New cultures and old freinds

My last two weeks in New Zealand were really amazing. I got to travel up the country, just stopping at various places to visit the freinds I have made along the way. I have a freind who works at a ski resort so I got to go skiing for free! That was really awesome...it is always better when its free.. :) I got do do one last great hike with Adam and ended the day at some hot pools under the stars..it was a prefect end to a long day of hiking! After leaving Adam, I made my way up the coast, spending some time on the beach and making some freinds who insisted on me coming and staying at thier holiday home with them!! I crossd with the ferry up to the north island and visied a freind in Wellington for a few days, then spend a few days in Taupo visiting Macarena (met her in Te Anau...i think i have written about here before...) Maca took me on an awsome bike ride by some waterfalls and to hot springs just in the river...it was great to see her and catcxh up on all the girl talk :) I spend a night with Adam's family and then headed back to northland, where i started my trip in NZ. I satyed with my first WWOOF hosts again...it was hard to beleive that it had been a year since i stayed with them!! It was great to catch up on the last year and share my expereinces with them.
Visiting everyone was a lot of fun and a great way to spend my last few weeks in the country. It was a bit of closure i guess you could say...but it was definately hard to say goodbye! NZ was one of the best times in my life and will never forget it or the people/ experiences i had there :)

Arriving in Thailand was abit of a shock to my system because it is so HOT!!! It has been great to see Mandy,Jim and Stephanie. The food here is so amazing...the streets are lined with stalls selling amazing food and freash fruit...it is awesome!!! We decided to go north from Bangkok..the other day we rode our bike almost 40kms to see some old ruins of lots of temples...it was amazing!! I have made it pretty far north now, on the west side close to the border of Burma. It is a small town in the mountains so we will do some hiking and see some more Buddahs!!!!! My internet time is running out so i have to go :) Love and miss you all :)

NZ in a nutshell

It is hard to believe that my New Zealand chapter will soon be coming to an end! 11 months later and I feel somewhat changed and enlightened by my experiences in New Zealand. I have done all sorts of crazy things that I never even imagined I would do while here, like working as a dairy farmer, spending 10 days in the mountains on one long hike, having a go at making pottery, working as a maid and dishwasher, making bricks, plastering walls with cow pooh, hitch hiking (It’s really safe here J)climbing to the summit of seven mountains, and getting my scuba diving certificate…There are also some crazy things that I knew for sure I would do, like bungee jumping, skydiving, going rugby games, mountain biking, hiking and meeting all sorts of wonderful people! This will be my last entry while still in New Zealand before heading off to Asia! I am going to attempt to reflect on my whole trip so it might be pretty long!!! SORRY in advance J If you don’t want to read it all, you can read ahead and just read my tops 15s…..(was gonna make it 10 but I couldn’t stop)

I started out my trip with a week long trip around Northland, the area above Auckland. I lived in a campervan for a week with a guy I had just met, Romy! It was quite the experience. He was English and I was the first American he had ever met, so he thought that everything I said was funny in my accent. At first I thought it was funny but after a week of 24 hours a day getting most of what I said mimicked back to me, I was ‘over” it! Nonetheless, we got along really well and I made up for his mocking me with making fun of his love for sheep. It was hilarious how obsessed with sheep he was. NZ has endless fields of green hillsides covered with sheep, EVERYWHERE…and he would always want to stop and look at them and we joked about kidnapping one to come on our road trip with us. This road trip is when I first fell in love with New Zealand. I remember one day on the trip we went hiking through a rain forest, sat on a beach, spent hours driving though amazing green hilly countryside and saw some sand dunes across a harbor! There are not many places in the world that you can do all of that within a few hours of each other! Along with the scenery, I also fell in love with the lack of big overcrowded and over established towns! I remember we would be driving for hours just waiting to get to the next town so we could get some snacks of stop for a beer or something and when we would finally reach the town, it would consist of a general store (which was usually closed) and a pub…and that’s it! I have come to really love these small NZ towns! Romy and I had a really good trip together and I even talked him into going skydiving with me (I think he just about crapped his pants...hahaha). It was a cool skydive because we went on a cloudy day, so we got to fall through the clouds!

