Grab a coffee, this is gonna be a LONG one...

ok, soooo i haven't written on this thing in a while. sorry to let all of my devoted fans down...bwahha. here we go..

umm how should I do this, i think i'll start back in wanaka and move towards where I am today...

Wanaka, where i ended up staying for a week, is def. my favorite "town" in NZ. it has the best autumn foliage too---GORGEOUS colors. i have lots of great pics. lots of poplars and cyprus trees that were BRIGHT yellow. when we drove back down to queenstown we passed all of these vineyards and the grapes looks amazing in these shades of red, orange, and yellow----way better than GREEN! god forbid. we also stopped along the way at this fruit stop---i found my new favorite fruit--PEACHERINES. thast right folks, nectarines and peaches COMBINED! talk about GENIUS.

met this swedish girl at the purple cow--the backpackasss at wanaka and we went to a movie today--The changeling---BLAH. so anyways, she was pretty cooky. just strange. so anyways, we go to the movie and come back to go to bed. i'm laying there and then i look over--she was next to me---and i realize she is ASS naked in her bed. mind you, there are 6 other people in the ROOM and some hostels, such as the one we were in, dont give you sheets to put between yourself and the comforter---SICK. so that means her swedish ass was all over that thing. GROSS. that is the perfect example of why i have slept in my beautiful, perfect, sleeping bag for the past 5 months.

so my friend shannon got a 'job' working for accomdation at BASE which is like this franchise hostel all over NZ, and i think the world---i feel like they were in EU? who knows. anyways, they are known to be just MASSIVE and gross. so she was moving over there so i helped her bring her stuff over and we walked in her room-----------SICK SICK SICK. it was like 10 beds and they were all people working for accomdation so NO ONE cleans the room. there was trash everywhere and it smelled...eww so sick.
it worked out ok though--i think?

so lets see--i'm so scattered right now....dont know where i start??

um, right now i'm back in Queenstown staying witgh my friend becky. we went to middle school and HS together. she saw some of my pics online and recognized them because they were outfront of her work...bwahaha. so now i am staying with her. so the first night i was here i was telling her about shannon, because becky knowns julie who introduced shannon and i...GET IT? prob not. so anyways, i was like yeaaa my friend is coming...she worked up in Pahia balahaah...she kknows julie" and becky was like "ohh ok, i wonder if she knows MY friend shannon" HA! crazy. so becky and shannon met WAY back on the stray bus. soooo crazy.

then, after that, becky and I go to thsi place called winnies that has great pizza. low and behold, who sits next to us, the damn german girls from able tasman--the one that put on makeup to talk on the computer. my back was to them and i didn't' feel like interacting so we never talked.

speaking of makeup, i have gotten into this habit of going to the pharmacy to put on perfume and makeup. i am literally homeless.

one thing that i find really interesting, and love to watch, is how people cook in hostels. you are surrounded by people from all over the world so they all cook different thing...english ppl LOVED baked beans and toast. japanese, asian love rice (obv) and are just so quiet its crazy. you can always tell who is american by Peanut butter AND how they use their fork and knives. irish love boiled eggs. germans eat a lot of carrots.

i dont like brushing my teeth around a lot of people. i feel like they judge me if i go to fast..........

i need a haircut REAL bad.

i'm getting really sick of sharing rooms. it might even be strange now to be in a room by myself. thats atleast one thing i am looking forward to.

oh man, what else....so i was in qtown for a bout 2 days before i left to go WAY down south for 4-6 days. my friend beth happened to be on the same bus so that worked out great bc honestly, its has gotten old having the same convos with people. and the convo's all change depending on how long you have been traveling. people that JUSt got here or who have only been here for like a month want to chat your freakin brains out...people who have been here for a long time, like myself, are more like, hey hey, lets get a beer and just sit ??? it gets tiring introducing yourself. i should start makign up crazy lies about what i do at home, my age, where i'm from. the other day when i was with beth i didn't want to talk to this guy so i almost started fake talking in some african language........in my mind that is. ok, that was a major tangent. so yea, we left to go down south--went to milford, tuatapere, curio bay, the catlins, and dunedin. met this nice bloke named nick at one hostel...he was a kiwi. the hostel we stayed at in invercargill was like an old insane asylum. beth and i were freaked out. anyways, nick gave me a massive list of sweet kiwi bands so thats awesome. this belgium guy made us watch silence of the lambs...had nightmares for a little bit.

