Kyrias

Day 10: Since Queenstown is the adrenaline rush capital of New Zealand, and probably the world, we figured we’d do something exciting. Last I was here was when I first went bungee jumping, but I thought I’d switch up the activity this time around, so we went sledging. I know, I’ve never heard of sledging either. So basically this sport is pretty much done only in this one river in NZ; it kind of like body boarding. You wear a wetsuit, flippers, a helmet, and basically have this big plastic board thing that you hang onto with your arms while the rest of your body hangs off. This is all we took with us as we went through crazy river rapids with names like “Dead Cow’s Crossing” and “Man-eater”. We went through whirlpools that would suck ... read more

Alas another mid-semester break has passed, and after 10 months of being in NZ I still thoroughly revel in life on the road and all the scenery and random escapades that are thrown my way as a result, both remarkable and otherwise. The roadtrip I just got back from was no exception, perhaps with the adventure level even cranked up a couple notches. Well, that’s probably because my mate Kathleen and I decided to test ourselves and face the unknown by hitchhiking around for the entire two weeks. For the American crowd reading this, don’t freak out, it’s safer than it sounds. New Zealand is different, especially on south island, and I’m back at Lincoln writing this blog so obviously I’m not kidnapped or dead. In fact, it made for some interesting conversations and times, allowing ... read more

Yea it’s been so long since I’ve written a blog. Blame it on the internet. For the past month I’ve been online twice for maybe 20 min each time. Now I’m back at school and am slowly working through my hundreds of emails. But I’ll come back to all that in a minute. A quick recap of my holidays: I had Christmas Eve with my South African friend Mari and her family. They were nice enough to give me presents so I actually felt included. On Christmas day Mari, Diego and I went to the Bethels beach, another gorgeous black sand west coast surf beach. It was my goal to go to a beach on Christmas since it’d be my first hot holiday, so mission accomplished. We explored the caves on the beach a bit and ... read more

The finals days of my adventure: Day 11 The next day on the farm was entertaining, but made me feel more like a city girl than ever… First, I got to feed a 2-day old lamb some milk from a bottle---aww it was so damn cute! After, Cassie and I went on the back of a four-wheeler (like the one I drove in Hanmer Springs), which was pulling a container with lots of hay in it. We drove all around the farm and up the roads (it was a big farm…) to the bulls, deer, and horses and threw them their hay to eat. It was an experience, and after doing some quality farm work in the morning we decided to continue our journey. It was sad to leave, because I was starting to get into ... read more