South Island day 1

This is very late in coming because after the camping trip we went to the south island and didn't have internet for 10 days and when we got back our connection expired and was jut barely reset today. So now the daunting task of catching up on the past 3 weeks looms in my near future and I am not too excited about it...

We left at 5 am on Monday after the Coramandel to catch our 7:00 flight and had the best airport experience of our lives. Apparently they don’t care what you take with you on domestic flights in New Zealand. We could have all brought our full size liquid containers, razors and even bottles of wine in our carry-on if we had known. We got through security super quick and just sat around waiting until someone realized that we didn’t even have our boarding passes. We would have never gotten past security without them in the US, but in NZ they didn’t even check our ID or anything, so we had to go back out to print them off before it was actually time to board the plane. Our plane was awesome, it was All Black and I loved it. Anyway, I sat by Sarah and Brittany and we flew the hour or so to the Queenstown airport. It took a while for us to get our 3 vans from the rental place and get to our hostel, but once we did we couldn’t even check in yet so we left all of our belongings in the bar under the rooms and ate lunch at the world famous Fergburger across the street. Our shotover jet adventure was at 1:00 so we all met at 12:15 and drove out to it. That was one of the cool things that we planned before we left the states. It is a super fast jetboat that skims along the top of the water at crazy speeds of up to 85 kilometers (52.8 miles) an hour. The drivers were really cool and drove as crazy as they could including several 360 degree turns, it was so fun!

(Ford of Bruinen)

After the shotover jet we went to Arrowtown. It was a very small town with only one main street but it is famous because the little river behind it is the Ford of Bruinen in the LoTR movies, so we took pictures, ate ice cream, and shopped around a bit before heading back to the hostel to check in. Check in was a huge ordeal. We all (25 people with the Cutris and James) sat in the little foyer while Ramona figured out who was sleeping where. It took about an hour because the room I was in had two empty beds that had apparently been taken by guys. After much negotiating Ramona payed for the two extra beds so that we wouldn’t be sleeping with men. She was very ruffled by the whole thing and it was quite entertaining. Once we were all settled we took a nap because it had already been a long day and then we all went out to eat at a Chinese place down the street. It was really good, we ordered 6 dishes for each table and passed them around the table so everyone got to try some of everything and we were all stuffed by the end, it was an awesome first day in Queenstown!