Able Tasman Oct 3-5

Hello all! I know this is crazy two posts in one day, look at me go! Maybe one day I'll be caught up haha. So on this fine few days the bus traveled to Able Tasman National Park. I would have to say it was one of my favorite stops. When our little family got on the bus it was completely full so I had to sit up front with the driver. It was quite fun since you could see absolutely everything. And then I got to take the microphone and my friends wanted to give them a tour of New Zealand but instead I gave them a tour of the bus. Meaning I got to ask where were all the couples from on the bus and mostly just talked to them haha! 

Of course there were some stops along the way to the park and the first was a quick wine tasting.  The small room was really pretty! We met another two girls, both Germans, on the bus and nick named them Queenie and Princess. 

The next stop was at this beautiful glacier river. The water was so clear and blue, the picture doesn't even give it justice.

But then Marissa and James peer pressured each other to jump into the river. It was hysterical to see and they told us that in the water they could barely swim it was so cold. 

We then got to the hostel, which was little huts with bunk beds in each of them. It was sort of like camping the way it was set up, especially the outdoor kitchen!

As you can see it was no 5 star bunk bed, Lucy is maybe 5 ft tall and couldn't even sit up! They were pretty comfortable though! That night we all enjoyed a fire and some good laughs.

The next day we didn't have to travel so we got to enjoy the park.  Lucy, Marissa, Queenie, Princess, and I took a water taxi to a cove to then hike back.  On the way the skipper showed us the Split Apple Rock.  Gravity in the end is what pulled this giant rock apart!

Here we got dropped off, on this perfect golden beach with no one on it. It was pretty tempting to just spend the day on the beach!

From left to right: Queenie, Princess, Marissa, and me! 

This is the hike that we did and Queenie posing for us! The whole park was so beautiful from small beaches to big forests.

We hiked over to these cool pools.  Again the water was so clear and just amazing. A lot of people were just laying out there!

We then made a stop on a quiet beach for lunch. It felt like summer with the waves crashing and sand everywhere. I got to walk along the beach and find some little caves that looked like it was a home for birds. 

Since you haven't seen me in a while here I am! 

As we were hiking along, Marissa and I got talking and ended up staying back from the other, taking an extra hour or so, and stoping at waterfalls and beaches.  The whole park is just a beautiful place, there is no other way to describe it.  That night we enjoyed a fire again and roasted some marshmallows! No s'mores but Marissa and I described them to the others since apparently they don't make them in other parts of the world!

Miss and love you all,

Michele

Picton Oct 2-3

Hello all! The second day of the adventure was spent in Picton, a small town created for the ferry from the north island to the south. 

To begin, at one of the stops during the drive I got to meet my first alpaca...CUTEST ANIMAL EVER!!!

After a pretty quick drive we arrived to find a beautiful little town with a great view of the water and some mountains. Most of the bus got off here and took the ferry up to the north island but five of us stayed behind. A family of 5 we definitely became!

Some nice Spring flowers reminded me of home.

Here is part of our family! From left to right: eek..I forgot the first woman's name (it' ok we were only together a day), Marissa, Lucy, James, me, and Jen (who also left for the north). 

After saying bye to some friends Hannah, James, Marissa, Lucy, and I walked around the town and found a goofy shop we got to fool around in.

The hostel we stayed in was one of my favorites.  It was called the Villa and was just really cute! There was a hot tub we got to enjoy, colorful rooms, free bikes, and free apple crumble!

We decided to take the bikes out, which may have been a bad idea.  After about 30 seconds my chain fell off and all the bikes were creaking. But on the plus side we got to wear fantastic helmets! We biked for a little bit then came to a small hill and we all struggled up it, so we decided to turn around and put them away!

A family dinner was a must! With great team work we made pasta and garlic bread.  I would have to say one of the funniest parts of the dinner was when we were shopping we each bought some wine or beer.  And I was the youngest by a few years (me being 20 and everyone else being upwards of 25) had to buy the alcohol since I was the only one with my passport..I can't even buy alcohol in the States!  After dinner we relaxed in the hot tub and called it a night. 

Hope everyone is staying safe in Hurricane Sandy back home and in Germany you guys are enjoying the snow, it's 70 degrees here and lots of sun! Sorry to rub it in haha. 

Miss and love you all,

Michele

Kiakora Oct 1-2

Hello all! I am finally, slowly starting to post about my south island trip. It all started early early on Oct 1, right after the Bay of Islands.  As in I didn't go to bed when I got home from that trip, packed a little more, then left for the airport- one crazy day!  I arrived in Christchurch and hung out for about an hour and a half until the bus left.  I went on the Stray bus, which was the best decision ever.  Each afternoon the bus stops at some place where there is a hostel and a little something to do. Mostly I just would walk around and hang out with friends, well you will see what I did!  The first stop we had was Kiakora, which is known for its sea life. A lot of people go whale watching or swim with dolphins. 

While on the bus there was this awesome view of the ocean and then I learned that the two colors of the sea (light blue and dark blue) are where to two tectonic plates meet, pretty crazy.

We got to the hostel and it was a little unique.  It was sort of old, French I guess. But here was the common room, where there were tons of tapes! And Mom and Dad I thought you would like the boat on the ceiling (there were lots of things hanging on the ceilings or walls, which reminded me of the skis on our wall).  

This was the stair case up to the rooms, it was neat because it was a giant house.

