South Island Road Trip: Part 1

As I said, now let's get to the good stuff. Unfortunately, there wasn't a heck of a lot of it on the first few days. The first day of the trip was spent driving down to Wellington, and then we woke up and got right on the ferry that took us and our cars down to the South Island. From Picton (our gateway to the South Island), we drove through the Nelson Lakes and a few ambitious members of the group went for a swim in the freezing cold water. That stop was short lived, however, as we were on a mission to get to Westport, our overnight stop.

I've never been to a small, Texas town, but if I ever went I'm fairly confident it would remind me of Westport. The town itself existed solely for people passing through (as did many of the places we stayed), and when we arrived the town was engulfed in Saturday Night Fever, which is to say that there were a bunch of teenagers drinking on the bleachers by the rugby field across the street from our hostel. A brave few of us went over to join, and in the process got a taste of the real New Zealand. Two girls (aged 15, if I recall correctly) were there for the whole time while a guys there age made visits. One of them, upon introduction, asked us if we hate Nazi's or if we don't hate them, and went on to explain that he was a black (Maori) Nazi. We took every chance we could making fun of him and poking holes in his arguments. The highlight of the night (barely edging out when the "Nazi" was leaving and we called him a bad name, leading to the following exchange: "Did you just call me a jew?" "No, we said you're [Clay Aiken-like]." "Oh, whatever. Nice meeting you guys.") was the interaction with the girls. The heavy-set one spent her evening trying to sit on people's laps and offering to show them around town, while the other one spent the entire time talking about all of the drugs she had done and explaining that the age of consent in New Zealand is 16 but everyone is tired of it by then because they start so early. It was at that point that I crossed Westport off the list of "Places I Would Move Back To In New Zealand."

The next day was actually one of the most fun. We stopped at a little adventure company that offered ATV'ing and horseback riding, and I spent the morning find out how addictive ATV's really are. From there, we made a few stops on the way to Franz Josef. First stop was a Seal Colony with some incredible views of the Tasman that you can see starting at picture #20 HERE (The first 20 are from Day 2 [Nelson Lakes and the rest of the drive to Westport]). The walk out to where you could see the Seals was breathtaking, but it was nothing in comparison to our next stop, the Pancake Rocks.

Named after the rock formations out in the water that most closely resemble a stack of pancakes, these natural wonders were one of the highlights of our trip that sadly, don't really translate in the pictures (which start with the two pictures of the birds in that same album. I chalk up the bad pictures to the lighting, though it was a beautiful day). The Pancake Rocks were tall, skinny stacks of rock that had been weathered over the years and really typified the type of natural beauty that New Zealand has to offer. Without much fanfare, an attraction like the Pancake Rocks, which is tucked cozily on the coast between nowhere and, well, nowhere, can be easily passed by and ignored. But New Zealand was a place where the big city and its attractions pale in comparison to the small, natural wonders that are scattered across the countryside.

From there, it was on to Franz Josef, where we were to spend two nights, with a hike up the Franz Josef glacier sandwiched in the middle. On the recommendation of past students, we scheduled the full day hike so that we would get the full experience. However, that placed us directly at the top of the glacier when the weather arrived, bringing gail force winds to beat the freezing rain into our faces. Good times! Even without the miserable weather, the glacier itself was largely unimpressive. I was picturing the type of glacier you would see on the Discovery Channel falling into the ocean when they talk about global warming, but instead what we saw looked more like a snowbank on the side of the road a few days after a blizzard. Most of the glacier was covered with dirt and rocks. While I don't know many people who have ever climbed a glacier (and thus, I'm very glad I did), it can only be classified as disappointing.

The next morning, we left Franz Josef for the most eventful day of our trip, but not in a good way. Our first stop was Lake Matheson, a widely recommended spot that looks much different on the postcards than it does on a crappy, rainy winter morning. From there, it was a detour down at 20 mile, one lane dirt road that took us to a destination that we ultimately couldn't go to due to time constraints. On the way back up the road, the van leading the way encountered another car coming the other way and ended up being driven off the road, with the van leaning sideways off of a ten foot drop into a river and being supported only by two trees about as thick as your forearm. Scary stuff. Luckily, everyone made it out safely and the car ended up being fine, but the ensuing trip into town to get the tow truck and get the car out took several hours and squashed any chance we'd have to see Wanaka, a ski town near Queenstown with some beautiful scenery itself. We arrived in time for dinner and then it was an early night with Queenstown beckoning in the morning.

