Fiji... Yea, It's pretty cool.

Bula!

On our first night into this fabulous country we showed up to Nadi (pronounced Nandi--apparently in Fiji there are invisible letters in words) and watched a perfect sunset from our hammock.  We managed to not get eaten alive by bugs (that was saved til later) and spent a nice day lolling in the sun, and occasionally in a sprinkle of rain but when you are hard core about the sport called tanning like us, you don't let a little thing like rain get in your way. That would just be weak.  

The next night we got to watch a fire dance, some of the high lights being him dropping it and catching part of his skirt on fire, licking the flame, and of course holding fire in his hand.  It was pretty radical.  We met an English friend named Penny who was great fun and introduced us (a little late since I'm leaving the Pacific in 3 days) to the glory that is potato wedges dipped in sweet chili sauce and sour cream.  Unbelievable.

Our next stop was mango bay (I ordered a mango Daiquiri and was quickly informed they were out of mangoes).  Our nice air conditioned bus, which has pulled into the front of many a swanky resort suddenly stopped on the side of the road and the driver yelled out "Mango Bay!" and we were thrown off the bus.  That might be a little dramatic, but luckily there was a nice man who spoke very little English and seemed 4/5 asleep was there to save us with a van missing some windows and with more than one duct tape repair.  So of course we clambered in and thankfully were deposited at our resort and not a basement.  And then we had one glorious day of sunshine... followed by two days where it poured all day so we sat in the restaurant reading, watching bad movies, and playing board games in ways that confused foreigners.  And then we saw some pretty cool creatures!

The teeniest tiniest crabby!!

Al's favorite starfish

The dorms there were pretty cool too.

 What was supposed to be our traveling day to the next resort ended up being a we lost our vouchers day and have to catch the afternoon bus instead so let's go snorkeling and play Fijian games that make us look foolish.  All in all it worked out pretty well in spite of our silliness.  Sadly though we were too lazy to go find our waterproof camera so our snorkeling pictures are on some guy's camera... but fingers crossed facebook comes through for us.  We did see some pretty cool stuff just off the beach from the resort, like a blow fish, and some blue fish... and some yellow ones, and some with neon green and purple spots on their faces!  Yes, I am studying to be a marine biologist and I'm doing quite well thank you.  When we were told the afternoon time of the bus the lady on the phone said 3:50 (i think) but the lady at the desk said no it's at 3:15 so be here at 3 to catch the sketch shuttle back out to the middle of nowhere.  So we did, Allie had to bang on the window a couple times to wake him up from the very extreme nap he was having in the back seat and then once again we were on the side of the road with all our bags and loading on the bug spray.  Well 3:15 rolled on by... 3:30... around 3:40 a bus rolls up and starts throwing our stuff on, still not sure it was the bus we were supposed to get on but it got us where we wanted to go so I guess that's what's important?

The Uprising Resort

So we made it safe and sound and checked in to our next resort, at which point we decided to just take a glorious day to relax and lay in the sun again which had gloriously reappeared to shower us in... um sunlight.  And all was well until the bugs finally beat us and devoured us whole.

So Fiji is basically paradise.  But with bugs.

The last melon...

 I am beginning to wonder if anyone will ever fully appreciate my packing skills...  After 3 hours and 4 bags I managed to pack up an entire 6 months of my life, cleaning out all the drawers, cubbies, and crannies.  It is starting to actually look sad and lonely in here, but it feels good to have everything organized and put away.  So this will be my last post from New Zealand, seeing as the cab is picking us up tomorrow at 6am (hopefully, I've been on hold for awhile now).  You will hopefully hear from me (and seester) in Fiji, but I plan on spending most of my time in the sunshine and not on the computer.

Perhaps it is a good time for some highlights from the past week of enjoying Wellington with Al and getting through the things I put off until the last minute.






We went and did the Parliment tour, and buzzed around the beehive.

We went up to the top of the cable car and went to the observatory and learned about space.

We climbed the trippy tree at dusk. We went to the water front and ate half priced sushi.

And of course we almost froze to death going to visit the Weta Caves to see all the movie stuff from Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Avatar.

At least today, when I have to spend time inside packing up my whole New Zealand life, it is cold and windy out there in Wellington.  Makes me even more excited for Fiji though, and when I'm back in two weeks none of you better have forgotten about me.

