South Island Traveling

We spent three days of our trip in our beautiful, oh so comfortable (not), vans, and I thought I should upload some pictures of our adventures on the road to conclude this chapter of my bloggy blog. But don't worry, there are many chapters to come. I just will hold off a bit on the "this is what I did today, and then we did this, and then we did this," for a while.

Dear South Island of New Zealand,

I love you. I had more fun shoved into 5 days than I have ever had before. I want to come back to you again someday, and have more fun. Thank you for being beautiful and somehow continually persuading me to spend more money on ridiculously excellent experiences.

Love,

Breanna

{I had a really wonderful video to put here, but it just is taking too long. I'll try again next week. Sorry!}

Christchurch - Day 2

February 11, 2010

Just another day in Christchurch! We went to a really interesting art museum in the morning, and I got in trouble for taking a picture of the most random piece of art I have ever seen, so I deleted it because I felt bad. So you don't get to see any of that, sorry! We bought some amazing fudge from the shops, and then went punting on the Avon river!

It was so fun! We were all exhausted, so just riding on the river was such a luxury. And our punter man was LDS! Who would have known? He and his wife attended BYU-H.

We went back to the botanical gardens to do some exploring! We found gardens with hundreds of types of roses and indoor gardens. We found the biggest rose in the world!

And we found a mama duck with her babies! They reminded me of Lucky and Jude from freshman year. Yes, I had pet ducks in the dorms. For about two weeks.

We went back to the art centre and checked out some of the artists' goods. Of course I found the Harry Potter wands in a wood shop. Of course I took a picture with them. Of course it might be one of my favorite pictures of all time. Of course I have a ridiculously excited look on my face.

That night we headed back to our hotel a little early, and James taught us all about the Church history here in New Zealand, and then we settled back into our "mondobed" (me, Jayna, Mekelle, and Ashley pushed all our beds together) to watch LOTR2. We also set the camera on self timer and tried to get some awesome diving shots. Don't judge us.

I'll have one more post to wrap up my trip to the South Island, and then I'll be back to my almost normal Auckland life! I am so behind on all the happenings! Even more pictures will be uploaded to facebook soon!

Christchurch - Day 1

February 10, 2010

Christchurch! Today was cold and dreary, but this city is beautiful! It is such a different feeling than the rest of New Zealand. Everyone kept saying it looked just like England with it's trolleys and cathedrals and stone buildings and old colleges. We saw schoolboys in uniforms go into their private music school, and a crazy man who thought we was a wizard preach in the town square. We visited the Canterbury Museum, which was super high quality for free admission!

In town square there was a huge game of chess going on!

We drove out to Lyttleton beach and spent some time on the beach and the pier, but it was freezing (ok, it was like 50 degrees, sorry Utahans) so we didn't stay long.

We finished watching the first Lord of the Rings that night (we have been watching them in celebration of being here), and I am actually paying close attention this time and seeing places that I've been! Well, compared to Queenstown, today was quite slow, but we shall see what adventures lie ahead!

Queenstown - Day 5

February 8, 2010

Oh my goodness! Today was so amazing too. I think I may have just had the best five days of my life! This morning we went horseback riding for an hour and a half.

My horse, Charlie. Ain't he a beaut?

Reminded me of home sweet Texas.

It was so liberating to just trot on my horse! I am a true Texan, but to be honest I don't have much horseback riding experience, so I was loving it! Not to mention I continually said Texan things such as, "YEEEHAW" and "Ride it like you stole it!" and "I'm fixin' to go over in there." I may or may not have also been quoting Legolas. It was just too easy.

We had to run back and change so we wouldn't be late to our WHITE WATER RAFTING APPOINTMENT. That's right, horseback riding and white water rafting on the same day. Sam G, Sam W, Jill, Natalee, Leah and I rode a bus back up Skipper Canyon (where we rode the jetboat), got into super uncomfortable wetsuits, and went rafting! I wish I had more pictures but I'll have to get them from my fellow rafters soon.

It was so awesome! We learned all the commands and went down some awesome rapids with some funny and inappropriate names. Our raft quickly became known as the American girls with Orien (our raft guide who was super awesome, despite his cussing habit), as we were really loud and laughing hard half the time. All the other rafts were full of middle agers who thought we were hilarious! We went through a tunnel (there are only two rafting tunnels in the world), and I was the lucky one who got to sit on the front of the raft and steer us through! We rafted for 16KM. It was one of my favorite things I have done since being in Queenstown!

