Two thirds less people on 75% more land boasts a sign upon our arrival to Christchurch. Interesting, I didn't think the North Island had a lot of people.
In Christchurch we were met by a long-time ago (haha) friend from high school, Elly! Facebook is so awesome for keeping people in contact, I don't think we would have been able to keep in touch otherwise. She gave us a tour of nighttime "post earthquake Christchurch", it was very interesting. Being that the two major earthquakes happened about 2-3 years ago, would have thought that the city would be engaged in rebuilding, but that was not much the case as Elly pointed out that she is mostly working in damage assessment still. We saw some ruined buildings, a shell of a church, and some markets and bars that have popped out built out of shipping containers. She gave us an interesting overview of what the earthquake would have felt like - 1.5 gs of upward force (i think?), and an explanation of the economic impact, most people have left the city. She even said that that if we are lucky, we might feel an earth quake while we are here (ummm, ok Elly)
After Christchurch we hopped on the Trans Alpine train, which had some very nice views of land and mountains and water. The neatest part was traveling through a very long tunnel (8.5km) with a grade of 1:33 (every 33 m travelled forward, we also traveled 1m up) so when we came out the other side of the range of the Southern Alps the weather had changed from mild, warm and sunny, to snowy, cold and blustery! Stopping at Arthur's Pass was funny because everyone turned into a kid as they jumped off the train and threw snowballs at each other, exclaiming how cold it actually is! There were many people on the train who had never seen snow before. I was keeping an open eye for Kea, but didn't see one (yet)
A stop in Greymouth and another bus ( for a small country, it is rather big but it has good transportation) took us to Franz Joseph. In Franz Joseph we enjoyed the warm welcome, although it was a cold place. Taking a short helicopter ride up got us on a glacier! Very exciting! I had never seen one before. The ice is actually blue! Our hiking guide found a tunnel we could walk through, carved out by melting water. It impressed me with how fast the glacier was actually moving and changing. He said that the tunnel we went through wouldn't be there in two months (two months ago there was a slide in a different spot, Nathan was disappointed) and at the end of the day they were going to build a new helipad, because the one that we used was getting ready to fall off of the ice fall.
Our last adventure in NZ was a trip to Queenstown. Here, we tried our hand at zip lining, which was fun, except for the last one, the steepest tree to tree length in the world - i didn't like it so much. We loved the city and its resort atmosphere.
We also took a bus to the Fiordland National Park to cruise around Milford Sound. It was beautiful for sure, but I have to say that it was the first thing in New Zealand that surprised me with not being giant. (Huge Fiords, I just thought that the Sound would be longer). I finally saw my Kea in the wild - although it was out of the bus window.
We have had great experiences in hostels all over New Zealand, and would definitely advocate that as the way to go if you want to try and travel NZ less expensively
I have very mixed emotions about leaving this green, friendly, rugged, beautiful land. The wind has carved out a hole for NZ in my heart, and I think this will be a place I return to, sooner rather than later. Until then, I will take a little piece of pounamu (greenstone) with me. Onto bigger, defiantly different adventures in Australia!!
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