A return journey

Nelson at sunset

Post classes, post finals, post Allie's (troubled) arrival, she, Hope, and Mikayla and I set off for the South Island once again.  Saturday evening we headed down to Christchurch on the cheapest flight we could find to start off the trip.  Interestingly we went through no form of airport security at all, unless you count being asked "are you caring any dangerous or hazardous materials with you?" by a computer screen at check-in.  After all the worrying about how much shampoo to bring and our carry-ons being under the 15 lbs. limit (our tickets didn't come with the whole checking a bag thing so it was a tight fit since they have carry-on weight limits here) it turned out to make no difference at all, and we walked right up to the gate, scanned our boarding pass and crossed the tarmac to clamber on to the little plane taking us south.  Makes you ache for the simplicity of the past.  On the plane we came across an interesting tidbit in the airline magazine about a play currently being put on in Dunedin featuring 5 bridesmaids and taking place in, get this: Knoxville, Tennessee.  Now I must say I was more than a little tempted to head down to Dunedin to see Kiwi's try to do a Tennessee accent, much less pretend to be from the hometown of 3/4 of the people I was traveling with, but alas these things might be even better imagined.  Now you might be wondering after my picture happy blogs why there are no pictures yet, but really I just don't have many Christchurch pictures, since all the earthquake damage makes everything look so sad and gives me the feeling of being at the funeral of a stranger.  That kind of detached melancholy where you still laugh at something amusing but feel like it's inappropriate.

So onward and upward, we headed off to Hanmer Springs and stayed at the best hostel yet (and I've been to 20 here--yes I did just count)  It felt like going to visit grandma or being at camp.  The whole place was heated by a wood burning stove so it smelled like home.  There was the usual free coffee and tea, but for the first time there was also the (completely logical) free milk to go with it.  And on top of that there were fantastic free kiwis everywhere and 6 different flavors of ice cream in the freezer.  Each bed got a hot water bottle and two down comforters, so even with the cool cabiny feeling at night we stayed nice and cozy.  The showers however were the one less than adequate part, when Hope got in the other one mine just flat turned off, and only after a few minutes of awkwardly standing around with shampoo in my hair it returned in a dribble.  But I guess that's what comes with free ice cream and ambiance.  

The next day we did some wandering in the woods and walked up to the look out over the city.  After a day of adventuring and such we packed back in the car for an afternoon drive back up to Kaikoura for mostly what was more of the same of my favorite KaiKoura activities: baby seal adventures and eating Indonesian food.

But hey, this time we decided to mix it up a bit and also went horse back riding!  The seals were extra curious when we stopped by again on our way out of town, and one even decided that I looked like so much fun that he should attack my face with love.  I didn't think that was the best idea though.  Hope was especially intriguing to the seals and many liked to come up and sniff her knees.  

The horse trekking was through some gorgeous scenery, and we knew we had to do it after waking up to a view out our bedroom window of sea, snow capped mountains, shining sun, and green rolling hills that look more like illustrations from a children's book than real life.

Not Real Life

We went through very muddy rain forests, a huge rocky river bed, and some farm land.  My horse was named Doc and kept farting at Mikayla and was displeased by the pace of Hope riding Dale the Snail in front.  Doc was sassy, so we got along well.  We also did a bit of cantering at the end leaving us all sore for the next few days.  But we fared alright since we headed up to Nelson and had a picnic on the beach on the Winter Solstice.  I have decided that Nelson has the best pick of hostels in the South Island.  I've stayed at 3 and all of them have been great.  This time we stayed at the Shortbread Cottage.  So named for the shortbread cookie on your pillow when you arrive.  We did some walking around town and went to a farmers market, and then gathered supplies for our trip friendship bracelets (adorable no?).  Using our dear father's technique we each melted on a pretty blue cord bracelet once we had made it to Blenheim (not before stopping to pick up a bag of mussels for dinner).

We soon transformed these mussels into a delicious meal even Mikayla liked (though when the sauce is essentially butter, wine, cream, and garlic you could dip cardboard in it and serve it to millions).  We even remembered our veggies and picked up a hot ciabatta at new world to finish our masterpiece.  Very full and proud of ourselves we climbed up to the top of the triple bunkbeds for the night and went on our wine tour the next day.  Our tour guide was named Kerry too and showed us to all the best wineries for sparkling wine and dessert wine making it a very girly and very glorious tour ending with a liqueurs tasting and a chocolate shop.  Now I'm off to eat some of that fudge I was just reminded of and wish with all my might my packing will get done for me by some sort of magic.

