DAY FOUR

THE BUS TRIP!

Today was the eleven hour bus trip from Christchurch to Te Anau. I think a few people were dreading it a bit, spending that amount of time in a bus. I wasn’t worried though because I can sit still for long periods of time without too much hassle. Unfortunately though, I woke that morning with an incredibly sore throat. I bought some absolutely amazing sour throat lozenges which I haven’t seen in Australia but which work brilliantly. So I didn’t let my sore throat bother me too much.

That bus trip was so fun. It was the grade eleven and twelves up the back of the bus and when you’re on a bus for eleven hours, you have an awful amount of time to talk. That means getting to know each other. I’d say that day was the day where everyone really became good friends. I was already talking to quite a few grade twelves but that particular trip I became pretty good friends with Alex Borg who was sitting across the aisle from me. He is such a nice boy! He’s one of those guys who has no pretence whatsoever and is who he wants to be. That makes him come across as a bit in touch with his feminine side but it also makes him incredibly easy to talk to! I had been in the band for two years with Borg but funny enough I had never talked to him in my life. I found him really fun to be around and I ended up spending a bit of my tour time with him, which was fun.

Anyway, talking about the scenery we saw.
OH.
MY.
GOD.

I have never seen anything so beautiful! If you have watched The Lord of the Rings then you would know what I was seeing. At first it was beautiful countryside. It was still raining and seeing everything wet and green was just amazing, nothing like we have in Australia. New Zealand is much more.. extreme than Australia is. Their grass is greener, their hills are bigger, their mountains are prettier, their flowers are more colourful, their water is clearer. It’s hard to describe but it really is magic. Duncan described it perfectly actually. He said “New Zealand is like cordial. Everywhere else has its own fair share of picturesque places. But in New Zealand it’s like the cordial hasn’t been diluted with water because everywhere in New Zealand is picturesque!” That pretty much sums up how beautiful it was. Because it was still raining the clouds were low and quite often covered the tops of the hills. That made beautiful pictures. We stopped at one particular lake, I can’t actually remember what it was called, but seriously, it was natural to be that blue! Or that perfect! The water literally looked like something had been put in it because it was so unnaturally blue! And with the snow capped mountains as a background and hundreds of purple flowers growing in the foreground, it made the perfect picture. The photos that I took really don’t do it justice because it was seriously breathtaking.

We left there and started to go inland a bit. When we were inland it stopped being so overcast and started to clear up a bit. In the distance were these huge mountains that looked so majestic with their snow on the peaks. It was difficult to take photos but I don’t think I could forget how beautiful it was. The further we went, the less overcast it got until we got to Queenstown area. Here was where we started following the river in between the hills. That river would have to be the most beautiful thing. I know I keep using the word beautiful but really, everything in New Zealand can be described as being beautiful! That river was so blue! If you have seen The Lord of the Rings then picture the river at the end of the first movie and how blue and perfect it is. That’s what we were following except through different countryside, which made the river slightly thinner than what it is in the movie. But still the same colour blue. That amazing, bright, aqua sort of blue that really does look fake. But no, its real, something to do with how clear the water is which reflects the light quite a lot creating the blue colour or something like that.

We continued on through that country until we reached Te Anau late in the afternoon. By that time I was feeling quite sick from my sore throat and needed to have my own space, something which I hadn’t had all tour, always being around people all the time. So I went off for a walk around the campground which we were staying in. I found this lovely clearing in the pine trees which helped me to relax and really calm down. I got back and had a rushed dinner. Then it was off to visit the glow worm caves. They were spectacular. We got on a boat to travel across the lake and onto the other side which was the start of the caves systems. Those caves were amazing. The water gushing through them was so loud that it was impossible to hear anything. Then we got into a small boat and travelled a bit into the calmer parts to see the glow worms. They were very pretty, those blue lights just twinkling overhead. We had to be dead silent and absolutely no artificial light was allowed. So it was pitch black with nothing but the glow worms’ light.

Afterwards we got back and fell asleep pretty quickly considering that it was 11:30 at night. The glow worms kept us up late!