Green Gables Deer Farm South Island

Only two days left until I embark on a 24 hour flight home. Aaron and I left the tropical north and worked our way south. We stayed an extra day in Auckland going to museums. We went to the maritime museum and looked at Maori sailing vessels and war canoes. We then went to the Auckland Museum and spent several hours getting lost in Maori history, colonization history, war history, and natural history. The highlight for both of us was to see Sir Edmund Hillary's ice ax, the ...

... is a cross-dresser. Supposedly, he came to work one afternoon with makeup on, lipstick and eyeshadow. Isn't that how they always get found out? I guess he also went out to dinner with his wife (!) and they were both wearing dresses and heels! Who knows how these rumors start, but everyone that works at Talley's seem to believe it. I guess it makes sense, he did dye his hair within the first few days of working with him. He really ...

Saturdays are our free days, and we can choose from 3 or 4 different activities to do or we can just stay at the base and relax. Also, 1 weekend during our time here in New Zealand, we are assigned to be a weekend warrior. On that weekend, a team stays back and does all the chores and cooks all the meals to keep the base going. I have been assigned to the last weekend of the school. Today, I joined a group that went cave ...

... in terms of wilderness finding but a delight in all other ways. We cycled along quiet back roads after leaving the highway out of Christchurch. First we came to a place the had a round about, a rare site in NZ and a great cafe, common in NZ but this one was special with bike parking and the nicest women serving, the sort of niceness/service that no training ...

... can testify too.. 25 quid was an all time low for me thus far and i was getting a little twitchy as to what i was going to do with the training weekend just a week away!!! Shireen at the farm offered me a bit of cash to get me to springfield and so did dad (oh and morgan - thanks heaps by the way) but i wasnt having any of it.! I knew deep down that it would all work out and once i had got over my little patch of doubt and stress it got my positivity back ...

... the young hipster called Gerard rather than the older Dutch man and are at the front of the group as we talk to him whilst he's pickaxing his route across the ice. We stop at various points looking in ice caves and it's a steady pace as we walk which is a good thing as with Nic and I in the group we bring the average age down to 77. Our batteries go whilst up there but thankfully one of the O ...

... Kevin en ik door Tony meegenomen naar de bush. Heerlijk gewandeld. Eerst de dikste boom (in NZ?) bezocht Daarna een ECHTE wandeling gemaakt (2 km de berg op, over een riviertje met alleen stenen als pad) om uit te komen bij een waterval. Er mooi. Vanmiddag naar... jawel... de Warehouse geweest. (best makkelijk te vinden trouwens). Vanavond hadden Tony en stef een feestje van vrienden. Kevin en ik zouden met ons 2-en ...

... gedood. Dat kriebeltje in mijn nek vanmorgen bleek Kevin te zijn en had niets te doen met een heel nest vol spinnen. We hebben de eerste nacht overleefd. Vanmorgen na het ochtendritueel (spinvrij) hoefden we niet op zoek naar eten. Dit was prettig! Toch gaat het zich in je systeem nestelen dat je de hele dag uitkijkt naar restaurants en cafe's waar je de avond kunt doorbrengen (immers: wat moet je op zo'n hotelkamer waar je niets ...

... it looked. Easy enough to do 180's standing still, but when sliding down a slight incline, it is much harder. Joe had managed it fairly easily, but being much bigger and heavier meant I was having trouble completing the rotation before hitting the ground. I did manage it once though! Shortly after that I hit the ground so hard that I seriously hurt my elbow, so I decided to give up for a while. This was when Milu told me that normally he only ...

... hotel around 9:45 to look around the town (Christchurch.) We saw a memorial to 9/11, Hagley Park, the Courthouse and other old government buildings, War Memorial Bridge, Botanical Gardens, the Art Centre, and the Christchurch Cathedral. After lunch we went to the Antartic Center. While there we were able to talk to one of their members, Glenn, stationed in Antartica. We rode in a vehicle which is the type they use in Antartica and went ...