Kiwi Land!!!!

WOW! What a trip!! For Easter break Amanda (pictured on the left) Angie, Courtney, and I went to New Zealand for ten days (ok, it was a few more days than just Easter break...). We took a boat (where we are on the left) from Tasmania to Melbourne where we spent the day in some beautiful gardens. Then we hopped a plane to Aukland, New Zealand which is the biggest city in the country. It is on the north island and we were headed to the south island. We got in after midnight and our plane took off in the morning so...

We spent the night in the airport. Not much sleep there. At 4:30 the stores all opened and dozens of people began stopping to take pictures at the sight of four young girls all curled up together in sleeping bags on benches (is this not an every day sight?).

We flew to Christchurch in the morning, and as it was raining and we didn't know which direction to head, we ditched our plans to hitch hike, grabbed some maps and rented a car.

Katie the genius misunderstood what she was signing up for in terms of a hostel, so when we got to Queenstown we dropped Amanda and Angie off at their hostel and Courtney and spent the night outside of the Hippo Lodge in our car (most affectionately named "Crash Bandicute").

On Easter I played my first game of golf (who would have thought I would have to go to New Zealand for that?). I surprised myself and played very well! In the evening we caught a gondola up a mountain side and did some luging!

Here's Queenstown from the top of the mountain. For one of the biggest cities on the south island, being able to walk across the entire thing in fifteen minutes made me realise how rural New Zealand really is!

Monday was probably the best day we had! Courtney and I got a room in the hostel Sunday night, so we were ready to go when we had to get up at 7:30am to go skydiving! Talk about a rush!!! It was an absolute blast, and believe it or not, I NEVER felt scared! Just pure excitement!!

This is something that, though you may think it is silly and have absolutely no urge to do, everyone needs to try at least once! Angie really didn't want to do it, but as soon as she left the plane, she had the time of her life!!!

Well, Courtney and I ran back to the hostel after skydiving for a short nap before we headed up another mountain for a bit of hang gliding!

Talk about fun! It was so cool, we ran off the cliff, and after the guy showed me how to fly the glider, I got to fly it my self the rest of the time! It was a totally different feeling from skydiving. I think it was actually a bit scarier. It felt like I was just a human kite... and I have had many terrible experiences flying kites, so I think the feeling of nose diving (which we did in the beginning as a demonstration on how to steer) frightened me quite a bit.

The rest of the week was very tame compared to that. Tuesday we went on a bus/boat tour of a bit of the south island and Milford Sound (VERY beautiful- even in the rain). Wednesday we drove up to Mt Cook and stayed the night in a town called Twizel (very cute). Thursday we drove up to Fox Glacier and witnessed a life threatening bar fight (still a little shaken up from that one), and Friday we went on a day hike/tour of the Fox Glacier itself.

That was REALLY cool (pun intended)!!! We got to wear those spiky things you strap onto your boots, and they gave us big wool socks to tuck our pants into (way stylish) and we got big spiky walking sticks! It was so gorgeous.

So Saturday we spent driving to Christchurch where we were to take off from on Sunday. We spent a few hours hiking around the mountains where The Lord of the Rings was filmed, Mt Sommers. So it was pretty cool stuff all around.

The trip back was good, and we spent another night sleeping in the Aukland airport. That place is becoming so familiar I feel I could call it home!

It's good to be back in Tassie now though. I slept for 12.5 hours once I finally got in. I think it'll be a bit before I get back in the swing of things, but wouldn't it after a trip like that?!