South of the South

Last week, during my "study break," two girls and I took a road trip to the South of the South Island. On 8am Sunday the 6th, I got behind the wheel of our adorable lil' Nissan and drove down the center of the island. We stopped at Lake Tekapo and Pukaki to see if we could find Mt. Cook behind the clouds. Unfortunately, but expectedly, it was pouring and nothing was visible. Oh well, maybe next time...? Anyway, we drove from ChCh to Queenstown to grab a delicious and extremely necessary Fergburger. Southern Swine, anyone? Om nom nom.
Then from Qtown, we drove through the dark to Te Anau. We could feel that it was a beautiful drive, but we couldn't see anything...boo.
We arrived at the most adorable backpacker's hostel, Bob and Maxine's! They had their house and then an extra house fully furnished for the backpackers. Bob and Maxine were so so sweet and the place was beautiful! Glass-sided houses so you can see the sun come over the mountains in the morning, beautiful Kauri and Rimu-wood tables, and just a great vibe! I loved it there...it was really cozy and they put a lot of effort to make sure it reminded everyone of a little piece of home, wherever home is.

The next day we did Milford Sound and that was breathtaking to say the least. It was snowing on twisty, windy roads up to Milford and you couldn't see much ahead of you, but it was gorgeous nonetheless. We drove through a huge, downhill tunnel in the middle of a mountain, which was an experience itself. Then we did a handful of detours on our way. My favorite one was The Chasm which was just a giant chasm in the ground from a really powerful waterfall. The rocks were smooth and curvy and unbelievable. My pictures do not do it justice. It looks kind of goofy in my pictures, but you just have to take my word for it...Ah Mazing.
We hopped on a ferry through Milford Sound at 12:20 and took a 2-hour tour around the Sound. We got right up to the sides of the fiords, so close in fact that we could see crazy-legged starfish munching on the little mussels on the rocks. Once we hit the opening of Milford Sound, and the Tasman Sea, we turned around and all three of us got knocked around on the top of the boat. We were the last ones there to brave the wind and the water being splashed up on us. Brrrrr, but exhilarating!
The captain of our wee ferry spotted some dolphins right before we hit Sterling Falls and the dolphins started playing in the wake of the boat. I went a little bananas with the dolphins around us, but I'll spare you guys with the umpteen pictures I took.






After Milford Sound, we went back to Te Anau and had some dinner in town, but since it was the Queen's Birthday, and a National Holiday (weird), almost everything was closed. We found a cute little restaurant and actually bumped into someone from Ilam there! What a small world, Te Anau!! We stayed at Bob and Maxine's again that night and then headed off to Invercargill. The drive down there was amazing. Gorgeous rolling hills, farms of course, and these beautiful wind-swept trees.
The days on the road sort of blurred together so I'm not sure where we stopped on the way to take pictures, but I know that it was gorgeous and GREEEEN! The greenest green you've ever seen.


Once we got into Invercargill, we drove straight through and went to Bluff which is a little further south. That was freezing, but really cool. There was one point in Bluff where you could see Stewart Island.
On the way to Bluff, we found my street!


That night we stayed in a cute little hostel, Southern Comfort, and then played Scrabble late into the night with two Germans, Jens and Jorn. That. Was. Hilarious. And for the record, I didn't even win that game! ... Well I was apart of a group effort with the Germans. :)
The next day, our plan was to hit the Southern Scenic Route some more and stop along the numerous detours and then find a cute little hostel on our way.
It was a fantastic day; we would stop about every 30-40K and check out some natural wonder of the world.
First we stopped at Waipapa Point and heard there were amazing, rare Hooker's sea lions there.


We bumped into this couple who were frantically taking pictures of something and then started backing up really quickly. It was a sea lion. He started waddling up the hill, through the bush, up the sand to ward us off and out of his territory. He was a fierce little bugger and made his point heard. But, he was SO adorable...fierce, but adorable :)

We also stopped at Monkey Island!!!!!!!! No, there were never monkeys there, BUT we did monkey around on the beach for a while.


