North Island

Well we finally headed up to the top of the south island and made it to the ferry in Picton. Once we boarded our car at 10:25pm and headed up into the lounge we tirelessly waited 3 hours to dock. Once we got back down to our car and tried to turn it on...I bet you can guess what happened next. It had died because I left the light on...oops. All the cars had to go around us while they jumped us...Now we are 3/3. Currently we are in Taupo in the national park where L of the R was filmed with volcanoes, lava, craters and wetlands. We are making dinner and it smells good...lets hope we make it home alive...think of us..

Schools Out

So Mary Kate and I finished school! The last two days were canceled bc of severe flooding! So we didn't even get to say goodbye to our classes! We spent the weekend playing with the kids in our family and enjoying relaxing time before we headed to New Zealand for 2 weeks to travel around in a camper van! We flew into Christchurch and slept in the airport to wake up the next morning to get our Rental Camper. We started driving down to Dunedin and stayed the night there. The scenery is GORGEOUS. Straight out of Lord of the Rings-geek, I know. The next day we woke up to drive to Queenstown, which is a ski town with a ton of backpackers. It was in this faithful mountainous and breathtaking town that our van battery died. We had to call a company early in the morning and have the man come jump our car. It was also here that Mary Kate and I karaoked to 'Oops I did it again' by the notorious B. Spears. The next morning we drove along the lakes that were enclosed by mountains to 'Paradise Gates', where Lord of the Rings was filmed-don't judge me it was really pretty. After that experience, we continued our drive up to Fox Glacier where we hiked a GLACIER. Yes, thats right, we had on 'clamp on' claws to our boots and hiked around on this massive glacier of ice. It was ridiculous. But exhausting. With sore legs and tired minds we drove to Greymouth-where our car decided to die again. We went to the nearby gas station and decided to ask the man if there was anyway he had a jumper cable. He didnt. But his friend, Phil, who was taking a shower behind the gas station? could help us. So he jumped our car for us and we were on our way. We got to Panikik and got our car stuck at a picnic area...we had to push the car out of the mud...but we did it. We slept in Panikiki and the next morning continued our drive to Westport and up to Nelson where we are currently. We are exhausted and are trying to recoup before heading to the north island. Many more stories to come...at least our driving on the opp side of the car and road is improving...somewhat.....

Sleeping in Cars

Mary Kate and I just got back from a six day excursion to Melbourne in which we 'hired' (rented) a car.  We started on Thursday morning and drove 'The Great Ocean Road', which is a road that runs along the southern coast of Australia.  We then made our way up to 'Halls Gap' that contains the Grampian Mountains and did a few hikes and visited a winery.  The wine tour we went on, to our surprise, was composed of 25 people from an elderly home.  We wove our way back to Melbourne and stayed there for two days before returning the car and flying back to Kingscliff.  

Needless to say, the most entertaining part of this entire trip was the fact that we slept in our car every night.  Perhaps not the safest thing in the world, but definitely the cheapest.   We laid both seats back and brought sleeping bags.  We would wake up every morning at 6:45am with the sunrise and get started on our day driving to wherever the day took us. It was a beautiful adventure but a very homeless one.  We learned that you need little to get by...

All in all, its good to be sleeping in a bed and regularly showering again.

Rando Weekend

So this weekend Mary Kate and I got on a bus after school to Byron.  We forgot our confirmation number-rather we didn't know we even had one- so we had to convince the bus driver we actually bought a ticket. He thought we were scamming the system.  After arriving in Byron we walked around for about an hour looking for our hostel.  We finally found 'The Aquarius' and met our amazing roommates composed of 4 girls from England, 1 guy from Germany and 1 girl from Sweden.  The guy from Germany is apparently on their version of CSI and also raps. He said we could be in his rap video when he made one.  The girls were really nice and were going sky diving on Sunday.  They had me convinced to go but we had to be picked up on Saturday so our plans wouldn't coordinate.  I intend to hopefully do it in New Zealand if I have time....

Sunday was composed of eating, walking around downtown and riding our bikes to the local art festival, followed by lounging by the pool and reading.  Currently I am reading an awful book by Danielle Steel.  I would highly recommend to never read her books. Poor writing. 

School was back on today and dreadfully dragged on.  Luckily the naughtiest boy is still away on holiday so the class is well behaved.  Mary kate and I leave for Melbourne on Thursday and are counting down the days....