The End of the 12-Passenger Vans: Can Life Go On???

These last couple of days, we have been on our final trip. Monday--in Te Anau, and Tuesday in Milford Sound. When we arrived in Te Anau on Monday morning, we all kind of split into different groups for the day. I chose to stay with a group that was going to drive about an hour away and hike part of the Routeburn track. About half of our group hiked Routeburn in the pouring rain about a month ago, and I thought it would be fun to experience at least part of such a famous track. The road to Routeburn was extremely windy and I think about half the van was carsick by the time we got there. The whole thing was worth it though for the three hour hike that we did. It was beautiful. I found it very refreshing to be on such a nice, organized, manicured track after our most recent experiences tramping through the bush. There were definitely some fantastic views. I took this picture becuase I thought it would give my viewers back home an idea of what tramping trails are often like in New Zealand. Most of them are usually just dirt trails through forests but when you get up on towards the top like this, or have to traverse through bog land, they put these wood tracks up. It's very NZ-esque. That's an incredible view isn't it? It's sort of sad that I'm starting to take that for granted as just being what New Zealand looks like. I still love it though!

This was the whole group that went to Routeburn on Monday. We had fun!

When we got back into town that night, we ate at one of the many pizza places in town. It was SO good. I have been craving pizza for a while now and I was very satisfied. :) After dinner, we just wandered around town and looked in souvenir shops. Te Anau is a really small town, and we are a really big group, so before long, we had all found each other and were just hanging out in town. Stefanie also found her parents! That was exciting. We met up with them and the whole group had a fun time getting to know the Tanners

The next morning, we left pretty early for Milford Sound. It was about a two hour drive from Te Anau but turned into three since we stopped at every single lookout on the way there. It was okay though--the views were amazing. Fiordland is gorgeous. We got to Milford just in time to board our cruise! We ate lunch on the boat and they just drove us through Milford Sound. We stopped at an underwater observatory and had a look around for a while, and then they drove us back to the port. The whole thing was absolutely breathtaking. A fjord is one of those things that really makes you feel insignificant--everything is so massive and beautiful. After unloading from the boat, we started the four hour drive home. All in all, it was a good trip!

This was taken from our cruise. Enjoy the beautiful views, but know that Stefanie took this picture--not me. I really like this one though. Thanks Stef! :)

Just one of the many random lookouts we stopped at. I must admit, at the end of this multi-month trip, I have started to lose my motivation to pull out my camera at every turn. So this last trip, I started letting other people take the pictures. Don't worry, I'll get them all eventually, but I just don't have them now. There was a point to this...oh yeah! We took a really great picture here that I don't have SO, just picture about ten people frolicking around in this giant field in front of those amazing mountains. It's great.

Most of our time here can be traced back to a trip in a 12-passenger van. It's kind of weird to think that our time in them is over. If you count up the amount of hours we've all spent together, traversing New Zealand in large, bumpy vans, I'm sure it'd be close to 100. So can life go on without these vans? A resounding--YES. :)