I (Laura) had the chance to go on a home-made steam boat named "Tui" on Lake Rotoiti, a part of the Nelson lakes. This is Admiral Alan (at least that's what he called himself ;) )


Beautiful waterfalls all over New Zealand
Here's me...cheez!
Alan had stripped down an older boat, then redone it himself. He ordered in the parts he couldn't build himself.

Well folks, here is the Abel Tasman...I'm not gonna type much or put up many pictures. Time is short and I think most people just look at the pictures anyway. So, here they are!

Beautiful beaches along the Abel Tasman track

This is Golden Bay. This is Pupu Springs: thousands upon thousands of liters of water come up every minute.
Golden Bay again.

One actual great thing about being here is the gorgeous setting we are living in. We are on the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park. One weekend, we drove about 20 minutes to Split Apple Rock.

And just for fun you get to see a before, during and after scene:

That expression on his face is priceless!

Two weekends ago, some friends and I(Laura) headed to the Abel Tasman area. We took a water taxi to Tonga (a bay in the Abel Tasman). There it goes….

Next, we walked off and on for about three hours to Torrent Bay. We made some stops at multiple beaches along the way. It is hard to beat the beauty of this place.

Here‘s Maaike (from the Netherlands), Julian (Germany) and Shelby (Canada) along the path.

We crossed a nice, ‘stable’ bridge along the way. Here's Maaike and Caroline demonstrating the stability of the bridge ;)
More pics to come! Check back soon.

Well, since quitting our jobs in Christchurch we have been busy touring the northern tip of the south island for two weeks. Daniel and I left Christchurch the second week of February

Here is Cathedral Bluff on our way up the east coast. It was quite an overcast, rainy day.

Our first major stop was Kaikora, where we were able to stay with a friend for a week. Thanks again, Justine!

Kaikora is a hotspot for whale watching and dolphin and seal swimming. We tried our hardest to swim with the seals, but the weather would not cooperate. So, we settled (haha- poor us!) for whale, seal and dolphin watching from a small plane.

We saw 3 whales, each about 20 meters long. I put this picture to give you an idea of the size of the whales. You can see the tiny dots on the boat are people. We also saw a few hundred dolphins in a pod and a few seals.

Daniel got to sit up front with the pilot. Our plane held about 8 passengers, but there were just three of us.

The day before, we strolled along the Kaikora Peninsula Walkway. It runs along the coastline giving beautiful views of the surrounding. On a clear day you can see the north island. Coming back along the bottom part of the track, we came across many seals and penguins.

Right outside of Kaikora is a fantastic spot to stop and see baby seals. There is also a nice 10 minute walk to a waterfall.

Our second stop that day was at Sawcut Gorge. It took us about five hours to hike the entire track. We had to cross the river at least 2 dozen times. After a little while, we quit trying to stay dry and just plowed through to the other side.

Along the way I spotted a hunch back trying to stay dry.

Daniel needed to cool off and decided to take the plunge. And boy was it cold, right Daniel?

That night, we couch surfed for the very first time. For those of you wondering what that is, I’ll explain. Couch surfing is an online community of people from around the globe. You are able to stay free of charge on their couch for the night. We actually had a different experience for our first go. The family we stayed with had a mobile trailer we had all to ourselves. If you want to know more about couch surfing, check out their website at www.couchsurfing.com .

Over the next two days, we traveled around the Blenheim area. There is not much to do there beside winery tours, but we had a good time at the chocolate factory (yum!) and a WW1 plane museum.

For our last stop on the trip, we headed for the Malborough Sounds. It is a beautiful part of the northern tip of the south island. While there, we took a hike (around 5 hours long) to Pete’s Peak, which was a great lookout point.

This is the view driving into the region beside the road.

There’s Daniel up ahead on the track.

Yea! We made it!

Unfortunately, there is a lot of logging, so some hills are completely bare. The scenery is so beautiful, it is really hard to take a bad picture any way you look.

