Sorry its been so long. I am in Hervey Bay in Australia its hot and humid up here. Tomorrow or day after I will go on a 2 day tour of Fraser Island (the largest sand island in the world). Since the last time I wrote I flew to Brisbane and stayed at a Meher Baba retreat. I had an amazing time there. I caught up with old friends that I met in India and met many new friends. When I was leaving I saw a kangaroo! It was so cool. It bounced up a hill as we were driving. Last night I stayed in Noosa. I got there at 5ish and left this morning at 9:35am. I didn't realize how beautiful of an area it is so I hope to make it back there to ... read more

Yesterday I spent the day in Golden Bay. It was pretty sweet. There is this beach with windswept sand dunes and rocks on the beach with caves that went through them. I also went to the Farewell spit, but that was pretty uneventful. Today I woke up at 8 and got to Abel Tasman at about 10:15. I waited until about 11:15 for the aqua taxi that was supposed to come at 10:45 before giving up on that and heading in on foot. That park is amazing. I hiked for about an hour through tree ferns, ferns, and green trees over a hill and arrived at a small beach where a spent about 15 minutes clamboring on some rocks before continuing on. I made it to Mutton cove and turned around. On the way back I ... read more

Sorry its been awhile since I've posted. I've been working for about a month straight. I've had three days off since Easter Weekend. Today was one and the previous one was 17 days ago. We've been working 10-12 hour days, 7 days a week. Over the last 5 days we've each had one day off. I don't think we will see another day off until we are done here. We will finish in a week from today. Then its off to traveling. I've been well, no injuries or colds. I've been learning a lot about wine making, working in the cellar, and grapes. I'm having an awesome time even though I'm working ungodly hours. Actually many wineries here work longer days and have less days off. So I can't complain. So next Friday is my last ... read more

On Sunday April 5th, I drove to Wanaka and went for a short hike and did a wine tasting. I was going to go for a longer hike in Mt Aspiring Park, but the road to the start of that hike has many creek fordings and I didn't think my car would make it. Driving out to that point wasn't a complete waste of time because it was a very beautiful drive. There were steep hills on one side of the road and a lake and then a river with steeps hills behind it on the other side of the road. I saw waterfalls and waterfowl. I also saw horses, cows, and sheep. I ended up hiking up to Diamond Lake (which is more of a pond than a lake) and then up to a viewpoint ... read more

Timaru On March 21st Alina, Sam and I headed down to Timaru. It was a beautiful drive. It took us about 2 or 3 hours to get to Sam's parents' house. His parents took us out for dinner. I wanted fish of some sort and the only one on the menu was blue cod Cajun style. It was good, but definitely not Cajun. I also had a couple bites of Alina's lamb shanks and they were delicious. On Sunday we went to the Timaru Wine and Food Festival. It was awesome. The wine was good, the food was good, and there was live music. The first few bands and singers were pretty good, but the last band The Black Seeds were on hit. We went to a wine and food pairing seminar that was awesome. For ... read more