south island trip

More than a month since last time... srry bout that guys...

anyway! since last time I have had some exams in school. I passed 2 out of 4 in my english, which is fairly decent hench that heaps of kiwis failed them all! Passed the same in maths... and that's about it of exams for me :P

Made some kiwi friends over here... which keeps me busy in school when I can't be bothered paying attention... mum and dad : (does not happen often though)

About two weeks ago there was the south Island tour! I flew out from Rotorua airport, one stop in Wellington and then down to Christchurch. Down there we met heaps of other students, some already familiar, some not. Phil already knew most of them from culture camp, but I didn't.

So the first day was in Christchurch and we went to our accommodation. got our rooms and I got awere of the fact that one guy had particullary smely shoes... like pure disgusting acctually... This smell followed me throughout the trip, and therefore I felt it was mention worthy. later on we had some free time in town, and we went to MacDonalds, and Starbucks :D had a little look around as well.

Next day was up early and crammed in the coach. We had a fairly long drive to dunedin, but once there we stayed at a pretty fancy place. On the way we visited a chocolate factory... but Phil, Phil2, a guy called Nico and I decided we had already seen it... and went to a mall and bought some toy swords... they were a platic pipe, covered by some foam thingy... and in belief of action without to much pain we were wrong... it bloody hurt like hell sometimes and gave some mean bruces!! awsome!! After the purchase of the swords we went to worlds steepest street... and man was that steep!! I tried to run it up... but as you probabl guessed... I failed miserably... Then back to the accommodation. One guy in my room also managed to smash a hole in the wall at this place... he covered it up though.. We had a nice dinner and decided what kind of activities we were going to doing queenstown and later on. In my case the bungee jump and the skydive. In the evening a small group of students headed in to town for ATM's. since we lost the others I ended up walking around with two girls... one of them lived in the town and stated she knew where the closest ATM was... she didn't... we walked around for ages... but since it was nice company I didn't mind :D

day 3 we headed for the doubtful sound. which acctually is a fjord. on the way we had a lunch break and everyone from my previous room were called out of the bus... yeah.. the hole in the wall... we all stood back and let the guilty take the blame... since he also broke our rugby ball the same day .., we started blameing him for everything that broke... haha..
back to the sound... nice landscape and nature on the way... a ferry ride, and then the boat! a nice boat, with heaps of kayaks on the back, which we of course used! we had a nice dinenr on the boat, yummy! and we also got to see dolphines jumping in front of the boat, as well as seals on islands, and a couple of penguins... even a flying penguin...

back from the sounds, where we had some pirate themed sword fights! we got in the bus and headed for our activities center of the trip, yeah, QUEENSTOWN!!! man what a great town!!!

On our way though we stopped at the worlds first bungee site, and could jump if we liked. I didn't have enough money though... since I was going to do the tallest bungee later, and a skydive... expensive shit! (excuse the language! but it was a total off 940 DOLLARS!! *4 and u have norwegian... yeah... expensive!) anyway! cool to see, and we headed to queenstown and the our two day accomodation. First evening was free, and a bunch of us walked to the minigolf, which is the by far best I have ever seen!! indoors, with amazing obstacles!! then we went to an italian resturant for dinner, which was good stuff!! another night with smelly shoes...
Next day I had to get up at 6 for my skydive! I have to say one of the coolest things I have ever done!! can't say coolest because the bungee was sick as well!!! anyway... after the skydive back into town to a candy shop :D where they sold dutch candy!!! only other place in the world I have found Salmiak rondondls!!! :D:D:D I was sooooo stooked!! couple macDonalds vistits in this town as well! :P
later that day we went to the bungee... I have NEVER been so terrified in my whole life. Undescribely terrified...probably one of the biggest pussy's ever to do that jump.. and it's now clear to me... I don't like heights to much. It took me 4 minutes to get to the edge and jump, whilst others did it in less than half a minuit... I did it though... and got great value for my DVD :P
For dinner that night we had a traditional Maori Hangi, which is food staked on hot rocks under ground, covered by a blanket and more rocks. It stays under there for the whole day. We ate this with the other EF tour group, which included Carol, my hostmom, since she was the leader for the other group.

Then we travelled on to Wanaka, which is smaller town, but some great amusement! we went to puzzeling world, which had a great maze! it also had several illusion rooms with some great effects! I bought a rubiks 4*4*4 cube there... yeah... I have actually bothered learning the 3*3*3 in some boring school lessons... and the 2*2*2... so I thought why not? can't solved it completly without youtube yet though. we also went to shotover jet. which is a pretty fast boat, only needing 10 cm's of water to drive, does 360's and drives damn close to cliffs!

For dinner we went to cinema paradiso. a cinema with couches, dinner, popcorn, break with cookies etc. sounds great... but weonly got 4 slices of pizzaeach -.- too few seats... a bag of popcorn for each third person... so limited amusement... but decent overall :P we also went a short trip back in town later that evening, but generally just chilled back at the base..

next day was Franz Josef. One of two big glaciers. on our way to the glacier one of the leaders told Nico and me about the fact that there was heaps of gold in this river, and mouuntains etc... Nico and I then spent 3 hours looking for gold along the river while the others walked to the glacier... we didn't find any...time well spent though... because we had heaps more fun I guess :P

Evening was hot pools... which I didn't bother going to... xD

Next day we went to Motueka, and the greenstone factory :P I bought someone who recently had a birthday a gift in this area :P in the maill soon! tha factory makes meaningful necklaces according to maori traditions. we also visited the punakaiki pancake rocks! heaps of picturres on facebook! pretty cool rocks, and it was kinda cool since the sea was pretty rough that day! We stayed two days here... and the first night us boys had a terrible surprise... the girls were going to dress us up drag... I have no idea why the girls find this so funny... but damn it felt wrong... I'll do my best to remove every single tag on facebook!!! Next day we went to the abel tasman national park. First we hiked 5.5 km into a nice private beach! see pics on facebook... blog uploader is way to slow for me to be bothered with it... then we took a mean cold swim, before we kayaked back in twin kayaks... which was hard in my case... my partner wasn't to good... couldn't paddle actually... only break...

Back at the "camp" we could enjoy EF2 having their drag night... alot more fun since we wern't endangered... ! we also had a BBQ, and the boys had to cook... -.-

So next day we travelled to our last accommodation, and some friends and I definetly got the best room! the others had like only bunk beds and a drawer... we had a kitchen, plenty beds, tv and our own bathroom ! great! In the evening we had our final dinner, Pizz, but only 3 pieces each -.- we exchanged buddy gifts... we had a buddy each from the start of the tour, which we had to check for each day on the bus. My buddy was a dutch guy who likes salmiak... so he got my last bag.. :P the leaders also had some awards, and I got one for bravery... since the leader had never had someone standing that long waiting, but still jumped... :D :( Then we stayed up long that night, and next day it was back to Christchurch!

Here we had to say bye to everybody, back on our planes... and home!!

that's about it... srry about any spelling mistakes... but it's late... and I'm writting kind fast...!

feel free to leave a comment, and I'll try my best to update before another month is passed!!

bye