1/28/2008

On to Australia

Wow, I can't believe its already getting close to January being over. Time has just flown by over here. It is crazy how much you can do in a week's worth of time but also how much more there is to do in New Zealand just not enough days to do it...especially down in Queenstown, which is where we headed after Auckland.

First a quick re-cap from the finish of the Auckland Open. We made it to the semi's against...yep you guessed it, the dang brazilians. It was a bummer we had to meet them before the finals but that is just the route of the seedings. We were the only semi's not on TV cuz it was two other countries playing each other and they wanted their kiwi teams on the tv (makes sense). However, everyone said after the fact that our game was one of the best and maybe should have been televised, oh well.

We unfortunately lost to Brazil again, they just had our number this tour, they had everyone's. It was a brutal battle of a game. First set, we got down by about 6 points just making errors and not having our heads in the game then we went on a serving, digging, making plays run and caught up to tie it, from that point on it was a point-for-point game in some extremely windy conditions so both sides were making crazy, great plays with balls flying all over the place. It was such a fun set until they got the match point to win 26-24. We were going now, ready to beat them the 2nd and take it to a 3rd. It was a great game...we were up, they were up, and back and forth that way. But yet again they won at 21-19 with two great plays at the end. It was a great crowd though, we even had our own fans.... a few guys that apparently always are at this tournament and choose to support the Americans. So we ended the NZ tour playing great volleyball but with a loss which is not how we planned to finish but we were looking forward to Australia as we are accepted to play over there for a few tourneys as well.

Brazil went on to easily beat the #1 kiwi team who had won the other semi-final game so they were the ultimate champions for the tour. That left us with a 2nd place for the tour as with our points we would have beaten the other top seeds. Not bad!

So, knowing that we had to be in Australia by the 25th, we decided to still cram in going to Queenstown in the south island. We had just heard too many wonderful things about it. And all of it was true and more. It literally is like a big playground for adults, well a lot of new zealand is but this is the capital. Adventures like bungy jumping, sky diving, canyoning, river rafting, river surfing, speed jetboating, hiking, horseriding/hiking trips, gondola rides to another bungy jump, canyon swing, and just beautiful places to see all around! It is just amazing. What was not so amazing was our trip there. we had to leave at 7am and almost missed our flight with checkin being so busy. Then we get on our 3 hour flight only to wake up when we are landing and find out we landed 3 hours south of queenstown because of bad weather in invecargill (the literal bottom of the south island, you cant go any further). Apparently, q-town is in the middle of two different mtn. ranges and surrounded by lakes so you have to land without instrumental equipment and it was foggy and pouring rain so we were diverted.

Luckily, I had been sitting next to two people that were on their way to open a vineyard in an area above queenstown so they offered to drop us there en route. Thank goodness cuz the busese the airlines had gotten for us would have taken 5 hours to get there and it ended up only being 2 in the rentcar. Great people too: helped us find accommodations and gave some great suggestions for things to do.

So we made it to queenstown and even though it was raining so hard, we walked around town and saw how beautiful this place was. Imagine Aspen times 10....colorado in general is what this place reminded me of! There are these mountains in this town (famous for being in Lord of the Rings movies) that are named the Remarkables and I can vouch that they are that plus more. Just incredible! The next few days, Jenelle and I proceeded to delve into the adventure-land of this city from canyoning (traveresing through canyons, rapelling down mtns into water, sliding down waterfalls, ziplining through trees), to the experience of the thrill of speed jetboating on a river (going at about 100mph you do 360 spins and swerve in between river valleys and get a little wet needless to say), to some hiking and chilln in great little cafe's to the best part of the trip....going to see the milford sound. It is a beautiful place and we were able to get it sponsored to go see this sight on a small plane over, then cruise around the sound seeing waterfalls to flying back home on a helicopter but not before the heli stopped to land on a glacier. Just unreal the land out here!! You can check out great pics to these wonderful excursions on: http://www.gallery.mac.com/pdavis127#gallery They all should be updated on there.

We also made great use of our time in queenstown to check out the local pubs and get some great dancing nights in which always allow for you to meet and interact with interesting people. One night we were even able to meet up with a tour guide that Jenelle's old boss had used when she was in q-town and he showed us some of the town. Then later that night, we had arranged to meet up with our group that survived canyoning which was great fun as it J and I can only talk about the same stuff and entertain each other for so long, ha! So, q-town was definitely a place to go back to as 3 days wasn't enough time to experience everything but we of course jammed as much in as we could.

Needless to say, the next 24 hours was the hardest trip so far...after finding a rentcar using tactics taught to us by our drivers of the car-ride from invercargill, we drove 6 hours north to christchurch (where we were for new years) to arrive at 1am and grab a almost closed burger king dinner, then sleep for 3 hours to get up for our international flight to australia at 6am. ugh! we slept on the the 3 hour flight over and gained 3 hours in the process, arriving at 7am ready to start our day over again. Our friend craig from new zealand had hooked us up with his friend, stu, who gave us a ride from the airport and a place to stay for the tourney that weekend. he is a retired vball coach and just treated us like his kids for the weekend...we were spoiled.

once again im finding that people over here are so accommodating and nice and up for anything. i think its just part of being in a culture that is all about travel and meeting people, etc. stu and his roomie, the old guys as we called them, were just great. they went and bought us a cooler in the middle of the tournament day to put ice cuz it was so hot. they treated us to everything and the best part is stu's flatmate is a butcher and prepared a steak dinner one night. just great people, i guess i cant say that enough about them.

Now, I'm in Brisbane, Australia now which is just an hour away from where we were playing this weekend. Ivan Mercer is over here playing for the US on the aussie tour and living for the next 3 months. So he hooked us up with a ride and place to stay for a couple of days here. Because it was Australia Day here on saturday (like our 4th of july), everyone was off work yesterday so we headed to Moreton Island for the day which is an 1.5 hour ferry ride from the city. It was a cute little island with of course great adventures to do: 4-wheeling on the sand, sand sledding, feeding dolphins and what we chose to do...snorkeling and climbing on wrecked ships.

rob (ivan's flatmate) was our tour guide and photographer for the day trip. he brought his "waterproof" camera along that is maybe not-so-waterproof as the pics came out blurry and runny but still good. It was so cool to just be climbing all over these wrecked ships. definitely couldnt do it in america as people would have signs all over saying "no climbing", "keep off", "you will be fined if found on here" and once again no one cares out here. so we were all over the thing, jumping off the top into the ocean, takin pics, lookin at fishies and a 6ft shark. yep thats right! we werent in the water at the time but we looked down in between holes of the wreckage and saw a huge sand-colored looking shark swimming around, about 6 ft. long for sure. they guys thought it was a nurse shark. (kate, i know you're excited right now) either way, i kept on the wreckage for a bit longer after seeing that thing. too much discovery channel. With the Australian Day holiday so the harbor of this island looked like san diego does on the 4th with boats everywhere. we made friends with one group on their sailboat and chilled for awhile.

It was a fun little holiday! We have one more day here and then off to Sydney to stay and train for the week with some aussie girls we know. Sorry for the long email but I hadn't sent one in a week or so and lots has been happening. Hope everyone is doing fabulous!!!

Cheers, Paige :)