Next, it was time to start my WWOOFing! WWOOFing is a program where you stay with a family on a farm and work for your accommodation and food. It is a good way to travel cheaply and also meet a lot of people, but it is a lot of hard work for no pay!! WWOOFing was such a great opportunity to learn so much about myself and how hard of a worker (when it comes to manual labor) I can be! I also made some amazing friends and learned so much about the kiwi way of life through wwoofing. I also learned a lot about how to live sustainably and how easy it can be to be self-reliant when it comes to producing your own amenities. It was very cool! I WWOOFed for my first four months in NZ and got to do so many crazy and amazing things! I learned how to make bricks, spent hours collecting cow “pies” to make compost, did lots of gardening and planting, spent days and days weeding and sifting though dirt to find roots of weeds, learned why thistles and gorse are the worst two plants in the world! (they are very prickly and a pain in the butt to get rid of!), worked as a maid, collected honey from bee hives, worked at an organic brewery and helped build an earthship (house made of completely recycled materials) by making plaster out of a mixture of cow pooh and dirt and then putting it on the walls! (and the owner of the house wondered why there were so many flies inside the house!) These are just a FEW of the many duties I has while working on the farms! But it wasn’t all just hard work! I also got all the inside local scoop on the great places around the areas, like hot springs (there are so many in NZ), hiking, beaches, got to do a ballroom dance class, a surfing lesson when I WWOOFed at a place with a surf shop, took a kite surfing lesson, lived in a tipi (yes a tipi) for a week, and got lots of great conversations, new perspectives, music, ideals and cooking ideas! The cooking ideas are one of the coolest parts about WWOOFing and just travelling in general. It is always fun to learn new ways of doing things and different ideas for dishes. I have been baking my own bread from scratch since I have been here! It is so much better than anything store bought!! I also got to go on a 3 day hike down the west coast, a lot of it along the beach and also up some steep bluffs and through some forest. It was great camping on the beach both nights…luckily we were blessed with some beautiful weather! It was a great hike and a good way to get to know Adam, a son of one of the couples that I worked for while WWOOFing. I ended up travelling and dating Adam for a good portion of the time i have been here. He is a very good guy:)

For Thanksgiving, I took the opportunity to cook a big thanksgiving meal (with some help) for 4 Kiwis who had never celebrated thanksgiving before! It was a lot of fun and I had to get a little creative as well, since I couldn’t find all the same fixings over here...but you can never go wrong with good company, good food and lots and lots of wine J

Just before Christmas I flew to Fiji to meet up with my best friend, Jimmi, who has been in Sydney for around the same time I have been in New Zealand. We had an amazing time being in the sun in our bathing suits for Christmas! It was also really nice to spend the holidays with a familiar face! We got to go to parties and bonfires on the beach, snorkeling with the sharks, got to eat lots of traditional Fijian food and drinks and see some very interesting culture! It was cool to see how the kids there have to get on a boat and go to another island to go to school! I even got certified to scuba dive! The scuba diving there was so amazing, I fell in love with it my first time. After seeing my 7^th shark and realizing that they didn’t care about me at all, I feel like I have overcome my fear of sharks a little bit!

After spending those 2 weeks in Fiji, I found myself being a little more broke than I was comfortable with so I decided that it was time to get a paying job! I headed down the south island and got set up in the sunny town of Nelson... (It is known to have the most days of sunshine in the whole of New Zealand! There I worked at a bar that was just about on the beach, so every day after work my co workers and I would go down to the beach and have a few drinks. It was like paradise! I lived at a backpackers, where I also worked. I made so many friends there and spent most of my days going biking, hiking or to the beach and then worked nights. It was not a bad way of life! Nelson is great because it is on the beach but has lots of mountains nearby for some amazing hikes. I went on my first overnight hike alone there. It was a great sense of accomplishment when I was finished!

One of the best times in Nelson was when we celebrated the German holiday, Carnival (most of my friends in Nelson were German). All the girls and guys switched clothes!!! It was a very fun day of dressing crazy, listening to fun music and having a few German beers!!

Although I loved it there, I was really eager to get to the south of the south island, where the stunning Alps are! On my last day of work in nelson, I got covered with whipped cream by my co-workers (tradition of the restaurant)! It was kind of gross but really fun!! I also got a big goodbye party on the beach complete with a bonfire!!!

I found a new job in Te Anau, which I have talked a lot about in my blogs. Te Anau was AMAZING. It is the main gateway to the amazing hiking and wilderness of the Fiordland National Park, the biggest national park in New Zealand. The national parks here are so great because there are virtually no roads into them so if you want to see anything, you have to walk! I absolutely fell in love with the mountains and the hiking there! Te Anau is also located on a huge lake, which gave me a great place to swim and hang out in the summer…also the sunsets were AMAZING because the lake would often turn red, reflecting the bright colors in the sky. I worked at a fancy hotel there, which was right on the waterfront, so even when I was working I got to see the sunsets (and a lot of sunrises too). I lived in staff accommodation in the back of the hotel, so it took about 30 seconds to walk from my front door to the lake and I could also walk to many of the amazing hikes that I did there. The staff accommodation was a great way to make friends because there were always people around who were keen to do something! I made some really amazing friends there, some that I know last throughout my life! Most days, we would go for a run around the lake, hiking or swimming in the lake (it was reeeeaaaaallllyyyy cold, no matter how hot it was outside!) I made some very close bonds in Te Anau, and we all started calling one another our “Te Anau family” and “home away from home.” If felt so good to have that feeling of comfort and closeness when I have been away from all my loved ones for so long! The friendships I made here mean the world to me!