We stopped at Slope Point, the southern-most point in the South Island...And that's where I learned boat shoes are NOT good for mud. I wiped out in the most epic, rolling, muddy wipe out of the century (until Juli did the same the next day in Dunedin). At Slope Point, we bumped into the same couple from Waipapa Point.
Then we stopped at Florence Hill Lookout where the cliffs met the beach and this beach was miles long and absolutely gorgeous. I have never seen waves that big. If I were a surfer, I'd be in heaven. Hell, I was in heaven not even being a surfer.
When we stopped there, an old man came up to us and said, "Hey I wanna show you something"... Uh....So I looked around to see where he could POSSIBLY be taking us in the middle of this farm land on the coast, and I flashed a worried look to another young traveler checking out the gorgeous view. But the old man just pointed out a wee island right off the coast and said, "Look! a Spouting Cave" hence the sign post for "Spouting Cave." Random, yes, but we learned that this was his land and he's in the process of owning Spouting Cave.
Anyway, next we stopped at Purakaunui Falls which were incredible and apparently had some glow worms behind it at dusk, but we had to make it to Nugget Point to see some pinguinos before the sunset. Apparently penguins come out of the water two hours before dusk and make a little nest and hunker down for the night. So we drove to Nugget Point and Roaring bay to see some penguins...that was about 3:30pm, but we saw nothing. We decided to check out Nugget Point for a bit and then come back to Roaring Bay. I can confidently say that Nugget Point is probably in my top three favorite places in the world. Robbins Farm, Pyramids, Nugget Point. I can't even articulate how beautiful it was. It's the southern-most lighthouse in the world and it feels like it. You walk up a gravel path for a while and then all of a sudden you're on the side of this cliff looking onto this seemingly abandoned lighthouse on the edge of the world. Past the lighthouse there are these nugget-rocks that have caves and tunnels where the water comes splashing up around it. The only thing I could think of was how beautifully a manmade lighthouse complements this angry, rough sea. The power of water didn't seem so scary in the shade of the sea cliffs while you're standing in front of a cute little lighthouse. Man, I wish you all could have been there.




Oh, we walked back to the car to go back to Roaring Bay, and hilariously we bumped into the couple from Waipapa and Slope Point AND the young guy from Florence Hill Lookout. At Roaring Bay we saw about 13 penguins come out of the ocean, waddle uphill through sand, rocks, and bush to join the rest of their cute, waddling crew. 1.) Yellow-eyed penguins are the rarest in the world 2.) didn't know they could waddle UPHILL 3.) i want one.

We talked to the young guy for a while, found out his name was Diederik from Holland. ::isn't that veeeeeird?!:: It was getting dark and we all needed a place to crash for the night. Diederik just needed a place that would let him use the facilities b/c he had a "camper van" of sorts...aka a van with a mattress. We had heard of this place Fern Lea on Kaka Point looking out onto the ocean. When we walked into Fern Lea it was an empty beach house with a sign "There IS Accommodation tonight. Just sit tight and we'll be around soon." So awkwardly the four of us turned on the lights to this amazing little cottage, turned on some heaters. Luckily the owner of the house came in and was the sweetest person ever! She was so accommodating and just amazing. God, New Zealand, quit being so nice! Where are all the mean people? Probably exiled on Steward Island or something...with the Kiwis.
Anyway, so the three girls and our new Dutch friend made dinner and learned an epic Dutch game called BOONANZA! Basically it's a bean-trading, bean-growing, bean-stealing game. Beans, yes beans. Don't worry, it makes zero sense until you've played three hours of it. Even then it's confusing.
After an epic game of boonanza we all hit the hay and poor Diederik faced the tundra and slept in his van. In the morning us three girlies woke up for the sunrise (which is at 8, so not that big of a deal) and walked to the beach. I've never seen a frozen, frosty beach...it was amazing.


After some sunrise yoga watching the waves crash ashore, we got ready to go to Dunedin. Said ciao to Diederik and his frozen car and said "Meet you in Dunedin!"
In Dunedin, we walked around the Octagon, which was a gorgeous little square with a great cathedral.

Then we found the Steepest Street in the World...Baldwin Street.



Then of course, OF COURSE, we bumped into Diederik all the way to Dunedin. At a gas station, at an Albatross colony, at a random hostel! Finally we all planned to go to Speights for a brewery tour. Pre-dinner brewery tour? Oof, that was interesting. Our bellies were grumbling and then got filled with delicious Speights. I fell in love with Summit and Traverse Speights. Traverse was cinnamon-y, spicier than regular Speights. Different, but delicious.

Felix, our German hostel-mate, on the left and Diederik, our Nederlander travel buddy, on the right

PS. Who knew the Egyptians invented beer?
Then we all giddily started talking to some other Americans on our tour and decided to all have dinner together. We grabbed a table for eight and had great Italian food. After dinner we exchanged e-mails and the obligatory "If you're ever in Boston....." We said farewell to Diederik and hoped to see him in ChCh (no such luck), and the girls walked back to our hostel, HOGWARTS! Yes, yes it was named Hogwarts. Oh our way to Hogwarts we bumped into JENS AND JORN!!!!!! How the hell!?!? Seriously, NZ you are tiny!


The next day we woke up early and left to come back home. We stopped off at the Moeraki Boulders to play around there for a little bit. They were so cool. Check out the pictures, I wont be able to explain them well enough...













We then drove our sweet little car back to Christchurch and cranked some country music. ...Oh rock me mama like wagon wheel...Gotta love Old Crow Medicine Show :)

It was such an amazing trip during my "study" break. God I love New Zealand.
I have nine more days here and even though I'm ready to come home, there are still so many things I want to do...When can I come back next? Seriously...