so at the same hostel, beth and i "splurged" and paid for a 4 bed, instaed of a 6 bc we wanted to lessen the change of having a snorer in our room. around 9 Pm we meet the ppl in our room. i thought they were germans, but they were duthc--man and a woman, around our age. just friends. so they were really nice and funny. BUT, at one point they started talking dutch and then told us what they were laughing about and they ended up telling us that the man is a big snorer and was taking medicine and that she had a cold and snored the other night---so beth and i about die. so that night, SHE snored ALL night. the loudest EVEr. ALL NIGHT. i ended up waking up and just reading at 4 am. and sometimes i would say "OHMIGOD" just loud enough to wake him up so that he could tell her to shut the fuck up. needlesstosay, beth and i were tired dogs the next day.

so we went to dunedin the next day and my friend Louis, from camp, happens to be studying abroad there. he lived ina house with 3 other girls and an argentina man. they were all greattt! got along really well with all of them. they had comfy couches and beth and i slept great. louis even left the last day we were there but they let us stay there anyways which was aweeesome! another insanely crazy thing...so beth and i are talking to his roommate carrie and were talking about "the dutchies" the snorers in the hostel before, and how we were so exhausted...and she was like "ohh ya/ i'm hanging out with these dutch peoplei met down south tonight" IT WAS OUR DUTCHIES!!! ha. they ended up coming over. the girl kept appolgizing for snoring. ha. very nice people. but i wanted to rip her nose/throat out.

found this great cafe that had this bomb ass lamb salad. just for the record, everyone should eat lamb, BECAUSE, there are SOO damn many here. i will never feel bad about putting that meat in my mouth. overpopulation. my friend mike was also in dunedin--hes from san diego. so we met for a bit with his friend. OH and we went to the Speights brewery tour---speights is the "NZ Beer" it was really good---at the end you get to try all the beer and the last 10 minutes the guide, who i'm pretty sure was a MAJOR cokehead was like "ok, tap is all yours, drink what you can in 10 minutes" needless to say, we got wasted. it was beth, louis, and his roommate claire and I. we just skulled beers back. yummmy. real fun! went to bed real early that night.....

oh, the driver going down s. was named "Gollum." they all have nicknames, anyways, right at the beggining of the ride, his ipod was fucking up and he got so pissed and TOSSED that sucker out the window off a flippin CLIFF. yeaahhh KIWIS!! i love kiwis.

I had already been to dunedin back in feb. and i wasn't that impressed---i loved it this time. LOVED it. nice college town.

so i am driving back and get this call from my friend Austin---the berkeley guy. but it wasn't austin, it was freakin MARK! my friend from home. he and austin were on the same treck, the milford treck and met. crazy, again. so now mark is back here in queenstown with me which is awesome---we just have a jolly time together.

so the night before my cruise to doubtful sound shannon, becky, beth, mark and i went out to this irish pub for dinner...which lead to mark and i taking shots of jameson......which lead to another bar.......which lead to me being absolutely pissed drunk. drunkest i have been here by far. just glad to didn't lose anything. i really haven't gone out that much since i have been here--like that alteast. i wouldn't feel completely comfy with people i just met, y aknow? i woke up at 7 for my bus ride and was jst completely wasted. i feel right when i got up. what a freakin mess. got on the bus and was scared i was gonna puke. but it was all good. i just passed out. the driver, watsie, kept coming up to me saying "hows your health there mate?" he was trying to help me. that was the first thing he said to me today when he picked us up " HOWS YOUR HEALTH!?!' thank god my hangover was gone by like 2 and we weren't even in the sound yet. because we had to take a bus, to a boat, then to a bus again...NUTS.

so, DOUBTFUL SOUND!! its in fiordland natl park and is absolutely the most breathtaking thing i have ever seen. you can't imagine that its on earth. when we first saw it, from the bus, i got goosebumps--brilliantly beautiful. so i did the overnight cruise---the day cruise would not be worth it. met some other solo backpackers and we stuck together. they were OK---one girl was from sacramento and she was about my age and was just here for a few weeks. she was the kind of person who shold wear ribbons in her hair---so innocent in a sick way. and i hated how she talked. her lips smacked together in an odd way. THEn there was this one chick from seattle who was in her late 20's, early 30's...her face kind of looked like someones hand smashed it and then twisted it to the side a bit. it was just all crooked. and she also seemed like the kind of woman, at that age, that still wears large white underware. gosh i'm a bitch. but i guarantee you thats what she was wearing. dont worry, i'm not done...

