"Ferry", Wine Tasting, Chocolate

We took our Jucy rental from Auckland down to Wellington with a stop in Hamilton. This is a really freaking long drive, like 9 hours, but so much better with friends. We stayed with my friend Colin's friend (and now my friend) Emily in her freaking mansion in Wellington.

Update from the road

Over the past five days we have been wine tasting (Grove Mill), chocolate tasting at a factory, and hiking Abel Tasman where we swam with wild seals. This morning my friends and I woke up on a guys couch that we met at a kicking burger joint called the Fat Tui that we drove out of our way over a mountain to get to in a tiny fishing town on the tip top of the south island of New Zealand (thank you Emily and Colin for the tip). 

Semester Break Intended Plan

So the University of Waikato's semester break (a 16 day break in the middle of the semester... this is New Zealand what else did you expect?) is about to start and I am STOKED. This is the intended route!

View New Zealand Semester Break in a larger map

I am renting this car from Jucy and piling two friends and a hitchhiker that is surprising his son for his birthday in and hitting the streets! We are going to be living out of this car (and tents) seeing the sights, tramping (hiking) the tramps, hitching the hikers, and having one grand adventure! I'll have a full post up with pictures and everything after we return on the 1st of May.
If you need me my NZ number is 0220734842. Cheers!

Kingitanga Day

Today was Kingitanga day at the University of Waikato. What in the world is Kingitanga day you ask? Well I was most stoked about Kingitanga day because we got classes off... but I had no idea what it was! So naturally I needed to see what the big deal was about. Kingitanga day is a day full of Maori culture and the celebration of the relationship between the University of Waikato and the Kīngitanga (the Maori King Movement). The day was full of lectures, history, bla bla, and games and prizes. Now we are talking!

Mount Taranaki *win*

So two weeks ago we attempted to climb to the summit of Mount Taranaki but we failed because the weather was really terrible... this time we succeeded! The adventure starts out with us heading back to the same black sand beach, this time we swam across a freaking *freezing* river that forms as the tide was going out to sea over to an island.

The river wasn't too deep so don't freak out family...

Scuba Diving the Poor Knight Islands!

Hello! I am doing a guest blog swap with Cara. I hope that you enjoy the blog and decide to share it with friends, family, fellow divers, and anyone that you can think of that might be coming to New Zealand. So with out further delay, here is Cara!

Hello everyone! Chris and I are exchanging blog posts for this past weekends adventures! Feel free to check out mine as well (http://assweetasnewzealand-cara.blogspot.com/)!

This past weekend Sean, Chris, and I shared was definitely pretty awesome.  We left Friday afternoon in Scrumpy, our friends’ car. Let me introduce you to scrumpy. She is a mute moss green color, 4 door, itty bitty car complete with lady bug seat covers. There is one power window, one key entry (the other side someone ruined trying to break into her), if you lean on the back right door or sit in the middle seat the interior lights come on, and the back left door doesn’t open at all (that one might have been my fault).  She has personality EVERYWHERE.  We got up there about 11pm, and after a small ordeal at the hostel where we realized we all had no game, headed to bed. I woke up about 5 am the next morning to cow mooing. Never knew those animals were quite so loud. Around 8 we headed to the dive shop.

Always question, but don't always seek the answer

As students, we are continually taught *cough* forced *cough* to seek the answers, this can create problems for intellectual types. There are questions in life that we cannot possibly know the answers to (what is the purpose of my life? who am I? What am I passionate about? Is this life over before it even began? How old is the milk in the fridge?) These questions cannot possibly be answered to their fullest black and white sharpness turned up to the max, extent like we are trained to know. So as professional question ask'ers (students) we go round and round feeling empty and defeated the deeper we question.