Hello From The Future!!

*snicker*

Well, considering it's 2008 here, and you're all still back in 2007, I'm even more so in the future than I was before. I just think it's funny.

So the last few weeks have been pretty cool. I left off at the end of my Milford Track hike, but that was over on Dec 16th, so I've done quite a bit since then.

After the track I stayed in Milford Sound for a night, and the first thing I did was have a glorious hot shower. After 4 days without one, I think it was the longest shower I've ever had! When I left in the morning it was still rainy and cloudy and I still couldn't see Mitre Peak to get a picture of it. Nuts.

I made my way up the west coast of the south island to a town called Wanaka, where there really wasn't much to do. So I went to Puzzling World. It was a crazy building full of optical illusions and fun stuff to play with. The cafe had a whole bunch of mind puzzles out on the tables for you to play with, and there was another huge wooden maze outside like the one Tyler and I went to in Rotorua. (Oh yeah, Tyler and I have separated again, and probably won't run into each other anymore since I leave soon.)

Here are some fun pictures from Puzzling World



Look, in this room I was tiny up there ^, but giant down there! v


Funny room outside the bathrooms. This was a recreated old time Roman Bathroom. In the background there's people using it see? Haha. Funny optical illusion


On the drive out of Wanaka

I only spent one day in Wanaka and then continued up the coast to a teensy little town called Fox Glacier. I'm not sure whether the town is called Fox Glacier or not, but I never heard otherwise, and it's main feature is the Fox Glacier, a few minutes drive out of town. I did a day walk trip and actually got to go do some hiking on the glacier, which was really cool. The ice on top melts so quickly that the guides have to cut new steps every day on it. We were on the actual glacier for about 4.5 hours, and got to look down crevasses, see some small tunnels, and look down at the face of the glacier from on top of it. A real neat experience that's for sure. And one of the small mountains right near the glacier totally looked like the Chief, only a miniature version!









If you look really really closely at that last picture, there are some tiny specks at the bottom of the glacier. Those are actually people. So that might give you an idea of the scale of how big it actually is at the face. About 50 meters thick I think it was. It was a really great day, and I learned a lot about glaciers and how they form, and continue to grow and retreat all the time.

The only other thing to do in the tiny town of Fox Glacier (which only consisted of one main street with a gas station, two cafes, a bar, a corner store and the glacier guiding company) was to go out to Lake Matheson, which is the most photographed lake in New Zealand. That is because it is also called 'Mirror Lake' because when the wind dies down it is completely calm and the surface is as still and smooth as glass. It gives amazing reflections of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman (some of the tallest mountains in NZ) and is stunning at sunset. So that's when I went, and I did get some great pictures.




Once I left Fox Glacier, I was pretty much just traveling up the coast so that I could get back to the top to catch the ferry back to Wellington for Christmas. There's not much to mention about those few days of my trip as they were pretty uneventful. I did another brewery tour, Montieth's this time, but it was a much much smaller brewery than Speights in Dunedin. Still very cool and free taste testing at the end. I did some hiking, and not much else really.

Two of the stops that the bus made during my journey were pretty neat though. One was at a totally obscure cafe in an off the beaten track kind of town. It was neat though because the owner is a hunter, and has found baby deer on his travelling in the bushes, and has brought them back and hand raised them. So the result is now two huge Red Deer stags that are completely tame and will let you hand feed them and pet them. Their antlers are soooo soft!




The other stop was in a small town of Punakaiki (Poo-nah-kay-kee), which is famous for it's 'Pancake Rocks.' They are huge columns of limestone rock that have been carved and washed away by the ocean over a really long time, and result in a layered look that does look like stacks of pancakes. At high tide the water will surge into them and erupt guyser-style from them, but unfortunately it wasn't high tide when we stopped there. But they were still very cool too see.




I arrived in Wellington on Christmas Eve, and my friends Evie and Jarratt were kind enough to pick me up from the ferry and bring me back to their lovely little home. I've been getting some wonderful R&R while I've been here, and Evie and Jarratt have taken me to a whole bunch of neat things around Wellington. We went to a wildlife sanctuary and the Botanic Gardens, and also to a party where one of their friends' band was playing. And on Christmas Day I was also welcome to join them for a barbeque at one of their friend's houses.

So it's been a pretty laid back holiday season for me. I keep getting asked if I was sad on Christmas since I wasn't at home with family and friends. Well, I missed the people, but I wasn't too upset because it doesn't really feel like the holidays here. There are some decorations but not many, no Christmas lights because it's summer and doesn't get dark until 10, and there's no egg nog! Plus the weather is nice and warm instead of dark, cold and wet, and so it really just felt like any other day for me. But to be honest it was a nice change of pace from the hectic, stressful commercialism that Christmas has become in North America. I think the kiwis have it right. Just settle down for a nice barby on the patio and have a good time with some friends. That's what it should be all about really.

I was planning to be up on a beach just south of Auckland for New Years last night, but through my own procrastination and lack of planning, when I went to book a hostel I found out that all of New Zealand was completely booked out for the 31st. I felt pretty stupid about that, not even thinking that I might have to book a hostel for that night much further in advance than usual, and so I was faced with either staying on the street or in an expensive hotel room for the night. Fortunately Evie and Jarratt are very kind people and have let me impose on their home for a few more days. (They assure me I'm no bother at all, and have taken to calling me their 'magical Canadian elf' as I like to clean up the kitchen for them to in part pay for my stay. They rather like the fact that the kitchen is magically cleaning itself while I'm staying here. Haha.) They had a karaoke party with a small group of their friends last night, and I had a great time and a great New Year's Eve.

So, I'm heading up to that beach tomorrow, and in a few days I start a 5 day surf school, where hopefully I will actually accomplish being able to stand on a board for longer than one second. I'm pretty excited about it, since it's supposed to be a really great beach and a great school too. I've always wanted to learn to surf!

So, since the New Year begins for all of you (the ones in Vancouver and home anyway) in about 5 hours, I'm sure some of the festivities are already well under way. From my experience of it so far, 2008 is going very well, and is looking to be a good year indeed.

Wishing you all a safe and happy New Year,
Love Julie