Queenstown

Hello Faithful Reader(s),

After my last post, Sammy, our hitchhiker Nick, and I decided to do a bit of mountain climbing. The nearest mountain was Mt. Roy, a 3-hour trip to the top. Our hike started with some chats and few chats, but after about 10 minutes, it became more huffs and puffs. We overtook a few Americans who were busy taking a picture of a blow-up doll riding a sheep (What excellent ambassadors!), jumped over streams, took photos, and got a great work out.

As we got closer to the summit we were granted more and more access to NZ's finest scenery. It was like being in 3rd grade, looking through our Houghton & Mifflin Geographical Sciences text book. All of the land formations were there; Rivers, lakes, mountains, plateaus, forests, prariers. All that was lacking were the corresponding labels.

When we made it to the top, the air was thinner, my legs were exhausted, due to the change in pressure I had an ear ache and my fingers were swollen, there was snow on the ground, and we were all starving. But man was it worth it. It took us 3 hours, but we climbed 8 kms (5 miles), roughly 1700 meters (I don't know the exact conversion, but it's a flippin' mountain!). Our pace on the way down was a quicker one, more thanks to the physics of it all rather than our enthusiasm.

We drove to Queenstown that night, found a really great hostel, and took it easy. The next day we went bungy jumping off the very first commerical bungy location in the world. Although the natives used to do it all the time with vines and out of trees (like real men), we had the luxury of latex cords which safely and effectively scared the bejesus out of me. It was a relatively efficient process, start to finish, but the free fall was fantastic. So unnatural to be plummeting head first off of a bridge, yet so exciting.

Sammy left for home today. He was really a great travel companion. I did another hike today with Nick the hitchhiker where we met some other travellers from the UK (they are everywhere!). The ones we met are coming over for dinner in about 10 minutes so we have to go prepare it.

I'm safe. I'm learning about the world. I can't believe I only have 2 weeks left! Thanks for reading.

Love,

Casey