The Sea Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe.

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Hello All.

Well I again have lots to report and not all that much time so I am going to do another series of two entries to talk about the last two weekends. I have now completed a full 2 weeks of class and am actually really enjoying them. I am in class a lot fewer hours then at Bowdoin (mostly due to the fact I am not taking any lab courses at the moment) but am finding the material very interesting. It is a little difficult to get the hang of actually being in class as I am coming off a pretty long break but hopefully I will get the hang of it soon.

I am absolutely loving it here. My roommates are awesome. I get along with all of them really well. After my first week of classes a bunch of us drove down to the Catlans to Purakanui Bay where we camped for 3 nights. We left on Thursday night and on our way down to the Catlans stopped by Scott’s farm to pick up some tents and other camping gear. His family is really sweet and his farm is absolutely incredible! They own 10,000 sheep and over 2,300 acres of land. Pretty impressive huh? We had an interesting time pitching our tents in the dark on the first night but succeeded. Friday morning we woke up to the gorgeous surroundings of Purakanui Bay (where part of the Chronicles of Narnia was filmed…hence my clever title J ). The beach was so secluded and was just absolutely stunning. We spent the morning at the beach and went on a little hike. Later as we were walking on the rocks out to these caves I mistook a sea lion for a rock and literally almost stepped on one. No let me tell you these animals are not as friendly as the look and I literally feared for my life as I was chased away from the rocks and almost eaten (not really) by this sea lion! CRAZY…but kind of funny looking back. Needless to say I did not venture further on to the rocks and returned to our campsite.

We left our campsite around lunch time and headed on an adventure around the Catlans. We stopped at Purakanui Falls, Willie Lake, Florence Look Out Point, Nugget Point and headed back to the campsite for a late dinner. The scenery in New Zealand continues to amaze me. I have posted some pictures to give you and idea of how beautiful this country is but they don’t quite do it justice. Anyway Saturday we left in the morning with Scott (my roommate) to go watch him play cricket…quite an interesting game. We met up with a few of Scott’s friends and headed back down to Purakanui Bay for a huge campfire. Sunday was spent driving down to Cathedral Caves which were massive and really neat to explore and then heading back north to Scott’s farm where we took a tour of the farm on four wheelers, went farm tubing (basically held on to a sack of sheep wools and be drag through a grass field behind a 4-wheeler, got a ride on Scott’s little brothers motor bike, shifted some sheep with Scott’s Dad, David, and has an amazing BBQ made for us by Scott’s parents. It was a pretty incredible weekend. Enjoy the pictures I will finish another post today or tomorrow about last weekend.

Miss you all and love you!

Em

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