the country with heaps and heaps of sheeps

Of the two weeks provided for final exams I participated in the first Wednesday morning…and was done! The exam went fine and at a later date I discovered I passed all my classes! Yipee!

So the last week and a half at Campus East was spent going to the beach, watching movies, going out, and reminiscing about the good ol’ days. On November 12th five other friends and I hopped on a plane to New Zealand to spend 9 days there. We arrived in Christchurch that night and the next morning we went and picked up our “campa vans”. These were amazing vans that had a CD player, TV that played DVD’s, stove, fridge, microwave, and a bed! We headed for Queenstown that day! That nite we pulled over by a gorgeous lake and “camped” out. It was quite comfortable!

The first thing we did in Queenstown was stop at the “Original Bungee Site”. All five of my friends ended up doing the 43 m jump and getting dunked into the ice cold river at the bottom. (I was the official photographer and videographer.) It looked like great fun…but I was holding out for something bigger and better.

So that afternoon Laura, Sarah, and I signed up to jump out of a perfectly good airplane for 14,000 ft! It was an amazing feeling! We freefalled for 55 seconds while having a beautiful view of mountains, lakes, rivers…beauty! So fun!!!

The next day Laura, Amy, and I did one of the tallest bungee jumps in the world – “The Nevis”, 134 m. Now that was a scream! You felt the ground rushing up at you for about 5 seconds before being flung away from the hard ground! I loved it! After your second bounce you had to pull a cord that pulled you upright to finish the rest of your bounces. (Otherwise the blood rushes to your head and you could possibly die. ;)

From there we headed to Milford Sound…beautiful, gorgeous, amazing drive on these curvy roads literally through mountains. Once you get there you see even more beautiful mountains in water surrounded in a haze. Breathtaking.

From there we saw Fox Glacier…not really what I expected. I was thinking iceberg and this was more like dirty snow. Ah well…I have seen a glacier now.

Then we went to Greymouth and went on a Monteith’s Brewery tour. We drove about an hour to the Pancake rocks. Really neat rocks that look like they are made of layers of limestone.

Then we headed back to Christchurch and spent a few days there going to the markets and just happened upon a “Santa Parade”. That was fun! So all in all…New Zealand is simply a “gotta experience it for yourself” country. No picture can capture it! Oh, and I can’t forget the heaps of sheeps we saw! So adorable! Ya never get sick of ‘em!

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