Magnetic Island

Our trip to Magnetic Island was pretty tiring but once we got there it was what we'd been looking for.  We had to take a bus from Cairns at midnight and arrived in Townsville a 5am.  We took the 7:45am ferry to Magnetic Island, dropped off our stuff at the hostel, and since we couldn't check in yet we went to the picturesque beach down the road to close our eyes.

We didn't do much the first day but the next morning we rented a 4 wheel drive vehicle to drive around the island which is only about 6km from one side of the island to the other.  We needed a 4x4 because most rental vehicles won't let you go off the main road (even if it's paved) if you don't have a 4x4 for insurance reasons. First we stopped at a beach to snorkel where I wore my stinger suit for the first and only time. After snorkeling we went for a hike to check out the forts that were used for war times back in the day.  It was also a hike where you are most likely to see wild Koalas.  We didn't see any but the hike was was really nice and had a beautiful view. When we got back to our car we were so hot and thirsty and there happened to be a woman that set up here smoothie station while we were on the hike... yummmmm.

Next we went to feed wild wallabee's (mini kangaroos) carrots.  They were sooo cute and would eat right out of your hand. By this point the sun was beginning to set so we drove to the west side of the island and watched a beautiful sunset. We're not sure what the internet situation will be over there so if you don't hear from us in the next week, our phones will be back on when we land in LAX on the 24th at 1pm.

We arrived in Sydney late last night and stayed there for our flight this morning... besides sleeping in a baby changing room we're ready for our resort in Tonga! We'll be at the Reef Resort on one of the Vava'u islands (Kapa).

Back from the reef

We're back from an amazing adventure on the great barrier reef. We are exhausted but had such a wonderful time. I highly recommend doing this for 2 nights. 1 night isn't really enough and 3 nights would be too much.

We had to wake up for the 7:45am shuttle to take us to the boat station. We didn't have an alarm clock and by the time we realized the room we were staying in didn't have one, it was too late to buy one. We walked all around Cairns trying to find a place that was open but nothing. On our way back to the hostel it started to downpour. We ran as fast as we could but we were still drenched from head to toe. We both love the rain so it was pretty fun.

We ended up writing a note and sticking it on the door of the office asking them to wake us up when they open at 7am. We crossed our fingers and hoped it'd work. It was our last resort. We also hadn't been sleeping in much past 7:30 or 8 so we weren't too worried. We ended up waking up at 6am! wooohoooo!!! go us :)

We got on the shuttle with all our bags and hit the road to the office before being transferred to our first boat. We did 2 dives on the first boat which was filled with people on day tours as well as live aboard customers. 2 girls ended up getting sea sick while we were on the first boat and wanted a helicopter to come pick them up when the captain wouldn't turn the boat around (it's a 90 minute boat ride back). He called the heli office and it was going to cost $1180 to pick them up. I guess it was too much (no kidding) so they stayed on board.

Our first 2 dives went pretty quickly because we were so excited I think we used our air faster. We didn't really see anything big until we transferred to the other boat. We did 12 dives total, 4 on day 1, 5 on day 2, and 3 today. We did 2 night dives which were really cool. The night dive we did last night had a TON of sharks. I guess they have learned to use the boat's lights to hunt for fish. I got an awesome video just before we went in of 3 or 4 people in the water with 3-5 sharks swimming around and then a pipe fish comes flying out of the water trying to get away from the sharks and all the sharks go swimming after it.

What we saw:

Sharks- Tons of them
Nemo - :)
Turtles- Sooooo peaceful
Flounder
Clams- SO BIG ("as big as a truck tire"-Cam)
Sting Rays
Lobsters
Tons of different fish
an Octopus

There were a lot of other things we saw but I can't think of them all right now. We weren't really on the boat that much because we were in the water most of the time. Our first dive was at 6am and our last dive was at 7pm. We would wake up and dive, eat breakfast, go for 2 dives before lunch, eat lunch, go for another dive, eat dinner, go for another dive, then eat dessert. By this time everyone was asleep by 9:30-10pm to wake up again at 5:50am.

