Today it was POURING rain out. We didn’t even want to go outside. Meike read while I job searched for most of the day. I emailed a hostel in Picton where you can work for your accommodations and they emailed me back right away to let me know that I can come anytime I want. I will go there on October 14th and get out of Windy Welly and off to the South Island!! We went out to the supermarket which is only a 5 minute walk and got soaked! So you guessed it, after dinner we watched another movie haha.... read more

If anyone has ever told you that Wellington is a also known as Windy Welly, they were right! It's SOOO windy here. All the time too, not just some days, everyday. It's ridiculous. Meike and I did a town walk to check out the town and ended up at the Beehive (their parliament building). It's called the beehive because that's exactly what it looks like. Wellington is the capital of NZ so all the government buildings are there. We stopped for lunch before walking up the famous Cuba Street. It's a street with a bunch of cafes and shops and is kind of trendy. We were tired from not getting any sleep the night before on our crappy hostel's beds so we headed back to said crappy hostel and did laundry which was also crappy. The ... read more

Made some breakfast, watched the snow going crazy and really felt like I was back at home haha. Today I did a lot of reading, read most of my book, watched another movie, the next stray bus came in and a guy from Edmonton was put in my room. Always fun haha. Made our dinner early which was lucky since the power went out again but this time it wasn't coming back on. We sat by one of the fires to stay warm. Matt, an Aussie guy who was working on the ski hill for the winter decided to try to toast his bread in the fire. It was quite entertaining to watch. I can't remember how it got brought up but I said something about touques and he had a good laugh and thought I ... read more

Well my lovely brother decided to finally text me back but did it at 5 am and woke up everyone in my room haha. Packed up this morning and had breakfast. We weren't sure what time the stray bus was coming to get us so we stuck around the hostel and waited. Not so fun haha. It finally came at 10:30am. We stopped for some lunch and a picture stop on the other side of lake Taupo and then drove into Tongariro Park. There are 3 volcanoes in the area, one of them is Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings movies. At the base of one volcano is a chateau where the cast of the movies stayed for 3 months. It's the second most expensive place to stay in New Zealand. Tongariro Park is ... read more

Finally some sun!!!! We were so happy we threw on shorts and headed out to Huka falls. A 20 minute walk from our hostel to get to the start of the hike and then an hour and a half hike from there. We walked along the river on a trail to get there. The Huka falls are really just white water rapids. The wide river has to go through a narrow section which creates the falls. We did the long hike back and finished just as the clouds started coming in. Stopped for a quick lunch ( a meat pie from the bakery which are sooo good and super cheap!) Headed back to the hostel to shower and do laundry and write postcards. The exciting life of a backpacker haha. We watched another movie tonight because ... read more