Kiwitown

SO the first day of the trip was a long, scenic drive to Fox Glacier. New Zealand is breathtakingly gorgeous! We did many photo stops along the way to break up the drive. Everyone in the group got along so well. We stopped for lunch along the west coast in a town where we got sandwiches and ate on the beach.By the late afternoon we were in Fox Glacier which is a town that is all of one block long and in the middle of nowhere. There is only one bar! Needless to say, we all got showered and went to dinner and the bar for the night. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, we had an awesome time and definitely succeeded in portraying the loud crazy American stereotype...not sure if that's a good thing haha. The next morning (Day 2) we got up early to hike through the temperate rainforest up to the glacier. It was amazing to step out of the rainforest onto a giant block of ice. We had to wear big spikes on our shoes to walk on the glacier. Since we were all young and athletic, our guide took us to places on the glacier where most groups don't get to go. It was incredibly exhausting as the glacier is at a very high altitude so when we hiked through the rainforest it was practically like walking up a mountain for several miles. The hiking took most of the day and when we got back to the town we all relaxed a bit before (surprise) going to the bottle shop. We taught Bruce some American games and he taught us (or tried to at least) some Australian games. We went to the same bar that we had gone to the night before. The following morning (Day 3) we headed to Queenstown nice and early as usual. We got some goon (that's box wine btw for the Americans ;0 ) and some beer and mad the drive really fun. When we got to Queenstown we put our things in our room and headed to the beach because it was sunny and hot out. We all laid out on the beach and explored the city a bit before buying groceries to have an Aussie BBQ, compliments of Brucey, on the public BBQ's at the park which is right on the beach. We had a really great time and even witnessed an old man go swimming in a speedo and then get out of the water and strip... New Zealanders are interesting. We headed back to our rooms and met some others staying in the hostel which was FULL of students backpacking around new zealand. We went out once again but this time we were in a city that had an amazing nightlife! Ok i'll make a new post again to continue onto day 4.