And I can't forget Zeb. Zebby, Zebster, Zebington, Junior. Orien is on the far left, and Zebsy is the awkward blondy in the middle. He was another raft guide who was apparently 20 (although we guessed he was 12), and the poor kid. We basically messed with him the whole time, and he loved it but had NO idea how to respond. It was hilarious!

Thrill and adventure and excitement and freedom!

I haven't had a care in the world and I've been (safely) risking my life multiple times! Queenstown, NZ has been good to me.

Queenstown - Day 4

February 7, 2010

I love Sundays! This morning I got out of bed at eight to get ready for church. My clothes were wrinkled from being shoved into a bag, but I was excited to go worship! We pulled up, in our two trusty vans, to a funeral home with a sign outside: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints meets here at 10:00 am Sunday Mornings. It was a small branch, and we got out half an hour early just because the lesson was over.

The left side is the branch, and the huge mass of white people on the right is us. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to bear my testimony at this meeting. I'm not even sure what I said, but I know that it was as real and true here as it is in Provo, UT or Magnolia, TX. The Spirit is always the same; it is universal.

We came back to the hostel to change and then set off on a little Sunday drive through New Zealand, you know, the regular. WE WENT TO NARNIA AND MIDDLE EARTH! Well, we saw where an evil tower in Lord of the Rings is and drove through the woods that Narnia was filmed in. It was "sweet as" to see all these places in real life! It is all in a beautiful area called Glenorchy, and a sub-area is literally named Paradise.

Paradise.

We thought we were being funny but we are just really, really cute.

Dash, me, Meks, and Jayner.

Tourists?

Me and Jayna recreating Saramon's tower. It is apparently in between those two mountains. And I think that is his name. We are not-so-closet LOTR fans who don't really know much about it. Just that Legolas is attractive.

NARNIA!

I've been messing around with f-stops and apertures and different focuses, and it has been so fun! I've been a lazy automatic photographer, but it is way more exciting and rewarding to create it yourself!

Narnia, Middle Earth, and Paradise, all in one day! How's that for a Sunday drive?

Queenstown - Day 3

February 6, 2010

This is just me, typing. My journal entry was not totally relatable for this bloggity blog.

I was still in such shock this day of how awesome my life is! Goodness. We had a free day so most of us spent the morning shopping at the Saturday market, souvenir shops, and farmer's market. There were beautiful paintings, pottery, jewelry, flax kits, etc., and tarot card/palm readers! I was seriously tempted. Of course I want to know my future! But don't worry, I didn't spend $30 to get some guy to tell me the long line on my left hand means that someday I will own purple gumboots.

Tarot Readings by Linda

Me and Jayna enjoying/interpreting the art.

KIWIIII.

Then, a group of us spent $25nz to go on a MILLION DOLLAR CRUISE! It was just a pretty boat ride around the huge lake in Queenstown (Wakatipu). Apparently, it is the 2nd clearest lake in the world. The first is in Antarctica, so it doesn't get much better than this, folks! The Remarkables and the shore are stunning from the water, of course. I probably would have paid a million dollars anyway...

That night we played games and had a BBQ on the beach! As you can see, me and Lauren created Ilene. She was the best; we were proud. You are jealous.

"The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage." -Thucydides

Sorry for the lame writing. I am not a story teller, nor as talented as most of my blogger friends. Also, I am unsure how to inform the world of my activities without just saying it. So, here you have it. Raw Breanna-ness.

Queenstown - Day 2

February 5, 2010

Today was so great too! If you don't include my terrible car sickness. We left at 6:30 this morning and took a 4-hour drive to Milford Sound.

Milford Sound (Piopiotahi in Māori) is a fjord in the south west of New Zealand's South Island, within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. It has been judged the world's top top travel destination in an international survey,^[1][2] and is acclaimed as New Zealand's most famous tourist destination.^[3] Rudyard Kipling had previously called it the eighth Wonder of the World.^[4]

Thank you Wikipedia. Anyway, we got on a boat and just went through the fjord. It was outstanding! The landscape and the contrast of the water was magnificent; a picture just can't capture it! The worker and the captain were so nice. The people here are just smiley and hospitable; I want to move here!

We saw seals! They were jumping from the water up to the rocks (sometimes taking multiple jumps to make it). Two males got a little angry with each other over rock space. After the quarrel, one seal sat with his nose in the air, looked all puffed up to prove he deserved the space. Our captain said, "He is puffing his chest to look bigger, much like the adolescent male human being." Hahahaha. If you look closely you can see about nine seals in the picture below.