i also had a stalker on the boat. this man from toronto with crazy eyes. at first i thought he was just SUPEr, overly nice, and maybe he is, but i dont think so. so it started with me taking pictures outside and he was standing behind me. he goes " let me have your camera" and so i gave it to him...then he was like "stay there do what you just did" and he started taking pictures of me. so A) that is STRANGE and B) they weren't even cool pictures. so then whenever i went somewhere he would be there about 5 minutes later. during dinner he would keep looking at me and give me a thumbs up asking how i liked it...EW. so i woke up like 5 times thinking he was in my room watching me. i snuck off the boat and saw him once again ebcause he kept asking me where I was goin next...yea right fucker, like i'm gonna tell you where i'm going........WONK WONK!

there were also these power lesbians on the boat from the states. they were pretty interesting and super intense---one of them had done a freakin marathon in ANTARCTICA. nuts.

this morning we had to wake up at 6am...the anchor comes and wakes you up. but the fiords looked spectacular in the morning sun. great weather--the cruise the day ebfore us didn't even have a sunset. LUCKY DUcKS! one thing they did that was cool was when we got to this cove and they turned off the entire boat. everyone came outside and it was just SILENT. all you could hear were the hundreds of waterfalls around yhou and the birds. ooo i also so an active fault line which was pretty cool.

another part of the trip that was a bit dodgey was when we went out to sea, the tasman. the water was INSANELY rough. i thought i was going to puke. i almost fell down but this old scottish man grabbed me from behind and was like "WOOAHH LITTLE ONE! YOU BLOODY HELL BETTER STICK WITH ME OR YOU'LL BE DONE FOR!!!" so i stayed with him. we went out to see this sea lion colony. this prob. sounds like im jaded, BUT, i'm way over sea lions and seals. i have seen so damn many since i have been here. i want sharks and lARGE whales.

what else........umm if i stayed any longer in NZ i would def. just have to stay in one spot and work. i have seen EVERYTHING i 'need' to see. i think my next big trip will either be to S. america, or I will do Thailand, cambodia, Laos each for a month......i have heard thats a great trip. possibly viet nam.

hummmmmm what else................supposed to get snow tomorrow. mark wants me to wake up at 7 am to watch the damn soccer game. i think i'm going to. he said he would make me pancakes if i came. thats just so early though...........

still cant believe i only have 3 weeks left. i could DEFINITELY stay longer. i think i am done moving around for a bit though---it will be nice not digging through my stinky backpack. my shoes also smell SO bad. ew. i have't worn tennis/hiking shoes this much since like 5th grade.

anyways, i think i'm gonna go now. this is insanely long. i'll be in qtown till sunday morning...then to christchurch for the week. pretty excited! then i'll be meeting beth in wellington...basd;lkajsd yada ydada. hope everyone is well!!!!! heard the weather is SUPA!!!!!!!!!! xox


lovelovelove!

No Sleep and Muffins

Hiiiyoooo folks! Mari here, reporting from beautiful Wanaka. Organized my little thoughts a bit and now I have a second to write on this thing....here we go.

I forgot a few things about the Heaphy Treck with mark. Loving food and all, i made sure I wouldnt run out. Mark did, and ended up stealing some of mine, balabauh. About 2 hours into the hike we both realized we didn't bring a fork to eat our food with. We each had our knives, but mine is REALLY sharp and his is REALLY dull. so the second night, at the McKay Hut, there were about 9 people in a group, all over 68ish...we thought they were a christian group or something because they signed the hut books saying "god is great. look at gods creation" etc etc. so that night, we both had freeze dried food (YUM! i love it) we didn't have plates so we were both eating out of pots. HUGE massive pots. then the christian group offered us some of there leftover pasta, and we demolished it--of course. so here we are, sitting outside, eating out of 3 HUGE POTS with marks knife. classy. very classy.

NEXT-

Got a new day pack, finally. After my good one got stolen I got this shitty 12 dollar bag. it was dying...zippers breaking, etc etc. so I just got a sweet Deuter Bag. So far, so good. it looks like a guys though.......better than pink with balloons though. ya?

