First of all, I think I should mention that I finally feel 'adjusted' to this place. New Zealand is amazing. The people, the scenery, the small town of Dunedin - it's all great. You really learn a lot about yourself when you travel, probably because you have to know who you are, and where you came from, before you can establish yourself in a new place. You also do a lot of growing when you're confronted with a whole new world.
I went on a hike all by myself to Mt. Cargill which is about an hour and half away from where I live. I forgot my iPod and a jacket - I just went for it. It was really good weather for it and I saw some amazing things. The trip took about 6 hours to go there and back. It made me realize that after 4 hours of walking, it's really nice to have someone else or some music to silence your mind if you've been thinking too much.
The View from Mt. Cargill:
Not too long after my hike to Mt. Cargill, my buddy Nathan Hubbell convinced me to go mountain biking. Despite being reluctant to try it, for fear of being terrible at it, I quickly realized that I loved it. Mountain biking is probably the most dangerous thing you can do. Rocks, trees, and thorn bushes scatter the area and one fall at a high speed means a nasty gash on your leg. I definitely got my own battle scars, as did my companions, but overall it was an exhilarating experience and something I totally plan on doing again.
'Red cards' are very interesting, here, in New Zealand. You flatmates can basically call a 'red card' for the day and it means that you have to stay indoors and drink all day - real productive, I know, but everyone accepts it and if you don't, you're still not allowed to leave the house. They can also incorporate other rules like you have to play card games, or watch Lord of the Rings all day, or even rules like 'no touching the floor.' I know, sounds ridiculous, and it is. Here's an example:
They have a butterfly exhibit, here, and it's quite easily the hottest place in Dunedin. I went with a girl named Emma and we had a good time trying to get the butterflies to land on us. I never quite got one to land on my nose but I was still a happy camper.
After classes were finally over, I decided it was past time I did some traveling! My flatmate, Jason, and I planned a 4/5-day trip filled with festivities and we saw some amazing things, watched a lot of Scrubs, and had some adventures we did not necessarily plan to have!
We hired a rental car and, as you all know, they drive on the LEFT side of the road here. I was a little anxious to get in the driver seat, but once I had driven an hour or two, I actually felt pretty comfortable with it. Still, parallel parking on the left side of the road in the front right seat of your car is kind of annoying.
The first day in Queenstown we went on a tour to the Milford Sound (one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand, and apparently the world!). The tour was half bus-ride, half cruise. We had decent weather for most of the day but it was a little cloudy for the cruise. Either way, there were some pretty gorgeous things to see.
The next day me and Jason went bungy-jumping! Before bungee jumping though, we took some pics of the scene out in front of our hostel. Queenstown is easily one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Alright, and as for bungee-jumping, I don't want to come across as one of those guys that isn't scared of anything - but I was more scared of mountain biking than I was of bungee jumping. Haha. In fact, I thought the whole thing was far too short and I'll definitely be giving sky-diving a try, as soon as financially possible. Nevertheless though, the view from the bungee site was awesome and the jump itself forces every bit of adrenaline out of your pores. It's awesome.
can't get this one to rotate so it's vertical...
Jason and I
Now, as I said before, Queenstown is probably the most beautiful place on Earth. After bungee jumping, we still had most of the day left, so we figured we'd go and drive to this hill that we spotted on the way to bungee jumping and see if we could climb it. So, that's exactly what we did, we drove to it, found a trail, went off the trail (probably onto some private property), and even down to the beach! It was probably my favorite experience out of the whole trip. I even dunked under the water for $5 from Jason - I think he thought I'd pass because it was too cold, but you know me. ;)
I'm throwing in some extra pics for this one because no amount of words could describe it.
After that amazing day, we had a Lord of the Rings tour that we thought would be equally exciting. The website for the tour said that we would see 20 sites from the movies. We're pretty sure we only saw 5. Buttt, what are you gonna do - we still got to play with the weapons! And, in the end, we actually learned a lot of LOTR trivia that was kinda cool to know.
Some random LOTR trivia:
- Sean Connery was originally going to be cast as Gandalf and Peter Jackson was like "uhh.. No."
- Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), who apparently is the nicest actor on the planet, got a little too into his acting and told a Warg rider to actually strangle him so he could get into it. Viggo ended up headbutting the Warg rider. The picture you see, below, is Viggo laughing at himself for headbutting an actor.
- Every time you see an orc with a bandage on it's arm in the Fellowship of the Ring, that is actually there because the neoprene 'orc-suits' were cutting off the circulation to the extras wearing the suits and so they had to cut the suits to stop the actors from passing out or getting dehydrated.
- Sean Bean (Boromir) was afraid of water (or kayak/canoe-ing) and flying (mostly in helicopters).
- There were 44 different 'one Ring's. The biggest one is at the Council of Elrond when they are arguing and the ring has fire in it and shows their reflections.
- The Dead Marshes scene took place, mainly, in a parking lot. In the scene where Frodo falls face first into the water, his face came extremely close to hitting the cement under the water. That's dedication!
- In the scene where the Fellowship is canoeing under those large statutes who are holding their hands out, Legolas got a little too confident with his canoeing skills and, while messing around, nearly sank his and Boromir's boat and they had to get a rescue boat to save them because they were wearing chain mail under their suits and it stopped the lifesuits from inflating.
- And more...
The next day, we were headed home, but decided to try to do a little more exploring.. We ended up going up some private road that lead to a dirt road, that led to a dead end at a little cabin. I tried to turn around, didn't see the mud, and got stuck. After an hour of trying to get the car out of the mud, Jason and I were only getting it even more into the mud. Eventually, we walked down the road to a very nice looking house and asked the tenants for some help. Luckily, even though the wife was very suspicious of us and thought we were young little robbers looking to steal things from rich houses (???), the husband was nice enough to grab his 4WD vehicle and lent us a rope, both literally and figuratively. We didn't take any pictures because we weren't exactly in the mood to, hopefully you'll forgive us. (I know, I know, I went over the limit on the sentence count on this one but, I had to tell the story right!)
Anyways, hope you enjoyed this post and see you next chapter!
- Jacobus Maximus