One day, I was on a split shift, so I had a 6 hour break from work and it was a gorgeous day outside, so a friend of mine and I decided to drive down this amazing road out of Te Anau towards the mountains (the only road that even gets close to the national park….you have to drive out the same way you drive in!). It is kind of a magical road…you get a sort of…feeling when you drive down it. We stopped along the way at a really beautiful spot with a grassy field surrounded by mountains and just laid in the grass for a few hours. He was quite into his yoga and I always had wanted to try it, so he taught me right there! It was one of the most memorable moments I have in New Zealand! It all felt so miraculous and relaxing and…just amazing. Since then, I have been trying to practice yoga as often as possible.

One of the cool things about more than one day hikes in New Zealand is that there are huts that you can sleep in along the way. At first, I hated the idea of huts because I like everything to be all natural with no man-made buildings…but it makes everything so much easier!! The huts are very basic but have everything you need. They have to fly in all the supplies for the building by helicopter! When I was on my 10 day hike, it rained almost every day so I was definitely nice to have somewhere dry to sleep! It also made it possible to do overnight hikes in the winter when the ground had snow on it! It would have been much too cold to sleep in a tent! Since I have been in New Zealand, I have gone on six overnight hikes, totaling 19 nights in the mountains or bush, some in tents and some in huts! It is also nice in NZ that you do not have to worry about wild animals!! They don’t have any wolves or cougars or bears or anything that is going to attack you so being in the wild is much more care-free!!

The 10 day hike I went on was really amazing! It was so great to challenge myself that much! I went with two friends from Te Anau, and needless to say, we all got to know each other VERY well!! As I mentioned, it was raining every day…and we not talking just rain…we are talking RAIN like I have never seen before…I swear it is coming at you from all directions!! We were soaking wet to the bone, despite all our rain gear!! At one point the track went along a lake and the lake was so high because if all the rain that the markers were under water!!!! A few days later when we walked back (after just two days without rain) there was about 15 feet of beach between the marker for the trail and the water!!! It was so incredible! Every day, after hiking all day, we would come back to the hut and do yoga together before making dinner and chatting for the rest of the night. It was such a great hike. I felt so cleansed, fit and healthy after it!! It was a great feeling J

I also got to go up the Mt. Cook National Park (Mt. Cook is the tallest mountain in NZ…it is pretty extreme and a lot of people climb it to help train for climbing Mt. Everest!) Although I didn’t climb Mt. cook, I spent a week doing some of the most amazing hiking of my life. The mountains are so incredible and it is so much fun getting high enough to be in the snow when it is not yet winter!! Mt. Cook is a really beautiful mountain and it was great getting to the summits of some mountains around it that gave a stunning view of it!! I was on top of the summit of Mt. Olivine, staring at Mt. Cook when a friend suggested and then coached me through trying meditation for the first time. It was a really incredible experience that I will never forget. It was one of the most amazing feelings I have ever had. I would really like to travel to India to study mediation further. Also in Mt. Cook NP, I had a friend who got me a good deal to go on a boat ride on a glacial lake! It was so amazing boating next to getting to touch all the icebergs and eat some glacier ice!! I got to see two different glaciers, both massive and amazing to see!!

The season (summer) was ending in Te Anau and most of the friends I made were leaving (Te Anau gets really slow in winter because the weather is terrible) so I knew it was time to move on. I had been offered a job dairy farming, so I decided to give it a go! I thought I was going to hate it because we started work at 3:30 AM and didn’t finish work until about 5 PM…and working hard all day!!! But I wanted to see what it was like to be a dairy farmer and milk cows and all that jazz. To my surprise, I absolutely LOVED it! There was just something special about working outside all day, exposed to all the elements. On a sunny day, it was amazing…on a rainy day, it made you appreciate the sunny days even more!! And although you are wet, at least you are actually experiencing the day, rather than being cooped up inside all day! I now think that the time from 4 AM- 8 AM is the most beautiful time of the day. There is just a sort of calm in the air, stillness…especially being out in the country with no lights and no noise. I really loved it. And the sunrises were always amazing and something to look forward to! I loved talking to the cows and learning how everything worked. I really think that farming is such a fantastic way of life. I got to milk cows, ride around on a 4 wheeler all day, put up and down loooots of electric fences (and get electrocuted a lot!), get pooped on every day, learn how to drive and operate a tractor, watch a calf being born, learn to feed the baby calves and so so so much more that is just too hard to explain. It was also really cool getting the experience of living in a town of less than 200 people! Everyone knows EVERYONE’S business!! As soon as I opened my mouth to introduce myself to someone, they would recognize my accent and already know my name, who I was working for and where I was living!!! It was quite the experience! I really liked the small town though! I met some really incredible people and had lots of fun times there! I was lucky that Sam, another girl who worked on the same farm as me, took me under her wing a little and introduced me to everyone in town! The two of us were practically inseparable the whole time I was on the farm! In most small towns (and some big) in NZ, it is perfectly acceptable to walk into anywhere in town in just socks (or barefoot in summer) because everyone leaves their muddy boots outside at the door! I reeeaaaallly loved the dairy farming and it was definitely my favorite job in NZ. I learned that I really love farm animals!! After this experience, I really think that I should work in an outdoor job as a career…any ideas???