We're killing time right now until our bus at midnight back to Townsville. Our bus arrives in Townsville at around 5:30am and we'll head to Magnetic Island at that point for 2 days. We're not quite sure what we'll be doing there yet, mainly relaxing, snorkeling, and exploring. I think we're going to meet up with some people we met on the boat tonght for dinner.

Scuba Diving Trip

We're off to the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow! We'll be out on a boat for 2 nights and 3 days. We just rented an underwater digital camera to take pictures and videos so we'll be able to upload these pics. YAY!!!!

You'll hear from us when we return from the boat.

Feeling a bit refreshed

Finallyyyyy... The rain has stopped today which is a relief. Yesterday we found a cool beach on our way back to Cairns called Ellis Beach. It was raining a little but the waves looked pretty steady and they were going perfectly inside the stinger nets that were set up by the life guard station. We spent about 45 mins body surfing!!! sooooo fun. After that we were feeling refreshed and happy we finally found a place we could go.

That night we went to the parking lot where the lagoon is in Cairns and cooked our 4th night of pasta. There happened to be a concert going on in the park right next to the lot. Since the rain was on and off we decided to go see the Michael Jackson movie to pass time until parking was free in town. We were planning on parking somewhere in town and sleeping but I guess it's not ok to do that. We woke up at 12:30am to a security officer knocking on our windows, shining his light in the van, and shaking the van to wake us up. He said you're not allowed to sleep in Car Parks in the city of Cairns and they charge $1500 on the spot! So we got up and drove about 30 minutes back to Ellis beach and parked just outside the Cairns boundary.

This morning we woke up to the sound of the waves and ate our breakfast on the beach before we laid out. We drove into town and went to the lagoon which is awesome (I think I wrote about it earlier). We're inside checking up on emails during high sun then off to see if we can extend our diving trip to 4 days 3 nights... wooohoooo!!!! soooo excited!!!

Debbie Downer

We're having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I think we'll move to Australia... Or not :)


I hate to be Debbie Downer on this post but we're a little disappointed with the way this part of our trip is going. When we decided to come to Australia our vision was to rent a camper van, drive up the coast and stop to snorkel, surf, and sign up for the occasional scuba diving trip. We're near the Great Barrier Reef, we thought it'd be easy.

We arrived in Townsville on the 3rd and had to be in Cairns by the 5th to pick up our camper van. It's only a 2 hour drive. While we were there we had a great time with some locals and it happened to be the day of the Melbourne Cup so everyone closed down their shops to watch the race. We ended up finding an information center and found out a bunch of live aboard boats were having last minute scuba diving trips to the outer barrier reef so we signed up for a 3 day 2 night trip. It would end up shortening our driving and exploring time but decided it would be ok, and it is.

We took 2 days to get up to Cairns and on our way up we stopped at a couple of places people told us to check out. Nothing special but kind of neat. We slept in the car the first night and stopped at a Mango Grove the next morning for breakfast, lunch, and mango icecream (sooooooo goooood). I got crepes with mango jelly for breakfast (yummmmmmmm). As we continued our drive we found out we couldn't just get out of the car and swim at any beach because the northern part of Australia has Stingers. They are a lot like Jellyfish but smaller and have a worse sting. It's really hard to see them because they are really small and their tentacles are really long. The only way to be 95% sure you won't get stung is to swim in an enclosed area that has "stinger nets"... or where a really good looking stinger suit.

We finally got to Cairns and slept in the car again. We were excited to get our camper van the next day and decided to sleep in the car one more night to save some cash. We saw a ton of Kangaroos as we were trying to find a place to park, it was awesome!

The next morning we found a place called the lagoon which was a public pool that was basically on the beach and it had public showers. We hadn't showered in 2 or 3 days so that was really nice... This is where our trip really starts to go down hill...

We went to drop off our rental car before picking up our Camper van since our car was due before we could pick up our van. We drove to the airport and realized the camper van company was not located on the airport property even though they told us it was on or near... I guess "near" means a $15 cab ride. $15 is a lot of money when you're traveling for 7 weeks and the US dollar is plummeting.

