Hellooooo New Zealand!

We flew into Christchurch, NZ without a single plan in place for the week ahead. So exciting. New Zealand is absolutely beautiful. It’s autumn here and the leaves have all turned to brilliant shades of red, yellow, and orange. Christchurch is a very historic city, with brick streets, a trolley, and old architecture.

Liam, Jono, and Daryl (left to right) picked us up in a graffitied campervan that afternoon in the center of the city. CJ and I checked into a hostel and then our roadtrip crew went out for a night on the town. We ate supper at a really unique Mexican restaurant and then found a tiny Irish pub with live music.

In the morning, we set out to explore the surrounding towns, but as Jono and Liam claimed, “Kiwis are lazy” and nothing was open before 10am. (“kiwi” is a term for New Zealanders… named after the Kiwi bird) Due to Kiwi laziness, we returned to Christchurch and ate lunch at a vegetarian Indian restaurant with Liam. I was pleasantly surprised -my scrambled eggs were very good, which Liam says means they came from a very happy chicken. We spent the rest of the morning wandering around the city, which has several boutiques and gift shops. CJ and I took a trolley ride/tour of the city, which I really enjoyed. We saw a large Mauri tribe singing and dancing for tourists outside one store. The Mauris are native New Zealanders… the women have scary tattoos on their faces and are apparently known to pick fights with and thrash grown men. They looked absolutely terrifying but they had beautiful voices and drew quite a crowd.

The highlight of the afternoon was a gondola ride we took on the river through Christchurch. Daryl convinced the lady rowing to let him try… it wasn’t quite as easy as he thought and we nearly crashed into the bank. From there, we all piled into the campervan and began our 8hr road trip southwest toward Queenstown, NZ.

Sydney

After our school-free week on the Gold Coast, we headed off to Sydney. We took a quick flight down to Australia’s most famous city. Right when we arrived, we realized it was famous for good reason. We could have been in any country in the world for all we knew. The streets are busy, and full of people from all corners of the world. Molly and I found a hostel called Base right in the middle of the city. Base is a clean and efficient hostel, and it ended up being a staple of our journey. Our first afternoon in Sydney was spent walking around the city and finding out just where everything was. We came back to the hostel around 6:30pm and passed out on our surprisingly comfy beds. 14 hours later we woke up ready to explore Sydney by foot. Sydney harbor was first on our list. Along the harbor walk way we heard many street performers. Our favorite was Graham Francis, an 80 year old Australian version of Bob Dylan. He played a miniature guitar and harmonica at the same time. He sang old Australian folk songs and some others that he wrote. We sat and listened to him for a while. I loved it!!!

After watching the last street performer almost fall from his 12 foot unicycle, we walked around the city looking in random little shops. For lunch we got McDonalds to have on a picnic under an ancient tree at the Sydney Botanical Gardens. We were surrounded by dozens of very large white parrots. Molly decided tochase after them running barefoot, stepping in bird poop in the process. Kiiiiinda gross.

After lunch we found an art fair that wasn't much different than our local Minnesota art fairs. After mingling through the fair, we enjoyed a relaxing walk through the old European part of town.

When evening rolled around, I was VERY excited because Molly had planned a big surprise date weeks in advance. She walked me to the entrance of the Sydney Opera house, and I was blown away when I found out we were going to a concert! The show was called Scotland the Brave. There was a small orchestra, a large choir, many bagpipe players, and Scottish dancers. The music gave me the chills. I absolutely loved it. It was good enough for even a Norwegian to enjoy :)

The next morning we left the Sydney airport for Christchurch. Ready for a new adventure.

Fraser Island

The week before our final exams was a class-free week, so we decided we had to go on an adventure. We heard Fraser Island was a “can’t miss,” so with high expectations, we booked a 2-day trip. An ex-professional rugby player picked us up at 5:30am from uni and drove us up to Brisbane. In Brisbane we packed into a vintage 1980s Landcruiser (equipped with a snorkel.) aka Bushwhacker!!!

