OCTOBER 23- 31, 2006

Ocotober 31, 2006

We had to rise early today so we could catch our train to Adelaide. It was a long train ride and sadly our luggage was slightly overweight so we had to buy another bag and make it so we could put everything on. We had an awesome time with the Raulli's and will see them around December 14 or so.

October 30, 2006

Well, today the girls went to school with Marina's god daughter. It was a all girls private school where they have to wear uniforms and all that stuff. By the 3rd period, English, they actually had to do some form of work. The teacher told them they had to write a practice essay for their exams. So there we are waiting for them to pull out a pen and some paper, and what do they use? Computers that's what!!! They got to write an essay on their computers. While the girls where in school, Lori adn Dave went to double-check on the size of our Britz and everything. We will fit but we will have to pack tight. We went home for a yummy roast beef dinner and to pack for the next day.

October 29, 2006

Lori, the awesome cook that she is, made us all Sunday brunch. After a marvelous breaqkfast/lunch we got ready for Matt's concert that started at 5:00 pm. The music was.. WOW!!!! There's not a word for it. After champeange we were invitied to the standing bass players house for supper. The food was great and we met a lot of people. Can you believe that this all happened by flipping a coin? We can't. We also met a 96 year old professor, and she still works at the university. Now that is amazing!

October 28, 2006

Today Lori, Sydney, and Victoria went shoppping with Dani at the Victoria market and Richmond. The girls picked up some dress clothes and a few school clothes. Lori seemed to disappear to go find some x-mas presents. We then took Marina and Joe out to supper and Dani went to her birthday night party with her friends (Lori andDave would have gone but there was smoking in the pub). The funny thing is that, when we were walking back to Dani's car to go home, the phone rang and it was Matt (the guys Lori and Dani met on teh bike yesterday). He said that there was a concert tomorrow night. So now we have our evening out tomorrow and we get to meet some new people

October 27, 2006
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANI!!!

Miss birthday queen asked for cinnamon buns for her birthday and that's exactly what Lori made. Lori had an exciting afternoon with Dani. Now, for those who don't know her, Dani is a very oganized person (not with her house though, but we love you anyway). So, what does Lori do? She flips a coin at the end of their driveway for which direction to go. They went left, downtown, Dani's favorite number (14 major intersections), her favorite colour (purple, 6 letters, 6 major intersections, asked a construction worker his favorite number, and left of right, down 11 blocks then turn left. They then ended up at a casino and won more money than they spent. Went to test drive a BMW and to a street cafe or bistro. They then didn't know were to go so they asked this stranger on a bike, waiting to cross the street, after Lori went up to tell him it was Dani's birthay. Just so happens that it was his birthday too, so they asked what he did and all that stuff. His name was Matt and he playe dhte violin in the Victorian Orcastra. They asked him if he had any concerts coming up and switched numbers. After many other conversations he told them were to go. By the end they went to shops that had shoes, dresses, under clothes, wigs, and then eventually home again.
October 26, 2006

Had an awesome breaky this morning. We drove to Cape Shank in the afternoon. The tide was coming in and the waves were HUGE!!!!! There was a rock that look like Elvis Presley's profile with his guitar. After a long walk to the shore line we had to turn around because the flies were terrible and the wind was chilly. Lovely Marina decided to count the steps going up and discovered that there were 182 steps (if I wrote that wrong marina please tell me). On the way home we stopped for milkshakes adn ice cream in a wonderful little coffee shop. We then had dinner at Dani's place and watched movies.

October 25,2006

It's been one month since we have left Canada. Can you believe it? It's hard for us too. Today we are heading to the Raulli's friends summer house and to go horseback riding yet again. This time we went for 2 hours with Dani and a couple from somewhere we don't now. It was awesome! We learned how to trot and canter (really it's a gallop but they call it a canter here) and went along the beach for a nice walk. Later we had happy hour and supper and the ladies (as in every female in the house except Victoria and Sydney) went out to town for an hour or so.

October 24,2006

We didn't reaqlly do a whole lot today. We helped clean the house for Marina and do our laundry. The weather was about 30' C so we went to a bike hire and got the bike that can have two people at a time on tehm. WE went down the coast line and had a wonderful time. We had dinner with everyone again and went to bed for an early rise tomorrow.

