Arrowtown and Deer Park Heights

Sorry I haven't updated in a while...my life has been SO EXCITING!

NOT

Sadly, I still haven't found a job and the temp agency I was working with has stopped calling. Apparently they only need hotel cleaners during the holidays, and those are over now :(

So now I spend my days doing the following routine:

Wake up around 9 and either a) go running or b) stay in bed for an extra 20 minutes

Shower and get dressed

Head into town with Eoin (he heads to work)

Drop of CV at any place I haven't already applied (I've handed out my CV 15 times)

Grab the news paper and look for jobs

Eat lunch

Walk home

Look online for jobs

Apply to jobs that are posted online

Clean the apartment

Watch TV/Surf the net/go insane

Eat dinner when Eoin gets home at 9-9:30

So, my days are pretty awesome.

That being said, on Eoin's days off we have gone on some awesome adventures. Our first adventure was to Historic Arrowtown. Arrowtown is about 20 minutes outside of Queenstown and was "born" during the gold rush. It is a really cutesy little town that has a bit of a New England feel to it. There are walking trails that we didn't get a chance to do (next time, we foolishly wore flip-flops on our trip) and you can even rent pans to search for gold in the river. One guy found a huge piece of gold and it was worth $15,000 NZD (this was a few years ago).

Our land-lady recommended we go to the Chinese Settlement located right in Arrowtown. During the New Zealand gold rush a lot of people from China came to the area to try their luck, and they did quite well. They built their own little community of houses, gardens and a general store/lodge/bank/bar and stayed there for a few years. Once they were satisfied with the amount of money they made, they left the settlement and went back to China.

The entry to the Chinese Settlement. An outhouse in the foreground and the shop/lodge/bank/ shopkeepers house in the background.

Some houses built into the rocks. The houses were really small, only a few had a window.

Another place we recently went to is called Deer Park Heights. It is a working farm and is also where several scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed. There are pigs, chickens, sheep, ducks, goats, donkeys, llamas, alpacas, miniature ponies, yaks, buffalo and deer.

The animals roam free, except for the ponies and the huge pigs, and there are amazing views all around. The owners also supply animal feed and tins for you to take with you through the farm and feed the animals. AND GUESS WHAT!!!! I fed some animals!!

Me feeding a piglet. It was so gross.

From the top of the mountain you can see Queenstown. So pretty!

This is the cliff that Aragorn fell off of in LOTR....and Eoin fell off it too! Oh no! Good thing its only two feet off the ground :)


Alright, that's all for now. The Internet is really slow. I'm sure Eoin will write a much better entry than me, so check his blog in a few days.

Bye!

Milford Sound

Yesterday Eoin and I took a trip out to Fiordland National Park, hopped on a boat, and cruised around Milford Sound for a little over 2 hours. We weren't sure how the trip would go, because as we left Queenstown at 9 AM it was pouring rain. However, when we got to Te Anau (about 2 hours and 15 minutes from the sound) it was clearing up. It turned out to be quite a beautiful drive in the sunshine. We were in the rain forest and could see mountains covered in waterfalls all around us. Most of the waterfalls were thin but some were very big, and almost every one of them found their way to the roadside. There were drainage ways for the water that flows off the mountains along the roads and in some spots the plants along the cliffs on the road were "raining" on our car.

We got to the Milford Sound visitor center around 3 PM and waited for our boat to dock. Our cruise left at 3:45 and our boat was one of the smaller ones in the sound. This is a good thing because on the smaller boats you can go close to waterfalls, vegetation and animals. It was also good because there were not a lot of people on the boat so there was plenty of room to walk around, stand outside or find a nice warm place to sit once the rain started pouring down. Yep, our rainy day- turned beautiful day became a rainy day again. The rain held out until the last half hour of the cruise, so it actually wasn't TOO bad.

Milford Sound is actually a fiord, but when the English settlers arrived here in the 1880's there wasn't an English word for "fiord", there still isn't (that I know of). A fiord is made by glaciers and happens when a glacier carves out a "U" shape in the rocks/mountains. A sound is created by rivers, and carves out a "V" shape in the rocks/mountains.

Here is evidence that Milford Sound is actually a fiord:

Notice the "U" shape between the two hills? That's a fiord!

Another part of our cruise on the sound was getting close to the wildlife. Sometimes the crew spots (and points out) dolphins and penguins, but we didn't have any luck in seeing them. We did, however, see our millionth colony of fur seals! And they were doing what they mostly do when we see them, lounging around doing nothing exciting at all.

See for yourself:

Another highlight of our trip, that isn't offered on any of the large boats, was that we got to drink fresh glacial water! Two poor souls got suckered in to standing at the bow of the boat (holding trays of cups) and collect water from a waterfall. They got completely drenched, and we all got to laugh at their expense but later on the captain got us all back...that comes later...anyway, fresh glacial waterfall water is pretty good. It's full of minerals and stuff, and oh...it's yellow.

