New Zealand gets better and better!

The last week has been amazing! Lahti and I went hiking on Fox Glacier, spent a couple of days in Wanaka (a town by a lake surrounded by mountains) and then headed to Queenstown (a city on the water surrounded by mountains). That seems to be the theme in this area of the country. :) It is beautiful here. This morning I went hang gliding off of a mountain!!! I think it was the most amazing experience of my life. The feeling is indescribable. I felt like a bird the way we caught the wind currents and sailed above the land. Tom, the hang gliding expert I was strapped to, did this thing called a stall where he pushed the bar of the hang glider up all the way and made us stop in mid-air (I felt weightless for a second, like I was going to fall) then he pushed the bar down and we started plunging towards the ground until the hang glider leveled out. It was the biggest thrill ever! We were swooping over a lake and I could see our shadow on the lake. Landing was awesome too - we made a couple of big turns down towards the ground and then it felt like we were heading towards the grass really quickly, but the landing was really smooth. To land you just slide along the grass on your legs, but it's a lot gentler than it sounds. I had so much fun - I'm a little obsessed with hang gliding now. I'm going to try to post some videos of me in the air!! The videos are kind of short because Tom was having problems with the camera, but at least he got some. Oh, and I just posted a bunch of new photos on Picasa Web Albums so check those out too! :) http://picasaweb.google.com/morganlwillis

Only 3 more weeks...

I can't believe I only have 3 more weeks in New Zealand. The time is flying by as I travel around with Lahti. We were in Christchurch for a night where we were super excited to eat Mexican food (they don't have much Mexican in New Zealand). We took the Tranzscenic train across the country from Christchurch to Greymouth. There were some nice mountain views. We went to the Monteith's Brewery in Greymouth, but other than that the best thing about the whole town was the hostel we stayed in - Global Village Backpackers. We were ready to get on the road again to Franz Josef Glacier. We went on a hike today through actual rainforest then hiked over a riverbed for a bit longer to get to the terminal face of the glacier. Pretty impressive stuff! I am continually amazed by the diversity of the landscape in New Zealand. We were driving by an ocean yesterday with mountains on the other side of us and today we were walking through rainforest to see a glacier. Where else can you do that!? Tomorrow we're headed to Fox Glacier where we are going to do a full day glacial hike onto the ice with a guide. I know I've been a slacker about pictures - it's really hard to find a computer that will upload them at more than a snail's pace. So here are a few pics to appease you.... :)

Kaikoura

My next stop was in Kaikoura - on the East coast of the South Island. The town is known for their amazing sea life including dolphins, seals and whales. Anybody who knows me knows I wanted to participate in every single marine adventure imaginable, but because of the outlandish prices of everything I had to choose just one. I ended up deciding to swim with the seals. They gave us big, warm wetsuits and snorkel gear then we took a shuttle down to the beach and walked on the rocks for about 20 minutes until we got to the spot where we would go in the water. Apparently the few days before they weren't able to do the seal swimming because the sea was too rough from a storm way offshore. They decided that the day I was there would be okay..... So we got in the water, snorkeled around a bit and then started following the guide out past some rocks to the calm part where the seals were lounging on rocks and sunning themselves. Well to get to the calm part we had to swim through a deep part with pretty strong currents trying to push us back towards the shore. We got through it fine and had a good time looking at the seals close up. Not many of them were in the water with us unfortunately. The guide said sometimes they swim all around with the people and even come up and bump their face masks. I had one get in the water near me, swim by, look at me and swim off to another rock. When it was time to go back to shore we started swimming through the deep part again and just at the same time some big swells started coming over the rocks towards us. I couldn't get out of the current and was being pushed towards the rocks then my leg cramped up - great timing, huh? So the guy is yelling at me to swim over to him (like I'm not trying). And I'm shaking my head, shouting "I can't". So I end up on this rock and he has to come over and pull me off and take me over to the intertube that 2 people are already hanging onto. So I'm definitely not one that every wants to give in and need help, but you better believe I was hanging onto that intertube for dear life until we got to shore. My hand was all bloody and cut up from the rocks, but other than that I survived! That was my big Kaikoura adventure.

Quick summary of the rest of my trip so far

Okay, so I feel like I've been typing way too much on here trying to catch up on everything. I've decided to try to give a broader overview (if that's possible for me). And then you have any questions or want more details you can ask me.
Alright, so I got to Turangi and hiked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing the next day. It's supposed to be one of the best day hikes in the country. The brochure said to take a hat and gloves and a warm jacket. I thought that was crazy because it had been so hot the day before, but I stuck them in anyway. Thank goodness I did! It was so cold on the hike! It was really windy and we were at a higher altitude so I definitely needed the warm clothes. The first part of the hike was all rocky terrain and uphill most of the way. Then I reached some emerald lakes of sulfurous water. Then the last part of the hike was mostly downhill with amazing views of Lake Taupo and farmlands. The whole thing took me about 6 hours to hike.
The next day I went to Wellington (the capital of New Zealand). I met up with Lahti again and we spent the day walking around the city. We went to the museum, had lunch at an Irish pub, then went to the Botanical Gardens that night where they had a free Cuban Jazz concert.
The next morning I caught the ferry to the South Island. The boat was huge - I felt like I was on a mini cruise ship (even though I've never been on a cruise ship). Coming into Picton was neat because we were between two land masses of huge green hills and hit was raining - it looked very surreal. After staying in Picton for a night I headed to Nelson where I got ready to hike in Abel Tasman National Park. The hike was 51 KM through the park, mostly in the woods right along the beach. There were amazing views of the coast along the way! I stayed in huts for 4 nights. They were just really basic rooms with bunk beds all in a row, toilets and COLD showers. The hikes each day between huts were only about 3 or 4 hours so I had a lot of time to lay on the beach and read. I met a nice family who were kayaking with their kids. They let me borrow a kayak one day and paddle around the estuary. I also met a nice older German couple - there was a random, really nice cafe in the middle of the hike where they bought me lunch. Lastly, I met a man from Virginia named Hank. Random, huh?! One of my favorite parts of the whole hike was a side trail that took me to Cleopatra's Pool - a fresh water river that ran down over huge boulders into an extremely clear pool at the bottom. There was a small waterfall there. Yay, I'm almost caught up. My internet time is up for now. I'll write more soon!