As promised, I’ve tried to get my next post out a little sooner this time.  Granted, that wasn’t very difficult since Stewart Island literally took months to update.  Just for those of you who aren’t aware, I’m now back in the States and settling back into “normal” life.  It’s…surreal.  I will eventually catch up to where I am now, even though I’ve ( Read more... )

( My first impression upon stepping off the dock was that Ulva was very…pure )

Right, planning for Australia took a little bit longer than expected, but I’ve finally managed to put together Day Two of Stewart Island.  This will be a bit shorter than my other posts in terms of actual writing mostly because of the amount of walking involved.  Luckily, the weather continued to hold for me, and I was able to take the day to ( Read more... )

As I mentioned in my last post, we had the rare luxury of private rooms in Te Anau, so that was a lovely night’s sleep there.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to savor it for very long because we barely had time to eat and shower before bed.  Then it was hitting the road again early in the morning.  Too bad.  Needless to say, we were all pretty quiet ( Read more... )

Stay with me, guys.  We’re finally getting out of Queenstown and on to other parts of the South Island now.  It was a sad departure because only a handful of the old crew was left, and Caas had already returned to Christchurch to finish his studies.  So the new bus out of Queenstown wasn’t quite as friendly and crazy as the first one had been.  Oh ( Read more... )

Alright, time for the third and final segment for Queenstown.  Then we can get back on the road and continue on to other exciting places.  I spent a good four or five days in Queenstown, but I’ll skip to the next relevant part of my stay there since the day after St. Patrick’s Day was pretty much spent hanging out and recovering from all of the ( Read more... )

Ok, strap in and get your game faces on, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s time to revisit St. Patrick’s Day in Queenstown.  Woo-hoo!  I think it’s safe to say that Queenstown is a pretty crazy place all by itself, so you can imagine what happens when you add any other encouragement for insanity.  And what better thing to do on such a day than ( Read more... )

Right, let’s just get straight to it and talk about Queenstown, one of my favorite places in New Zealand so far.  The first official day there dawned bright and early.  After having to get up at 6 or 7 every day for the last couple of days, I was sort of in that schedule already, so I don’t think I slept in later than 8 o’ clock.  Apparently there ( Read more... )

Right, like I said before, the next major stop was Queenstown, but before we could get there, we had to stop overnight in a little campground called Makaroa.  So the entire day after Franz Josef was spent on the bus and stopping periodically for pictures.  The first of these stops was at a place called Lake Murchison, more commonly known as the ( Read more... )

On to happier things now that the last post has been taken care of.  Let’s see…right, Franz Josef Glacier.  Now, this was pretty cool.  With glaciers disappearing at the rate that they are worldwide, being able to hike across one is a pretty rare opportunity.  Who knows, they might all be gone in a hundred years or so.  We checked into a place that ( Read more... )