Mountain Stairs to Pavola and Fergburger….

Now being a food lover and watching everyone’s food loves mingle can be the most entertaining conversations we have all had on the trip. The time has come to talk about food. I have eating a variety of foods on this trip and many weird meals. I have tired new flavors of sweets and lettuce for breakfast. I love many foods and adventuring out to try new restaurants. The Fergburger was a massive burger with everything on it. The burgers ranged from beef to fish to deer and even tofu. The flavors of sweetness and savory sauces combined to make a delicious over stuffing meal. The gelato was a cold delicious Italian dessert which I love. The “affrogato” was a shot of espresso with a scoop of gelato in one cup. HELLO..new favorite drink. I have two food problems and they just both combined. Alright well now to the adventures because let’s just say all of the dinners people have made and everything between has been greatly appreciated and enjoyed by me.

You might wonder why I am talking about food so much, but you haven’t seen the situations I have seen on the trip. So for me food and people are usually the things I remember when travelling. I know looking back I’ll remember Queenstown for fergburger and gelato along with the world’s biggest canyon swinging. A canyon swing was a huge swing over a canyon. Kelly and I went down holding hands because we were terrified for our lives. The drop was 190m/390ft

canyon swing…..I wasn’t terrified until I stepped onto the platform looking down the canyon edge. Kelly and I were being distracted by the joking workers while my nervous system became over stimulated with fear. My heart starts to race has the workers swing us out into the air, so we can get in position for the drop. There are a variety of jumps styles. They are rated from the scariest to kind of scary. In the end they are all pretty scary because you are falling towards Shotover River at high speeds. We chose to do the scariest jump style and it was called“Gimp Boy Goes to Hollywood”. Now this style was head first. We free fell down the cliff edge towards the river with the rope catching us at the end. We swung back and forth over the river a couple of times and were lifted back up to the platform. The adrenaline was rushing through my bloodstream. I loved every second of it. The feeling of free falling into the air for about 60 m was worth it all. The adventure made me want to do everything. It was opening a can of new activities I wanted to try. Hopefully, I’ll be able to mange to try all the activities I want to do like bungy jumping and hangliding.MT. COOK

                I might of found where I want to live for the rest of my life. The views of Mt. Cook in a beautiful lodge will be the place I choose to live.  When the cool crisp mountain air ran through the van waking me up from the long drive is when I realized this is where I want to be. The Mulluer Hut hike was one of the most challenging hikes I have been on. First of all it was about a 9 hour hike. We left around 9:30AM and made I back around 7PM. I almost fell asleep before the sun went down. I have climbed Mt. McLouglin in Oregon, but this hike was one of a kind. Every power step up took more and more effort as time went on. The variety of terrain on the hike was ankle rolling, buttocks burning, and calves tightening. It’s the only way to describe the feeling I had for about four hours. I loved it! The views were glaciers mountains and lakes all around. The blue grey water couldn’t look more beautiful. As we grew tired the top never seemed to appear. I thought to myself multiple times the top was only just over the next ledge. Well many ledges later and a couple of sited distant avalanches we were there. The process of the hike was to make short term goals. Kelly and I kept telling each other “let’s make it to the next pole and then break time”. It made the hike very enjoyable. This was one of most memorable hikes on this trip (so far) and tomorrow we get to backpack the Routeburn. Let the ankle rolling, buttocks burning and calves tightening began. 

--Angie