This region is famous for the green-shelled mussel. Daniel and I tried some fresh cooked at the hostel. Some people (Daniel) took to them pretty well, while others (me) felt sick after trying to get one down the hole ;) In this picture, you can see a ‘mussel farm’.

We are now settled near Motueka. Since February 25, Daniel has been picking pears and kiwi berries and I have been working in the pack house packing kiwi berries and pears. Let me tell you this…it is simply the most satisfying job ever! You don’t have to think; you do the same movements over 1000 times per day and at the end of the day you just want to go to bed in order to wake up and do it all over again! Life can’t get any better. I think Daniel has found his dream job. Minimum wage is just the icing on the cake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~one word: SARCASM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We just keep telling ourselves we are only doing it for a month, then it’s on to traveling for the rest of our time here. Yee haw!

Vocabulary help: a kiwi berry is about the size of a grape, with no furry skin. It tastes just like a kiwi and looks the same on the inside. They are just starting to be grown in New Zealand and a few other countries. We do export them to the USA, so keep an eye out. Some Zubers in New Zealand might have had a hand in it and on it ;)

Here is the pear pack house. You guys are so jealous aren't you?!

Keep checking back for more updates. Sorry there aren't that many pictures, they take a long time to load and internet is expensive.

Feel free to leave us a comment!

The local association of disc-throwers put on a fun event testing one's competence with a disc, as well as articulation, endurance, and out-right competition. Since I, Daniel, am traditionally a disc golfer and not familiar with the ultimate disc, the competition proved very difficult. It was mostly people who were involved in Ultimate Frisbee that came out to compete in the events. Nevertheless, I tried my best and had fun, meeting a few new acquaintances. Here is Peter Crowther, a local pro disc golfer that I play with often, playing "flutter guts". Yea, he did much better than I. (this event involves throwing a disc in a non-traditional way towards your competitor, in the hopes that they cannot catch it with a single hand)
Ummm...this is Rob and Justine imbibing on...grape juice at a Vietnamese restaurant. This was the last night together with all the flatmates. Boo-hoo, very sad.
Here we are back at the homestead taking our last photo opp. From left: Rob, Laura, Daniel, Justine, and Nick. We are going to miss you guys a lot! (except maybe the cussing)
Me, Rob and Elwyn at the foot of some southern alps (I think near Mt. Hutt) The day involved walking through cow poop, huge tussocks, and rough tasman bush. A highlight was talking to Elwyn about evolution, truth and faith.

Random Pictures

New Year's Eve in downtown Christchurch. We went to a concert held in Cathedral Square. We rang in the New Year with many others and were among the first to be in 2008! Here is a Hedgehog that we keep seeing in our neighborhood.
Daniel was quite proud of himself as he fried us fish, made homemade fries and corn on the cob.
I (Laura) apologize for the shortage of pictures of Daniel. I wasn't able to save most of my pictures to my flash drive for some reason. So, I give him the credit for the photos seen in the last few posts!

Conquering Mt. Herbert

We hiked up Mt. Herbert December 27. The grass was quite thick at times and our legs got scratched up, but it was worth it.The views vastly changed whichever direction you looked.Here is a view from about half way through the hike. It took us around 4.5 hours to reach the top and only around 2 hours to come back down.
On one side you could see Lyttleton Harbor and the Beach over the hills from the harbor(as seen above). The other side was a lake(don't remember the name) and more rolling hills.

Cave Stream

Cave Stream is just down the road from Castle Hill, about an hour outside of Christchurch. About a 5 minute hike downhill and you come to the entrance of the cave. Here is Nick and Laura pumped up and ready to start! As you can see, the cave is very foggy. The water was cold and at one point came up to the chest, but most of the time it was just coming up to the knee. We walked up stream through the cave.

The cave was totally dark, so we all wore headlamps. Here's Nick and Laura still going crazy. Here's Daniel(our photographer) and Laura coming out of the exit. All in all it took about an hour to walk through.
Nick and Laura are very triumphant at their accomplishment! Haha.