Activity level: 🌶️🌶️
Modes of transportation: 🚢 ⛴️ 🚌 🚐👟
At 6:30, the boat engines started, and by 7:00, we were eating breakfast. While our new friend Crystal was getting some of her prized cheese danishes, Matt let us in on a secret: he was going to propose on the boat that day (which Sarah would like to note she totally called since meeting them the day prior). Crystal came back before we could ask any questions, so we had to pretend we were talking about kiwis when she got back (still an outstanding question: are the kiwi bird and the kiwi fruit at all related?).
At around 8:30, the boat rolled into one of the terminal arms of the fjord, and we all enjoyed one of their traditions: the sound of silence. Basically, they turned off the engines and asked everyone to be extremely quiet, and we all enjoyed the peacefulness of the fjord. Matt was planning on proposing at the end of the sound of silence (we knew that much), so we basically sat by and took a video of the two of them. Eric was a total bro and kicked a high schooler out of the frame so that they could get the best video possible.
Crystal was extremely surprised, and the whole boat was ecstatic to witness the engagement. Eric took a video of the whole thing intently, then turned to see Sarah crying at how nice it was.
After that, Sarah and Eric kept getting called to the “bow” for some reason—and they went to the bow of the boat multiple times, only to be greeted by nothing. Turns out, they were saying “bar” because we had to close our tab. Oops.
They kicked us off the boat and we did the whole trip in reverse (just like the Barbie movie): Ferry to bus to ferry to bus, and they dropped us off at the JUCY van rental shop.
Sarah found us this awesome deal where we get a camper van for free, as long as we drive it from Queenstown to Christchurch in 3 days (with 100NZD gas credit!). The guy checking us out was so impressed that we figured out how to do it since most people who take advantage of that are “kiwis”.
We got our van and set out to explore. First, we went to Glenorchy—the location filmed as Isengard in Lord of the Rings. We did a small hike there, but didn’t have much time, so we mostly just drove out to see it and then drove back to Queenstown. It was beautiful, but honestly, we should have watched Lord of the Rings before we came because we couldn’t quite place it. (Someone started playing it in the hostel while we wrote this post, and we could verify some of the scenic points!)
Dinner was at this awesome Japanese place called Tanoshi, where we ordered the Chef’s Suggestion. It consisted of amazing small plates, including some of the best, most flavorful, tenderest sashimi either of us has ever had. We didn’t realize more food was coming as part of the suggested plate, so we ordered more and ended up with way too much food—but hey, there are worse problems.
After dinner, we decided to get our stuff together and finally finish up some of these posts. We couldn’t find reliable internet, so we had to (and currently are) sitting back in the backpacking hostel’s common room, using the WiFi (and enjoying being a fly on the wall). We’re planning to car camp in the JUCY van tonight at 12 Mile Delta campgrounds overlooking Wilson Bay. Can’t believe we fit all of this into one day!
Sarah’s planning on marking off some of her bucket list tomorrow (with Eric begrudgingly joining) by going paragliding tomorrow. We’ll see if weather permits!
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