Baby, I'm not alright when you go

The night be spent as Montrose Backpackers in Franz Josef was such a bust, I could hardly sleep, I was in a room full of smelly boys who snored like nobody's biz. Ick. And I woke up at 7am. Oh well, it was nice to be warm anyway. The next morning we set off for Wanaka. stopped heaps for photos since it was a gorgeous day. Arrived in Wanaka around 5pm, realized it was Sunday and decided to track down a church. We saw signs for a catholic church and followed it until we saw another sign that said presbyterian church so we went and saw a sign that read: Taize, 6pm. I went in to ask what this Taize was and apparently its a straight up meditation service where you sit quietly with candles everywhere. Not quite my style, but the pastor-lady said there was a pentecostal church called 'lighthouse' for young snowboarders up the road in a lawn bowling club. Heck yes. Fish and chips was on our minds since the last time we tried was such a bust. Went to Wana to get some fush & chups. Got hoki and elephant fish with way too many chips and ate it all. Pretty yum! The church was super small, maybe 15-20 ppl there. Instead of having a band they put on a CD and everyone laid down on the floor to 'soak'. I was weirded out at first but it was pretty cool in the end. The pastor was speaking about leaving a legacy, and I quite enjoyed the message. Its funny how you crave church when you travel. Or I do anyway. Met some lovely people after the service and found out the church had started out in the states for a group of young professional snowboarders and now there are lighthouse churches all over the world. sweet as. As we were leaving my cheeky travel buddy asked one of the church leaders where we could find a good place to pitch our tent. I should add that I had already asked where to rent some boarding gear and Darren had offered his gear to us. Darren said he had a spare room and invited us to stay over for the night! as Wanaka was bloody freezing we were SO stoked. Darren and Vanessa were so awesome. We had our own room and they set us up with gloves, snowsuits, board, boots, everything we needed. We stayed up talking with them for a bit and then went to bed, I had a wicked sleep. Next morning we went to Treble Cone. Absolutely terrifying trip up the steepest hill I've ever seen with my old old all season tired. eeek. We made it though! Perfectly blue skies in the am. Very different hill to what I'm used to though. ALL man-made snow, and you only ski the very top of the mountain. you drive up to the top of the mountain and ski down maybe a quarter of the way down. weird. but its too warm near the bottom. no trees either! no way to tell which run is intermediate or advanced. also there are backcountry trails that you hike to after taking the chairlift, ski down and then hike back to the bottom of the chairlift. what a workout! and the boots i bought are way to big so i had a hard time getting my edge in as my heels would slip out all the time. kind of annoying. but i still had so much fun, especially when we accidentally went off a few drop offs (really narrow run too!) I was challenged in ways i've never been challenged on my board and i think ive improved quite a bit already! and tremblant is not icy at all compared to treble cone.
we made dinner for darren, van and their flatmate dave. chicken stirfry. yum! and brownies for dessert. kirk added too much water and the icing because sauce. it worked though.
We stayed another night with them and left in the am for queenstown. we stopped at a local fish and chips place (McGregor's) that van recommended to us and said we had to get blue cod instead of the crap fish. it was WAY better than our last fish. and we bought some ginger slice. I was stoked to see Rocko! We ran into her randomly on the street! love it. shes working 12 hr days so we couldnt catch up much but arranged to meet up the next evening. had such a hard time finding a hostel to stay at since queenstown's high season is winter. duh, totally forgot that. found a spot at nomads, was a pretty garbage hostel, really but one night is ok. just watched pushing daisies until 1am, then our roommates trickled in one by one, waking me up heaps. i missed the tent i must say.
Drove up to the Remarkables to board. We were warmed that snow chains were needed to get up the hill, but after making it up treblecone we were cocky and decided to try it, our hostel receptionist said you could rent chains partway up anyway. oh snap, we made it! and lucky too as there was NOWHERE to rent snow chains. crazy woman. the road wasnt nearly as bad as treblecone's anyway. Had another perfect day, remarks had 10cm of fresh snow too so we did some backcountry trails, and i have been sore ever since, hiking with a board is tough! but worth the fresh powder. I scratched up my board from the rocks everywhere. Did I mention that the hills have rocks and grass patches? sooo strange, and the lifts dont have foot rests so your feet get mad cramps from the board hanging down! Awesome day though, went back to town around 430 to return kirk's rentals and my rented snowpants and went to our new hostel 'bungi' to investigate the hot tub. it was so awesome, we had our fergburgers too. famous burger place. i got tropical swine, streaky bacon, pineapple, aioli, lettuce, tomato, etc, etc. not as good as the works but better than burger fuel. huuuuge burger, i ate only half.
met up with rocko for mochas in a cute resto and sat by the fire to catch up. was so lovely! Wish it could have been longer. Went back to the hostel to make granola bars and stayed up late watching pushing daisies again. the hostel kitchen was awful and disgustingly dirty. not fun to cook in. but we were in a nice little 4 bed dorm, and the place had an outdoor hot tub....
Left the next morning early to do the 134m Nevis bungee. Not gonna lie, I was nervous and wondering why the heck i was doing this to myself. again. first bungee was wakefield, 60m. Drove 45mins to the spot and it was so foggy we had to wait in the pod for like an hour before we could go. Had to under go the awful awkwardness of being weighed in all your winter gear and with a harness and having your weight written on your hand, and put in order of heaviest to lightest to jump. HATE that part. So I was third in line to jump, I shuffled the the edge and had to smile at the camera before my swan dive. Flippen heck I screamed like no other. Screamed until I lost air. Then it was done, on the first recoil i pulled the tag and was sitting upright to get pulled back in. What a rush! I couldnt stop smiling. Best moment. Next up I want to do the highest bungee, its 320m in colorado.
After that we drove to where I am now, Te Anau. Planned to do teh milford track, but duw to 60 avalanche pads on the track and the treacherous terrain, we decided to for once in our lives be sensible and choose an easier track. We decided on Keplar track, you hike above the tree line on day one and then you need ice axes and crampons. unfortunately we dont have hiking boots which you need for crampons. almost bought some boots at warehouse but the quality was too brutal to even be worth 45$. So we will just do the first day and then walk back down the second day. We will stay in a hut one night up there and rent an avalanche beacon just in case. scary!
I bought snowpants/ splash pants today for 50$ so I dont have to rent anymore...yay!
now we are in the libs using free wifi. yes. Had chocolate/banana pancakes for breaky. so good. finished season one of pushing daisies last night. gutted the show was cancelled. i LOVE it. now we are gonna watch how i met your mother. honestly thats the only was we can make it to bed after 8pm, theres nothing else to do at night! well i suppose we could party but its off season here and no one is around! Laundry day today...how exciting slash disgusting we made it 2 weeks without laundry. ewwwww.
LOVE!