When we called the company to see if they had a shuttle bus to bring us to their place, they were extremely rude. This company is called Backpackers Camper Vans... They also do Britz and Maui camper vans. We finally arrived at our rental place and they were rude to us upon arrival. They seemed annoyed we were there and started adding on charges after charges making the quoted price go from $55/day up to $80/day. When we decided to not take the insurance, they didn't just preauthorize my card for a damage bond (which is what every other rental company has done this trip), they charged my card $2900! With the 3% exchange fee that's an extra $87 fee that I have to pay for something I didn't even buy or damage... The woman was not helpful at all and it ended up taking us 2 or 3 hours to figure the whole thing out.

I couldn't call my credit card company so I ran about a mile down the road to get a calling card to call my mom so she could call my credit card company. It was kind of funny, she had me on one ear and the credit card company on the other trying to translate the problem haha. At this point we don't even want the stupid camper van anymore but we can't cancel it or we'll still get charged for the whole time we reserved it.

We finally got it figured out. So now, we're pissed off driving a run down van that smells bad, is dirty, and we have to eat and sleep in. We decide to go grocery shopping and get on the road. We end up driving for only about 45 minutes because by this time it's dark out and we need to find a place to sleep as well as make dinner. It was pretty funny making our dinner and we were laughing the whole time because it was absolutely ridiculous. We have some pictures.

The next morning we started our drive up to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation. We found a gorge in Mossiman which was awesome. It was raining the whole time but we were in a rain forest so it kind of came with the territory. Things were starting to look better. We were starting to get bummed out though because we had been in Australia for 8 days and the only time we had been in the ocean was learning to scuba dive. We continued up to Cape Trib and when we got there it was beautiful. We found a place to park which was right next to the beach... Perfect!... we got out to go run in the water. I was prepared to wear my stinger suit (yes, I bought one)... We stop at a sign that says "these waters are filled with Crocs, do not swim!" AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH... That entire area was filled with Crocs and stingers. It was a beautiful area that we couldn't really appreciate because we couldn't pay the 100's of dollars to go on the tours and we weren't allowed to go on unpaved roads with our van to get to the places these tours go. We found a different site to sleep and stayed there.

The next morning we tried going to a couple of places and walks to check out the place but by this time we were over it. We felt like we were homeless and we just wanted a place to swim. We drove back to Port Douglas and found a camping ground that had a pool. It was finally a place we could swim even though it wasn't the ocean.


At this point we're just really disappointed because we had very simple expectations and none of them are being met (swimming in the ocean, snorkeling, scuba diving, surfing). We're tired, spending money we don't want to be spending, and trying to pass time until our diving trip in 3 days....... We're in Australia and we're trying to PASS time!! ahhhhhhh... Hopefully the next post will be more upbeat but I guess we're entitled to 1 meltdown over a 7 week period.

Time Change

With the recent time change from NZ to Australia as well as day light savings in the US, here is the updated time difference:

In Australia it is currently November 2 at 12:30pm
In NYC it is currently November 1 at 8:30pm

Scuba Diving

We're certified to scuba dive!

We were a little concerned about Cam being able to get his certification due to asthma because in order to do your certification you need to get a medical in Australia. On Friday, the day before we started our in water class, we went to a dr. across the street from our hostel. They didn't have any appointments that day but were able to fit us in at 12:15pm. When we started looking over the stuff they were going to fill out Cam started getting really nervous because he had never been able to pass the breathing tests before. We figured worrying about it wasn't going to help so we went to the hostel drank some tea and he had his first cup of coffee ever (supposedly caffeine helps open the airways to the lungs). Then he went in the bathroom and turned on the hot water to steam up the bathroom. We weren't going to pay $80 for him to fail the test, plus the money we'd lose if he wasn't able to take the course we'd already paid for... no pressure... He passed which was such a relief!

After the appointment we decided to check out Sydney since there wasn't going to be much time for that. We walked through the botanical gardens to the Opera House which is so beautiful, ate our lunch on the steps, then we took a ferry to Darling harbor and walked back to the hostel. Since the ferry was a form of public transportation it was only $5 each instead of a tour which would have been around $20-$30 each.

