Pictures!!

New Zealand is soooo awesome!! I'm going to be so sad when all my new friends leave.  They are all such a great time.

Joe, Keatin, Chelsea, and I showing everyone that canadians really do know how to have fun!
Joe and I laughing at something that was apparently really funny!
I thought it would be really fun to climb up a tree and hang upside down.  This is a sign of true climbing obsession.
Keatin and I went to a themed party dressed as "bad fashion statements".  It was a blast!
Climbing at Froggat Edge was so much fun.  We got to do some great climbing in Beautiful New Zealand!!  The only thing I can complain about are the cows.  We would go into the paddock and there right next to all the climbs were a half dozen cows.  For anyone else it would be fine, but I was freaking out!

New Zealand is Sweet As Bro!

I have been such a bad blogger lately.  Life in general has just been so busy that I haven't had the chance to write.  Lots of fun exciting things have happened since my adventures in **Mordor**.  I have decided to stay here in New Zealand to finish my degree in Marine Biology.  I am very excited about this.  It will be hard, though, missing my family.  Some other exciting news......my mom is getting married!! YAy!! I'm so happy for her.  If anyone deserves that kind of happiness it's my mom.  Well I will just post all the yummy pics and let them tell the stories themselves.  Otherwise you could be here for hours reading and nobody wants that.

Lake Taupo and birthday parties....warning...photo heavy!

Lake Taupo was awesome.  On Friday I went bungy jumping with Keatin while everyone else in our group went on ahead to start the northern circuit in Tongariro national park.  We weren't able to go yet because I still hadn't gotten all my gear from Dave, which worked out for us in the end because Keatin and I had so much fun.. Bungy jumping was so much fun.  they strap you in by your ankles and then you walk up, or waddle, and have to dive off the ledge.  You freefall 47 meters before you are sprung back up.  When I did mine I chose to be dunked which was awesome.  I went into the water up to my waist.  It was so awesome!  That evening we went to Holy Cow and danced on tables with Dave and his friend Mike.  It was a ton of fun!  On Saturday Keatin and I hopped on a bus at 6:20 am and headed to Mangetepopo hut to start what was supposed to be a 3 day hike.  It started out at 4 degrees celcius but quickly warmed up to scorching hot.  The start of the walk was farely easy and non-eventful until we come upon this giant mountain, commonly known as mount doom from LOTR.  THis part of the tramp was the hardest thing I've ever done!  I never knew I had that much physical stamina in me though.  It was so amazing when we reached the top and looked down.  I was so proud of myself.  I conquered Mt. DooM!!  We then started our downhill trek which is just as tiring as uphill.  We saw the beautiful emerald lakes and the south and red crater.  Everything there was so beautiful.  Like God himself was creating this land for his own personal Eden.  I couldn't believe what  I was seeing.  keatin and I later met up with a guy named Pascaal from Quebec and tramped with him for a while.  It was fun practicing speaking French.  After a while it was so hott that keatin thought it would be a good idea to tramp in our underwear, so being us of course we did it.  It was actually really fun.  Pascaal eventually broke down as well and dropped his pants.  Funally we made it to the next hut and us two girls decided we wanted to move on to the next hut and try catch up with tht erest of the group.  We continued after 9 hours of really hard hiking.  It was a really great walk until we reached dense forest and had to hike uphill once again.  On any other occasion we would have been fine, but we were tired, sore, and mentally drained.  On more than one occasion on this last leg of the journey we almost broke down crying.  When we saw the hut we were so relieved.  We realized at that point as well that we were a full days hike ahead of the other group.  We then made supper and went right to bed. The next day we headed out for Whakapapa village.  This part of the tramp was fairly easy and only took 5 hours.  Near the end we came upon a huge waterfall where we all decided to take a refreshing dip.  THe water was ice cold and I lost my sunglasses, but the water felt so good and refreshing.  45 minutes later we reached the village and got a bus back to Taupo.  That evening we saw the best acoustic guitar player in New Zealand.  It was so great! We had such an awesome time.  The next day we got to sleep in and that afternoon Kai, Keatin, and I went skydiving.  We jumped out of a plane at 12,000 feet and were in freefall for 45 seconds!!  You have no depth percetption though so you don't even realize how far you are falling or how fast.  It feels like you are in a vacuum with wind rushing past your face.  Once the parachute opens you have about 5 minutes of floating back to earth.  Later that evening, once we were back in Auckland we all went out and celebrated Keatin's 21st birthday!  What a great Easter!

I love New Zealand!!