South Island Road Trip: Extensive Social Commentary

Now, it's on to the biggest part of the trip, way back during "Spring Break" in the middle of August: the road trip to the South Island. You know how MTV simply said to themselves "Hey, let's put seven strangers in a house and follow them around with cameras, I'm sure someone will go crazy and they'll end up arguing the whole time" and The Real World was born? Our trip was The Real World's cousin. Fourteen relative strangers packed in three cars, staying 6 people to a room for two weeks on a trip that spanned nearly the entirety of a country should have raised red flags before we left, but it wasn't until probably an hour into the first drive down to Wellington (10 hours from Auckland, where we would take a ferry to the South Island) that it began to dawn on me what I was in for. Did I see dozens of truly beautiful landscapes and do things that I will never get the chance to do again? Absolutely, and I'll get to all of them soon enough, but I feel like it will be better served with the negativity out of the way.

There were three kinds of troublemakers on the trip. First, we had the self proclaimed leader of the trip who was one of three people to put it together and assumed the Mom role, only if said mother's children debated getting emancipated on Day 4. Entrenched firmly (and solitarily) in the "Let's all caravan even though everyone has a map and is 20 years old" camp, Mom also did things like judge people for sleeping in when there was nothing else to do and yell at people for taking too long to eat. Good times!

Next, we had the "I'm just doing what I'm told" group. While playing the role of the good guys, they often accentuated whatever problem other people (read: I) had with what was going on by taking the passive aggressive route and just playing devil's advocate when really the arguments would have been easily solvable if someone else with common sense just thought for five seconds. The amount of "Well, I don't really care's" and "It's not my decision's" from them contributed to the discontent as much as the third group, me (and to be fair, some of my car-mates)

I found myself in a tough position. With my background of running student government in high school and subsequently, dealing with other people's incompetence when executing simple tasks, I have a very low tolerance for not doing things efficiently. I also had no interest in planning this trip. There was too many things that could go wrong, and more importantly, too many people like myself to deal with. That is, everyone had an opinion and intended it to be heard. Some had more tact than others, but I can't help myself from suggesting more logical and simple alternatives when they exist. "Hey, maybe we should print out directions to our hostel so we don't drive around Wellington for a half hour at 1am." "Hey, maybe if the van wasn't in overdrive you wouldn't be using so much gas" You get the picture. Somehow, I was painted as the villain.

And yes, I also passive-aggressively pointed out that none of this was my responsibility, but if you put yourself in that role, people have every right to expect you to do it well, and if you fail, you lose the right to act like the boss. (Note: This is only the case outside of professional situations with actual bosses, as far as I can tell. This is also because nobody can call out their boss for being incompetent like you can call out a peer.)

But that isn't all that happened socially on the trip. My car formed a great friendship, and I thank them all for putting up with me. I couldn't be happier that Athina and Kristen wanted to drive with me and Meryl, and Rob's addition to the car was invaluable. Some of the best times of the entire semester were in that car with them (and on subsequent occasions when we were all together), so if there was a silver lining to everyone finally realizing that our group wasn't all made to be 15 best friends, its that we got to form a smaller group that turned out even better than that. And now, on to the actual trip!

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

Part of the problem that non-users have with Twitter is that they couldn't care less about other peoples' days. Reading that someone else just walked their dog after they went to the gym only serves to annoy and make people who didn't go to the gym feel bad about it, and looking back, I feel like this blog has been a retrospective Twitter account, only with several hundred words more and (hopefully) less spelling errors. And though nobody has read this yet (which is about to change), I'm going to attack this one from a different approach and talk about things as opposed to listing them. Here goes nothing...

Cairns is a coastal city in North Queensland, Australia that exists solely to provide accommodations and attractions for people who want to visit the Great Barrier Reef, one of the most famous natural landmarks in the world. There were probably three dozen hotels and backpackers hostels in the tiny "city," and I can only assume they all do enough business to stay open. It's also Cancun, Daytona Beach, and Cabo all rolled into one when it comes to Spring Break destinations in Australia, so they have that going for them.

Our accommodation was a backpacker's "resort" called Gilligan's, and given some of the places I've stayed it actually qualifies. There was a pool in the courtyard and an outdoor bar that was never lacking business, and they served a free dinner for their guests. Can't say I could have asked for more. The city itself was as you'd expect (very touristy), with lots of souvenir shops and restaurants, and it was very well presented.