October 23, 2006

Today we went to Maina's friends ranch. Pino, Jenny adn Jenna should us tehre farm and animals. Victoria got to drive their tractor and Lori and Sydney made tehmselves at home in teh 'HOP ON INN', which is Pino's rabbit shed. We tehn went into town for ice cream and to look around. we had left overs for supper and had a blast with the Raulli's.

OCTOBER 15-22,2006

October 22,2006

The girls went to the market today and the boys went downtown to see Joe's buildings that her constructed. The girls saw a husky that was HUGE! Along with paintins and jewelery there were tree mugs that had facial expressions to die for. Lori made suppper tonight. The supper table was so quite you could her a pin drop (it is an Italian house we are in, it pretty loud). The food was amazing!

October 21,2006

Today we went downtown with Dani. The area we went to, is awesome. There is a flowerclock that tells the time with metal hands but the rest of the face is made of flowers. We had dinner with Fiona and her boyfriend. We played 'Articulate' after and had a blast!

October 20,2006
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!

We are in Melbourne!!!!! Dani and Joe (our aussy friends) picked us up at the airport. The plae ride was long but not that long. The Devil wears Prada was on fo most of it but it was still long. Marina was waiting for us at thier house with supper. We had a wonderful supper adn afterwards a lot of the Raulli's friends came over for Joe's Birthday.

October 19,2006

In the morning and most of the afternoon we packed and did laundry. In the afternoon we went to downtown Christchurch to the Tram. It was Sydney's day to plan so we saw the old cathedral and listened to the choir. Boy, can those girls sing high!!! We had supper at an Indian resturant. Tomorrow we are at the airport most of the day and then to Melbourne Australia.

Octoer 18,2006

Sadly, we went over budget yesterday so today was an awesome day to chill. We drove to a little french town in the banks peninsula. We then drove home on the tourist road. Lori was white knuckeled all the way there because the road was narrow and it was a fair ways down! Dave and Tor made supper and dessert was marshmellows on toffe pops (good idea Anna!).

October 17,2006

Today Victoria planned the days activities. Dave was suppose to but the weather wasn't right for his. We went to Hanmer Spring, which is north of Christchurch. Before we went into the hot srprings we went horseback riding for an hour and ad a blast!!!!!! After our amazing ride we drive on down to the hot pools and soaked in them for as long as possible.

October 16,2006

We relaxed this morning. We also did laundry, Lori and Toria went shopping and we planned the rest of the week. We then went for a tour at the Antarctic Museum that afternoon. They had little blue penguins and every half hour they allow you to throw on a winter coat and experience an Antarctic storm. It was really sweaty!!!!

October 15,2006

The weather is grey adn crappy. We drove to Christchurch today but we took the longer but more seenic route (on a nice day). The Arther's pass was cool cause the water from the rain was pouring down teh mountain left, right, and center. We arrived at the top 10 campground in Christchurch this evening and chilled.

OCTOBER 8-14, 2006

October 14,2006

We are still in Richmond. We went for a hike today at the Abel Tasman Park. It was beautiful! We stoppe at a beach for a picnic lunch and a swim. There wasn't anyone there except for a couple of woment at the other end of the beach. We found these awesome Honesty Boxes were you uy th fruit and the owners trust you to pay for them with the honesty box. At the PArk there were rock formed into words adn phases and we saw some really fat canadian geese there too. Freaky!!!

October 13,2006

The countdown is still on. Dave adn Lori went looking at some boats and did a bit of shopping. We then went to Rabbit Isalnd where the is a beach. By the end Sydney adn Victoria went body serfing in the ocean. At nigt we went to teh Nelson masked parade and arts festival. The tunes were thrilling. Lori got her hair sprayed with green and for those who don't know, her hair is blonde so it went neon green.

October 12,2006

It's 8 days till we fly over to Melbourne ( no offence to any Kiwis reading this but we are almost dying to see our friends there). We went to the movie Step Up and were amazed with the story. During the day we chilled out and Lori and Dave went for a walk and found a beach and heard about the Nelson festival.

