Christchurch HO!!!

Hey everybody (or you, if there's just one person reading this),

I'm in Christchurch right now, which is on the east side of the south island, right about in the middle. Since I last wrote, I've gone down the west coast down to Queenstown and then back up the middle/east side to get to where I am now. On the way down to Queenstown, Sean and I stopped at a couple cities, Wanaka and Franz Joseph.

Our first stop after Greymouth was Franz Joseph, which is the home of a GLACIER!! In the JUNGLE!! It doesn't look all that great in the rain though, which was how we saw it on that first afternoon. I did get to pick up a big block of ice though, that was cool. Oh, another thing, and I can show everyone (you) all pictures of this when I get back, glacier water is teal, not the usual blue that I associate with streams and rivers. We passed by a bunch of rivers fed by the glaciers in the area and they looked like someone dyed them with food coloring. Almost like the Sharks' old uniforms' color. Amazing. At the hostel, Sean and I met three cool English guys that we would end up seeing again in Wanaka and Queenstown, which happens when there is one road to take and the city centers might be 5 streets wide. After a nice night of hanging out, listening to stories about English stuff, and watching some TV (Back to the Future 2, thank you very much. GREAT SCOTT!!) we fell asleep to silence as the rain had finally stopped.

Luckily, the next morning was clear as a bell and Sean and I saw both the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers. Actually being able to see them and see how large they were was much more satisfying that using my imagination. Soon enough though, the clouds started coming in so we hightailed it for Wanaka. The weather down here will go from rainy to sunny to rainy 5 times a day sometimes.

Wanaka was awesome. It had a beautiful lake and small beach that was the perfect scenery for us to unwind. It also had Puzzleworld. Very awesome. All kinds of illusions and 3D pictures. Now after hearing about that, I bet you can't believe that there was something even cooler there, but there was. Possibly the coolest part was the huge maze they had outside. There were a few acres covered by 6 foot tall walls that made up pathways--it felt like being in one of those mazes they have on kids' menus at restaurants. The goal was to get to the four corners in a certain order and took about 1 1/2 hours. It was worth the effort.

After Wanaka, we made it to Queenstown, which reminded me of Mt. Shasta, but with the lake right in town and more mountains for skiing. As I said earlier, we ran into the English guys there along with Rabea, who if I haven't mentioned her yet, is a German tourist that Sean and I met on the Interislander ship. Small country. Queenstown is the adventure capitol of the country with: bungee jumping, paragliding, parasailing, THE LUGE (which I missed out on this time, dang), mountain biking and tons of other stuff. It also has Fergburgers, which are hamburgers that are simply great. Aioli sauce, big patties, good bread. Yeah, I had a couple and they were good. The highlight of my stay in Queenstown, though, was the mountain biking. There was an area about 7 miles from town, inventively named 7 Mile Track, that had all sorts of burms, jumps, and wooden bridges. It was like something out of the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Lucky for me, there was a mountain bike club meeting that day and for $10 I got lunch and some instruction on how to get better at biking. Now, I'd like to say that by the end of the day I was tearing through the burms and jumping everything, but I can't. I was getting better though and now I know how to keep improving at home.

Funny story.
I went to Milford Sound for a day, which was quite excellent and incredible, and met a Scottish girl on the boat that took us out into the sounds. We made plans to make some dinner that night at her hostel. I ran to the store after the bus dropped me off and headed for her building (building A). She wasn't there. Noone knew who I was talking about. It seemed like I was out of luck in finding her, so I asked if I could just cook my chicken there because everyone seemed pretty cool and friendly. They said sure. As it turned out, I hung out with them for the rest of the night (St. Patrick's day) and all day the next day. Lucky me how that turned out.

After that, I took an 8 hour bus ride to Christchurch, met up with Rabea (again) and a friend of hers who took me to The Cave, a local climbing wall that completely shut me down. It was shaped like a quarter circle it was so overhanging. I ended up staying the night at the friend's house and getting travel plans set up the next day. My plan for this week is to make it out to Castle Hill, which is a bouldering area about an hour from here, and climb for a while. This trip has been great, but I need some physical activity and climbing.

Tomorrow might be a good climbing day.

See ya later.

Andy