I had a great time this past weekend.  On Saturday John, Keatin, and I spent like seven hours climbing at the quarry.  It was wonderful!  I can't remember a time my muscles have worked that hard.  On Sunday I had a field trip to the island of Rangitoto, which is a volcanic island.  We spent the day identifying various plant species in different plot sizes among the a'a lava.  The lava was very sharp and would have cut us to shreds, basically, if we fell.  After my group finished we decided to hike to the cinder cone up the volcanic mountain.  We hiked for a half an hour up and then realized we only had 20 minutes left to get down to the ferry.  We decided to literally run down the volcano in order to make it to the ferry on time.  It was a great, and sweaty, run.  Later that evening I went caving with a new kiwi friend I made, named Dave, into a lava cave.  It was very cool.  I saw fools gold littering the ceiling of the cave.  We went through a squeeze several meters long.  The only way I can describe it is that it was like crawling on my stomach underneath the bed I had as a kid, only in a cave, in the dark! It was so thrilling! 

Coromandel

Coromandel was probably one of the coolest places I have ever been to!  It was honestly a perfect day!  We started the weekend off by picking up our rental car from ace rental and then proceeded to drive to the Coromandel peninsula.  The drive started out looking a lot like what we've already seen throughout New Zealand and then we see these mountains forming in front of us.  Of course we are all hoping we get to drive through those mountains and we did!  The road was this windy road that everyone drives super fast on right by cliffs and such.  We arrive in Whitianga (Fi-tee-ang-ah) and checked into our hostel called the cats pyjamas.  The first thing we did was throw on our suits grab the scrumpy and tui and headed for the beach at Cathedral Cove.  It is literally the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my entire life!!  We saw some wicked looking stingrays swimming on the sandbar and many different fish.  We saw this huge rock in the middle of the bay so Keatin and I decided to swim out there (finding another cliff along the way) and climbed up so we could jump off.  It was so much fun.  The second day it was raining so we decided to just drive up the coast.  It was so beautiful.  It constantly amazes me how much the terrain here can change.  The coast looked more like a european coast line, but it was so beautiful.  We found more rocks to climb and decided to check out the tidal pools.  While looking into one I didn't see the huge wave coming right at me, and got totally soaked!  It was a great time though.

I just wanted to say to everyone at home!!! I MISS YOU!!!

Love, Dani

University of Auckland

I have finally arrived here and it is wonderful! I'm very glad I have internet now as well. 

We've done a lot of really amazing things.  First in the airport I met all of my fellow australearn students, they are amazing!  The plane ride was 12 hours from LAX airport, but overall wasn't that bad of a ride.  When we arrived in the Auckland airport they loaded us on a bus and we rode 3 hours down south to Rotorua.  Our bus driver, Chops, was soo cool and very entertaining.  The first day was spend exploring the city and getting to know the other people in our group.  We stayed at a hostel called the Kiwi paka.  Nice people and great food!

Day two was all about experiencing the great things Rotorua has to offer.  We started the day off with a trip to the live sheep show at the Agradome.  It was very entertaining.  After that we headed to the adventure zone to go zorbing. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a ball filled with soapy water that rolls down a hill.  Heather, Keatin, and I hopped on in and rolled down this giant hill, and laughed so hard!  After zorbing we went to the Maori Tamaki village for a wonderful cultural experience, and some great food!  The dinner was a traditional hangi dinner which is cooked outside on New Zealand rocks!  It is so unbelievable.  The kiwis are very proud of their Maori culture which I found so interesting coming from the states where we tried to destroy rather than celebrate the native culture.

On the third day, he rose again, haha...jk (it's been a long day).  We went to Waitamo to go caving.  So cool.  It was very physical and exciting.  We abseiled down this 80 foot drop into the cave, then proceeded to crawl through holes and shimmy and abseil some more through waterfalls and caverns and anything you can think of.  We ended up being 80 meters below ground at the lowest point and saw glow worms.  Glow worms are not actually worms at all they are maggots that are sexual shit shiners according to the guide.  There were 5 people in our group, me being the only girl, and also the only one to actually rock climb out of the cave!  It was amazing.  The guide heard that I like rock climbing and challenged me to climb the wall rather than use the ladder, so I did!  Craziest thing I have ever done!

Departure Day!

Wow!!!  So I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to LA to depart and I'm starting to get nervous.  Up until now I've only been excited, but never nervous, until I could no longer see my mom and sister while going through the security.  The feeling of, wow I'm really alone right now, just settled in.  This is my first time ever traveling alone and it is more than overwhelming, but I would never let her know I feel that way.  

It's hard to believe that in less than 24 hours I will be in Rotorua bungee jumping and zorbing.  The one thing I am probably looking the most forward to is the rock climbing.  I found a website for this pretty sweet climbing gym right by the university.  I'm sure I will be visiting the facility a lot.  There is also some wicked outdoor climbing opportunities as well.  I'm very psyched about it.  Well that's all for now, since I am paying for the internet :(.  

Love, 

Dani