I loved dairy farming but I wanted to spend my last few months in NZ closer to the mountains where I could do more hiking and skiing…I had been to a small town called Arrowtown a few months before that I really liked, so I decided to pack up and move again! Arrowtown is surrounded by mountains and has a small town feel that I really like. I got a job at a pub and found a flat to live where I thought I could stay warm for the winter. The houses here are heated mostly by a wood burner, which is a nice source of heat but my house was still usually cold enough to see my breath inside late at night and for there to be a layer of ice on the inside of my window in the morning! (It really wasn’t as bad as it sounds…I got used to it after a while!) Every day I would go outside and chop some wood and then light the fire to get the house heated up! I am now an expert fire lighter and a lot tougher!!! It was hard to get used to the cold as a wimpy Californian who is used to the heat!!! The time in Arrowtown was another great opportunity to make some more great friends, do lots of winter hiking (got to do lots of hiking in the snow….so fun!!) and skiing. I made regular trips up the big hill behind my house, which gave great views of the town and surrounding areas. This was the coldest winter of my life for sure but I really enjoyed it and even got to walk and have a picnic on a frozen lake!!!

I turned 25 while living in Arrowtown! Man 25 sounds a lot older than I feel!!! For my birthday I went bungee jumping and then out for dinner and drinks with friends. It was a really great day! One of the most amazing hikes I have even been on was to the top of Mt. Luxmore on a trip back to Te Anau during the winter. It was a very cloudy day and we thought we wouldn’t be able to see anything but when we got up over the trees, we saw that we were above the clouds!! Above us were blue skies and below us you could just see a blanket of clouds with all the mountains around us sticking out!! It was amazing. We continued to climb to the top of the mountain, which was completely covered in snow and surrounded by some stunning scenery!!! It was a great (but very long) day J

As my time in NZ comes to a close, it has been very nice to reflect on all the different stages of my trip in writing this blog. I feel that I have learned so much about myself and the world though my experiences. I will really miss it here (Maybe not because I might come back for a few months next summer!), along with the friends I have made and people who have touched my life. I have opened my world to so many new things since my arrival here, too many to list! I feel like an unofficial kiwi, because I now have picked up on a lot of the kiwi lingo, can drive comfortably on the opposite side of the road, own a pair of gumboots (like Paddington bear boots…every kiwi has them and wears them!!J), gone to a few kiwi artist’s concerts, chopped lots of wood, been to the national team rugby game and have milked a cow! NZ will always hold a special place in my heart <3

Now I look forward to the next two weeks travelling back up north through both islands, stopping at a few places along the way to visit friends I have made along my journey…then I am off for a few months travelling in South East Asia. I will start out with a month in Thailand and then see what happens after that!! I do not have exact plans but I know I will be home before Christmas of this year. I will do my best to continue updating my blog from Asia. I seriously can NOT WAIT to see you all and hear about what you have been doing for the last year!!! LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL J

TOP 15 THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT NZ (other than people):

1) The hiking! Complete with the huts, lack of having to worry about wild animals attacking you, and the DOC office (where you can go to ask any questions or advice)

2) It being socially acceptable to walk into any establishment barefoot or with only socks on because either you decided not to wear shoes or you have left your muddy boots outside

3) The amazing scenery and the variation of scenery in such close proximity to one another…also that the amazing views are just a part of daily life, no matter where you are (do don’t have to go out of your way AT ALL to see something stunning)

4) The laid back, easygoing kiwi lifestyle

5) The music

6) Morning and afternoon tea—little breaks that are normal before and after lunch… everyone takes the break together and just sits and has a cup of tea!

7) Whittaker’s chocolate… it is NZ made and so delicious!

8) How common it is for a complete stranger to go out of their way to help you

9) Golden Kiwi fruit, the manuka honey and the use of pumpkin in cooking

10) The lingo and kiwi accent

11) How safe it is here…there is very, very little crime!! And when there is, kiwis all get very upset about it!

12) The sunrises and sunsets—some of the most amazing I have ever seen

13) The clouds—they are different here and just so incredible

14) The small population---you can go to a beautiful beach on the hottest day of summer and be the only person there!!