Our crew consisted of an awkward German couple, two Canadian-Indian girls and a friendly Aussie tourguide. Driving to the island was a crazy experience in itself. Just think about a time in your life when you drove over a huge pot-hole that made your head hit the ceiling of your car. We basically drove over one of those every couple seconds through many miles of endless rainforest (Molly loved the sensation of having her stomach in her throat.) Yes, it was lovely. After the off-road driving came beach driving. We drove for hundreds of miles on the beautiful hilly beach going about 70mph, right along the water. - best highway I’ve ever been on.

We took a fairy across a bay where the world’s biggest Great White shark was caught. We stopped at an old shipwreck on the beach and took a bunch of amazing photos. I got in trouble for going inside the ship. Whoops…

After the shipwreck, we did a 2 mile barefoot walk through the rainforest to the middle of the island, where we came across an epic dessert and freshwater lake. Our tour guide believed that the place had “good energy.” We agreed with him.

Just before sundown, we arrived at our hostel right on the beach. The whole area was literally infested with thousands of parrots. We felt like we were in the movie “The Birds.” It was nuts. Our relaxing night came to a bittersweet end after the awkward German couple beat us in pool.

Our second day on Fraser Island was one of the most relaxing days of my life. We were taken to a freshwater lake that was so clear and pure you could drink from it on its shore. It was the clearest lake I had ever seen, simply breathtaking. Don’t worry, we got some great photos. We spent a lot of time at the lake, playing catch with my super popular glow in the dark American football. Meanwhile, the awkward German couple soaked up the sun, looking very attractive in a speedo and bikini. Oh dear.

After the lake we went on a couple nature walks through the forests where they used to log these HUGE trees for wood flooring. They stopped logging the trees in the middle of the century, not for environmental reasons, but because of the rise in the popularity of high-heel shoes.

During our nature walks we came across dingos. We thought they were very cute dogs and they appeared to be pretty tame.We were proven dead wrong after hearing about a 12 yr old boy that recently got eaten by a pack of them. No worries though. I protected Molly from the packs of wild dingos. Overall, Fraser Island was incredible. It blew our expectations out of the water. If you want a good glimpse of our Fraser experience, look at our photos on Facebook. :)

Moreton Island

When traveling in a foreign country, should someone offer to take you out on his yacht to a beautiful island for the weekend, your answer should be simple. Heck yes.

On one of the most memorable weekends here in Australia, we went to our friend Jono’s parents’ house in Cleveland, not too far from Brisbane. They live in beautiful Raby Bay, which is about an hour boat ride from Moreton Island, an Australian must-see. In addition to living in a neighborhood much like Newport from the O.C., Jono’s parents own a 50ft boat, which we went out to sea in for the weekend. The boat sleeps 8, but most of us ended up sleeping on the upper deck beneath the stars. It was miraculous. The only issue we ran into was a giant bat swooping down at Liam and our Indian friend Daryl in the middle of the night. I’m quite sure Daryl’s screaming woke up the neighborhood in its entirety.

After a less than peaceful night for some, we woke up at 5am to set sail into the sunrise. Jono’s parents were incredibly hospitable, and served us snacks, lunch, and cider during our journey. Although it’s my dream to sail around the world, unfortunately my sea legs haven’t quite developed and I got pretty seasick on the way to Moreton. It took an hour to sleep it off, during which I apparently missed more than 30 dolphins swimming around the boat… drat.

Once we finally arrived, we anchored ship and took the dinghy (baby motor boat) out to a giant manmade shipwreck by the island. Jono’s dad said it was made to create a reef for marine life and to attract tourism. It worked. There were many boats and snorkelers in the area taking advantage of the beautiful weather and epic scenery. We went snorkeling around the shipwreck and saw oodles of tropical fish and coral. I was scared spitless when one of the girls spotted a stingray, which naturally Jono provoked, causing it glide toward us. Here’s my rationale: If the croc hunter Steve Irwin can’t handle a stingray, there’s no way I was about to take one on. Luckily, I think the ruckus I made was enough to scare him away. After snorkeling, we beached the dinghy on shore and played cricket on the beach. I’m a pretty lousy cricketer and won’t bank on being recruited any time soon. The rest of the afternoon was spent diving off the top deck of the boat, swimming in the electric blue water, and soaking up the sun.

After checking out trips in the travel center at Bond, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that Moreton Island tours cost more than $300, one expense we were happy to avoid.