It’s been a busy three weeks; I’ve traveled to Fraser Island, the Great Barrier Reef and explored the South Island of New Zealand.

It’s been really cool to see some of the best that nature has to offer in this area of the South Pacific.   I traveled so little in the first 25 years of my life that I’m really try to make up for it now, and I’m really enjoying it.   I’m not really going for a typical balanced work schedule – working most of the time and vacationing a few weeks a year.   My plan of traveling and playing is going really well, although often playing gets a seat back to the traveling and I’m fine with that.

I took two separate 3-day tours of Fraser Island (the largest sand island in the world, located off the upper Gold Coast of Australia,) and the Great Barrier Reef, which consisted of taking a boat out onto Lady Musgrave Island, a small sand island and large lagoon on the southern part of the reef.

Those trips were really cool, but the real highlight was an 11-day tour of the South Island of New Zealand.

The tour was aimed at backpackers/young people, and me and a friend were with 25 other people on the same bus as we traveled around the South Island, checking out most of the main attractions.

Here’s a pic of the tour group:

One of the days we spent cruising on a boat in Doubtful Sound, a very picturesque part of the massive fjordlands on the southwest coast.   Carved by glaciers and filled in by sea, the contrast of the valleys and cliffs is really amazing.

We then spent a couple days in Queenstown, the “adrenaline capital of New Zealand.”   It’s an amazingly beautiful city, built by the gold rush of New Zealand.   It’s situated amongst a big lake and hills, and has a cool ski-town feel.

Most people did skydiving or bungy jumping, but since I conquered those feats last year, I opted just for hang gliding.   It was really awesome and I enjoyed it more than the previous two “extreme” activities.   You get to really just hang out in the air and take it all in.  

We partied in Queenstown and then went to Fox Glacier.  We did a day-hike on the lower part and hiked on the ice.. really cool.

We then spent the night at a sheep farm while crossing back over to the east coast and Christchurch.   Sheep outnumber people 4 to 1 in New Zealand and it was pretty cool to get a demonstration of the collie dogs rounding up massive amounts of sheep.  

After getting stupid drunk in Christchurch (the largest city in the South Island, with about 300,000 or so people,) we went to Nelson, on the upper South Island.   There, I flew a stunt plane, which is without a doubt the coolest activity I’ve ever done.   It cost $280 and had me “co-piloting” this thing:

I sat in front and had a flight stick between my legs (yeah I know that came out like something else.)   Once we got airborne, the pilot would let me control the stick and by pushing left or right strongly, I would barrel roll the plane.

At first you’re nervous to try it, and you do slow barrel rolls, but by the end of the 20 minutes, I would hammer it and he’d let me do 2 barrel rolls in a row.   It’s so sick to be able to see the scenery in front of you spinning around in circles where you’re flying over 100 MPH, 3000 feet in the air.

I would also do loops, which are just crazy.   Once I got more comfortable, he’d have me roll the plane 180 degrees and fly upside down for a few seconds.. just nutty stuff.   That was the only really nerve wracking thing as your body comes a little loose in the seatbelts and you begin to think you should have strapped in tighter.

An awesome experience, I’d recommend to anyone who visits Nelson or something similar somewhere else on their travels.   Check out U-Fly in Nelson.

The trip was over soon after that, and the 11 days flew by very fast.   A pretty fun 3 weeks of traveling, and now I’m ready to rest up before my long flight back to LA.