Weekend Adventure

The past week has been heaps busy in school. It is mid-semester and of course we have plenty of assignments due.

Cameron, Caitlin, and I left early Thursday morning to fly up to Brisbane. We arrived in Brisbane and drove to the Gold Coast to visit Ned and Caleb for the weekend on our way to their hostel we stopped at Surfers Paradise. It was great to see them and where they’re living. We cooked out hamburgers that night and caught up on life. To save a little money, we slept in their station-wagon, it was a tight squeeze but so fun J The next day we spent the day in Coolangatta and surfed. We also made a stop at the Billabong and Quicksilver outlets. We slept on the beach that night and gazed at the stars. The next day we snuck into a resort and after searching 15 floors we finally found the pool and hot tubs J That night Caleb, Caitlin, and I went to a movie while Cameron helped Ned work at the hostel. Caleb took us to a place called Point Danger and we climbed around the rocks overlooking the ocean. We sat on a rock enjoying the night and catching up on our lives. The next day we went to Byron Bay, a hippie beach town. We hiked up to a lighthouse and enjoyed the Gold Coast. We drove back to Brisbane that night and slept in the airport for an early flight back to Newcastle the next day. It was a beautiful weekend and we missed the other girls. We are all reunited back at our home and planning our next weekend in Sydney J

Holiday in New Zealand

6 friends: Cameron, Caitlin, Devin, Trenton, Chris, and Me

10 days

1 camper van

South Island, New Zealand

Our trip started off by waking up at 3 am to catch a flight from Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand. When I arrived in New Zealand I found the hostel and explored Christchurch a little bit. I crashed early that night and woke up the next morning to find the girls running up to the hostel after they had just pushed the broken campervan down the street. Once we got a new camper van, we started our adventure around the south island. Our first stop was Lake Tekapo where we found a nice spot off the side of the road for our first night of sleep. Surprisingly, a few snowflakes had fallen that morning and we were all unprepared for the chilly weather. We began to realize that nature pee’s and no showers would be common this trip J

Waking up at Lake Tekapo was beautiful; we explored around the lake and found a tiny beautiful church that overlooked the lake. The water was incredibly blue from the glaciers and as we traveled that day we were amazed by the breathtaking views so of course we stopped off along scenic points whenever we got a chance. On our drive to Wanaka, we came across a “free food” sign and pulled over to check it out. New Zealand is starting a “driver reviver” program to keep their drivers’ safe and alert. We got free lattes, apples, bbq, candy, etc. It was amazing and much needed J

We made it to Wanaka and gazed at the stars that night. We pulled off the side of the road to sleep that night and apparently it is illegal. We were woken up at 4:45 am to a loud knock from the council of security. They made us move or the cops were coming to fine us. Chris frantically yet half asleep quickly drove away to another location.

The boys went skydiving and the girls enjoyed a beautiful day at the hot pools. We met up with the boys and heard about their thrilling adventure and finished the night by eating dinner by the lake and enjoying the sunset. We headed to Queenstown that night. Once we arrived we walked along the quaint little town and ran into Mike and Sean (friends from Clemson). We got to catch up a little and they decided to crash along our trip for a few days with us. We sat and listened to live music.

BUNGY JUMPING NEVIS!!! We woke up with nerves, knowing we would be jumping 143 meters from a pod. We made it and all jumped. It was an incredible peaceful experience and we all made it alive (although I got a hemorrhage in my left eyeball from the negative force) but no worries, I have another eyeball J It was definitely worth the thrilling experience. We went hiking afterwards and at the top of the mountain there was a luge. It was hilarious and so fun as we all luged back down the mountain. That night we headed for Milford Sound. On our way to Milford Sound we found a fallen avalanche that had formed into an igloo.

Milford Sound was beautiful but once we got there we decided to explore around. We found a gate that we climbed over and trekked through to arrive upon a giant waterfall and to get better views of this place. It was incredible.

On our way to Mt. Cook, we stopped off at Chasm. We hiked and got lost in a jungle where the boys found a cliff that led into the glaciered water. After we strategically climbed down to capture photos of the boys jumping off the cliff we headed back through Queenstown to grab dinner before we arrived at our next stop, Mt. Cook.

On our way to Mt. Cook, we all had to entertain ourselves and stay awake by singing and dancing to requested songs. And each night we had the lovely opportunities of hearing stories about gnomes that Trenton would creatively make up and share with the van-winches. As we drive all through New Zealand we have realized that more sheep inhabit the land than humans. Thousands of sheep, farm-raised deer, elk, cows, and lamas populate New Zealand.