Went on a walk/run yesterday around the lake. Wlel, not all the way around cause its massive, but for like 2 hours. It is so damn pretty right now--its autumn and the trees are just gorgeous. there is an island in themiddle of the lake that looks like a massive fireball with all the colors and such. So my walk was good, listenin' to music enjoying the view. I love love love it here. I just love the mountains. I can't wait to move somewhere with them. THe air has that crisp fresh fall feel to it and everyone is just cozy in their autumn clothes. I think autumn is def. my favorite season. I just feel GREAT here, love it and love being so active and just wondering around, meeting people, etcccccccc. I say "etc" to much. i know.

i need to buy a thicker jacket PRONTO. freakin cold and i'm goin deep south so it will be even worse, with artic wind blast.

So, i dont know if I am just really popular, coo, or what (probably all of the above) but I have so far known like 8 people here in Wanaka. Was outside this internet cafe with my friend sofie the other day and this guy from inside goes " OH HEY, MARY-ELLE!" And it was AUstin, from Berkley who I met wwoofing and who happens to be on my plane going home. So i have seen him every day--he hangs out at our hostel a lot and sleeps in his car. Then last night at the grocery I recognize this german chick that was in the first hut we stayed in on the heaphy. so we start talking and i invited her to a movie with my other two friends. she ended up coming, so that was sweet. So THEN, we are at the cinema (which I will talk about later) and I once again recognize these 3 german chicks I roomed with in Able Tasman. The girl I talked to was the one who was caking her face with make up to talk to her boyfriend online(LOSER) and she was like " OHMigosh, i didnt even recognize you! YUou look so different!" so if you cant' tell this is a complete insult. last night i actually straightened my hair and wasn't wearing my hiking shoes. so basically i have looked like complete shit, like a beasty monster 95% of the time over here. I have put make up on once. ONCE. so that is all i have met so far.....maybe more to come?

so the cineman is calle dCinema Pardiso. they have lots of food but the main attraction is that the theatre is comprised of old couches, lazy boys, cars, car parts, pilllows, plane seats, etc. not so normal. there were 4 of us on a couch and it was HOT and we wer elike on top of eachother. oh welll.

umm what else. oh, sofie and i rented kayaks yesterday for a bit. It was really nice out and we just went out a bit and enjoyed the scenary. noiiiiceeeee.

oh, so after my walk, where I was just full of happinesss and good thoughts, we decided to see the movie. the only one playing last night (there is one screening a night) was Revolutionary Road. oh my god. it was going from like night and day. if you were ever thinking suicidal thoughts, and just needed something to take you over the edge, Watch revolutionary road. dear god. how depressing. they were just yelling at eachother the whole time.

Iraeli Guys---so there are lots of israeli's here, which is slightly suprising to me. but they all just got out of the army and go and travel. they actually arent liked to much here because theuy are really rowdy and rude--or so ppl have told me. so anyways, yesterday, this guy locks eyes with me for a long ass time. I think nothing of it. he was blonde---didnot look israeli. then i am at the front desk and he his 2 friends are standing there. oen of them looks at me and says something...........IN HEBREW TO ME! I say HI back. this is the 5th time i have been here where israeli men assume i'm israeli and just start talking hebrew to me. its always awkward after because then they think i'm not israeli and I just want to say, heyehyee i'm jeiwsh, but i dont know hebrew HELLOOOOO!!! so now its awkward. hopefully they leave. i dont think they know english. maybe a little? who knows. strange.

yesterday this new guy moved into our room. steve from ireland. seemed nice---and i love the irish. so we talk. bahaba. i immediately realize that he is going to be a snorer. let me tell you why. so he takes his shoes off and all of the sudden this AWFUL repulsive disgusting smell shoots up into the air---EWWWWWWW!! I was forced to put tea tree oil under my nose to kill the smell. then he tells me that he has a cold, which was obvious because he kept sniffling, so i thought he was either a coke head or was SICK, so i'm like shit, now he isn't just a snorer, he is a snorer with a cold which is the WORST combo EVER! I was up all night. took some dramaine but that didnt work so much. then the other guy in the room started snoring too and made these flemmy sounds and talked in his sleep. so there was basically a symphony of horrendous sounds. it was awful. i almost moved out onto the couches. steve woke up thsi morning and was Like " heyyya! Howd you sleep??!" I wanted to throw thousands of knives at his face, but instead I smiled and laid back down. i might get pissed tonight though---need to find some heavy sleeping stuff today. i couldn ever be with a snorer. I would wake up every morning hating them.

