{"id":8120,"date":"2017-05-14T05:06:37","date_gmt":"2017-05-14T09:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=8120"},"modified":"2019-07-15T17:33:32","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T17:33:32","slug":"new-zealand-never-ceases-to-amaze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2017\/05\/14\/new-zealand-never-ceases-to-amaze\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand Never Ceases To Amaze"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two more jam-packed weekends in New Zealand… No matter how much of this beautiful country I explore, there is always so much more to see. \u00a0Last weekend, I went on a road trip with three of my friends. \u00a0I have recently rekindled my baking obsession and brought along heaps of homemade muffins and chocolate chip cookies, much to the enjoyment of my companions (three hungry young men). \u00a0The baked goods were gone within a couple days.<\/p>\n

We went to Queenstown and hiked the Ben Lomond track, which is about 5 hours return and yields stunning 360\u00ba views of Queenstown, the nearby lakes, the Remarkables mountain range, and the Southern Alps. \u00a0There was a kea at the top. \u00a0I know you’re not supposed to feed the kea, but we did share the muffin with him to lure him closer so we could snap some pictures. \u00a0Anything for the Insta. \u00a0At one point, we somehow wandered completely off the path and into a rocky landslide area. \u00a0The rocks kept sliding out from under my feet and at one point I fell on my ass and\u00a0couldn’t stop sliding for about 10 meters until I slammed into my friend. \u00a0My friends and I also accidentally stabbed our\u00a0hands on this spiky grass plant and my one friend’s hand started bleeding. \u00a0What kind of savage grass literally draws blood??<\/p>\n

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Apparently kea like to eat the rubber in car doors. \u00a0It was only a rental car so I didn’t really worry if they were scratching the paint job. \u00a0Not like I would have cared if it was my own car either, which is literally older than my high-school-graduate sister.<\/p>\n

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At the gondola in Queenstown, there is a Jelly Belly store for some unknown reason. \u00a0Here is a fun piece of artwork hanging on the wall there. \u00a0“Frodo Lord of the Beans: Taking inspiration from the JRR Tolkein books and ensuing Lord of the Rings movies by Sir Peter Jackson, this image depicts the devotion of Frodo to the ring. \u00a0This Jelly Belly masterpiece took over 100 hours to produce, using more than 20,000 jelly Beans.”<\/p>\n

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What a masterpiece.<\/p>\n

The next day I went on a boat cruise through Milford Sound, billed as “the Eighth Wonder of the World” (but somehow so is the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China…) \u00a0Regardless, it was pretty spectacular. \u00a0I saw bottlenose dolphins (I honestly had no clue those even lived in New Zealand) and fur seals. \u00a0There were a bunch of waterfalls too, and the boat went right up to one so I got a little misty which was cool besides the fact that I was frantically trying to protect\u00a0my expensive camera from the water.<\/p>\n

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After the boat cruise, we hiked up to Lake Marian, which was beautiful. \u00a0The guys spent a really long time seeing who could throw a rock the farthest into the lake. \u00a0Being an intellectual and mature female above that kind of behavior, I watched. \u00a0(I’m actually just really bad at throwing and didn’t want to embarrass myself.)<\/p>\n

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I never witness sunrises at home because I am lazy and not a morning person, but winter sunrises here are so late (after 7 am!) that I am occasionally awake for them. \u00a0Here are some lovely ones from the side of the road (left) and my hostel’s kitchen (right).<\/p>\n

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This weekend, I went on a road trip with one girl I know, and then three\u00a0strangers. \u00a0It was a very interesting time but for sure a blast. \u00a0I hiked\u00a0up to Brewster Hut with the two girls. \u00a0The hike was kind of\u00a0intense, starting with a river crossing right off the bat. \u00a0My one friend ran right through the river because “it looked shallow.” \u00a0It wasn’t. \u00a0Then we literally climbed\u00a0up roots and rocks straight up to the top of a mountain. \u00a0It was supposed to be 6-8 hours return, but we crushed\u00a0the entire thing in 3 hours so we had a lot of extra time and stopped at the Blue Pools after (pictured on right). \u00a0The views from Brewster Hut were stunning but the best part of the hike was probably the fact that there was a dog at the top. \u00a0Of course I got a picture with it.<\/p>\n

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The next day, we went to Lake Alta which was the filming location for Dimrill Dale in Lord of the Rings. \u00a0Exciting!!! \u00a0I consider myself a relatively large fan of Lord of the Rings. \u00a0Coming to New Zealand, the country where the movies were filmed, I was hoping to meet a lot more avid fans, but so far all I’ve encountered is “OMG she’s such a big fan, like her dad has actually read the books!” or “I went on a Lord of the Rings tour and saw where Eragon was killed or something!” \u00a0That’s not even his name and he didn’t even die. \u00a0Regardless it was cool to see the lake. \u00a0Besides the fact that I almost slipped on ice a dozen times, it was really pretty covered in snow.<\/p>\n

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A lovely lookout spot with some of my new friends.<\/p>\n

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Even the roads in New Zealand are photogenic. \u00a0I’m pretty sure they’ve filmed a car advertisement here.<\/p>\n

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Have you heard of Fergburger??? \u00a0It has been featured in the CNN and Los Angeles Times and is advertised as the best burger ever which I wholeheartedly agree with. \u00a0Admittedly my uneducated vegetarian opinion is based solely on their tofu or falafel burgers, but still. \u00a0They are the hugest burgers I have ever seen and undoubtedly the best. \u00a0I went twice last weekend while I was in Queenstown, and had absolutely no problem going again this weekend. \u00a0Here is me very content feasting on my fourth Fergburger since arriving in the country. \u00a0In Ferg We Trust. \u00a0All in all, some more wonderful weekends in wonderful New Zealand.<\/p>\n

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Two more jam-packed weekends in New Zealand… No matter how much of this beautiful country I explore, there is always so much more to see. \u00a0Last weekend, I went on a road trip with three of my friends. \u00a0I have recently rekindled my baking obsession and brought along heaps of homemade muffins and chocolate chip…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":464,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-otago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/464"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15176,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions\/15176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}