Easter Break Part 4: Queestown and Dunedin

Day 10. Today we explored Queenstown.

The harbor.

View from the top of the gondola ride.

Making Kiwi friends.

Day 11-14. We spent the last few days in Dunedin staying with some of Kevin's friends from his program.

Dancing on Otago University campus.

Pretty park outside the museum.
The museum had an Andris Apse exhibit!! Yay!!

We ended the trip with a brewery tour where I discovered I have no future in bartending.

Easter Break Park 3: Franz Joseph Glacier, drive to Queenstown

Day 6-7. Today we climbed the incredible Franz Joseph Galcier. We got special spiky shoes and spent the whole day exploring the glacier with a guide and ice climbing up steep glacier walls!

The view from the place we stayed.

Day 9. Today we drove to Queenstown (the "action capital" of NZ) and the drive was really jaw dropping. We made a quick stop at Lake Matheson and saw several more incredible lakes along the way.

Lake Matheson

We stopped by a bungee place where some people from our group signed up for various jumps. We went out to the back where they have a bridge off of which some people bungee, we look up, and just about to jump is someone we know from our apartment building back in Auckland! I got there just in time to take this picture.

Easter Break Part 2: Abel Tasman, Pancake Rocks

Day 3, 4. We drove to Abel Tasman and stayed at a great place called Old MacDonald's Farm where there were alpacas, llamas, chickens, bulls, sheep and goats right outside out rooms. The next morning we woke up early at headed to Abel Tasman park. My friend Trudi and I opted for the four hour walk along the elevated coastline followed by a three hour guided kayak trip back to our starting point. We then spent another fun night at the Farm.

Our first night at Old MacDonald's.

Abel Tasman. This is one of the great views we got to see during the 4 hour walk.

Kayaking along the Abel Tasman.

A second night at Old MacDonald's...we liked that place.

Day 5. Luckily we hit all the bad rainy weather on this travel day. We spent it mostly on the bus and stopped by the Pancake Rocks were the rocks are striated and look like...well, they look like pancakes.

Easter Break Part 1: Christchurch and Kaikoura

We had a 2 week break from classes and spent in travelling around the South Island on a backpackers bus. I'll have to do this trip in istallments since we visited so many places!

We first flew in to Christchurch.

Main church in the city center

This wizard just hangs out in the city center and gives speeches from this ladder about anything and everything. He just rambles on and people just sit and listen to him.

We ended the night at this really cute bar where we met tons of Israelis.

From Christchurch we boarded the backpackers bus and drove on to Kaikoura where I spontaneously decided to swim with wild dolphins!

A view of Kaikoura.The bus driver dropped me off at the dolphin place where I got in a wetsuit and on a boat. We didn't have to boat very far when we found a huge school of hundreds of dolphins. The guides were really excited because there were two species of dolphins there swimming together which apparently is rare for this group. Here I took some great pictures of the dolphins from the helm of the boat as they swam right with us.

Press play to see the dolphins in action.

Getting ready to jump in the water.
Then we swam with the wild dolphins!!!

Cape Reinga

This weekend was truly an adventure. Maura, Kevin, Joe, Henry, and I went on the three day tramping trip at the very north tip of NZ at Cape Reinga. We slept in a tent pretty tiny tent, cooked packaged food on the beach, and saw the most amazing views I think I've ever seen in my life.

Day 1. Four hours of mostly coastal walking followed by about 3 hours of ridiculous up- and down-hill.

Pitching a tent at the campsite right on the beach

Day 2.

This was the first thing we saw in the morning.

This lighthouse marks the tip of the North Island and the spot where the Maori believe the souls of the dead travel to the afterlife.

Descending from the lighthouse we came upon a beach and truly looked completely untouched.

Our unofficial campsite for night number 2.

Dinner and a light show.

Day 3.

On the last day the trip we ended with some hard core stream bashing (also known as a slow and completely exhausted 4 hours sloshing in the mud)

Lastly, on the drive home we stopped by these famous toilets which I proudly used.