Queenstown!

I'm warning you now....this is going to be a long post! I left Dunedin around 1:55pm on Wednesday September 2nd and took a bus to Queenstown. The ride was around 4.5 hours. Totally worth it though....the ride there was amazing! Snow-capped mountains surrounded me and we gradually kept going up the mountains so I was able to get some great pictures of the mountains and the rivers. I arrived in Queenstown around 6:10pm. When they let us off I had no idea where to go! I happened to see a parked taxi across the street and called the number, but the first time it said I dialed the wrong number. The second time I tried putting a local area code in front of it and this time I got a lady named Deb. So, I hung up. I decided to walk and I found a local man standing outside a building and asked him if he knew where Pinewood was. He said he did but that it was too complicated for him to describe to me, but that it would only be a $5 taxi. So with his advice I went in search of a taxi. Unfortunately I couldn't find one, but ended up in front of the information center. I went in and asked the lady if she knew where Pinewood was and she said she hadn't heard of Pinewood and I got really nervous. She looked it up on the computer and seemed to know where I was talking about once she saw the address. She gave me a map and I started on my way. It took me about 10-15 minutes to get there. Once I arrived the receptionist asked if I was Lindsey and I said yes...I guess I was the last one to check in. She gave me my key and I saw I was staying in L9. I got to my lodge and went to my room and opened the door to see only 2 sets of bunks. I saw the bottom bunks had stuff in them so I took the top bunk furthest from the door and decided it was still pretty early and I decided to go exploring. Before I left, I made myself a peanut butter sandwich. After eating I headed back into town. I spent about 2 hours exploring and going in and out of souvenir shops. I got a t-shirt for my dad and myself. When I got back there were 2 girls occupying the bottom bunks. K.J. was the one I was sharing a bunk with. She is a kiwi and is from the north island. The other was a girl named Hannah and she is from Norway. After talking a bit I found out that they go to Uni with me and we actually live about a block from each other! We talked for about an hour and then they decided to go get tea (dinner) because they hadn't had any yet. They left about 9pm and they didn't get back till about 11pm. We stayed up and talked for a little bit and went to bed about midnight. That night I slept terribly. Right before I fell asleep I pulled a muscle and it bothered me all night. Around 4am our neighbors were loud and were slamming doors. That lasted about 2 hours. Thursday I got up around 8:30am an got ready to go to the Gondola before my Shotover Jet ride and Nomad 4x4 safari. The view from the top of the Gondola was amazing! I took tons of pictures! I met Hannah up there and we had lunch together. Around 12:40pm I left and started heading back down the mountain for my Shotover Jet and Nomad Safari. Tony was my driver and it looked like I was going to be the only one, but he went inside and picked up 3 other people. They were getting the tour because they were going to promote the service at their hotel or travel company. We started on our amazing journey around 1:30pm. We went to Arrowtown and crossed a river about 12 times and we also went off-roading through the mountain. It was beautiful and Tony knew so much about the area. We stopped for tea and biscuits and pinned for some gold. Tony showed us how to pine for gold and we found 3 or 4 little flakes of gold! It was so cool! After tea we started heading back in and he took us up to a really high peak and the view can only be described as breathtaking! It was the New Zealand version of the Grand Canyon! We were running late so Tony rushed us to the Shotover Jetboats. We got there and put on huge rain coats and life vests and got in the boat. We started out going down the river and our top speed was 85km/hr. We did at least 10, 360 degree spins. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous! I took lots of video and some pictures. The ride was about 30 minutes. It was super cold and I got wind burn really bad on my cheeks. I was so glad I wore me sunglasses because we got sprayed with water a lot. After getting back to town I checked in with the Visitor Center to see if the roads were still closed up to Milford Sound. They had been closed all week due to snow on the roads and avalanches. They lady told me that most likely it would be closed. I grabbed some brochures for ideas of what to do incase it was canceled. After dinner we went to the Minus 5 bar which is a bar that is completely made out of ice! It was super cold (-5 degrees Celcius, hence the name) but it was super fun! We got back late and crashed. On Friday (yesterday) I got up early to meet my bus for Milford Sound, but the roads were still closed so I went back to my room to try and find out something to do. After about an hour I decided to go back to sleep for a bit and then get up and go explore the town and go to the Observatory and Kiwi Conservation Park. I headed to town around 9:30am and stopped in Starbucks for some hot chocolate and a chocolate muffin. I hung out there for about 2 hours and wrote in my journal and looked through pictures and videos I had taken. After that I went to the underwater obervatory. It was probably one of the coolest things I saw while in Queenstown. At one point there were 7 eels surrounding this feeding thing. They had to be at least 3-4 feet long! THey were amazing. There were also a lot of trout. Some had to be at least 10lbs. The best part was there 3 ducks calssed Scaup ducks. They are able to dive up to 26 feet and can hold their breath for 45 seconds. I took so many videos and pictures of them! When they shoot back up to the surface they have an air bubble on top of their head and it makes them look like they have a helmet on. After I was done there I had a picnic lunch on the peir. After lunch I went to the Kiwi Conservation Center. It was interesting. I saw lots of birds and heard a lot about them. I saw 3 kiwi birds. They are pretty weird looking things. After getting done there I headed back to Pinewood and watched a movie and rested. About 6:00pm I went out to dinner. When I got back I was so tired so I started another movie but fell asleep. I got up about 6:45am this morning and got to the bus station. I got back to Dunedin about 12:30 and caught a taxi back to my flat. THE END!
I had an amazing time, but later this month I am going back to go bungey jumping with my roommate and also go up to Milford Sound. Check out the 200 picture I uploaded to the left of this post. I'm going to try and put up a cumulative video of my adventures as well!