Our scuba diving class started on Saturday morning at 8am. We woke up at 6:15 to get our stuff together and make it to the 7:00am train. We did our classes with Abyss Diving Center and they picked us up at the station. It took about an hour to get our paperwork together and take our review test (both of us got 100% by the way), then we were off to the pool to learn how to use all the equipment. We were in the pool from 10:30am-2:30pm learning how to do everything from different entries into the water whether your entering from the shore or a boat, to scenarios such as running out of air or how to get water out of your mask when your under water. Then we had lunch and drove to the ocean for 1 ocean dive. It was pretty rough but we got to feel what it was like to be in the ocean.

The next day we were at the ocean the whole day for 3 dives. The first dive was showing our instructor most of the skills we learned in the pool and a little exploring, whereas the 2nd and 3rd dives were very little skills and mostly exploring. On our 2nd dive we saw a Blue Groper (not a grouper) which was about 3 feet long and reminded me of a puppy dog. They follow you everywhere and are so interested in what you're doing. When our instructor would point things out like starfish or moray eels, the blue groper would put it's nose right where her finger was to see what she was pointing at. On our 3rd dive we saw a shark (a small non-aggressive type), a bull ray (it was HUGE), a moray eel, some nudibranch, a huge starfish, and a bunch of smaller fish. It was AWESOME! After that we were certified. Now we're planning on going up north to find a 3 day diving trip on the Great Barrier Reef.

We leave tomorrow for Townsville. Our flight leaves at 7:10am on Jetstar. We will drive up to Carins and rent a camper van to drive around for 5 or 6 days.

Off to the beach today!

AUSTRALIA!

We made it to Sydney!

First of all I have to say I LOVE Air New Zealand. The seats are awesome, you get your own TV with a selection of over 30 movies to choose from where you can pause, FF, or rewind, there are games, and music (you can make your own playlist), and there's free beer and wine. Best flights ever so far.

So we made it. Finally! We arrived at 3pm and didn't get to our hostel until 8pm. We didn't know where we were staying so we had to find a place that was in the city but on the same train line as our scuba diving center. We finally found one called The Sugar Shack for $70/night (we'll be here for 4 more days). It's not too shabby and it's right in Kings Cross. We went to bed at around 10:30pm and were woken up by the night club that happens to be right below us at around 2am... Looks like it's the weekend.

We woke up this morning not knowing what time it was and since there is free breakfast at our hostel from 8:30am-9:30am we thought we missed it. No one was downstairs so I went out on the balcony and asked someone below what time it was... 6:45am... haha oops!

The final part of our Scuba Diving course is 2 days of diving in the pool and ocean which starts tomorrow. Our plan today is to get our medicals done for scuba diving, print out some forms, then walk around the city. We met a kid at breakfast from CA that will probably come with us around the city.

Another set of pics from NZ

Notice the sheep in the background?

Sheep on golf course + beer = NZ golf

trying to get the ball on the green without getting shocked by the electric fence
Playing golf with the sheep.

In the morning at the campsite. Getting ready to play golf with the sheep.

Cozy free bed.

Cam brushing his teeth in our parking lot bathroom... Our sleeping bags are all set up in the car.

Milford Sound

More Pics

These are backwards. Start from bottom to go in order.




Kayaking the Milford Sound.
Getting ready to Kayak. We were giving these really hot stripped leggings.

around 7:30am in Milford Sound. An hour before we start Kayaking.

Driving to Milford Sound. Sunset.

Picking up our Ford Focus at the airport.

Jet boat!

About to take off in the Jetboat.

Queenstown

We hiked to the top of the Gondola in Queenstown.

Our view from town in Kaikoura.

There were a ton of fur seals in Kaikoura.

Kayaking in Kaikoura.

Ocean, green pastures, and snowy mountains in one place = beautiful

Kayaking in Kaikoura... AWESOME!
Our own apt. in Kaikoura... livin large before the rental car.

While waiting for the train we were able to get a game of mini golf in. Cam is serious about his t-off
Leaving the YHA... On our to take the train from Picton to Kaikoura.
YHA Hostel in Picton. We had our own house!
Cute pic from the ferry... not a very sunny day though.

