After a night of little sleep all of the Canterbury Arcadia students caught the 7:30 shuttle to Queenstown. Well, at least that's what was supposed to happen, after waiting in the still dark for 45 minutes the shuttle finally showed up. Then it was an 8 hour drive to get to the adventure capital of the world. It might sound like an really long drive, but it was through the mountains which made it absolutely gorgeous. Once again it felt like we were traveling through middle earth. The snow capped mountains were divided by valleys full of twisted, black scrub brush and waves of wintry brown grass, drooped with either dew drops, or as we got higher, glittery frost. The grassland was broken up by mammoth boulders and slabs of rocks that cast ominous dark shadows across the land. Every so often we would come upon a flat plat that reminded me of the plains of rohan, where my mind would have Piper and I galloping across in search of the one ring(hey, a girl's gotta day dream!). Or we would drive past a valley full of bright blue, crystal clear blue water. No day dreams here, my mind was way to busy trying to process that this unbelievable view was real. Oh, and there were sheep.. Lots and lots of sheep!
Sorry for these pictures, the shuttle's window's were covered in mud, it wasn't exactly prime picture taking opportunity.
Finally, just when it seemed we were in the most beautiful mountainscape so far, we had arrived in Queenstown. The town is nestled between mountains with little houses going up the hill, and surrounding yet another blue lake(If I didn't know better, I would swear all of the water is dyed).
Jane gave us 20 minutes to put our stuff in our rooms before herding us off
to go Jet boating. Don't know what Jetboating is? Well in short, imagine a Jet ski on steroids, weaving through cannons pulling 360's and other crazy tricks while going as fast as possible. Shotover Jetboats! Check it out! Once we were all bundled up and backed on to a big red jet boat we speed off! I lost my hat within the first minute, but quickly forgot about it as we raced through the cannons, sometimes getting within INCHES of the rock wall! Icey spray flew back in our faces as our driver expertly spun us around and around or fish tailed the boat across the river. In between tricks you could look up and see towering mountains, their peaks covered in snow and the bases carved gray rock that contrasted sharply against the turquoise water. If the speed and the cold wasn't enough to take your breath away the view certainly would.
Speaking of cold, it's a lot colder down here than in Christchurch!The river might still be open, but the surrounding rocks were covered in glittering, think ice. The spray and wind were shocking when they hit, but it just made the ride all that much more fun!
After the exhilarating jetboat ride we were set free to find supper in town. With high recommendations we set out to find "FergBurger", Well I say find, but it ended up we just had to follow the obnoxiously long line down the street-it seemed like everyone was eating there that night! Since it came with such high reviews we decided to wait it out. Boy was it worth it! It quite possibly be the best burger I've ever had!
Finally it's back to the room for some maybe sleep. I'm one of two girls who Jane picked to stay in one co-ed room(she had run out of room with the girls, and didn't want to have to pay for another room just for 2 girls). Not a big deal, or so I thought. I didn't realize that this room would be on the guy's half of the house- the house was split so the upper was all girls and the lower was guys, with no way to get to the other without going outside. Suddenly I'm faced with the fact of sharing a 2 stall, 2 shower bathroom with 20+ guys. Hmm, not exactly what I had agreed too.:/
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