15) Of course, all the cows and sheep!

TOP 15 NZ experiences (this will be a tough one)

1) WWOOFing in general

2) Dairy farming

3) Learning and trying yoga for the first time in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been

4) Hiking through the clouds to the top of Mt. Luxmore when it was covered in snow

5) Trip to Fiji with Jimmi and learning to scuba!

6) Meditating for the first time on the top of Mt. Olivine

7) Trips down to the beach after work in Nelson

8) Carnival party (dressing up crazy and drinking a few beers with my crazy German friends

9) Everyday life in Te Anau with my “home away from home” (friends who I met and got very close with)

10) Hiking in Mt. Cook and the Boat ride on the Tasman glacial lake…I got to touch all the icebergs and eat some glacial ice!!

11) 10 day hike in the rain!! I met and got to know better some amazing people, saw some beautiful scenery, and challenged myself! I felt so wonderful afterwards!

12) Saturday nights at the Moose (my favorite bar in Te Anau)

13) Trip to Glenarchy (tiny mountain town) and Queenstown with Ollie, Daniel and Macarena. The weather was perfect and it was so much fun!

14) Hitch Hiking!

15) Road trip around Coromandel (beautiful peninsula on the north island)with Adam ---it was so beautiful, great company and lovely weather!!

I am working on a slide show at the moment of all my favorite photos from NZ so I will put up the link when I am on my way out!!!!!!

Winter in July!

Once again it has been way too long since my last update!!! I am so sorry that I have not updated regularly and thanks to those who have been patient with me!!! I cant believe that I have been away for over 10 months already!!! Time has really flown by!! The time for me to leave NZ is drawing near and I am getting very sad to leave!

For the last two months, I have been living in Arrowtown, a small town located about three quarters of the way down the south island. It is a really small town that reminds me a little of Durango (the town in which I lived in CO) so naturally, I love it!!! I origionally came here because they have an annual autumn festival. Arrowtown is supposed to be the most colorful town in NZ during autumn so of course I wanted to check it out! When I was here I ended up falling in love with it and decided to come back to live here when I finished working on the dairy farm. It is a really cute town where people don’t lock their houses or cars, you stop to chat on the street and surrounded by mountains and absolutely stunning scenery!!! It is about 10 min away from the nearest skifield! When I first arrived in June, we got our first snow! It was awesome building a snowman on my front lawn for the first time in my life, let alone in June!! The houses here are not very warm, so it has definitely been the coldest winter of my life…every morning there is a layer of ice covering the INSIDE of my window and I can usually see my breath in my house! I think I will come out a lot tougher after this winter…and I will be an expert fire lighter!! (most homes here are heated by a wood stove…imagine something pretty old fashioned…

I have been working at a bar, which is nothing special but can be a lot of fun. I am about a 2 hour drive from Te Anau, so I fre3quently have friends from down there come to visit me and I have also made it down a few times to visit them!

On my 25^th birthday I had some friends come and visit and we went bungee jumping!! It was very scary, surprisingly much more scary than skydiving!! It was a good rush though and something I have been meaning to do since I arrived in NZ. Then I went out for drinks and dinner with some friends and had a night out on the town! It was a good way to bring in my 25^th year, but I wish I could have seen my family and friends from home!!! I missed you all J

Most recently, I have been doing some winter hiking, which has been absolutely amazing!!! I went on one three day hike, which was really beautiful..there was lots of ice and snow on the track so that was really cool…it was also very cold at night!! I am lucky to have a very warm sleeping bag! The last hike I did was to the top of Mt. Luxmore, which was absolutely COVERED in snow!! It was so stunning from the top, surrounded by snow covered mountains everywhere!!! I think it was the favorite hike of my life!!

I also had the opportunity to go skiing, which was absolutely the most scenic skiing of my life! It was so beautiful from the top! I am lucky to have a roommate who let me borrow all her ski gear, including jacket, pants, skis poles boots and everything!! It is great to have friends the same size as you!!

Now I have less than a month left in New Zealand! I will leave on the 7^th of September and then travel around Thailand and then decide weather to do more of south east asia or head over to India before heading home at the end of November! I am meeting my good friends Jimmy, Mandy and Stephanie in Thailand and we will travel for a month together and then I will travel for the last part either by myself or with Adam, who is trying to save some money to do some travelling with me!

My last few weeks in NZ I will finish up work here in Arrowtown and travel up both islands, making stops along the way to visit various friends I have made along my journey! I am also hoping to get another day of hiking and another day of skiing in!

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone and cant wait to catch up!!

I miss and love you all J

MOO!!