I had been talking to a few people on the bus so we all decided to go on a walk along the beach.  There was a boy from Whales (can't remember his name), Franz from Germany (you really can't travel anywhere without meeting a German!), Marissa from Washington, and Lucy from the UK.  This is the beautiful view of the rock beach and snow capped mountains. Seeing all the snow made me want to be back in a New England winter but then I realized that would mean I would have to shovel so decided against the wish haha. 

Just another beautiful view!

Eventually, someone in the group told us there was a seal colony up the road and even though it was a long walk we decided to go for it.  All the seals were having their afternoon nap...in the grass. It seemed a bit weird but was really cute.

This one is just so comfortable with life.

On our walk back we saw a mama duck and all her ducklings crossing through sheep fields.  Make way for ducklings New Zealand style!

After eating some free soup we went to the grocery store and found this amazing creation. The little fish and chip shop was selling "chocolate explosions" and so we just had to get some! It's a raspberry jelly donut deep fried then chocolate injected into the middle...pure sugar rush.

We then decided to watch the sunset on the beach, kinda missed seeing it on the beach but it was still such a pretty view.

Once the sunset had mostly faded Marissa and I wanted to sit on the beach and relax for a little while.  Since it was a rock beach the waves crashing on the stones was just unforgettable, I had never heard something like that before.  It sounded almost like the fireworks that have that crackle sound after. After a while we went back in and hung out with a bunch of people from the bus. I then got nick named King after a small moment of stupidity.  Basically, I was really tired and a bunch of people had explained a game called Ring of Fire and I call it Kings so after a while I said has anyone tried playing Kings. People thought it would be a new game but when I explained it it was exactly the same, I hadn't realized haha. But I would say it's a pretty awesome nick name to have!

The next morning the bus stopped at a baby seal colony, where I got to meet some pretty cute seals!

It was a beautiful waterfall with maybe 30 baby seals all swimming and playing!

This is just an awesome picture of Kiakora I found and thought I would share with you!

That was the first night on the Stray bus where I got to meet new friends and see some pretty cool stuff. I'll try to keep updating later in the weekend, just email me if I dont! I'm going away for part of the weekend, I'll keep it a surprise until I can blog about it! Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying all their apples from apple picking and fresh apple pies and pumpkin carving...I'm not jealous at all...Just kidding I miss the fall so much haha

Love,

Michele

Bay of Islands Sept 28-30

Hello All! I have been quite busy over the last two and a half weeks with all the adventures I could possibly imagine in New Zealand.  To kick off my break I went to the Bay of Island with about 25 other study abroad students. Bay of Islands is up north about 3 hours from Auckland and as you can imagine from the name is really great when it is sunny but right from the start we had lots of rain.  We made the best of it of course!

I got bored in the car so I french braided everyone's hair in the car!

Since we had extra time with the rain we stopped at some famous bathrooms. You may think it's a bit odd that we stopped in a tiny town just for the bathrooms but they are so awesome!! The whole place was mosaics.

All sorts of tiles were used, even old glass bottles!

Since there were so many friends staying together we decided to rent two houses in town.  Here you can see the family room and kitchen of the house I was in. They were both extremely nice and was fun to be able to relax on a couch and invite friends over for a real bbq! 

Well I sorta signed up for a sky dive, ahh! Originally we signed up for Friday afternoon but because of the rain we couldn't go and then Saturday morning got a phone call that we might be able to do it. Since there were 18 of us wanting to sky dive we were suppose to go in groups of 6 and luckily I got to go in the first group. When we got there they told us to fill out the forms saying we were okay with possible death and other terrifying things like that then were sent off and were told that we would get a phone call when we could jump. 

So the six of us headed to the chocolate factory and drooled over the expensive yummy chocolate!

We then went to the Rainbow Falls and actually got to see a rainbow! It was a huge beautiful waterfall with a really quick nice walk. After this we thought it looked sunny enough so headed over to the airport. We proceeded to wait for probably 4 or 5 hours and watch other people jump but when it got to our turn it became really cloudy. Sadly, we didn't get to jump but scheduled to do it after our sailing trip Sunday night. 

Sunday we got up early and went out on a huge sailboat, it was mostly just the 25 study abroad students which made it quite fun. These are just some of the island we got to see.

This is our huge sailboat just as the sun finally came out! Luckily it was early enough in the day that it got sunny so we got to enjoy a relaxing day.

We stopped on one of the islands and hiked up to the top. We hiked barefoot so got nice and muddy, I loved it. The view at the top was just perfect, don't you agree?!

After swimming around for a while we went back to the boat to jump off the front of it. (We thought we would practice jumping for our sky dive haha). As we got back into town there was a call from the sky dive place telling us to run over quick since it's a beautiful day. So I went in a bathing suit and had to borrow sneakers!

But...Here it is the crazy sky dive!! I did a 16,000 ft sky dive, it took about 30 min to get up that high but the view was just amazing. 

After I think 12,000 ft we had to put on oxygen masks!

Here I am just about to go out! As my legs flew out the door I became totally terrified and then we quickly were falling. I screamed at the top of my lungs then realized it wasn't scary it was just really fun! I had 70 seconds of free fall then about 5 min with the parachute.

Here I am free falling!

Here I am spinning us around with the parachute. This was really nice since it was just quiet and just peaceful. 

So this was the beginning of my break, a beautiful house, sailing trip, and sky dive! I have finals right now so it might take me a while to tell you all about my south island trip. But a little teaser is I jumped again and had a fantastic time!

Love,

Michele