Roto and Welly

As usual many interesting things have been happening with interesting people.  But also many cold things with cold people because these southern parts are in winter time, and I must say I am not a fan.  At the end of classes and before finals started I was forced to do a classic Wellington sight seeing trip with Caitlin to climb to the top of Mount Victoria.  Well I though oh sure, sounds great a little hike and a great view of the city.  What I got was an hour walk up hill both ways just to get to the hike, and then climbing a mountain, oh and did I mention that in true New Zealand fashion is was raining.  And in classic Wellington fashion this rain was of course sideways.  Because here rain does not fall straight down, that would be silly and boring.

A comical depiction of a well known scientific fact: Wellington rain does not fall from the sky, it attacks your face.

Deceptively Smiley

So after finally making it to the top (and learning that they used to do day trips to Antarctica from Wellington before global warming made it too dangerous and was a fun sucker for the rest of us) and enjoying the views and a few moments of sunshine and some slight feelings of accomplishment, we headed back down the hill for some Vietnamese lunch and back to the world of learning and responsibilities and such nonsense.

So we soon had more than enough of such things and decided smack in the middle of much exam sitting and paper writing there was a nice little trip to Rotorua, also known as Smelly Town run by Mayor McStinks-a-lot.  Thanks to a completely unnecessary amount of geothermal activity the entire city smells like rotten eggs in a good spot and death farting when you hit a bad patch, which you do, frequently.  Just walking down the street thinking "Ah this isn't so bad, I think I'm actually getting used-" BAM! You are holding your breath for the next 30 seconds and wishing you had some steel wool to scrub your tongue with.  But really it's a nice place, though pretty touristy.  There are lots of gloriously fun things though like the swoop (pictured) which is a fun name for what is basically a monstrously large swing.  By monstrously I mean they lift you 150 feet into the air by a crane and lashed together in what seem to be a mix between a sleeping bag and overalls, and then one of you has to pull to the cord to send you free falling.  That was Hope's job.  And the entire experience was as fun as it looks.  The face in the picture is mostly because I was unaware that Hope had already pulled the cord and found it somewhat startling to suddenly be flying towards the ground.  Totally worth it.

There were also cows.

The very daring Mikayla did work up the nerve to bungy jump.  And she did it over a donkey.  And a very pretty steam since I got to see the views once I made it up for the swoop.  Even after making herself jump off a platform 43 meters in the air, the big swing scared her, but we were all very proud, especially since the girl before here didn't manage to jump at all.

Some of the most interesting stories from Rotorua though have no pictures to go along with them.  First there was Tom taking us to go see the glow worms,  I'm not convinced that he wasn't trying to kidnap us, and it didn't help that at one point he asked if we could stop by his house for a minute and on the way home he took us to the liquor store.  More importantly when we got to the area where the glow worm caves were supposed to be (a dark empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere) he wasn't sure where to go or where the caves where exactly.  So we headed down the steps to the waterfall and when we reached the bottom our flashlights revealed something interesting.  The path way was completely underwater at the foot of the steps, and just on the other side of the meager railing was the fastest moving rapids I have ever come across ready to sweep us away into darkness.  Tom casually asked if we minded getting our feet wet and when he met silence he suggested we turn off the lights and check to see if there were any glow worms on the rock on either side of the stairs.  Luckily there were and they were really pretty, I felt like I was in Avatar.  And then Tom took us back home safe.  Luckily.

That night however we were not so safe because not only did our hostel have a sugar ant infestation (woke up with some even in my bed not to mention everywhere else) but possibly an infestation of the dead variety.  At one point I heard someone get up and walk across the room, but the door never open.  Curious I turned over and saw a man standing in the room relatively near my bed.  Freaked out I flipped back over, but after awhile I heard sleep breathing and just assumed the Canadian Carsten was sleep walking.  When it continued I started to wonder what I should do and if he was ever going to get back in bed, so I glanced over at his bed, and sure enough he was in it and there was no one in the room.  Now normally I would just assume I am just hearing and seeing things, but the next morning Mikayla greeted us with "You guys, last night something really weird happened"  Apparently around 4am she woke up to a light on her face form the open door.  As she watched it slowly shut from the and latched (which you have to have a key for) but she didn't hear any footsteps move away form the door in either direction and the floor was quite squeaky.  We mostly just figured it was weird and jokingly mentioned the "haunted" hostel to our driver taking us to the Swoop place.  She promptly replied "Oh yea, I get a weird feeling every time I go in there.  It makes my skin crawl, it's a really old hostel too so I'm sure someone has died there at some point."  So that was fun.

