New Zealand road trip, continued: Too much activity for a catchy title

So, continuing from the last post...

2/11/09
We got up early to do one of the things we were most excited for: gondola ride and luging! I let my roommates do most of the planning for this trip because the two weeks before were chaotic for me, so I honestly did not know what to expect from this part of the trip. When I heard gondola I was thinking boat ride like in Venice, and when I heard luge I was thinking ice. I was wrong. We were able to walk to the gondola from our hostel which was pretty exciting because I think Gina was pretty sick of driving by that point. The gondola was a little 4-seat cable car that lifted up the mountain. We got amazing views of Queenstown. It was beautiful. Once again, I tried to take pictures but I don't know how well they came out. The luge track was at the top of the mountain. They were kind of like go carts without motors. Any chance I get to drive something though, I get excited. We did two different tracks: a "scenic" one and an "advanced" one. The only difference was the more advanced one had steeper falls and tighter turns. Since there was no motor, the speed was dependent on the steepness of the track. It was really fun, and I definitely could have done those tracks a few more times, but we had plenty more things planned for the day.
When we got back to the hostel, we had lunch and I had initially planned on going skydiving again. But, somewhat last minute I decided against it and went horseback riding with my roommates instead. I think it was a good choice. We got picked up in town and when we got to the stable our guide, Gale, assigned us all horses. I got Charlie and Gina got Mac (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, anyone?). It was pretty amusing because the two of them seemed to be competing the entire time for the front of the pack. Mac always won. Typical Charlie. We rode for over two and a half hours, but it flew by. There were some parts when I was definitely kind of nervous. We were going up and down mountains and Charlie was walking very close to the edge of the path at some points. We saw a lot of sheep (not surprising) and cows during the ride. In fact, one cow was actually on the path where we were riding. It kind of just stood there as we passed, but then as someone's horse passed (I think it was Jackie's or Lauren's) the cow literally jumped off the edge of the mountain. Gale said it just walked down, but I don't see how you walk down that steep of an edge. Suicidal cow. Anyway, we saw some amazing views during the ride. I tried to take some pictures but I was also holding on for dear life at some points. Towards the end we were going through a bunch of rivers or creeks. Mac would go through the deepest part of the river, so Gina got kind of wet. Charlie insisted on trotting every time we got out of the water, so that was kind of scary and made my bum hurt real bad. I think he just wanted to catch up with Mac though. When we got back to the stable, I had a significant amount of trouble getting off the horse, and I knew I was going to be in a lot of pain later.
We got back to the hostel at like 8pm, got dinner, but didn't do much that night. We had more driving the next day...

3/11/09
Luckily we didn't have to wake up as early because we weren't in any rush to leave Queenstown. We checked out at 10am and headed to Lake Tekapo. We didn't really have many plans there, it was more of a stop over between Queenstown and Christchurch. The YHA hostel in Lake Tekapo was booked so Lauren found a villa for us. We got the sweet hookup. It was three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, balcony, huge living room. Since we didn't really have anything to do there, it worked out nicely that we had a comfortable place to stay. We intially had plans to do this "skate and soak" package, but we were under the impression that it was ice skating and hot tubs. When we realized it was roller skating and warm pools we decided to save money and find something else to do. Instead, we played in the freezing cold Lake Tekapo for a while. Really, you can't come to Lake Tekapo without actually playing in the lake! So, we took some pictures and hung out there for a while then roamed around some more. We found a playground with swings, and jungle gym build like an elephant, a tractor, and a seesaw and naturally we spent about an hour there. We were like 10 year olds making up games and stuff. Oh to be young again... After some miscommunication between Chelsey and I ended in me being throw off the seesaw into woodchips (why they think those are safe, I will never understand), we decided to assess the rest of our day. Since there was basically nothing else in town, we decided to cook family dinner! And by that, I mean we decided that I cook dinner. We we went to the only grocery store in town (which happened to be at the gas station...) and picked up some necessary supplies. But this grocery store had NOTHING. It was amazing. I have no idea how people live there. Anyway, we ended up making salad, garlic bread (pre-made, not too impressive), and baked ziti with chicken (with jarred sauce, I was ashamed...) Of course we were extra classy and got some goon to go with it. The dinner was definitely successful and a lot of fun to cook. I'm excited to go home and cook again, and I think my family is excited for that too. The rest of the night we just spent playing cards, first out on the balcony then in the living room in front of the fireplace when it got too cold. It was definitely a relaxing day but I think it was needed after the excitement of the previous few days and upcoming days.


More coming, I promise...