Sup.  It is Molly!!! I’m actually alive!! We arrived in Christchurch late last night and went and found the van, Paggie. It was a whole 37 degrees which is not good for the girl who hasn’t had a winter in 5 years. Once we got into bed under all the blankets in the van it was totally fine. The next morning, Ashley showed off her cooking skills and made us oatmeal while I stayed swaddled up on bed. We then arranged the van for what clothes I did need and put the suitcase on top of the van.

My main purpose of going to Australia was to go and see my American friends! 2 of my high school friends now live there! I ended up flying with the athletic trainer, Greg, for the Highlanders rugby team, which I had just seen a few days ago! He was super nice and actually helped me find where I was staying! Melbourne looks and feels like a little Boston, it’s adorable! That night I got to go see Katie Walker. After not seeing her for 6 years, it was fantastic!

I had to catch the bus to Oamara because I was being picked up by our Wrinkly Rams friends to go see my very 1st rugby game. This meant I was up at 6 but Maggie’s flight wasn’t until later. And that butt didn’t even wake up to say goodbye. She’s leaving me for a whole month and some change. That’s ok we will be reunited soon, she can’t get rid of me that easily. I rode the bus and was reunited with the gang; we of course had to eat at Fat Sally’s because it is the best. Then we drove the 2ish hours to Dunedin with a packed car.

The next morning we decided to head up to Pai. Pai is a little hippie town that should have been 2 hours drive away but it ended up taking our mini bus 3 hours to get there. It was also a super curvy ride so everyone’s tummies were a little upset with them. On the ride up we met Matt from Santa Barbra. He seemed fine and talkative on the bus but when we got to the hostel the boy passed out. Maggie and I ended up having to stay in a different bunk room than Nora, Katherine and Matt. We made friends with Mark from Manchester. While Mark spoke English he had the thickest accent and I had to have him repeat himself so many times.

And we are off for spring break 1st stop Kuala Lumpur Malaysia! This was our 1st time flying domestic in New Zealand because we first had to get from Christchurch to Auckland. It was the easiest thing we have ever done. It was the most lax security ever; they didn’t just our IDs once. We had our 8-hour layover in Auckland, which was the worst. The Auckland airport is the worst and this is coming form a girl who was stuck in the Trenton New Jersey airport for 5 hours. They say you get 45 min of free wifi…what the hell only 45 min, you are an airport for god sakes. And that 45 min only comes if you can actually connect to the wifi, which we couldn’t.

So turns out gas stations are not 24/7 here in NZ. We left the house around 4 and we had a 5 hour drive to the glaciers. And 6pm is apparently too late for some gas stations out in Westland! It’s all good though we made it to our destination with fumes in the tank. Our helicopter ride was amazing. We decided to take the Mt. Cook and Fox Glacier tour because we never actually figured out which mountain was in fact Mt. Cook. The flight was crazy beautiful and Maggie didn’t even get sick once. 

We somehow always find ourselves back at Maddie’s parents’ house! One because her parents are amazing and two because there are SHEEP! They also have so many pups, working pups and little pups! This time before we left Maddie’s house she showed us the shearing shed (maybe, I’m not sure what they actually call it but that’s what I’m going to call it).The next couple of days were more same old same old worky work.

Our next days off Mags and I loaded up Paggie Waggie and headed to Wanaka. We spent the night at a campground and the stars were in full effect! The next morning we were up for the challenge of Roys Peak…or so we thought. Felix met us in Wanaka for the climb. We don’t know if it is because we are working and there for haven’t done too much activity in the past 2 months or if this hike was really hard, but man did we struggle. Usually when we go hiking it takes about an hour of Mags and I complaining and then it becomes fun and great. On Mount Roy the fun never came, it was just hard as crap.