updating is for ambitious folk

hey everyone!!

sorry i've been so ridiculously lazy recently about updating-- i've been based in queenstown for about a month now, so i haven't had too much stuff to write about... although i must say that i have been having a wonderful time being a young silly irresponsible traveller in the mecca of innocent debauchery and broo-ha-haing that is qtown. working at bumbles has been all right, although once rodrigo left it became a bit of a drag, and there was some absolutely catty behaviour going on between some of the female employees. so that's been obnoxious, which has led me to set march 6th (next thursday) as my official leaving date. from there i'll hop on over to the wild foods festival in hokitika for a few days before figuring out what to do before march 21st, the fateful day that i leave this gorgeous country and head back to san francisco. so. i repeat:

MARCH 21st I AM COMING HOME!!!!

so be ready. i'll be in san francisco for a bit before hopefully flying to new york city for a visit, then possible the boston- portland- bar harbor route. i will keep everyone posted, but i can't wait wait wait to see all your shining faces.

anyways, back to queenstown. highlights have included many a day spent lounging on the lakefront beach reading, swimming, sunning, throwing pebbles at beer bottles (a sort of qtown bowling if you will), and chatting with the lovely helen. one of my favorite days here was waitangi day (the holiday that remembers the signing of the treaty between the maori and the settlers)-- i spent the morning cleaning before i got slammed with a massive migraine, which lasted a few hours and threatened to make my day crap... but i got over it and headed down to the gardens for a reggae festival of sorts. hundreds of people were spread out on blankets, dancing, chilling in the gardens, listening to reggae blast from large speakers. it was lovely. after that we headed to the beach to drink a few beers, swim (not in the order, no worries mom), and of course throw pebbles at the empties. then we went and ate some take out curry (really cheap from the local mall) on the fluffiest grass every created before a big night out on the town that ended when the bakery opened... queenstown is one heck of a party town, and for someone who has never pulled an all nighter or even stayed out past 3 am... it's been an eye opener. and yes, i have finally put in a solid night out until 6 am, which will shock my college friends for sure but hopefully give my that shred of street cred that being a nerdy nerdface in college totally destroyed.

another highlight was riversurfing, which i did two weeks ago. my great friend from home, richie, decided to come visit new zealand for a couple weeks, and we opened our grand adventure with a trip to the river for some Serious Fun River Surfing (yup thats the name of the company, definitly recommend them over their rivals, maddog, although i felt tempted to go with them just out of support of sarah maddog madeira...). it was AWESOME. we suited up in full body wetsuits, helmets, and lifejackets and splashed our way down rapids on boogie boards. it was so so much fun, even though every time a wave hit my face i couldn't open my eyes without a contact nearly falling out. so basically i got tooled on, hard, through every rapid. at one point we jettied out to the side and jumped back in the water backwards so we could surf backwards on one of the waves. despite my renowned lack of athletic ability, i was actually the only one of the whole group to catch the wave, and i had a pretty good surf for about a minute or so, before getting absolutely tumbled by the waves.

rich's visit has contributed to some of the greatest points of my new zealand trip. we hung out in queenstown for a few days so i could finish up work, but then we headed down to fiordland, to a town called te anau which is basically the gateway to all outdoor activities on the fiordland national park. we had planned on going on a two day kayaking tour in doubtful sound, but hadn't realized how busy it was-- we didn't book in advance, and basically were squeezed in a one day tour at the last possible second. it was tense for a bit there, with us thinking that we had completely blown our trip by not planning ahead. but luckily enough, our lack of planning lead us to look at other options, one of which was hiking part of the kepler track. we were able to book a night at the luxmore hut, the first hut on the kepler track, so that we could hike up there and back on the weekend. so it worked out absolutely beautifully. the kayak trip was stunning-- so open and peaceful. exactly what i needed to counteract the month of busybusybusy queenstown. it lasted about 6 hours, with a lunch break in the middle, during which we got shredded by sand flies and congradulated ourselves on not doing the two day tour, during which we would have been eaten alive.

the hike up to luxmore ended up being the most amazing bit of the trip. the first day was straight up the side of a mountain, around 16 kilometers all together. my shoes were awful, and by the second hour the balls of my feet were so so sore. richie actually kicked my butt up the mountain, which was impressive for someone who has recently quick a pack-a-day habit. he was a fantastic hiking buddy, always super excited and keeping a steady pace. we reached the hut, up on open grasses looking out over the lake te anau, at around 2pm and napped before cooking up some food and checking out the nearby luxmore caves. we slept in a 60 person bunk room and woke up early for some breakfast before trying to summit luxmore mt... i say "try" because we got within 10 minutes of the summit, turned a corner, and nearly got blown off the mountain. the winds were absolutely out of control, and without a pack on, i didn't stand a chance. so unfortunately we had to turn back. the hike down went quickly, but by the end my feet and knee (i pulled a muscle the day before) were in so much pain that we decided to stop at the control gates (the official beginning of the kepler track) and hitch hike back to te anau rather than walk the extra hour. we were picked up by a nice kiwi couple that were in town from invercargill to watch their son in a yacht race. they dropped us off right at the yha, which was super nice of them.

the night we hopped a bus back to queenstown, and that's where i remain. richie took off this morning, after playing nurse for about 3 days due to my ridiculous blisters and leg cramps. i feel like a total wimp, i took a complete beating... but rich was awesome at keeping my spirits up and keeping my heels taped. so mucho mucho kudos to him.

well i'm running out of time on the computer, super sorry that this is so rushed! it's hard to hop right back in it...

i will keep everyone posted in the next few weeks of my whereabouts, and will see so many of you soon.

love love love
alli