was it the awesome meals I have been eating lately? ha ha!). That was pretty cool though. The ice blue was amazingly beautiful, as was the view from top. Since it was raining and cold, we literally scarfed down our lunches in about 5 minutes, and off we went again. Here is a pict of me at the top:

And yes, the ice pick was a prop (he he!). All and all, I admit it was a damper with the rain and although the way back I thought would go by quickly, it dragged on. I was soaking wet. When I mean wet, I literally had to wring out my socks and my gloves when we got back. BUT, yes - it was REALLY cool to be climbing a glacier and it was really beautiful! Yes, I'm not going to lie, seeing all the brochures with the sunny sky and people hiking in their shorts was appealing, but still. It was an amazing experience and I loved the exercise (although I was sore the next couple of days. Too bad although I did a 1/2 ironman just 6ish weeks ago, I'm already out of shape!)

Later on that night we went to the same bar and had a REALLY great time because we kept on running into people that we knew, people from the hostel, people from the night before, our roommate, people from our bus. It was kinda fun that we brought all these people together!

Today we took the world famous Tranzalpine Express from Christchurch to Greymouth. Why is it so famous you ask? Well, it provides one of the most scenic and spectacular views, and was had one of the longest tunnels in the world when it was built in 1908! Its a great scenic train journey that we just couldn't miss.

However, we started off the day with a rough start. A free shuttle was supposed to pick us up and take us to the train, but one came and was too full and we had to wait for another one. Waiting.... Waiting.... Waiting... clock ticking. Getting anxious. FINALLY one came with just 15 minutes before the train was supposed to leave. Lucky in a town of less than several thousand people, we got there in just 8 minutes and barely put away our luggage, sat down, when the train pulled away. But yea! We made it and could relax! We sat back and maybe a mere 10 minutes later, we stop. What the? We come to find out the train had a "mechanical problem" (what is it with mechnical problems?). So we waited about 45 minutes for it to be fixed. Then someone wasn't feeling well (heart attack was the rumor), and we had to wait for an ambulance to get him away. Alas, an hour or so later, we were off. Why am I telling you all this? Well, we are doing this hop-on, hop-off thing and basically, we were missing our bus to go to Barrytown because of this delay. So this changes our journey a little bit. But as I'm learning, these things somehow always work out for the best and it did!

The Tranzalpine goes through the Canterbury Plains, alpine foothills, Waimakariri Gorge, up through Arthur's Pass (which is about 737 meters high) where there are AMAZING snow capped peaks of the Southern Alps. Okay, I've seen lots o mountains (the Andes, the Rockies, the Swiss Alps, etc), but these were one of the best I've seen. I can't even say enough superlatives to describe how gorgeous it is and how amazing. I literally had my mouth hanging open while taking 23048230948230489 pictures, but here is one:

Its amazing how quickly the scenary changed during the 4 and a half hour journey. It started with some plainfields, sheep, crops, etc. Then next thing you know, you are looking at the snow caps of the Southern Alps amongst lush green landscape. Then you hit more beautiful landscape with more lakes, forest, and the Tasman Sea. The entire journey was 231km long with 19 tunnels, and many more viaducts.

Long story short, since we missed our bus, we followed some Irish lads that we met on the train and that were staying at our previous hostel, and followed them to a YHA (which we just joined). It worked out that we were just going to spend the night there and then have the bus pick us up tomorrow and take us to Franz Glacier. See? NO reason to stress, and I'm REALLY taking the Aussie/NZ attitude "no worries" more and more seriously. Life's too short to stress and get anxious! Too much fun and action! So we barely organized this when a tour guide came through to pick up people to go Punakaiki, a cool area by the Tasman Sea. Of course they were doing a special just that day, of course the reception lady said it was amazingly beautiful and a "must see." I got in my nazi travel mode (Sorry Lauren!) and was like "lets do it!" Mind you, all of these transactions took place in less than 5 minutes and the bus driver to go on this tour was waiting. We literally put down our bags, grabbed our cameras, and off we went. I barely had a chance to catch my breath from all that action and we harldly had a sec to think about all that just happened. Since we were now on the west coast, we took a nice scenic drive overlooking the Tasman Sea, which is amazingly beautiful. We did a short bush walk and learned more about plants and agriculture. Here's a fern, they are special to New Zealanders and depending on how it spirals, it can mean different things like "growth, harmony, new beginning" etc.