Hello to all my lovely family and friends!! Those of you that are still reading this are very loyalJ It is hard to believe that I have already been gone for 8 months!! Time has really flown by! It is getting very cold here…it is not even winter yet here and it is colder than the coldest day in California…we Californians are such wimps!!! I am jealous that all of you are just coming into summer now! I was thinking of switching hemispheres to be warm but I love NZ so much, I am not ready to leave yet!!

I have been working on the dairy farm for the last month or so and I absolutely love it! It is a very long day working on a diary farm. We start work every morning at 4 AM to milk the cows, which takes about 4 hours, then get an hour long breakfast break, then work from 10 till about 1:30, then milk the cows again at 3 and finish around 5PM! Although it is long, it is so nice working outside all day, watching the sunrise/sunset every day… I really like the people I work with and the work is really fun. I thought I would hate it because of the early mornings (we all know im not a morning person!) but the few hours before the sunrise is just suuuuch a beautiful part of the day…one I never would have seen without working there!

During my time on the farm, I took a week and went hiking in the Mt. Cook National Park…it was AMAZING, the best hiking I have ever done! All the mountains in the area are covered with snow so when I got to the tops, I was hiking in snow! It was so beautiful and I was blessed with wonderful weather the whole time! I have a friend who works there so I was able to stay with her…it was great because I went hiking all day while she was working and then got to hang out with her when she was off at night! I also got to go on a boat ride up to a lake that was formed by glacier melt...so got to touch lots of iceburgs and got up to the glacier...it was very cool!

Although I love it so much, it is time for me to move on because it is getting really cold and the cows do not get milked in the winter so there is not much work on the farm anymore. Besides, I think I might be too much of a wimp to work outside here in the winter! I decided this last week when I was working with the cows outside and it started snowing on me! I am thinking of working here again at the end of winter/early spring…but we will see!

Now I am going to go on a 2-3 week trip visiting some friends around the country and then will come back down the bottom of the south island again (really love it down here) and I think I will work in a pub, where I can escape the cold! it is already snowing there!aahhhhh I hope I can handle it!

How are you? I would like to know!!! Miss you :)

the photos are just some of the farm i worked on, me with the cows, the milking shed and my mt. cook trip!

Cows, Rain and Good People

OKAY, so yet again I am very very sorry about how long it has taken me to update! I hope that all of you are doing well and I would like to hear about your lives!

I am now living and working on a dairy farm that is in Riversdale, a small town about 1 ½ hours from Te Anau, so I am still at the very bottom of the south island. I just started work today on the farm, so I got to milk my first cow today…very exciting! They milk the cows about every 12 hours so its 4 am and 4pm, a very long day! It is hard work, but fun and just nice to do something different and challenging that I have never done before. This area is ALLLLL locals so they all look at me like I am a crazy person when they hear my accent. It is entertaining. Yesterday I went shooting clay pigeons with rifles with some of the guys…it was quite the experience…it’s a lot harder than it looks…It was a competition and there were 50 to shoot at and I only got 15…I guess its not too bad for my first time. So basically I am getting the real country experience down here….

Before coming to the farm, I stayed in Te Anau for a little over two months, working at the hotel. I absolutely love it there. I made some really amazing friends who have become my little New Zealand family. We all have plans to meet in New Zealand and elsewhere in the next few months/ years. There is a girl I met in Te Anau named Macarena, from Chile, who I have become the closest with. It is a little freaky how much we have in common…she is just like me! At the hotel, I usually worked nights so during the day I would just hang with friends or do one of the million day hikes in the area. The area down there is incredibly beautiful…it is like a fairy tale world! Now it is coming into autumn here so all the colors are amazing and the mountains are snow capped…so beautiful! I got snowed on one of my last hikes when I was on top of the mountain! My time in Te Anau was most definitely the best in New Zealand. I could stay there forever but unfortunately it was time to move on because the season was ending and it was going to start getting miserable and cold! After leaving Te Anau, I went on a 10 day hike with Macarena and another guy I met from work. Unfortunately, it rained almost the whole 10 days, but it was still beautiful. We started in the mountains and then hiked out some basically untouched beaches. Because it is a national park, there are no roads or anything to get there so the only way to see the area is to take a helicopter in or to walk! If you look on a map of NZ, you can see just how huge Fiordland National Park is. All in all, it was a very long, wet and challenging hike but it was a lot of fun as well. We had a bottle of wine and some chocolate cookies waiting for us in the car, which tasted sooooooo good after 10 days of hiking in the bush! After the hike, I spent a few days just traveling and enjoying some time off before heading to the farm.

After a few weeks on the farm, all I have planned is to meet my Te Anau family in Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ. We will do some hiking and catching up there and after that I am not exactly sure. I am thinking of trying to find work on the ski fields for the winter but haven’t decided if I can stand the cold!

I am still trying to work out exactly what I would like to do after New Zealand, I know that I want to travel around Asia but I have to make it home by November for my friend Ali’s wedding…so we will see how I end up! I am planning on being home for the holidays at least this year before heading off to travel again J

Anyway, love and miss you all…let me know how you are!