Once we got to Mt. Cook, we hiked up Tazman glacier lake and blue pools. It was beautiful and on our last night we stopped in a town called, Geraldine. It was the creepiest town but we needed to charge up our vehicle at a trailer park J

We arrived back at the camper van place to turn it in and in hopes that they wouldn’t see the crack that we put in the side and a few other damages along the way. The boys flew out that night and we stayed another night at a backpackers in Christchurch. The next morning I went to the airport, yet couldn’t fly out because the flights were too full for standby. I was stuck in the airport and slept on the floor that night. I was able to fly out the next morning and make it back home to Newcastle.

New Zealand is an incredibly beautiful place.

Easter in Sydney

Happy Easter!

To kick off our fall break aka spring break aka Easter holidays, we woke up at the crack of dawn (5:30) to catch a train to Sydney. I think we looked pretty good, considering the hour...

Three hours later, we hopped off at Central station and lugged all of our bags to the Sydney Entertainment Centre for Hillsong’s Good Friday morning service. It was wonderful, of course, and then we made the fifteen minute trek to the X Base Hostel, where we were split up into two rooms. Just in case we forgot anything, there were (literally) 8 outdoor stores up and down the street of X Base. Lindsey, Cameron, and I got lucky enough to share a room with an almost naked 70 year old German man and two 23 year old English guys. We stayed up pretty late talking about where we were traveling, where we have been, and different cultures. It was my first hostel experience and I really liked it! Lindsey had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to catch her plane to New Zealand and German man had to wake up at 5:00 to catch his flight home, so there wasn’t much sleeping in our room.

That night we all went to see a movie and on our way back, Elyse and I happened to run into our friends Rob and Lauren busking on the street. Confused? That means that they were playing music on the streets. It was so random that we ran into them and along with about fifty other people, we stood around and watched them play all of our favorites: Coldplay, Tom Petty, Oasis... you name it, they played it. What a little fun surprise that was...
We spent Saturday walking around Sydney and going to the Opera House. I could not believe how massive it was! We didn’t get to go in though because they have it all locked up unless you want to pay lots of money. Shocking. Fortunately, we were too preoccupied with the spectacular views of the Harbour Bridge and sweet trees surrounding it to notice too much. But good news, everybody! We got to touch it :) Here are our super excited faces!

Then we hurried back so that Devin, Caitlin, and Cameron could catch the shuttle to the airport for their flight. They are spending all week in New Zealand with Trenton and Chris driving a campervan around and exploring. I’m sure Lindsey will update you when she gets back. In the meantime, Brandi came up to Sydney to hang out with Elyse and I for the rest of the weekend. She and I even got to share a little twin mattress on the top of a bunkbed due to overcrowding at the inn...I mean hostel.

Saturday night, Rob took us to The Shark Hotel for a buffet dinner, which was really awesome. It was followed by the most interesting dessert restaurant I have ever experienced. Imagine an Asian hole-in-the-wall that is up two flights of dark stairs. You sit down, order a game off of a menu (we chose Jenga) and order some sort of ice cream or pie. For entertainment, Asian music videos are playing on tv screens around the place. To anybody who wants to open a business, I recommend doing that. I wish so badly that we had somewhere like that in Clemson! Oh, the hours of endless fun I could have...

For Easter Sunday, we went to Hillsong in the morning. The service was so much different than anything I have ever seen. On a big screen, we saw short little sermons from pastors across the four campuses. It is always good to be with a body of believers and in the Lord’s house. I love how you can travel across the world and still feel at home.We spent the afternoon walking around Sydney some more, and then headed back to Hillsong for the Film and Arts Festival. The art here was captivating…I found myself wandering off and just getting drawn in to different pieces of art that were all in some way related to our faith.

After this, Brandi, Elyse, and I made it back to the train to make our way back home. Several question games, never have I evers, and songs later, we made it back to our home where we crashed pretty fast. What a weekend! Sydney is so much fun. It’s kind of like New York except cleaner and there is less worthless junk sitting around. It easily makes one of my top five favorite cities to visit. Here is our "happy to be in Sydney" faces. Not really, but I had to come up with some excuse for my ridiculously happy face.On the schedule for this week: Blackbutt Reserve for koala and kangaroo sighting/petting/holding. Yay!