met this guy michael from san diego. real nice fella. we are meeting up in queenstown. one of his Oz friends is coming down here and i think they are gonna come with me to Doubtful sound for the overnight cruise. hope so!!! we went to the wanaka market together which was really the queenstown market that i had already been to. i knew all of the vendors. the guy who made my greenstone necklace was there and recognized my necklace. small freakin i sland.

my mom thinks i'm going to get kidnapped at any time. "dont walk by yourself, don't hike by yourself, dont kayak by yourself, dont eat by yourself, don't go ANYWHERE by yourself" she thinks there are just people out to get me...........mwahhaha.

OK, one more thing...

MUFFINS. Kiwi's are muffin professionals. they are the most delicious things ever. there was one i had the other day that was white chocolate, and fresh blueberries and blackberries. today i had a carrot one. and then i had a blueberry. i should stop, but these are different kinds of muffins. they must have cocaine in them or soemthing. AND they are HUGE and they all have fresh fruit. i NEED to learn how to make them! there must be a secret. there must. i will miss them so.

anyways, probably wont write anymore while i'm in wanaka. i'll wait till queenstown. i'm staying with my friend becky, from middle school and highschool. excited to see her and her place!!!!!!! well, i need to go. the sun is showing its face and i should get out there. xoxoxMWAh

woohooooo!

Hello hello! Finally got around to putting some pics up on this thing. the internet is so slow so i have to prepare myself. anyways, in wanaka right now--which is about 1 1/2 hrs N of Queenstown. staying in a pretty sweeet hostel, its right on the lake. oo lalaa!! If I ever come back to NZ to work, this is where I would live. Its just comfy---small mountain town, surrouneeededded by beautiful mountains. just very livable.

almost had a HUGE catastrophe the other night!!! Went out the bars, wasn't even that drunk--or so i thought. we were drinking goon (boxed wine) i NEVER drink boxed wine, and now I remember why. so beth and i got back to the hostel and got on the internet becase we had this bet on the names of the oceans....so you have to pay 1 buck. I woke up the next morning and was like "ohh maybe I should make sure I have my passport, phone, and wallet.....UMMM couldnt find my wallet. was just engaging into major freak out mode. went to the computers, there are 2 of them, and low and behold my fucking wallet was THERE!!!! AHH! I can't belive no one took it. I am a lucky son-of-a-bitch.

anyways, was going to mtn. biking today, but its super windy and raining on and off, so weare going to go tomorrow and go for a hike this afternoon. I think we are going to go to a movie tonight at this sweet movie theatre. anyways, i have lots more to say and write but i'm not organized right now so I will save that for later. xoxo

lake matheson!
Helping Margaret and Hamish make tea tree oil


oo lala


dead tired after the heaphy track

pics from the Heaphy Track and Franz Joseph Glacierr!!

gosh i'm just so cool.......?
dork

Marky mark and I in the Oparara Basin
Oparara basin...lots of Iron in the Water=red

drivin down the West coast!

Hamish, Mark, and Funny Margaret!
GLACIERR!!!

Sunset at Heaphy Hut on the Heaphy Track........where the sea and the rivermouth meet, pretty awesommmeee

GLACIER, again!

Lake Matheson, with Mt. Cook (the tallest Mtn. in NZ, and Mt. Tasman)

"back in the day when men were men, and sheep were nervous" -the bushman

HOLY SHIT!! its been a while. sorrry friends and family!! I know you have all be just DYING for me to write. dreaming about it in your sleep, desperately wanting to learn about my life...bwahaha. NOT.

so much has happened. SO MUCH. so here we go. and again, i apologize for bad spelling, disgusting language, and for hoping all over the place and not making any sense, what-so-ever. the internet is wickedly expensive down south.