Its too much to go into details now, but I of course took 230482304923 pictures and when I send them to you (just a couple), I will label and describe them. We saw the Rimu, which can be this little itty bitty tree that after 400 years grows to be something like 25 meters tall, then after another couple of thousand years (seriously) it can get up to 30-35 meters tall. It was REALLY cool to see the different stages. Same goes for this cool palm that grows for 30 years without a trunk, then grows into this gi-normous palm. There are a lot of this yellow flower that we kept on seeing, and I thought they were pretty, but then I was forcibly told that they are a TOTAL pain in the arse and were initially imported to regulate the coastline, but now they are taking over the country and no one can put a stop to this. This is the case with a lot of things in NZ with everything from plants to animals. They bring in something to try to help the ecosystem, but it ends up doing more damage than good. Interesting.

So we then saw these AWESOME pancake rocks that were formed from 'natural weatherings:' 25 million years ago huge amounts of sand and mud eroded from the sand crushing tiny fragments of marine organisms with enough force to turn it into limestone, and 5 million years ago the limestone uplifted from the sea and kind of warped into these amazing rocks.

Big rock, huh? You can hardly see me!

Its hard to tell, but all the rocks have naturally formed stripes.

They were soooo sooo cool to see! Here is another pict... do you see any outlines of faces or figures?

Okay, here's a hint:

Seeing these rocks in the Tasman Sea is absolutely breathtaking. They can also form blowholes, which we unfortunately didn't see. As we were wrapping up, we had the VERY VERY good fortune of seeing an ahhhh-mazing sunset (which I loooove) AND having an AWESOME guide that was kind enough to stop and let us enjoy it and take pictures although our tour already finished. We treated him to a beer later.

And per request of the driver/guide, his photo opp:

It was a beautiful day and I'm just describing so little of it. Even all the 20348230948234903 pictures I took can't even give a glimpse of the real and true beauty or do it justice. Sooo wonderful and spectacular! So... well worth the craziness!

By the way, it was a beautiful sunny day with only a few long white clouds

Here we are in New Zealand, the land of remarkable beauty and pristine nature. Also known as The Land of the Long White Cloud, which, go figure, there are a lot of looong clouds here (would I have noticed it if it weren't for that name? Hmmm.... actually, yes!).

Christchurch is known as the 2nd England because of the HUGE English population as well as the very English feel to the city. Its small (but then again, NZ only has 4 million in the entire country! Isn't that amazing? I think Chicago alone has, what? 8 million?), and very quaint with gothic architecture and lots of cathedrals and museums.

Its also cool that off in the distance you can see the Southern Alps range (on a clear day of course). Our 1st day here ended up being busy enough - we spent the morning at the Botanical Garden, which was nice to stroll around and look at the pretty plants and flowers (some yet to bloom). This one is called 'Ladies purse':

and then the afternoon at Mt. Cavendish. We took a bus there and then a gondola up the mountain... the view were spectacular and we literally were in awe looking at Lyttleton Harbor and the Banks Peninsula. You can even see the Pacific ocean!

The best part was watching the colors in the lake change as the clouds moved. It was really really amazing! And we spent a good hour there taking pictures, enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate (yummy!), and just enjoying the view. As we were just relaxing and killing time, we got recommendations from a couple of people to take a "nice, leisurely stroll" down the mountain. The man was a bit aged and said he did it all the time, so we thought, "why not?" Soo... we began our stroll down, still enjoying the great views, taking pictures, and taking our time. We are both avid exercises (hey, wasn't it just a few weeks ago I did a 1/2 ironman?), and were confident in our descent down. Well, the path turned into this gravel road, and then came the "Caution" signs and then "watch slippery path" signs. "Yea, yea" we thought... once again, we are young healthy individuals. We slowed down a tad and tried not to let this older couple with their dog whizz past us bother us "they must live here." Well, then Lauren almost took a dive. She laughed and then I laughed. We started up again, and then she almost fell again! We laughed some more, although it had a more nervous edge to it. Then I almost took a dive! Uh oh... this was becoming dangerous! We then REALLY took our time and were watching every step. We tried NOT to let at least 10 more people that were running UP and down get to us (I was pretty impressed!). These NZ folk are fit! So much for me feeling in shape! It ended up being quite a work out, and lucky for us we found some distractions like the sheeps in an adjacent field (actually, I believe I heard that NZ has more sheep than people!). Well.... we made it down to the bottom safe and sound. We almost wanted to go back up the gondola to tell the guy, "this isn't exactly a leisurely stroll" and "umm... having the last few meters at the bottom doesn't count as 'its not that steep' " but then figured it is actually a leisurely stroll for them!