There was a lot to do in Cairns, including a beach-like lagoon right by the water because by the looks of it, you couldn't really swim in the bay. There was also a zoo-like Wildlife Dome that was kind of a rip-off, but we got to take a picture with a Koala bear. They aren't as soft as you'd imagine, but are very cool nonetheless.

Needless to say, the main attraction is the reef itself. There is an entire reef terminal for boats heading out there, and there were probably 200 people in there the morning we went. We had an adventure before our reef adventure even began because I misplaced our voucher (turns out it was in my bag all along) and we had to go from desk to desk trying to find which tour company we were in. Once that was settled, it was on to the boat ride. The ride out was pretty choppy and a lot of people got sick, which was to me more nauseating than the actual waves, but Meryl and I held it together and didn't spew. We signed up for an introductory scuba class, which was basically a free 10 minute crash course in the basics off the back of the boat at our first stop. I'm going to chalk it up to my mask not being tight enough, but I was having a lot of issues and give my first scuba diving experience two thumbs down.

Snorkeling, however, was a much different story. We got to snorkel at both stops and the reef was, as advertised, truly breathtaking. Where the reef itself lacked the majestic colors seen in some photographs, the fish made up for it and then some. While we didn't find Nemo, there were some incredible shades of blues and yellows, and my favorite, a genuine rainbow fish, on which you couldn't count all of the colors if you tried. Our second stop was out in the middle of the ocean, and as a result was a bit rougher, but that stop provided perhaps my favorite moment in Australia. At one point, I just floated in place for a couple minutes and was surrounded by hundreds of tiny, sparkling blue fish. They just swam around as if I wasn't there, and the harmony of the whole situation was just special. They didn't mind me, I didn't bother them, and we all got to go about our day. Such a harmony is much harder to find back home than in this part of the world.

Now as I study for finals here (which just got even less appealing with the arrival of two books from home that I can't wait to read), I'll try to get through Spring Break and the month of October, but before you know it, I'll be home recounting the same stories in person. 6 more days in Auckland. I can't believe it.

Sydney

So we're going to jump around a bit and skip August, September, and all but the last days of October so I can write about Australia while it's fresh on my mind. I flew out of Sydney last Thursday, Oct. 29th and was pleased to find I had an entire row to myself on the plane. After getting settled in my hostel, I took off to exploring the city until Meryl and her family got there (they were flying in from a different part of NZ). I spent most of the day exploring Darling Harbor, which is the less famous harbor that houses some shops and restaurants. That evening was more low key. The highlight of the night was a real hot dog from the cart outside the Stevenson's hotel (with the works: chili cheese, onions and mashed peas? Better than the poor excuses for hot dogs I've had in NZ. A+ to Harry's Cafe de Wheels.)

The next day was the full tourist experience, complete with me trying to shatter the record for most pictures of the Sydney Opera House. We walked through the Botanical Gardens on the way to the Harbor, then had a little picnic lunch before breaking off from Meryl's parents. We walked around some more then took the ferry back to Darling Harbor to see some more sights. The ferry is where I got the best views of Sydney's two landmarks, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, and they didn't disappoint. For all the joking I do about people who go to Europe and take pictures of buildings... well, I guess I can keep doing that because I got to go to a better part of the world and my building was a lot cooler than any of theirs. The bridge seemed like a normal bridge, though if I had $200 extra I might have climbed it and decided it was much cooler. That night, Meryl and I were going to go to an amusement park across the harbor but she fell asleep around 9:00, but all wasn't lost because when I got back to my hostel, I met a couple Aussie guys spending the weekend in Sydney and we went out and had a blast.

Our third day in Sydney was spent at Bondi Beach getting sunburn. Apparently there is some surf rescue show filmed there, but we didn't need to be rescued so I couldn't tell for sure. The beach itself was surrounded by houses and condos, so it wasn't very big, but it was definitely worth the bus ride out. The afternoon was much more relaxed, and that evening we went to Lord Nelsons for dinner, which is one of two pubs in Sydney that claims to be the oldest. We ate at the upstairs restaurant, but when Meryl's parents left we went downstairs for the final All Blacks v. Australia match and it was a real old time pub atmosphere (The All Blacks won, of course.) After the game ended, we went out and tried to find a taste of real Halloween but nothing could come close to what we were missing in Baltimore. Early the next morning, we flew off to Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef.

EDIT: Here are the Australia pictures.