Starting back in Karamea, where I was for 3 weeks......highlights were---

One night Margaret, Hamish and Mark and I went to their friend rogers down the road. he is the one with the AMAZING view that looks out onto the estuary and sea. we had drinks, cheese, wine, etc. hamish said that rogers birthday was a "chemical feast" as in he loves drugs. so anyways, we were all a little tipsy when we got back. had a late dinner and then we got on the topic of drinks. We started talking about whiskey, which is my enemy. So hamish just whips out this LARGE bottle and 4 shot glasses. so I was thinking in my head, is this really happening, are we about to take down whiskey shots in the middle of no where. thankfully, i brought up Hot Toddy's. margaret was curious, so we ended up having multiple hot toddy's...whiskey, tea, honey, lemon?? yea. sorta felt like shit the next day. oh well! Good times. Margaret LOVED them. ohh i miss her. she freakin made me laugh so hard. I told her i wanted her to come with me on the rest of the trip.

there were wild peacocks on the farm. they wanted them dead. 2 babies and a mama. if anyone has ever heard peacocks you know how annoying they are. SO LOUD. they make this awful honking noises. we thought they got shot one night but i dont think they died...hum...maybe for easter dinner.

so hamish and margaret wer enice enough to let us barrow their car when they got back from the Kepler Treck for us to go to Oparara Basin, which is outside Karamea about an hour. Nice hikes and HUGE, massive arches. Hamish told us that the road going their was gravel and dangerous so be careful. i took this to heart, being scared of transportation and all. Mark, not so much. another woman told us to be careful too. so we are driving there and I kept telling mark to slow the F down. there were cliffs on either side, iw as getting car sick, and didnt want to die. i am an extremely paranoid driver and usuallyy drive slow, most of the time. so i was being annoying and telling him to slow down and all of the sudden, BAM! he goes off the side of the road into a ditch. mind you, we have driven about 14K and havent seen a human. so, he starts backing up and I'm like NOOO WAIITTT YOU dONT KNOW WHATS BEHIND YOU!!! so he stops, and then we realize that the car is completely stuck in the ditch. FUCK. is all i thought. if he hadnt backed up we would have been good, but nooo he just had to back up. so we get out of the car, look around, and realize that one of us has to run back down, like 7 miles, to find someone to help. i stay back and immediately start thinking of shows like "i shouldnt be alive" and "survivorman" not that anything would have happened to me cause there are like ZERO mammals here. but maybe a little kiwi bird would attack me? who knows. i started looking in the first aid kid they had for flares....ohmigod i'm insane. i thought mark was going to either not come back and i was about to set up camp in the car. THANKFULLY, a Department of Conservation, DOC, officer was driving, picked mark and up like 15 minutes after he left, and pulled us out with no worries. i felt awful though about the car, even though it as OK. made for a good story though.....

NEXT.

finally made it to the arches in the Basin. MASSIVE. huge. biggest i have ever seen. couldnt help but think how bad it would be if an earthquake happened while i was under it. get back to the house and turns out there WAS an earthquake!!!!!! like 20 minutes after we were under the arches. CRAZY.

americans wash dishes different than kiwis. we run water the whole time, they fill the sink up with water and wash everything in that. i think i like our way.

LOVED hamish and margarets lifestyle. Simple, fun, to the point, just loved it. they really knew how to live and be happy. going to miss them a lot and its very strange i probably wont see them EVER again.

So mark and I decided to do the Heaphy Treck, which is one of the 9-10 great walks of NZ. it was GORGEOUS. we had perfect weather. hiked for 4 days. did a total of about 45 ish miles, maybe more? I felt good, my feet hurt though at the end of every day. the sandflies were AWFUL at one of the huts we stayed at--where the sea and the river mouth meets. they love H2O. my legs were eaten up. couldnt sleep from itching so i found some dramamine i had taken with me. thank god. the huts were GREAT! just a kitchen, fireplace, gas stoves for cooking which was NICEEE, and then there were 2 rooms with boards. you just had to get a "mattress" a plastic thing. so you are sleeping RIGHT next to people. the first night we had 2 other poeple in the hut with us, the next 2 they were full, so like 25-30 ppl. it was a greaaaaaaat time! really enjoyed it. felt safe and good except for mudslides....ugh. mark would walk ahead at times and then hide and scare me when i got closer. i usually screamed rather loud. part of the hike was full of Nikau Palms (Ne-Ko). they are BEAUTIFUL! check 'em out. another sweet part of the treck were the swing bridges. they are for 1 person at a time and are just made out of about 4 cables and like little pieces of metal....fun to walk across. bwahaha.sdasd hand is cramping up right now......

when we were done with the hike we called this shuttle # and this woman named Carol picked us up. we later saw her driving a schoolbus and another bus. THEN, the day before we left, i called to get the shuttle going to westport to pick us up at Hamish and Marg's. A woman answered...it was CAROL! and her son was picking us up. i mean this town was SMALL.

