"Spontaneity is the best kind of adventure" ~Unknown
Before coming to Sydney, as a group we had many information sessions, as you can imagine, with things to plan for. One of those things was Spring Break. Amidst all of the chaos of solidifying visas, packing and heading to a new country, I only knew one thing, which was that I wanted to go to New Zealand for Spring Break. Spring break for our program was February 17th-25th. It wasn't until two weeks before that time, we realized we had planned absolutely nothing for our "spring break trip to New Zealand". Figuring that we still had plenty of time to book things, we bought a roundtrip plane ticket to New Zealand and thats about it. It wasn't until about 5 days before we were scheduled to leave, that we realized we hadn't booked any places to stay for the entire week of being there. We jumped online only to find that there were no hotels available and only one Airbnb which was an hour away from one of our destinations and a few hostels. Our plan was to fly into Christchurch and then bus to Te Anau and finish up the week in Queenstown. We booked hostels and an Airbnb and felt a weight lifted off our shoulders. Besides that, we were flying into a foreign country with no plan whatsoever.
Fast forward to the day we leave and the group of 8 including myself are more than excited to make it to New Zealand. Excited, we land around 1am and head to our first hostel for the night. Knowing we have to wake up in a few hours to bus to Te Anau, I hardly got much sleep. Once 6am hit, we were out the door again. From here on out, this is where the trip gets interesting. Numerous unlucky things happened on the trip that I wont even bother explaining but involve things like, the 2nd night not knowing if we would have a place to sleep, to the Airbnb having no heat or bedding of any sort, to us almost missing one of our very important bus rides. I guess things like this easily happen when you don't actually have a plan.
Oddly enough, looking back, there isn't much I would have changed. Our Spring break group bonded over the crazy "it would only happen to us" instances and we created some amazing memories through this hectic trip. I got to:
-ATV in the mountains overlooking national parks
-Cruise through Milford Sound
-Stay in a hostel next to the Fiordland National Park
-Go canyoning in Queenstown
-Jet Boat through a river
-Paraglide over all of Queenstown
-Share an airbnb with way more people than it could really fit
-Have some of the best coffee ever
-Experience an ice bar
-Bus through some of the most scenic landscapes I have ever seen
-Meet people from all over the world
-Look at the sunset after dinner
-Spend way too many hours in McDonalds wasting time until our 3am flight
-Laugh way too hard
Even when at some points it felt like the world was turning against us, not having a plan turned out to be one of the funniest things I have ever experienced. While I am glad to be back in Sydney, New Zealand will always have a place in my heart. I look forward to the day I get to go back and have enjoyed looking back on these memories that will last a lifetime.
Until next time,
Katelyn
No comments:
Post a Comment