After a month of traveling in New Zealand, Ashley + I had a great last week in the North Island. After our initial car trouble, Emma, my friend from camp, was able to pick us up, and take us to her house. Her house is on a huge farm right outside Te Puke, and she has every kind of animal imaginable! They have about 170 dairy cows, which is apparently a very small herd for New Zealand, horses, chickens (Fresh Eggs every morning!), dogs, cats, and even a pot-bellied pig! We had the best time ever at Emma's house. The first [View Full Entry]

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Over the past week, we have slowly been working our way up the North Island. After spending a few days recuperating in Wellington, Ashley is finally on the mend which is great that she's feeling better. I stayed in Wellington for about 4 days at Laura's flat, and had a great time. She works at a outdoor rec store right on the harbor, so she gets to spend all day right on the water, lucky duck! In Wellington we kindof just bummed around, one day Laura and I took the old-fashioned cable car up to the top of the mountain, where [View Full Entry]

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After spending nearly a week here, I am completely smitten with Queenstown. Touted as the adventure capital of the world, there is always something going on here. The town is set right on a huge lake and surrounded by huge mountains, just unreal. Every store in the downtown area is selling some crazy activity, like jet-boating, bungy jumping (Queenstown is where bungy jumping originated), sky diving, white water rafting, and heaps more. Take all that action, and then add in a bumpin (yes I said bumpin, but Queenstown deserves it!) nightlife, and I am pretty much in heaven. Queenst [View Full Entry]

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Still cruising along on the Kiwi experience bus and loving it! There are definitely some parts of the bus experience bus I don't like, there are heaps of lines everywhere we go, and we just follow the driver around like sheep a lot of the time, but overall its a great time. It's really nice having direct access to all the adventure companies, as Kiwi Ex has a whole network that they use. The day before we get to a city, our driver passes around a clipboard with all the possible activities there, and we just mark our names next to [View Full Entry]

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Hello from NZ, a country of about 4 million people and 40 million sheep! Although I have only been here a week I am already loving it-Amazing landscapes, laidback attitudes, and a slightly better rate for the dollar-whats not to love?? Ashley and I spent the first few days in Christchurch, which is one of the larger cities in the South Island. Christchurch is small but super cute, with a real "Old English" feel to it, and a cute little river with bridges that snakes around the town. We stayed in the Base Backpackers, which was located right in the center [View Full Entry]

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Hello and Merry Christmas! Since I have last written, Ashley has arrived! She flew in on the morning of the 19th, and we met up with no problems at the Sydney train station. We walked around for a bit, and then got on a train to Newcastle, where we met up with my friend Emma. We spent the night at her family's house, and the next morning got up bright and early to drive to Byron Bay, a little beach town about 10 hours north of Newcastle. Byron is a cute little hippy beach town, and its where a lot of [View Full Entry]

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The Whitsunday Islands and Arlie Beach My flight arrived at Proserpine, the nearest airport to the reef, around 7pm. I got an shuttle from the airport to my hostel in Arlie Beach. Arlie (pronounced "Early Beach") is basically just the port town for anyone wanting to go sailing in the Whitsundays. The Whitsundays are a cluster of about 74 islands near the south of the great barrier reef. So the thing to do from Arlie is to hop on a sailing trip for a few days, that go around the islands. There are travel agencies on every corner and even [View Full Entry]

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Hello! It's crazy to think that I have already been here a month and a half. Where has the time gone?? As people in Australia start to put up thier holiday decorations, it really makes miss the holiday season in Michigan. Don't feel too bad for me, I'll mourn for snow while in my bikini at the beach! On Dec. 2nd I flew to Adelaide, where I stayed with family friends, The Robinsons, for 2 days. Lynda took me to a wild animal park where I got to feed Kangaroos, watch a Tazmanian devil eat a hunk of Kangaroo meat, and [View Full Entry]

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hello again! A lot has happened since I last updated...lets see where to start. In the last week Danielle's cat had kittens, they are so tiny and adorable, so that was pretty exciting. Sarah and I flew to Melbourne on the 17th, to stay with Josh, another one of our friends from camp. Our bus to the airport was absurdly delayed, so we ended up missing our flight and having to pay to rebook, which was a huge pain and from now on I think I'm going to leave for the aiport like a day before my flight actually departs. Sarah [View Full Entry]

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Hello Again!! Since my last entry, the weather has finally started to pick up which has been awesome! I got my first sunburn today, I'm amazed I made it this long. This week has been pretty crazy, Sarah and I left early Monday morning, and took the train up to Katoomba, which is a city in the heart of the Blue Mountains, about 2 hours north of Sydney. We checked into our hostel and headed down to the heart of the national park, which is called Echo point. It's this amazing spot that looks out over endless mountains, and is right [View Full Entry]

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