I studied abroad in Lincoln (close to Christchurch), New Zealand in spring 2015. I arrived in early February and left in late June. I'm going to leave out all the studying abroad aspects as this blog is about travel, but I have a link in the sidebar if you want more info on studying abroad. I'm still playing around with formats and what reads best, but I think I'll start with different trips I took and end with advice. I'm also splitting this into North and South Island adventures with a third post dedicated to advice and thoughts!
So just a little helpful information to start us off, New Zealand is Southern Hemisphere, so December and January would be summer for them, and July and August winter. New Zealand consists of two major islands, aptly called the North and South Islands with the North Island being the more mild/warmer in general and the South being more mountainous. Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand, but Wellington is the capital (and second largest city). These are both on the North Island. Food here is pretty similar to what you would find in the U.K. with lots of meat and potatoes, meat pies, fish and chips, etc. Closest neighbors are Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Australia! And other islands. Regardless it's a loooooong flight to get to New Zealand, even Australia is like 3.5 hours of flying. Also they drive on the left side of the road.
Onto the adventures! Most of my trips were isolated weekend trips with one 10-day trip for our mid-semester break. So I'll just go chronologically and add photos and details of what we did! We started off in February with a group bus trip to Christchurch and on another day, Akaroa Harbour. Christchurch is the largest city on the South Island and is where the huge earthquake hit in (I believe) 2011. Now I should preface with the fact that I am NOT a city girl. I much prefer nature to cities, so keep that in mind when reading my opinions.
Christchurch
Christchurch is a cool city, but I think there's more to do in other New Zealand cities. My favorite things we did here were seeing Christchurch Botanic Gardens and Hagley Park (Hagley Park we did on a different day during the Great Kiwi Beer Festival), and the day we went they were floating flowers down the little river pictured below for victims of the earthquake.
Christchurch Botanic Gardens
I also enjoyed walking down the pier as I am a big ocean girl! In all honesty I can't say much else about Christchurch because it was more a stop on the way than a place we actually spent time in. Mostly there's museums here for things to do. We also went and saw a Crusaders rugby game which was a lot of fun!!
The pier feat. your friendly neighborhood seagull
Go Crusaders!
As a part of our tour we stopped at the new cathedral, the old one being destroyed by the earthquake. Pictured below is stained glass part of the building!
We finished off our tour by driving through some of the surrounding towns, for sure my highlight! We went through Lyttleton and Sumner and made a few stops for photos below).
Akaroa Harbour
Another little day trip we did was to Akaroa Harbour (roughly 1-2 hours from the city) which was a lot of fun!! This is a cute town on the coast, so we took advantage of that and went kayaking. You could pay for dolphin boat tours and things of that nature as well but we went the budget route. We kayaked, walked the city, and swam in the water. Note that the water is pretty chilly, but it was a HOT day so it was okay.
Akaroa Harbour on the drive in
Dunedin
Now for a slightly longer trip! A few friends and I took a bus down to Dunedin for a weekend and spent the night in a hostel (the first of my many hostel experiences!). We took NakedBus from Christchurch to go down, and that was roughly six hours. We made two stops on the way down so you could save time if you were driving by car. We walked from the bus drop off to our hostel, which was Pavlova Palace. It was a really cute, SUPER homey place that I would definitely recommend. Only bummer was that we had to climb a bunch of steep hills to get there! It's like the San Francisco of New Zealand so expect lots of climbs. The town itself has a lot of fun architecture, so it was fun to walk around and see buildings so different from what I have back home.
First Church of Otago
Another fun thing in Dunedin...the Cadbury Chocolate Factory!! We did the Factory tour for $16, and it's a 45 minute walking tour with lots of free chocolate. We had a blast and the amount of chocolate they have is astounding! I believe the Speights (local beer) brewery is also in Dunedin, so that could be a fun side trip.
I think some of my favorite food I had whilst (do people really use this word?) in New Zealand came from Dunedin, so they have some good restaurants!! I know we enjoyed the Craic Irish Tavern and also a hole in the wall breakfast place that had fresh-squeezed juice. We didn't have a car while in Dunedin, but I know there's some awesome nature stops on the peninsula and opportunities to see awesome wildlife!!
Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki, and Mount Cook
This was by far one of my favorite trips. A big group of us took five cars (a few people bought cars down there) and went for a weekend trip. We took a wrong turn off the bat and ended up three hours in the wrong direction at Lake Coleridge before turning around and making it to Lake Tekapo, but that's all part of the adventure! Realistically it should be three hours of driving from Lincoln.
Honestly the CLEAREST water!!! But also very cold. Above is Carl, a student from Norway taking my GoPro for a test drive!
We camped out in tents by the lake which was probably the coldest night I've ever had in my life, but also the most beautiful. The stars were SO clear we could see the entire Milky Way. A truly magical moment, picture 20 people representing all different corners of the world all laying down together and watching the stars for hours. Breathtaking. I couldn't photograph the stars with my GoPro or phone camera but I'll include a sunset and tent photo below!
The next morning we woke up for sunrise then headed out to Mount Cook National Park (3.5 hour drive)! We made a stop at Lake Pukaki (30 minutes from Tekapo) on the way which was another beautiful lake.
At the park we decided to do the Hooker Lake hike, but I could easily of spend multiple days here checking out the different trails!! I would HIGHLY recommend Hooker Lake as it's incredibly easy with fantastic views.
We did all of this in two very full days by car.
Queenstown
Last stop on the South Island...Queenstown and Milford Sound! This was the MOST BEAUTIFUL place. Picture mountains and waterfalls and greenery and ocean and you got it! I flew from Wellington to Queenstown (1.5 hours) and had perfect timing on the flight. It had snowed recently but the weather was turning, so the sun was out. Check out the photos from my window seat!
So incredible. I landed at 10am and checked into my hostel (Adventure Queenstown Hostel) which was another great hostel. Probably one of my favorites of all time actually. I laid low for the first half of the day, then went bungy jumping at Kawarau Bridge Bungy!! There was an office in Queenstown where I signed up for the bungy, and they bussed us from there to the bridge where we got to explore the vistor centre and watch others jump! They weigh you for bungy cord purposes, get you a free shirt, and you get a set time. This bungy is 43m high and gives you the option of dunking into the water or not. I chose to get dunked so I jumped from the bridge and got dunked to my shoulders before coming back up! Terrifying and exhilarating and just crazy. If you're looking at doing this, know that you CAN back out last minute if you don't want to jump, but you don't get any refund.
I chose to pay the $50 or whatever to buy my photos and video. Photos below and above are both me jumping!
I got Ferg Burger for dinner which is a famous burger joint, enormous but tasty! The next day I took a bus tour to Milford Sound which was a very long full day adventure! I booked a full day tour from Queenstown that included bus transport to and from Milford Sound, a 100-minute cruise, and some awesome photo stops! It was 12 or 14 hours, so long, but a great option if you're carless. I believe I spent about $130.
On the ferry representing my Colorado pride!
So that was a full two days in Queenstown before my nine hour bus ride back to Christchurch the next day!
