Milford Sound

          About a month ago Tyler and I rented a car and headed to Te Anau, New Zealand to go kayaking in Milford Sound.  Milford Sound is one of the most visited tourist spots in New Zealand.  People come to see its beautiful scenery and diverse wildlife.  The first day we were in Te Anau we spent the day walking around town.  We stopped at the most dangerous children's playground I have ever seen and also played a quick round of mini golf.

          The next day we went kayaking in Milford Sound.  After putting on some really cute outfits we set out on the water for four hours. 

          Kayaking in Milford definitely didn't turn out how we expected.  We got rained on for the last two hours of our trip, but still ended up having a pretty good time.  It was very cloudy, so the views weren't as good as they could have been, but we did see an amazing waterfall that was filmed in the movie Wolverine.  Later that night we left Te Anau to head home to Dunedin.  On the way we stopped to feed a little Kea (one of the world's only alpine parrots) on the side of the road. 

          

Swimming with Dolphins

          Last weekend Tyler and I rented a car and drove to Akaroa to swim with the world's smallest dolphins, called Hector Dolphins.  This trip was especially unique because the dolphin's are 100% wild.  After plunging into some pretty cold water, we spent about 45 minutes in the water making weird noises with our snorkels so the dolphin's would come play with us.  Here is a video Tyler made of our swim:


Swimming with Hector's Dolphins from Tyler Grubb on Vimeo.

    

-Megan Waterhouse

Abel Tasman National Park

      
















           Last weekend Tyler and I set out on a 32 km hike in Abel Tasman National Park.  We started at the beginning of the track in Marahau, and hiked about 20 km to our first campsite at Medland's Beach.












          Once we were halfway, we were given a choice of high and low tide paths to take.  The low tide path was a much bigger short-cut, so we ended up choosing that one.  When we arrived at the beach we had to wade through waist deep water for half an hour trying to get to the other side of the beach.

After another few km we had to cross this bridge.

          When we booked the $24 campsite I did not realize that meant we would have our own private beach to ourselves.  This was the view from our tent.  We decided to build a small campfire on the beach and share a bottle of wine for a nice relaxing night.

Medland's Beach campsite

          The next day we hiked a little over 12 km from Medland's beach to reach the Awaroa lodge.  By the end of this day I was extremely sore and had blisters on my feet, so we sat down for a nice dinner at the lodge restaurant.  After that we hiked another 2 km and set up our tent at a new campsite.

          The next morning we woke up early to head back to the Awaroa beach so we could catch a water taxi back to Marahau.  On the taxi back we saw jellyfish, stingrays, and seals.  The video Tyler made probably tells a better story.


Abel Tasman Track from Tyler Grubb on Vimeo.

-Megan Waterhouse

An Extended Spring Break...

          On September 4th, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch.  I was a few hours away in Wanaka and did not wake up from the quake.  Although no one died from the earthquake, it ended up causing severe damage in the Canterbury region.

          I later found out that school had been closed down for another two weeks, so I ended up having a month long Spring Break.  Students were encouraged to not return to school, so I stayed with Tyler in Dunedin for two weeks.  

          On the way to Wanaka Tyler and I stopped to stay at Mount Cook for the night and did a quick hike the next day to see the Tasman Glacier.

         The scenery on the drive to Wanaka from Mount Cook was gorgeous.  We stopped at a salmon farm to pick up lunch halfway through the trip and were able to feed the salmon.  Talk about fresh.

         When we reached Wanaka, Tyler and I spent the first day at the Puzzling World.  Puzzling world has a bunch of illusions and mazes in it, and made for a very entertaining day.  

Roman style bathrooms

          We ended the day doing a really difficult maze outside.  I think I easily ran over a mile by the end of the maze.

         The next day we woke up early to go skiing at the Cadrona Ski Area.  I convinced Tyler to go skiing with me that day and it was quite a sight watching him struggle to get the hang of it.  This was also my first time skiing in about ten years, so it was a pretty interesting experience relearning how to ski myself.  

          We eventually headed back to Dunedin where I stayed for the remaining two weeks of my break to avoid the earthquake aftershocks.  Dunedin has a really great botanic garden that we went to a few of the days.  As you can probably tell, my favorite part was the duck pond.

          The gardens also have a bird aviary with lots of exotic birds I wasn't supposed to feed.

          Later in the week we went on a beer tour at the Speight's factory.  Speight's is one of the most popular beers in New Zealand, and my favorite!  We learned all about how the beer is made, and were able to sample the finished products at the end of the tour.  Later that week we went to the casino... but you don't want to hear about that.

          

  -Megan Waterhouse

Spring Break Week 2: Dunedin

      Shortly after returning from Australia I packed my bags to go visit Tyler in Dunedin, NZ.  Tyler owed me a date after winning an intense game of scrabble, so he surprised me by renting bikes for the day.  The plan was to bike to the beach and watch sea lions, seals, and penguins.  He assured me it would be a quick 15 minute bike ride to the beach.  Twenty-two uphill km later (3 hours) we reached our destination.  

           We were both pretty tired, so we decided to finish the bike ride and go to the beach the next day with a car.  The beach ended up being amazing.  After hiking down some sand dunes to get to the beach we were able to get right up close to the sea lions.

      
    
        We quickly learned not to get too close to the sea lions after watching a few fights break out.

          We spent a lot of our time at the beach talking to a volunteer and learning more about the yellow-eyed penguins.  The volunteer later crawled into a penguin's nest for us to take a very close picture.

-Megan Waterhouse

Spring Break: Australia

     After only a month and a half of studying at the University of Canterbury we were given two weeks off for Spring Break.  I traveled with a group of seven international students from Christchurch across the eastern coast of Queensland.  Our 9 day vacation began in Brisbane, where we explored the city for the day and walked around town that night.

Brisbane City

   The next day we woke up early to drive to Noosa Heads.  We all spent the day at the beach relaxing and shopping.  The day after we headed to Bundaberg, hoping to tour their rum distillery.  After finding out it was a bit pricey, we headed to the beach again to play in the

waves.

Noosa Heads

Bundaberg

    The next few days Riley and I stayed in Hervey Bay, while the others went on a tour to Fraser Island.  A couple of the days ended up being pretty rainy, but we were still able to go to the beach and explore the town.  My favorite part of Hervey Bay was trying one of the best meals I have ever tasted.. a kangaroo steak.

After the delicious meal, I decided to go play with some of his siblings at Dreamworld.

  

      Dreamworld is the Gold Coast's largest theme park.  They had an entire theme park, waterpark, and zoo.  For me this was the highlight of the entire trip.  I was able to pet and feed any of the free roaming kangaroos at the zoo.    My camera broke later that day, but I also paid to hold a young koala at the park.

 

-Megan Waterhouse