October 11,2006

We rode the ferry today over to Picton. Our lovely Lori somehow convinced a crew member to let us on the brig (that's really rare because of 9-11) so Tor could learn the basics on navigation before she goes back to school. They mostly use computers now and a way better G.P.S. then hunters do instead of charts and the wind. We had to unpack our bags a little so they would fit in our car without us becoming pancakes in our seats. The car we got had an electrical problem so we traded for a kool GOLD camry!!!! Eventually we drove our awesome gold car to Richmond (which is on the outskirts of Nelson) and had our picnic at a b-e-a-uuuu-tiful lookout spot.

October 10,2006

Today we drove to Wellington to catch the ferry over to the South Island. WE drove through snow today and it felt like driving in a spring snow fall. Strangly there isn't much else to write for today except that we packed.

October 9, 2006

Dave made us walk :( all the way down town Taupo and back again). Actually it wasn't that bad, we did the basic shopping and did R&R. We then went to the Honey Hive and the Huka Falls. Now we are sitting in an internet cafe waiting to go to the spa (hot tub).

October 8,2006

Well. One simple question. Have you ever gone Black Water Rafting?
We did. all 6 of us. We had a full wet suit on icluding socks overalls, a jacket, a set of cute rubber booties, and a tube. We took the Black Labyrinth that is an underground river rafting experience. RADICAL DUDES!!! This involved going down a dark hole, jumping backwards over waterfalls, with your trusty tube of course, into freezign cold water, paddleing your floating wetness through the caverns, and oberserving B-E-AUTIFUL glow worms (actually they are maggots, but no one wants to see a cave full of "glow maggot" now do they?). After escaping the darkness we had to sadly say good bye to Anna adn Bevan and continue our trip.

OCTOBER 1-7 2006

October 7,2006

Alright. Here's the story. We went down a hill in a little sled, walked through a reseved called Hells's gate, that stinked like rotten eggs and took a short road trip to Blue and Green Lake. Luckily, Anna's car had 7 seat belts (2 in the front, 3 in the middle and 2 facing backward in the back). By the end, Lori and Anna started playing rock, paper, scissors with the university tour bus behind us. We took the luge down about 4 times ( it's like a sled but no snow, no sleigh things and no icy roads). It was AWESOME!!!!!

October 6,2006

We drove around Rotorua tday to get groceries, a few missalanious items and x-mas presents fro all you lovely people. At night, Anna and Bevan pulled in and we had a late happy hour that included long stories, picture showngs, and great fun. We didn't get to ed until about 11:00 pm, so it was a kind of late night.

October 5,2006

Today we drove from this gorgeous BIG surf beach called Bayleys beach to Rotorua a day early. We are meeting Anna and Bevan tomorrow and needed a day to catch up. We bought groceries and hung out.

October 4,2006

We are recently at a campground with cabins and cottages. Today we went to te Ancient Kauri forest and saw the largest kauri tree and went to the Gummdiggers forest, which is also an ancient kauri forest but is buried in a swamp. We rode the ferry across to Rawenee so we wouldn't have to go around this huge inlet. Our fine dining supper was muscles and stir-fry. Oh, adnwe also went to a gift shop with a staircase made of an ancient kauri tree. It was pretty neat.

October 3, 2006

ROAD TRIP TO THE NORTHERN MOST TIP OF NEW ZEALAND: CAPE REIGNA
Lori keeps finding these bakeries and we keep telling her her butt is going to be as big as a barn. But for some funny reason we keep eating them anyway. MMMMMM...!!!!!
When we were at the north tip you had to be extremely careful that you didn't get knocked off the continent by the wind. What really gets us is, isn't the oceans all one big water mass? We guess not because it says that the TAsman Sea and the South Pacific Ocean join.
We stayed at an old historical hostel in Pukenui built in 1842.


October 2,2006

Although we didn't write anything yesterday becasue nothign really hapened. We chilled out at the hostel, made muffins and home-made lemon merigne pie from scratch (we even picked the lemons). We watched 3 movies, watched Lori putter in the big kitchen, and read our books.
Today, we walked to the Waitangi Treaty Hous and grounds. We had a tour guide named Tiffany to help us with Sydney's socials project. We learned there were many similar things and differences between the Maori's and Blackfoot people.