Beautiful New Zealand

I started off the new year with two weeks in New Zealand! The country was absolutely gorgeous.

Spent a week on each island and throughout the trip, every day was packed with stunning views. Around each corner there were beautiful waterfalls, turquoise blue lakes, or epic mountain ranges and glaciers.

Some interesting tidbits:

1. Driving on other side of the car and the other side of the road was initially very jarring, but was eventually easier to adjust to than I thought. It didn’t help that I had to pick up the rental car from a parking lot was very narrow and packed with cars. Sweaty palms and all, I cautiously navigated out and was able to get used to that goofy style after a couple days of driving.

2. New Zealand was pretty rural, especially the North Island where we drove by many pastures of sheep and cattle. The “big” cities weren’t very big and we were surprised by how early most restaurant kitchens closed (8pm!).

3. Hobbiton was really cool! I’m not a huge Lord of the Rings fan or anything, but have seen the movies and it was awesome to explore the Shire in person. The tour was great and packed with a lot of interesting facts from behind the scenes. I also had a delicious meat pie at the cafe on site.

4. I bungy jumped for the first time, 43 meters off the Kawarau Bridge! This was actually the original spot where bungy jumping started, so it was cool to take my first jump here. It was a blast! Though it was still scary of course, as everything in my brain told me not to jump. I wouldn’t say I’m an adrenaline junkie, but I like forcing myself out of my comfort zone and love new experiences, so this definitely fit the bill.

5. I also flew in a helicopter for the first time. I was surprised by how stable the ride was, which in hindsight makes sense. We flew onto a glacier and got to have a little snowball fight up top.

6. So. Many. Spectacular. Waterfalls.

7. I was impressed by all of the amazing public parks for kids! They were huge and had really expansive play structures, like full on rock climbing walls, giant slides, mini ropes courses, and one even had a full-on obstacle course (think America Ninja Warrior) and dirt bike park.

8. Last but not least, the whole reason for the trip was to attend my good friend’s wedding in picturesque Queenstown. E+J, it made me so happy to celebrate with ya’ll and thanks for giving me an excuse to finally check New Zealand off my bucket list.

All in all, New Zealand met all of my highest expectations and was a much needed outdoorsy vacation to kick off the year.