The End

So after our seven hour drive we managed to find a parking spot just out side of Queenstown. We got up early and went into town, had a look around and ran errands. It turns out Queenstown is awesome, its not too big and not too small with more than enough stuff to keep you busy. It turned out being my favorite city behind Sydney. I just wish i had a few more thousand dollars to spend. Every other store was a company specializing in bungi jumping, river rafting, zorbing, or other activity with a risk of death. We spent most of the day exploring. We got a spot at a holiday park and after dinner we walked downtown and went to a bar called minus 5. It was made entirely of ice; the walls, the chairs, the bar, and even the glasses were made of ice. There were also about a dozen ice sculptures inside. Despite the name it was negative 8 degrees C and we stayed in for 30 minutes. Luckily they lent you a parka, boots and gloves. Afterward we made our way to a wine tasting shop which was really neat because they gave you a credit card that you put in these different wine filled machines and you could choose the amount and type of wine you wanted and it would dispence it for you. NZ is filled with wineries so we had to try some their famous pinot noir. Afterward we caught the tail end of an excellent cover band performance on the wharf. The next day we took the gondola 450 meters above the town to the events center overlooking the lake and city. Its also a jump off point for paragliding and bungee. Unfortunately those both started around 150 bucks. So we decided to do the street luge. There were two different tracks you could ride down on mini street cart luge thingees. It was awesome, we got 5 rides for a good price and they even had a chair lift that took you back up to the top with your ride. On the last run, at the photo finish line, Mandy was just ahead of me (only because i gave her a head start mind you,) and as she was rubbing it in my face with her victory yell and one handed fistpump she lost control and careened offroad onto the rumble strip. Fortunately she regained control of her vehicle before anything more than damage to her ego could take place. Unfortunately it wasn't enough time for me to take the lead. The cameras got a pretty good pic of her heading for disaster and the looks on our faces were pretty hilarious. Remember kids, 10 and 2. After our shenanigans we headed back into town one last time before hitting the road. I mean we had to go back to the famous chocolate shop, Patagonia, all Mandys idea of course.
Fast forwarding to later that nite we slept in a parking lot at Milford Sound, this place was the first thing that made me want to visit NZ so bad. We woke up the next morning and literally walked outside into a cloud of bugs, like you'd see on cartoons. And these were serious bugs, they didn't just poke a little needle into your skin they actually took bites of you and left you itching for a week. We jumped back in the van to apply amounts of deet that were likely near fatal to humans. Milford sound consists of a parking lot, a bar, an info center, and the dock station for the tours. Milford sound itself is the northern most of thirteen Fjords on the east coast. We took a two hour boat tour all the way through the sound which has vertical cliffs rising directly out of the sea and up beyond sight into the clouds. Rainforest clung directly to the rock face and there were waterfalls everywhere, big and small. We pulled right under a few of the big ones and watched the water shoot off the cliffs a few hundred meters above and turn into mistly pelting rain. We spotted some penguins with those huge yellow eyebrows hopping around on the rocks as well as a sea lion colony. It was a great tour and our only regret is that we didnt get to explore more. It was like nothing we had yet done on our trip or in our life. Id say Lord of the Rings meets Water World meets foggy Stephen King Novel scene, but with less bad guys. We took our time leaving stopping every 20 miles for short hikes and sights. There was a 2 mile long mountain tunnels, suspension bridges over rivers, and fields of flowers that shamed The Sound of Music. Over the next few days we went along the South coast scenic hwy. Which was, surprisingly, the worst scenery in the country. Not sure how that works. Over the next few days we made our way along the southern coast and up the west to Christchurch. This is already way too long so ill touch on the highlights. We stopped at the southern most point of the island, went to a petrified forest on the coast, saw the most endangered penguin in the world waddle 5 feet past us(I think Mandy summoned it with her powers of marine biology), went to a beach with 60 million year old round boulders on it (cooler than it sounds), sampled cheese at a factory (a surprising highlight. When we got to Christchurch we definitely experianced a lowpoint when we decided to stay the nite in the airport. Long story short: sleepless, misery, noise, international arrival gate carpet as bed. When the blessed plane finally took us away we stopped in Sydney for two more nites staying at Dans place in Bondi Beach. It was great to end the trip with a few days on the beach and in the sun before back to the Northwest winter. It was great to see the guys one last time and they treated us to a really fun nite in downtown Sydney. We were sad to leave and i was really sad to forget my block of blue cheese in Dans fridge! Buuut we were really happy to come home to family and friends. I hope you enjoyed reading our blog as much as we enjoyed writing it and hopefully we will be starting a new adventure soon (other than work).