Captain Roger let me drive his boat! Sorry for the awkward, candid shot. I'm a natural, thanks to the family boat back home in Texas.

The best part: WE SAW DOLPHINS. They went right in front of the boat, riding alongside. Dolphins are beautiful creatures. They were enormous too! It was so exciting to see real, live dolphins. The dolphins determine the speed of the boat. We don't want to hurt them, so we had to "coast," if you will, across the water until they decided they were done playing with us!

After spending all day on the boat, we spent 4 hours in the car to get back to beautiful Queenstown. We made some stops at lakes and bridges, etc. and finally got home to relax, split a burger, and sit on the beach in the dark. The silhouette of the mountains across the lake is beautiful. I wish I had better adjectives; the English language is so limiting! Cheers!

Queenstown - Day 1

Prepare yourselves for heaps of journalistic, long posts of pictures! I have returned from possibly the best vacation EVER, and I just want to rub it in your faces. Just jokes (kiwi vernacular, eh?).

I was gone for nearly ten days (three of which were traveling days) so you will be getting seven posts, one a day! And I'll be honest, I will most likely be typing directly from my journal, because I wrote the details there already!

The first five days of my blissful holiday are in Queenstown, NZ (the Adventure Capital of the World) and the last few were in Christchurch (The Garden City).

February 4,2010

Today. has. been. the. most. epic. day. of. my. life. thus. far.

Ok, let me give you the play-by-play. I woke up at 7:45am, after sleeping pretty well in my top bunk of this little hostel in Queenstown. After quickly getting ready and eating some free toast, we packed ourselves in our two vans and set our for the day. We went to Arrowtown, an old, gold-mining village with little, tiny Chinese huts. We walked around to an old cemetery and war memorial, and then found the cutest shops!

Me, Amanda, Daren, Lauren, and Megan packed into van #2.

Ashley and I, on the lookout.

Snow White (me) and all the woodland creatures.

Jayna, Ashley, and I trying to fit. We are tall.

Then, THEN, we drove to Kawarau to AJ Hackett Bungy Jumping, where the first bungy was ever performed. And I paid $116 to put my life in strangers' hands. I was dizzy and terrified and tried to talk myself out of it a few times, but all of a sudden I was introducing myself as a Texan to a man who was wrapping my ankles with a towel and tying me to a huge bungy cord.

He said, "Alright, stand on up and hop over to the ledge." My mind raced; my heart pounded in my chest. Was I really about to do this? Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down, just breathe.

"Are you ready?" "No." "On the count of three, dive. 3, 2...." I didn't hear the "1." I just jumped. For the first split second I freaked. Did I just jump without thinking? I'm IN THE AIR (I know, I was having deep thoughts)! When I finally realized it, I was free. I have never had such a rush. People were screaming, but to me the earth was silent and I was flying. I wondered when it would stop, but I didn't want it to. I dunked into the river to my waist, and I was right back out a second later, swinging up for a second thrill. I flew again. I screamed and found my senses. Finally, two boys on a boat beckoned me and told me to grab the pole. They lowered me and I said "THAT IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE!" I was dizzy and my head was throbbing, but it was such a rush. I exclaimed these emotions and the guy said "If it lasts too long, you might wanna see a doctor. It usually lasts 3 or 4 days," and then laughed at me, hahaha. Wow, WOW.

I, Breanna Jennet Stutz, bungeed today. I jumped 141 feet off a bridge. And I got a t-shirt and a video to prove it. I have never felt so alive and real! It was an out of body experience, it was as if the world stopped and all I could feel was the wind on my face. I still can't believe it!

Introducing Jayna, and her voice, to my blog. Jayna, Mekelle, and Ashley were way good at taking videos the whole trip. I just had my Nikon with me, so please accept these videos from my beautiful "blondes."

We came back, grabbed some fish'n'chips, and half an hour later we were on our way to the shotover jet. We rode on a bus along the side of a VERY steep, beautiful mountain. It was scary. The jetboat was fantastic (not to mention our boat driver was cute... yes my journal actually says that, sadly he did not make it into the picture). We came so close to the sides of the cliff and did some 360s.

After we got back, I went to the grocery store, got some subway, hung around the hostel, and now it is 11:39 and I am back on my little top bunk. Told you, today was amazing. I have no words to truly describe it. I BUNGEE JUMPED IN NEW ZEALAND TODAY! I love my life. Love love love love love. My life.