Its a lot steeper than it looks! I swear!

Now I need to rest my legs!

p.s. Random thought... it is now a 17 hour time difference to Chicago. Crazy!! And where is Chicago from this point? Hmm....

Once again, I've had a blur of activities. Yesterday I was in Hervey Bay, famous for its closeness to Fraser Island (the worlds largest sand island that I went on that safari tour) and for whale watching. So after my adventure at Fraser Island, I had to go whale watching. After a 6:15am wake-up call, I quickly packed up my stuff, stored it at the hostel, boarded a bus to go to a boat to take us whale watching. I think I was expecting us to go to some special area where the whales hung out, but actually, it was us who were scouting for whales that were just hanging out in the ocean! Fortunately, we had luck! The humpback whales are pretty social and usually travel at least in pairs if not the whole family, so almost right away we saw a mom and her calf. The whales migrate north (to tropical climates like in Cairns, where I was), breed, and then slowly make there way back down to Antartica 'training' the calves as they go. Seeing whales in the wild is absolutely amazing - their size is outstanding. They usually are around 15 meters long and can way up to 80,000pounds, with one fin, ONE fin, weighing around 1.5 tons! It was awesome because we saw a whale breach (when they jump out of the water and show there white bellies) which was quite the spectacle. You should have heard the gasps and the "oh my!" in a million different languages. It was hard to take pictures because they are unpredictable of when they surface to breathe (they can hold their breaths up to 45 minutes), so it definitely takes a lot of patience and a camera perma aimed, which I wasn't too good at. So my picts are so-so. Teen whales are the most 'friendly' and can get pretty close to the boats and kind of play. We had a couple of whales 'wave' their fins at us, which was fun. So yea - whales are pretty darn cool I tell ya!

Long story short, I rushed back to my hostel to grab my things, had to wait a nerve-racking 20 minutes for a taxi, to get to the small Hervey Bay airport at 1:28, to check in at 1:30, and literally to depart at 1:55 for Sydney. Man, did I cut it close! They actually let me check in that late, and I wasn't the only one (a couple I did the safari came in after me, as well as some other people). So it was cool that they are sooo much more relaxed with rules, and security for that matter. Phew though!

So our good 'ol president Bush has followed me to Sydney for this Big APEC meeting (Asia-Pacific Economic Conference). Bush, Putin, and 45 other world leaders are all here to talk about environmental issues and other stuff. The city is on TOTAL lock-down. The government made everyone take Friday off, they barricaded the city (seriously), have something like 300,000 police force out, and have spent that same amount on security. I'm kinda away from all this action, but its definitely affected things like trains, getting around, etc. Hearing about the US here is interesting, Bush and American are definitely the butt of a lot of jokes, but views are pretty similiar to the States as far as getting out of the Iraq war, etc. The protests have been pretty peaceful, but with this crazy security, it can't be otherwise - they are REALLY cracking down and arresting people who even joke about stuff.

Today the friend of a family friend I'm staying with invited us to go sailing with him! So although it was an early start yet again (I'm getting used to it!), we had a really nice relaxing day on the boat, with sun and a little showers. I just can't get over how pretty Sydney is and how its sooo nice to be surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. And of course hanging around architects, I'm appreciating the modern architecture around here as well! We stopped for lunch at this really cute camping ground/park/lake and there I saw a couple of wallabies just hanging out!! I was just thinking how I've been in Australia for 3 weeks and have yet to see a kangaroo, or their mini-version, the wallaby. So yea, finally! Here's a pict, and yes, we were that close and it was looking right at us (I was a little nervous):

Hmm.... I still have yet to see a koala outside a zoo or something, but i still have a couple of weeks left!

Okay, we are off to New Zealand tomorrow, and by the way, if you want to read another person's perspective on our travels, check out Lauren's website: http://lauren.travellerspoint.com.