The last night we were there mark found a shit ton of mussels so we cooked them and ate them...YUMMY! made a butter/garlic sauce. some of the mussels had baby crabs in them or were halfway through digesting them. mark and hamish's son ate the baby crabs, i passed. gross.

cant stop drinking lemon and honey tea. so damn good.

So SOMETHING SO STRANGE HAPPENED! this is an example of the small NZ is....... back in August, my friend Julie Welch, told me about her friend Shannon who was coming to NZ to live and travel as well. so shannon and i exchanged a few fbook messages, just asking/saying things about our potential plans...etc etc. i never really thought we would meet up bc she has been working, balbahablah. so about 4 weeks ago shannon wrote me again but i still felt we werent going to meet up....so I am in Westport waiting for the stray bus to pick me up. i get on the bus and go to theback. introduce myself to some people, "mariel...hihihi" and this girl goes, "umm are you Mary-Elle (thats how people say my name who dont know me) and I say "yea, mariel" IT WAS SHANNON! soo fucking strange. she is the one who told me about stray too. so we have now been together for like 4days and will be in wanaka, (where I am right now) for the week. SMALL ISLAND.

the driver i had, natalie, was GREAT! on time, safe. much better than the male drivers. except she wanted to play games, like counting bridges and shit. i dont do games like that.

the first night we stayed in barrytown, wher eI had to wear drag again. man oh man did it PISS DOWN RAIN! i thought the town was going to get flooded out. they said they had enver had a storm like that before. BUCKETS of hail. all night. pretty cool. i didnt dress up, or drink. was tired. it was all good.

we then went to franz joseph glacier which is the steepest glacier in the world. it moves 1 meter a day. it was WICKED AWESOME! they had just had rain for the past 5 days and the day we hiked it was crystal clear blue skies. I got some amazing pics--i'll post later. so i did the full day hike. had to wear cramp ons, it was a great experience. pretty insanely gorgeous. and bc it had just rained the Ice was even more blue than usual. had a great guide, Rob, from the UK and a great group.

so that was GREATT!! started to move more s. the next day. the mountains are snow capped right now. went to lake matheson and saw Mt. cook and mt. tasman. GORGEOUS! i just love the mountains here. spectacular to look at--esp. with the snow. makes me want to move to the mtns. badly.

I forgot to tel yo9u guys that the god awful horse i rode in Queenstown way back, Elvis, was in LORD OF THE RINGS! I RODE A CELEBRITY!!! ohmigosh, how cool am i.

getting sick of my clothes. and i smell. someone kept farting ALL DAY ON THE BUS and it smelled so bad. i wanted to die. i almost made an annoucment for the farter to get off the bus, walk to the toilet, and take a shit. i mean it was awful. everyone kept talking about it all night. i could hardly breathe.

got to wanaka today---love at first site. right on Lake Wanaka, snow capped mtns. all around it. GORGEOUS! i will be here till next sunday. going jet boating with my friend Sofie from Sweden---we are also going mountain biking, rafting, and kayaking---its a primo outdoors town. so i love it.

if i stayed here longer, i would stay in wanaka and work here for the ski season........humm....

ok, well i'm gonna go. i will put pictures up on monday or something. i know i stil have more to say, blabaaha, but this is all my poor hands can take.

Oh, the title of this one, "sheep were nervous"....we stopped at this "bushmans center" on the side of the road. this man named pete came on and goes " so, this is the bushmans center. and believe it or not, NZ didnt used to be like Auckland, with all those Hooity, Mushy, Metro-sexual lovin people. It used to be a palce where men were men and sheep were nervous" this guy was NUTS! i loved him. the place was strange...it was about how NZ farms deer. they used to shoot them (they are not native, obv. its an island, and can hurt the environemnt) but they started farming them. there are deer farms everywhere. so NZ bushman get in helicopters and either shoot out nets over them or actually jump out of the helicopters onto the backs of the deer. we watched this insane video about it. NUTS! THE BUSHMEN ARE NUTS!

CHEERS, ya BLOAKS! xo