My artistic shot of Cam. He can use it when he becomes a famous photographer :)

the ferry from Wellington to Picton.

About 30 km from Lake Ferry (that's the name of the town) with Rob and Maria

Feeding Sammy and Milly, 2 lambs that lost their mama's at Maria's parent's farm in Masterton.

A beautiful view on the car ride to Napier

Lake Taupo. Active volcano in the background. From left to right: Rob, Maria, Diana, Cam.

Huka Falls near Taupo. Until the mid 50's it was used to generate electricity for a hotel. A couple we met there hadn't been to the falls since the early 50's.

post dive... we're skydivers!

Preparing to jump out of a plane at 1200ft. Signing his life away... Literally. Maria still didn't think she was going at this point.

We're still going

Helloooooo. A lot has happened in the last couple of days. I'll start when we left Kaikoura. We took a 2 1/2 hour bus ride to Christchurch to catch a bus the next day to Queenstown aka Aspen's sister city. The bus to Queenstown was a brutal 8 1/2 hour ride. We made a bunch of stops with a nice lunch break on Lake Tekapo (no idea if I spelled it right). Before we went to Queenstown we wanted to do some of the adventure activities like bungy jumping or paragliding but once we saw the prices we decided it wasn't really worth $250 to bungy jump when we already went skidiving. Instead we stayed 1 night and went for a really great hike in the morning to the top of the Gondola and Jet boating which is a less expensive activity. It was really cool because it brings you through the canyon at full speed and then you do a 360 turn. Sooooo fun.

When we were done we were prepared to rent a Jucy camper van which we would live in and drive to different car parks to stay the night. It's a really popular way to travel around New Zealand. When we got to the airport, every single van (even from different companies) were taken. We ended up renting a Ford focus which was the cheapest one we could get for $30/day (insurance included). Cam was first at driving on the other side of the road. He did really well and only started driving on the right side of the road once by accident :)

Milford Sound

Our next stop was The Milford Sound. We woke up at 7:00am to prepare for our day of kayaking around the sound. It was AWESOME! We were with a pretty fit group so we kayaked 12 kilometers to this waterfall that is just over 150 meters. Our guide had only gone that far once in 7 years with a group. We got to go right up to the waterfall. The power behind it was so strong it was a little hard to breath.

The other couple that was in our kayaking group was around our age and also from Colorado. We got along really well and exchanged email addresses. They're also going to Australia around the same time we are so we might meet up with them.

Once we were done kayaking we had to discuss where we were going to go next. We had planned on driving 8 hours to see the Fox glaciers but we were kind of done driving long distances so we decided to go to the most southern part of the island with no schedule. We hoped in the car and started to drive.

THE BIG BIRD

As we were driving out of Milford Sound Cam wanted to take a picture so I pulled into a lookout. Before Cam got out of the car he looked at me kind of freaked out and said "ummm Diana, there's a really big bird outside the car that's starring at me and it looks pissed." I couldn't see it so I took my seat belt off and leaned over. Cam rolled down the window a little bit so I could stick my head out the window to check it out and just as I did it flew up and tried to get in the car!! We screamed and rolled up the window so it landed on the mirror before it could get in the car. We were laughing hysterically because it was so big and we had no idea what kind of bird it was. It looked like a parrot but we were confused because we weren't really in parrot territory. It started walking on the roof and to the drivers side trying to get in. I rolled my window down a crack and it kept putting it's beak in the window to say hello and stare at us. I stuck a pen out the window to see if it was aggressive and it played with it as if it was a pet so we thought it was someone's pet parrot that got out. Finally I got out of the car and it followed me everywhere. I flagged a car down to see if they had a phone we could call to see if it was someone's pet... Looks like it was a Kea. A Kea is a really smart, social, and interested bird. I guess we're supposed to look out for them because they steal people's passports and wallets as a game. It was time to hit the road again and say goodbye to the Kea but it wouldn't get off our car. I was driving at 50 km/h and it was still on the roof! It stayed on for about 5 mins before it flew away... Don't worry, we have pictures and videos to show when we get back.