I just like this picture as it is a pretty accurate representation of our friendship.

Brrrrr Wellywood, Brrrr!

Wellywood has finally gotten cold. for reals. (and it's finally getting it's wellywood sign. classy)  Though of course some days are colder than others, but my giant penguin pajama pants ride up and i have cold ankles all night.  Being such a tough and hardcore person though, i manage to persevere.  Luckily I've had the help of some pretty spectacular people and activities along the way.  Things definitely ain't the epic journey of mid semester break, there have been no baby seals or glaciers, but there has been some moments worth reliving... first worth mentioning was my awesome 21st birthday party!

Celebrating in style

Let's just say it was a classic 21st birthday party.

Then there was our super duper day of adventure.  Four wheeling through rivers and practicing our archery skills (for the inevitable orc invasion).  I became quite good at archery, especially since it was my first time, 6 bullseyes! So watch out.

Pictured: Legolas

Oh, and then there was a really gorgeous sunset.

The next incredibly awesome and entertaining thing we did was the Wellington Food show!  Spent a day wine tasting and filling up on gourmet food samples and snagging fab deals.  Best decision I've ever made, and now I feel oh so posh in the grocery store when I recognize more than just the label on the boxed wine.  We also ran into a number of stalls that had been at the amazing Hawkes bay farmers market, I felt like a real kiwi.

I've also spent much of my time knitting, and I must say I'm quite the champ.  I taught myself (with the help of youtube) to knit cables and I've made my first few hats.  I've also knit a bunch of presents and everyone is always hassling me to finish up their knitwear.  Oh the woes of greatness.  Well I'm afraid I don't have much more to say, so enjoy the pretty pictures!

Here is a picture of Wellington being pretty

Life is good when you're loved (I'm the one whose head you can't see)

Better late than never...

So it's been almost a month now since I've blogged since I am a terrible person, but life gets in the way (lack of internet while traveling, immediately having 4 papers due when I got back to school).  So now that I am done with all that I can catch the world up on all the rest of my glorious travels.  Now if only I could remember what came after the glacier....

For starters, we spent the next morning at Lake Matheson for the b-e-a-u-tiful sunrise. That's all you really need to know: it was gorgeous.  We headed to Wanaka and Queenstown next, both were on the shores of lakes and really pretty, but Queenstown was basically spend all your money or don't do much of anything.  On the way there though we stopped at the blue pools.  The glacier runoff comes through here and the deeper and more still the water the bluer it looks from all the mica in the glaciers, so we walked down and mother and I, being very hardcore went wading in the glacier runoff stream. It was...impressively cold.  At first it felt fine, just like any other cold water, but then it started to burn, and that was somewhat less fun.  I couldn't make it to the point where my feet just went numb, but putting my socks back on has never felt so good.  Except for a couple nights ago when I had been walking back and forth to the laundry room barefoot in the freezing rain and finally got to put on toasty dryer socks, which was of course pure glory.

After freezing our feet off and scary prawns with their heads still on (one fear I had to conquer, but only for one meal) we headed to Lake Tekepo.  It's one of the best places for star gazing in the world and originally set up by UPenn as a Southern Hemisphere base.  Mom and I did a night sky tour that was super cool, the highlight being seeing Saturn through the telescope in the picture that made it look like less of a star and more exactly how you picture Saturn.  Rings and all, it perfectly matched the glow in the dark Saturn sticker still on my bedroom ceiling back home.  We also saw some nebulae (apparently the plural of nebula, so google chrome tells me) and star babies and really old stars and asked lots of questions and it was all quite dandy.

 Next we headed to Kaikoura and there was lots of adorable seal action, not to mention amazing Indonesian food (currently googling [side-side note, why doesn't google think googling is a word?] good Indonesian places in Wellington because I'm in love with it now) and of course my rockin' 21st birthday.

Seriously though, baby seals? enough said, if you need more go check out the video on facebook. They are more adorable than you'd think. like puppies that are really good swimmers, or fur covered 4 year olds. Same dif.

