The Cold

Wednesday came and we finally headed out of Christchurch. We all agreed that the city wasn’t the nicest we’ve ever been to regardless of whether or not there had recently been a natural disaster. We headed back toward the airport via shuttle to pick up our RV from Britz. The thing was big. It came complete with a stove, fridge, GPS, heater fan, and microwave. Next stop was to pick up the essentials… basically any form of junk food to last us three long drives. After spending copious amounts of money on chips, diet coke, and lunchmeats, we hit the road for Queenstown. On the way, we passed about a million sheep. I’m not joking, there are probably four times the amount of sheep in New Zealand as there are people. Anyways, Queenstown is a city located on the southwest part of the south island. We would be there for two days and we were excited. We arrived at our campsite in the historical town of Arrowtown, about 25 minutes from

Queenstown, at 9pm on Wednesday night. Setting up the beds in the RV was quite the challenge. Jenna and I originally tried sleeping in the top bunk, but I’m not joking when I say that it was like being buried alive. The “bed” was about a foot away from the top of the camper and there was physically no way to move about it. After about an hour we decided that we thought we were suffocating and climbed down to the bottom to snuggle and stay warm with Brittany and Jill. We had a busy few days ahead of us.

We awoke bright an early on Thursday morning and drove 15 minutes around a mountain to a place called “AJ Hackett Bungy Jump” where Brittany (our little daredevil) would jump from a bridge at the first ever commercial bungy jump station. It was so crazy to see her look down at the water for all of a second before diving herself off and plummeting and then bounce right back up. After her adrenaline was drained, we headed towards Queenstown for some more fun activities. The original plan was to white water raft on the famous Shotover River, but the

weather was far too cold for any of us to go into water, so opted for something a little warmer, but equally as exciting. We took a gondola up a mountain on the far side of Queenstown, overlooking the city the whole time, and bought tickets to luge. Honestly, the luge was the most fun thing I think I have ever done in my life. It’s a little car that has handlebars and that’s it; similar to a go-kart but there are no gas or brake pedals, the only controls are to pull back on the handlebars as a brake. We pretended we were in the video game Mario Kart and were zooming around each other the whole time; it was hilarious and exhilarating especially since it was on the side of a mountain. Afterward, we took the gondola back down and took a look around the shops in time for some souvenirs. We could all agree that the city of Queenstown reminded us of Denver or Boulder out in Colorado. It’s surrounded by mountains and the little shops and restaurants in the center gave the feel of a mountain summit, plus the locals are so laid back and friendly it’s similar to the Rocky Mountains. Needless to say, we fell in love with the city and would go back in a heartbeat. The highlight for all of us was the infamous Ferg Burger. Ferg Burger is a little hole in the wall hamburger stand where the serve enormous burgers that are some of the best I’ve ever tasted. When Jenna, Jill, and I were in Sydney, we met a boy named Jonathan who had been in New Zealand before and he told us about Ferg Burger; ever since then we’ve been dying to try it. Jenna got a “Southern Swine” which was essentially a bacon cheeseburger, I got the “Tropical Swine”, the same but with a slice of pineapple on top, and Brittany got the “Mr. Big Stuff” and yes that was basically a ½ pound burger with everything on it. SO DELICIOUS. She even got a T-shirt. Unfortunately for the time being, the fun was over in Queenstown. Friday morning we packed up the RV and started on our 5 hour drive to Franz Josef where we will (hopefully) hike up a glacier. It’s still really cold down here and none of us really packed for the climate, but we are having fun nonetheless. It will definitely feel good to get back to the Gold Coast and be able to wear shorts and flip flops again… hmm, that sounds awfully familiar doesn’t it?