Car Camping
We stopped in Te Anau for dinner and on our way out we ran into our friends that we went kayaking with. We told eachother our plans and got back on the road. We drove all the way to Invercargill which is around where you take the ferry to a little island called Stewart Island. By this point it was around 11pm and we were tired. $30/night each for housing was starting to get pretty expensive and we really didn't want to spend $60 when we were only going to stay for a couple hours. We made the decision to park our car, fold down the seats, get out the sleeping bags (THANK YOU PAUL!), and sleep in the car. It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds. I guess we were parked in to small apartment complex parking lot (about 4 apartments). We woke up to a couple looking in our window saying "Are there people in there? I think those are feet" the husband said "no dear there aren't people in there and those aren't feet." Our faces were hidden by the trunk cover :) We thought that was a good sign to get up and go.

The South

We got up and started driving, not really knowing where we were going but ended up in Owaka which is where the sea lions and yellow eyed penguins live. We found a nice camp ground that cost $11/person to park there. We could use the kitchen, bathrooms, and living room to hang out before we went to sleep in our car again. It happened to be New Zealand's labor day weekend so there were a lot of local families on long weekend there which mad it really fun. There was a group of 27 Kiwi's staying there that wanted us to join there group. The group was mainly in the 50-70 year range with only a small group of 30 year olds. Towards the end of the night they asked us what our plans were the next day. Since we didn't really have any they invited us to go farm golfing which is basically a pasture of sheep that a farmer has partially turned into a golf course. There are still sheep on the course munching away and there are electric fences around the green's so the sheep can't get to them. It was pretty funny and fun. We'd like to see Tiger play on it.

By the time we got back it was a little too late for us to go anywhere so we decided to stay another night. Someone mentioned there were extra pillows in the laundry room that we should use as padding in our car since we'd been using clothes to lie on. Last night was a lot more comfortable.

Back to Queenstown
It is a rainy day in NZ today so we decided to come back to Queenstown a day early and get some internet stuff done. We're going to sleep in the car one more night and then most likely stay in the YHA tomorrow night. We head out on the 28th (27th for the states) to Auckland and then Sydney the next day. We're going to finish our online scuba diving certification work today and then do our actual dives with the instructors the first weekend in Sydney.

Trying to figure out how to post pictures at this computer.

Pictures

It's a rainy day in Kaikoura and we're waiting for our bus. Found a place to upload pics. These aren't in any order.

Rotorua Luge- Cam was a speed demon. Front: Rob and Cam... Back: Maria and Diana

Rotorua- Preparing to go down the luge

Rotorua- Our 2nd motel (nice matching shirts Rob and Maria)

Taupo- Cool restaurant called L'arte. Cam sitting on a couch made of ceramic pieces

Rotorua- Dinner with the Maori's

Auckland- Only a few hours in NZ. Laying on the glass at the top of the sky tower.

Sunrise from airplane. 1 hour left.

LAX- about to take off!

Auckland- Skytower

Auckland- Sky tower

Wellington-Picton-Kaikoura

So it's been a little while since we've sent an update. Internet has been pretty expensive lately ($1 for 10 minutes) so it's been hard to do everything in 10 minutes...

Wellington- We left Masterton the other day and arrived in Wellington which is an adorable city. Definitely our favorite after Taupo so far. Since it was our last night with Rob and Maria we decided to go out on the town for a beer or 2. After eating at an Italian place for dinner we ended up at a pub where a local band was about to start playing. They were really good and played a lot of cover songs of classic as well as new songs. A couple people started dancing on the dance floor, but then these 2 girls who didn't know each other started doing ballet to the music. No joke... it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen and they didn't know each other. So the band even made a comment about it, something like "anyone know any ballet songs we can play?" So the band kept playing and they made another comment about the girls dancing. It became awkward because no one wanted to dance because they felt bad if they got in the way of these girls twirling and kicking their legs out. People around were looking at each other saying "what is going on?" I decided I'd take things into my own hands to make it not so awkward so I gave my beer to Cam, looked at him, Rob, and Maria and said "watch this." I ran out on the dance floor and did my own interpretive dancing haha... twirls, leg kicks, foot shuffles... all around the dance floor hahaha (mom, just picture me and Molly dancing in the kitchen). Everyone starting laughing and cheering (even the band) and then I exited. It was pretty funny.

