James in Kiwiland: A crazy last week

Today is Sunday, November 22nd in New Zealand and it is my last final day in this amazing country before I depart to Auckland, then to San Francisco, and then ultimately to home in Chicago. It is a very bittersweet time because although there are many reasons I am ready to come home and want to come home, I know I am going to miss this country incredibly once I am gone. The past five months have been amazing though and I topped it off with a perfect, small 3 day mini roadtrip with two of my best friends.

On Monday the 16th Case, Marshall and I rented a car (Marvie has been sold for a couple weeks now...) and drove up to Queenstown. We hungout, showed Marshall around and then drove to Arrowtown to hangout at our kiwi buddy's place for one last time. The next day we woke up and had a 1:00 pm bungy jump scheduled with AJ Hackett. The three of us decided to do Nevis, the 134 meter bungy (largest in NZ). It was expensive, but you might as well go big or go home right? It was well worth it. The feeling of bungy jumping is like no other feeling I have ever felt in my life. 134 meters is the equivalent of around 440 feet for those of us in the world not using the metric system, and that is preeeetttttyy high. At the Nevis highwire, the pod you jump off of is suspended on cables hanging in the middle of a valley about 150+ meters above the river. You put on a harness, get in this cable car that takes you out to the pod, then they hook the bungy up to you, have you step onto the edge and you jump. With no hesitation I did a massive swan dive and enjoyed every second of it. You actually have enough time to realize, "Wow, I am still falling." The ground is rushing towards you and then before you know it the bungy cord pulls and you are just bouncing up and down in the middle of the air. It was amazing.

After bungying and spending the night in arrowtown again, we woke up early the next day and made our way to Milford Sound. To get to Milford you have to make a massive loop southwest of Queenstown and then head back up north. The drive actually getting to Milford Sound is half the fun. There were many amazing things to stop and see on the side of the road.