A four day hike in the rain is NOT a good time to find out that your rain gear is not actually waterproof...

I know some of you may be shocked but yes I am writing another blog already! I’m sorry that I have not been writing them so often but it is hard when internet access is scarce and I am moving around all the time. Te Anau (town I am living in now) is really tiny (you can walk from end to end in 10 minutes!) and they have a library with free internet so it makes it a lot easier. It also makes it a lot easier to skype so I would love to set up skype “dates” with you! Usually around 3-4 pm would be the best time for me to start a chat. that is 6-7 pm CA time and 7-8 pm CO time…so let me know if you want to chat! After 5 months away I am really starting to feel a little homesick and miss all of you so some friendly faces would be nice!

So, since I last wrote, I have just been trying to get settled in to my new town…it is cool living in such a small town. everyone knows everyone! It is really funny… there are no secrets and no gossip that doesn’t get around! The girls I work with are pretty cool, most of them are travelers like me just trying to earn some money for more travels! One of the friends I made in nelson also lives here, so it is nice to have some people to hang around with when I am not working.

I just got back from doing the Milford Track, which is probably the most famous hike in NZ. It is four days, 3 nights long. Because it is so famous and popular, you have to book it in advance (usually at least 6 months). I got lucky that there was a cancellation and I was able to go. I have been looking forward to doing this hike since I arrived in NZ. Unfortunately, I HUGE storm hit on the second day of the hike and we got over 10 inches of rain! I have never really been in rain that is THAT hard. All of my raingear just got completely soaked through, even the really expensive stuff. So basically I was walking in the rain for 3 days, 6 hours a day! Haha, I felt like I was in the army! Haha, actually the rain gave the hike some unexpected beauty…there were hundreds of little waterfalls running down the sides of the mountains because there was so much rain. It was really incredible, I’ve never seen anything like it! I ruined my camera trying to take pictures of it L At night I stayed in little huts what are out there in the mountains ( I was glad I was not sleeping in a tent in the rain!) so was able to make some friends, and our little group got nicknamed the “blackjack crew” because we played cards every night. It was good having people to hike with just to have someone to talk to and because the track was quite dangerous with all the rain (lots of river and waterfall crossings). The “hut wardens,” who live at and look after the huts we stayed in, even talked about having to airlift us out by helicopter because the storm was so bad! I was a little disappointed there was no helicopter (that would have been so cool!) but it was good to be able to walk the whole way. When I got home, a nice dinner, a hot shower and nap in my warm bed felt like heaven!

Now I am just back to work, trying to decide what my next move is going to be! I was offered a management position at my current job if I agree to stay here though winter, so that is one option…but I think I am going to want to move on! We will see!

Love and miss you all J LETS SKYPE!

the top picture is me at the end of the track...below are some of the amazing waterfalls along the track and the beautiful views that lie behind the clouds! next is me at the top of the pass, getting wet! and one before the rain set in too hard! the sunny pictures are around lake te anau (i live a 1 minute walk from that lake!)

Beaches, mountains and waitressing

Yet again, it has taken me forever to write an update! Im sorry, yet again! So I think that the last time I wrote was right before I went to fiji…so I will pick up there J

Fiji was so amazing! I met my best friend, Jimmy there because he is living in Sydney right now so it was a good place for us to meet up. It was really great to have a familiar face around, especially for x mas and new years and all that good stuff. We went for two weeks and traveled throughout 6 different islands. Most of the places we stayed were little villages were we got to experience a lot of Fijian culture and food. A lot of the islands were very remote (we didn’t see a car for almost 2 weeks!) and exactly how you would imagine with the white sandy beaches, tropical weather and fish, beautiful people and reeeaaaalllly nice sunsets. I spent a lot of time laying on the beach and snorkeling (that’s what we did on Christmas!)…it was really amazing. We did a “feed the sharks” snorkeling trip where we were swimming with 4 reef sharks! Scccaaaarrrryyyy….we did a few hikes, where we would find fresh coconuts, mangos and papaya just on the side of the track! New years was a lot of fun…Fijians have a tradition of dumping buckets of water on each other on new years so of course jimmy and I joined in on the fun I also decided to try scuba diving because ive always wanted to try it…and I fell in LOVE with it! It is soooo amazing…so many tropical colorful fish and coral and life in general under the sea! I decided to get my scuba diver certification so I am now officially a certified scuba diver! I am really looking forward to my next dive but have to wait till I have some more money because it is really expensive! So fiji was wonderful and id like to go back again to see some other parts of it…(there are over 200 fijian islands!) one of my favorite parts about fiji was “Fiji Time,” which is the term that sums up Fijians lack of doing things by the clock. An activity that was supposed to happen at 11:00 would not happen until around 1:00, if at all. A lot of people found it really frustrating but I embraced it because it was a nice feeling to not have to look at a clock….