The fabulous Flett family adventures continued (and yes mother, you are included in the Flett family even if you are a Rasch, best accept it at this point) in Blenheim and we found ourselves back in wine country.  Though to be fair it seems much of New Zealand is wine country.  We spent a day recuperating from awful Chinese food and doing a couple wine tastings, but sadly then the rents had to head back to Welly to catch their flights back to the motherland.
Oddly, even being a third of the globe away, Tennessee wasn't the only one with gale force wind and crazy weather attacking our lives that day, the parentals flights were delayed after a baggage cart was thrown into the engine...while they were on it. Not cool Wellington, not cool.  I however was still in Blenheim doing a wine tasting tour with some Canadians I had met, and I swear after 36 hours with those girls I was starting to talk like them. Not ok.

I went off on my own to treck across Abel Tasman national park since we had to miss it for rain on the way there.  It actually worked out wonderfully, I spent the last few days of my vacation with weather that got better and better every single day I was out there and ended up walking about 2/3 of the track.

It got warm enough I even managed to go swimming on my last day, though don't get me wrong I got the wind knocked out of me a little when I first dove under water, and very much eaten alive by sand flies whenever I was by the water, but the track was beautiful and I ended up running into some friends going to school on the South Island and one of the Canadian girls.  Eventually however it was time to head back home, where I have been since back in the routine of classes and papers and what not, but vair happy to be back home.  Though I must say, coming back felt a little like a dream with in a dream I still needed to wake up from.  Home but not all the way home.

Split Apple Rock

I'm so cool I'm glacial.

So I know I seem to be a binge and purge blogger, but I finally have decent internet and many glorious things to share with you wonderful people who (hopefully) pay at least a little attention to my rambling travel rambles.  

So today was a most glorious day because even though I only got a couple hours of sleep, it's hard to feel sleepy when climbing around on New Zealand's largest glacier.  But first, back to the boring stuff you've missed. and by boring I mean of course only slightly less thrilling than scampering around a giant moving block of ice with spikes tied to my feet.

For instance, we made a nice trip up to Arthur's Pass.  I am now officially the designated car reader and we have made our way through one Jack Vance and have started in on the sequel.  The weather at the lookout was...interesting.  But even with the fog the view was striking, rain agrees with New Zealand.

Then there were the Kea birds.  One of the world's only alpine parrots. Why there are any alpine parrots?  I must claim ignorance.  They are obnoxious yet hilarious.  Particularly good at whining and stealing food, they will eat everything from your lunch to your tires (they have a weird rubber thing, I think maybe that discovery channel show about the woman who eats comet should look into it).  Saying they weren't shy is an understatement so grand it's almost sarcasm.  Plus they would stare you down with a glint in their eye somewhat like they wonder what you'd taste like.

Dad wanted me to scare one so we could see the orange underside of their wing. Instead he scared me. That bird had a mean poker face. 

cool glacier stuff

So on to the cool glacier stuff.   I made the trip alone and did the all day hike.  We were dropped off about half an hour from the base of the glacier, and for some reason unknown to myself we took the hour and a half walk through the rain forest with about 800 uphill steps.  Sure we had some amazing views of Fox Glacier, and sure it's pretty damn cool to be able to say I hiked through a rain forest and came out and climbed right on to a glacier, not sure how many places you can do that in the world.  But after we made it all the way up the side of the valley we had to climb back down to the glacier.  So we strapped on our crampons, tried to fend off the exhaustion from climbing so high within an hour that my ears popped. multiple times, and made our way onto the ice.  

Fox Glacier

 Unlike the half day which spends most of it's time getting to and from the glacier and then staying on a precut path on the lower sliver of the glacier, we went off-roading, and actually made it higher than our guide had ever been.  We also found an ice cave we got to climb around inside, and get soaking wet from the melting glacier dripping on us from above, but luckily the glowing quality of the glass makes it feel a little less claustrophobic when you're squeezing through a passage barely wider than you.  

 Absolutely exhausted I don't think I'll be awake past 9:30 tonight, but it was so worth it getting to scramble around, crossing crevasses, climbing up ice faces, and getting our guide to take goofy pictures.  We also ended up with a gorgeous day in the middle of a week of rain and clouds.  Not a cloud in the sky and we had sunshine over the ice almost all day, not the usual for fall on the south island.  So this may have been my first experience with ice picks and crampons, but it shall not be my last, but now it is time for bed since tomorrow morning I'll be going to see the sunrise over Mount Tasman.