Picton- The next day we took the ferry from Wellington to Picton. It was really cold and rainy but just clear enough to see the view of the Queen Charlotte Sound as we arrived in Picton. When we arrived we walked around to a few places to check out prices. First we went to Atlantis, a hostel that looked like a run down college dorm. It was really gross so we moved on. We ended up at the YHA where we paid $58 for the night and ended up getting our own house that was separate from the main dorm.

We went out to dinner and bought a few things to make breakfast. We decided to go back to the main part of the hostel where a few people were hanging out in the lounge and play a round of cards (we've been playing A LOT of cards). We met a couple that had just been through the whole south island so we exchanged places to stay and go, a German that was traveling on his own for a couple months and hitch hiking the whole way. We also met a man from Malta who we had seen on the ferry and our bus. We talked to him for a few minutes and he told us he recognized me because he saw me do my interpretive dancing at the bar the night before hahaha!! oops!

Kaikoura-

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and went to the train station where we would go to Kaikoura. We dropped our bags off and went across the street to play a round of mini golf to pass the time until we had to leave. We boarded the train were on our way. It was a beautiful train ride and only took about 2 hours. When we got there we walked into town, which was only about 300 meters away. We looked at the first place which was nice but decided to check out the hostel that the couple we met stayed at called The Albatross. It seemed like a far walk since we had our heavy bags but it was only about a 1/4-1/2 mile away. We showed up and all they had was a 2 bedroom apartment for $150/night. They told us they'd give it to us for $75/night since we were staying more than 1 night but there would be a chance we'd get another couple in the other room. After discussing it for about 20 minutes we decided to stay. We were able to get a room for 2 nights and food for 2 days for $115 each. We won't be going out to dinner which is great.

Today we are going to go swim with the dolphins and hike around the peninsula. Tomorrow we're going to Kayak before our bus to Queenstown.

Where we are now- Masterton

We are currently in Masterton, NZ at Maria's parent's farm. We went to Napier the other day for a night and checked out a wine vineyard but didn't do the tour because we had missed the early one and there wasn't another one for a while. Cam went swimming in the ocean, while Rob, Maria, and I stood on the beach bundled up in our jackets and sweaters.

We arrived in Masterton yesterday and got to feed 2 lambs that lost their mothers. Maria's parents have 5000-6000 sheep and about 1000 acres of land. It's beautiful here. Jim, Maria's dad told us we would wake up to the birds, however, I don't think he thought we'd wake up to a bird smacking into the window for 3 hours. We thought the bird was trying to get in so we closed the shades but it continued to smash it's body into the window... so weird. We hope he gave himself a big enough headache to not do it tomorrow morning. ;)

We drove to Ngawi and Lake Ferry today to see the Seal colonies (the babies were sooooo cute). We stayed in Lake Ferry for Fish and Chips and returned home in time for tea and biscuits :)

New Zealand is absolutely beautiful. There are so many sheep and the land is so green. A few things we've noticed:

-we don't have to tip at restaurants
-we have to drive on the other side of the road (we haven't had to do it ourselves YET)
-the people are awesome
-our verbiage is different... i.e toilet=bathroom, entree=appetizer, bill=check
-our dollar is stronger which is GREAT

Not sure what we're doing tomorrow but we'll be in Wellington on Friday (Thursday for you guys) then off to the South Island on Saturday (Friday for you).

Skydiving in TAUPO!!!!

Yeah... we did it..... We went SKYDIVING IN TAUPO!!!!!!!!!!

"We're on Taupo the world"- Cam

It was probably one of the coolest things we've ever done. Ok, I know we said that about the glow worms but we can definitely check this off our list. After much coaxing, we were able to get Rob and Maria (who's scared of heights) to do it with us.

Check out our pics!


Cam was first... Check out the Stache...

Bye Cam!!

Look at the view!!!

WOW!

My turn... I love u mum!





Worth every penny...