When I got back to NZ, I went on a four day hike, in the Tongoriro National Park, in the middle of the north island near Lake Taupo. It was AMAZING! For a lot of hikes in the mountains here, they have huts where you can sleep…they are very basic and I didn’t like the idea of them at first because I like hiking to be all natural with nothing man made around, but it stops you from having to carry a tent, which is nice. For those of you Lord of the Rings buffs, on this hike I climbed to the top of the volcano that is called “Mt. Doom” in the movie. I have never seen the movies, but I guess now I should! It was an amazing hike, lots of mountains, lakes volcanos…one of my favorite hikes I have been on in new Zealand J

After the hike, it was time to head to the south island to try to find a job! (Fiji really depleted my funds!) We took a few days to get there so we could make some scenic stops and then headed to a tiny town called Tasman, at the top of the south island so that I could wwoof until I could find some work. This time I wwoofed for a woman named Roslyn, who turned out to be a just a liiiitle crazy but it was still a good experience. She had an amazing farm that overlooked the sea and 4 mountain ranges. She had TONS of veggie gardens and orchards and is fully self-sustained so we ate really well while we were there.

While I was working on the farm, I got a job in Nelson, a town also at the top of the South Island, working at a restaurant and pub called Smugglers. It is supposed to be a bar with a pirate theme so it was kind of funny when I started. It is located about a minute walk from the beach, so that was also awesome. I found a place to stay at a hostel nearby. I ended up working at the hostel making beds and cleaning for 2 hours a day so that I could have free accommodation and then usually worked nights at the pub. It was a really good way to save money because all I had to pay for was food. Nelson ended up being a really great place for me and I stayed for about 5 weeks. The weather was great everyday (nelson gets the most sun in the whole of NZ) and I made some really great friends at work and also with other “long termers” at my hostel. I had 4 roommates who also worked at the hostel with me and we all got to be pretty good friends in the time I was staying there. There are a lot of German people staying there so on the 11^th of Feb we celebrated a “carnival” festival, where we all got dressed up in crazy clothes (the girls dressed as guys and the guys as girls!! See the photo!) The people at work were also really great! There are 3 national parks around nelson, so I got to do a lot of amazing hiking…my favorite was around Nelson Lakes National Park…it was so beautiful there. I even went on my first overnight hike by myself….which was very empowering and awesome. I liked it a lot because a lot of thinking time but its also nice to have someone else there (Jessie J) I also did a lot of biking while in nelson and went on a few long bike rides to see a lot of countryside…my longest was about 35 miles...it was awesome J Nelson was so great…however, I was offered another job in a town called Te Anau, at the bottom of the south island, which I decided to take because I wanted to live in the mountains again and wanted to see the rest of the south island while it was still summer…..so a few days ago, I packed up all my stuff and headed south. I was really sad to leave Nelson but I think that I made the right choice…

I met up with a friend and we drove down the west coast together (where all the mountains are)…it was soooooooooo beautiful! It is amazing how close the mountains are to the sea! There are also 2 glaciers that we got to hike up to, which was awesome. Two days ago, we had camped on the beach so I woke up by the sea, then drove along the mountains and through the forest, hiked to 2 glaciers, and then hiked around a small lake…all in the same day! NZ is so amazing J The southern alps were amazing and I look forward to spending more time doing some hiking there but I was a little rushed to get to Te Anau in time for work. The west coast of the south island is like a dream….ocean and mountains and forest and everything you could ask for. It is absolutely stunning…… ANYWAY now I am in Queenstown, a town located on a lake surrounded by mountains…i saw the clouds light up in the most beautiful way during the sunset tonight! It is so nice here and I think I might try to get a job here for the winter….. I am heading to Te Anau tomorrow to start my new job (waitressing at a fancy restaurant)…wish me luck J

How are all of you? I always ask for updates and Omi is the only one who writes!!! Let me know how you are! I love and miss you all!

I couldn’t get on the internet last night so now I am in Te Anau…it is so beautiful here! The hotel I am working at is RIGHT on the lake and SURROUNDED by beautiful mountains…it is amazing. I have my own room at the hotel with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. The town is really small but has everything I need and beautiful scenery! Apparently there is lots of great hiking around here as well! I start work tonight so hopefully it will be fun and I will make some friends J

So the photos…..the first photos are of where I am working now (distinction hotel) and the lake I live on in Te anau, then there are the photos of the west coast trip, the hiking I have been doing, the bar I worked at in nelson, the customhouse is the hostel I stayed at in nelson, the funny picture is the carnival party, the road is the road that I walked, biked ran or hitchhiked along every day while in nelson, and the last photos are of fiji….