Dunedin
- Dunedin is the second largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and is only two hours away from Alexandra
- While in Dunedin, we went on a tour through the Cadbury Chocolate Factory where we got to taste fresh liquid chocolate, watch a tone of chocolate fall through machines inside of a silo and learn a lot of fun facts about how different chocolates are made. We also got a lot of free chocolate treats along the way :)
- Dunedin is also known for its architecture. The old Train Station building has made the top 50 in the world’s most beautiful buildings!
- We also got to see seals up close & personal on the coastline! (I didn’t know how fast seals are until after the fact…Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten so close!)
- As for lodging, we had the true hostel experience! By that, I mean we slept in a room with 12 beds of a bunch of random people..good thing Spooner was there to fend off anyone if we needed him to, haha! But we survived, and it wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be. We also met a guy there from West Virginia and had a nice chat! Some things are just meant to add to the adventure ;)
- In Dunedin, there is a street called 'Baldwin Street,' and it's the World's Steepest Street! We decided not to drive our van up, but it was neat walking up the steep slope!
- On the way back to Alexandra, we also went through the open land where the city of Rohan was filmed in the Lord of The Rings movies!
- The Moeraki Boulders are about an hour north of Dunedin and were really cool! They’re large, spherical boulders that lie on the shore of the beach, and they were fun to look at and climb on! I also did a handstand on one and fell over into the water around it, haha. Typical retired athlete..hehe
- Ever since the first week I got to New Zealand, I helped my CoOp run the school’s Talent Show. This consisted of judging 60 acts during auditions, practicing in the Hall during our lunch hour, Semi Finals, making notices for the weekly news handouts and finally the Finals for Talent Show on December 5th. *Somehow along the process, I took the lead for running the sound and music for the different acts..how did that happen?! (At least I only had one mess-up during the finals..Oops, lol) Even though we worked on this process during our lunchtime everyday, it was well worth it, and I was very happy to be involved and help out! We also had a lot of fun too!
- Auckland was a whole new world compared to the south island. It was a huge city, and we enjoyed walking down the main streets and looking in the different shops (especially chillin in Starbucks J ).
- We stayed in an apartment-styled hostel right in the heart of town, and let’s just say that we experienced the ‘night life’ by just lying in bed (aka..there was a bar below our hostel and it was SO LOUD!), haha!
- On a nice afternoon, we went to a beach called Mission Bay where we laid out and walked around some cute shops. We also found the Red Bull car that was giving out free drinks, and I had my first energy drink ever..Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
- We had the awesome opportunity to go to the summit of Mount Eden, a volcano! It was crazy seeing the huge crater at the top! Thankfully, it hasn't erupted in years, lol!
- A little east of Auckland, there’s the Coromandel Peninsula where we visited the Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove.
- The Hot Water Beach is a location where volcanic lava lies 2km under the surface, and people dig up holes in the sand to find hot water sources. It was neat to see so many people out and about digging in that area!
- The Cathedral Cove was AMAZING! It was a huge cave/tunnel made from rock, and it was so neat to walk through and beautiful to look at!
- *We also walked out onto rocks and looked into the clear, blue water! Then…the idea hit me to jump in! We all debated it (bc we knew it would be cold), and then all decided to take the PLUNGE! It was so cold and salty, but definitely worth it!! We figured that we didn’t bungy jump or sky dive that weekend, so we had to do something spontaneous ;)
- *The Cathedral Cove is definitely up there in the rankings!!
- Wow, first of all, I’ve been waiting to visit Hobbiton ever since I got the phone call saying that I was picked to come to NZ! I can’t believe that we were actually there and went on the Movie Set Tour!
- The tour guide was great, and we learned so many things. I love how Sir Peter Jackson included family members of the cast into various scenes. He even went into great detail to make the plants and everything in the scenery English-styled to follow the books. So neat!
- *I remember sitting down and watching all of the movies with my brothers and seeing the extended versions, so it was amazing walking through Hobbiton and seeing the Hobbit Holes, Green Dragon Inn, Bilbo’s party scene and other locations from the movie!