You can't see it in this picture, but I promise you it was yellow water. It is yellow from the roots of all the trees it meets on the way down the mountain.

So after we drank some yellow water, the captain informed us we were all going to get soaked. I, being somewhat smart, ran inside. Not Eoin. He stayed right out in front and got completely drenched by one of the larger waterfalls in the sound. He seemed to enjoy it, so that's good, but I stayed nice and dry.

Even though it was a bit windy and rainy, it was a great time and a lot of fun. The waterfalls were really cool, and the scenery wasn't half bad either :)

Until next time.....

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great New Years Eve and New Years Day! Eoin and I ventured into downtown Queenstown where there were supposedly 10,000 people in the CBD (Central Business District) along with live bands and whatnot. I think I counted 12 people. Okay, maybe I am being a little sarcastic, there was a crowd, but it was not 10,000 people. Maybe 5,000. Regardless, the live band, dDub, was pretty good. They were a reggae/ska band and they played music and then lead the crowd in a countdown to 2009. There were fireworks, which were awesome, and that is about it.

So it was a good NYE, nothing crazy or exciting.

The day after New Years Day (January 2nd) is also a public holiday here in NZ, so lots of shops/restaurants/attractions are closed. However, since I don't have a real job yet, I did some housekeeping on the 1st and 2nd and got paid time and a half (19.50/hour). Not too bad. But, I am never doing house keeping again. Some people are nice and strip the beds when they leave, and don't leave big piles of crumbs and dirt everywhere, but other people are plain old slobs.

I have a job interview on Monday with a place that supplies photographers to various attractions around QT. Hopefully, I get that job, and then I can be outside taking pictures of tourists rafting, horse back riding or whatever else they need me to take pictures of.

That's about it in terms of anything exciting happening right now. If you read Eoin's blog, you will have seen that he is doing this "101 things in 1001 days". Basically, you pick 101 things you would like to accomplish in 1001 days (2.5 years) and then you work on ticking those things off your list. I saw his list, and thought it looked like a good idea. So I made my own list, however, my list has only 56 things on it. You may call me a slacker, but I wanted my list to have things on it I'd really like to do and I didn't want a bunch of "fillers" in there just to make my list have 101 items on it.

Sooooo because I am sure you are really interested, here is my list!

Health:

Exercise at least 3 days a week for at least 10 minutes (0/143)

Go one week with no soda

Go one month with no soda

Vegan for a week

Go a week without products containing high fructose corn syrup

Enroll in a yoga class for at least one semester (four months)

Try one new food every other month (0/16)

See how much it will cost to get my moles removed

Have moles removed or start saving for it

Make one new recipe a month (0/32)

Go one month without eating at a restaurant or ordering take-out or frozen/pre-cooked dinners

Eat broccoli once a month(1/32)

Go one week without chocolate

Go one month without chocolate

First Monday of every month eat vegetarian all day (0/16)

Try eggs (fried, scrambled, omelet and hard boiled) (0/4)

Find out how much it will cost to fix my jaw

Save money to fix my jaw/get it fixed

Get Health Insurance

Daring:

Try a real roller-coaster with Eoin but not a scary one

Handle raw meat without gagging or making "guuuuuuuuuuh" sound

Do something that scares me once a year

Just for fun:

Watch 30 movies that are on the IMDB top 250 list (0/30)

Go a week without using the Internet except for essential emails

Spend my summers at Camp Micah

Get a really expensive/good massage

Eat seven egg rolls for dinner

Try ten new alcoholic drinks (0/10)

Try surfing

Go snorkeling

Eat dessert first

Get a dog

Go out on a date once a month with Eoin (0/16)

See a famous comedian live

Education:

Read 50 books (0/50)

Complete Pre-Reqs for grad program in physical therapy

Enroll in Grad-School

Become CPR certified

Double the money in my savings account

While in school, maintain at least a 2.9 GPA (would have been higher but science/math and I don't mix well)


Travel:

Visit two new continents (0/2)

Go back to Israel (or save for it)

Go on a romantic holiday with Eoin for at least 5 days at a nice hotel

Go to Universal Studios

Go on a road trip

Meet up with college friends

Go some place warm during the winter every year (0/3)

Community:

Donate $2 to charity for every item crossed off my "101 Things in 1001 Days"

Donate my time during the holidays for 30 hours (0/30)

Go through my clothes once in the winter and once in the summer and donate what I don't need to charity (0/5)

No Wal-Mart for 1001 days

Donate 500,000 grains of rice on freerice.org (0/500,000)

Recycle all my plastic bottles, even if I have to carry them home to recycle them( allow 12 exceptions 0/12)

What do you think? Hopefully I can do most of these! I will start a separate blog for keeping track of my progress. Anyway, here are some pictures :)

Look at the THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE in Queenstown for the New Years celebration! (ok so this was taken earlier in the evening, more people showed up as it got closer to midnight)

Queenstown from a jetboat. Sooo pretty!