Hello again from NZ!!

We are now in a small town called Wanaka... about 1.5 hours N. of Queenstown! Things here are still going fabulously and we are loving New Zealand.

We've done a ton since we last wrote.. surprised? :) We spent the last few nights making our way down the West Coast (of the S. Island). We spent one night in this TINY little town called Blackball.. it's about 20 kms from Greymouth. This town has a population less than 50, 3 pubs, one place to stay called Formerly the Blackball Hilton (guess they got busted by Hilton so they had to add a "formerly"), a corner store and that's about it! We were told by a bunch of locals here that we HAD to go there because it's like no other place you'll ever go....so we gave it a shot and absolutely loved the town and the Formerly Blackball Hilton. The woman who runs the hotel, Sue, was so friendly and helpful. She cooked us a homemade meal while we sat and read a paper from 1964...yes I said 1964. Crazy huh? After dinner we ventured out in town to hang with the locals... it was pretty interesting. Most of them grew up there and had never left. They were completely baffled by us, some didn't even know where the US was, but they were the nicest people! They live very simple lives.. work during the day (most cutting pine trees) and then play pool (snooker, as they call it here) and gamble/raffle at night. They had us draw numbers for their raffle and asked if we wanted to play... they gamble for chickens and/or chocolate.. too funny!

The next day we did a gorgeous hike on the Croesus Track. You hike along a raging river and through a rain forest most of the way. The whole track takes 8-9 hrs, but we didn't have time to do the whole thing, as we needed to move on that night, so we hiked for about 5 hours. It was stunning - and we agreed that it was our prettiest hike yet. Check out the pics of the Indiana Jones-like bridges we had to cross one at a time. They were a little bit scary because they were over huge rivers and they swung from side to side as you walked across, but quite cool :)

Our next stop was a town called Franz Joseph... great small town with a fun hip vibe! We stopped at the Wanganui river and to look for some hotpools that apparently only locals know about, but we couldn't find them. We had a blast anyway though and quite the adventure looking for the pools...we climbed fences, slid down steep embankments, and waded thru many parts of the river in search of them. The river sat in between a few different mountains and the sun was going down while we were out there, so it was really beautiful. When we arrived in Franz Joseph we signed up to do an all day Glacier Hike the next day. When we woke up for it that next morning it was raining and we realized that it was January 15th...the day before our return home...YIKES - we still have tickets taking us home on the 16th, which is so not happening! So, we decided to cancel the glacier hike that day, get our stuff organized, and stay a few more days in NZ. We did the glacier hike the next day and got SOOOO lucky with the weather! We had beautiful blue sky the whole day and not a drop of rain.. that's unusual for the West Coast of NZ given that it consists of mostly rain forests!

The Glacier Hike was absolutely amazing. Franz Joseph is a really unusual glacier because it goes all the way down to 200 meters above sea level and it runs into a rain forest. It's crazy.... you are standing at the bottom in the middle of a rain forest with the greenest of green trees and gorgeous waterfalls and just above is this massive glacier. Both are stunning, but it just doesn't seem possible that both can coexist with in the same valley. We ended up with a really cool group of about 10 people (all Germans and one girl from Korea) and our super star guide Ryan. Ryan's a local from the area and only 20 years old, but a stud on the ice! The climbing experience was really fun too.... you get to wear "clamp ons" and climb up carved out ice steps and go through tight crevices & ice caves. Ryan carried a huge ice pick/axe and cut our path the whole way. What a work out he gets every day! The glacier is tucked between the Southern Alps with several waterfalls and ends in a valley of rain forest so your view no matter which way you turned was incredible. Again, we don't really know how to explain this experience other than to show you the pictures... check them out, they're up! We'd def. recommend doing a glacier hike if you ever have the chance... it sounded scary at first, but you'd be amazed at how well you can scale ice with the cramp ons :)

After the hike we started making our way further south towards Wanaka - about a 7 hour drive from Franz Joseph. We planned to sky dive in Wanaka b/c the views are spectacular and it's not as touristy as Queenstown, where most people skydive from. The weather forecast was calling for rain again a few days out so we really hauled in efforts to get there in time to dive before the storm came through. We pulled into town about 1pm the next day and were booked to dive that afternoon. The morning divers were able to go, but the wind picked up too much in the afternoon, so they pushed our reservation to the next day... BIG BUMMER! So the next day we were all ready and psyched up, but again TOO much wind. We are going to hang here for one more day and try again tomorrow morning.. all the weather maps looks like it'll be clear so we are keeping our fingers crossed. The anticipation is killing us though.... Rach threw up last night but she isn't sick. We aren't sure if it's nerves or maybe we ate too many gummies :) Both of us have always wanted to skydive, but now that we are only hours away from doing it we are getting pretty nervous... excited nerves though! We've decided to do a 12,000 ft., 45 second free fall dive. They take you out over Lake Wanaka which is SOOOO beautiful. We can't wait! After skydiving we are planning to head to Queenstown to hopefully Jetboat and take a scenic flight into the Milford Sounds! We have an exciting couple of days ahead of us! Once we are done with that we have to drive the camper van another 7 hours and return it in Christchurch. Normally you'd be really bummed about all this driving, but NZ is so beautiful and there are so many things to stop and see along the way (blowholes, hotpools, waterfalls, etc) that we actually really enjoy it!

So people keep asking us.. if the weather isn't that great there than why do you love New Zealand? Doesn't it look a lot like areas of the States.. especially Washington State where you grew up? The answer that question is yes.. much of it looks like Washington, but a lot of it looks very different too! The beauty of NZ is one thing we love, but what has really made it for us has been the people...they go WAY out of their way to make sure you have a good trip! Here's a few stories that will help you understand what we mean:

1. When we did the Tongariro Crossing the conditions turned for the worse and we didn't have enough warm clothing with us. A guy up on the mountain saw that Rach was really really cold and gave her his jacket and just asked that we drop it by his hotel to return it when we were done. We didn't end up needing to do that because we saw him on the way down ... we returned his jacket and chatted with him for a bit. As we were leaving he gave us his number and offered to have us join him and his wife at their cabin up in the North. He not only offered to take us fishing and on a boat tour of the Bay of Islands, but also to teach us how to dive. He's been diving for 20 years and also has done a bunch of traveling and just wanted to make sure we had a good experience here in NZ. His direct quote... "I have the cabin and all the gear so why go and pay for it some where else? I'll teach you how and you can dive for free so you can save your money to travel longer!" How nice is that? And I know it sounds like it could be a bit creepy, but I promise it's not.. he was just a really nice guy. He was offering his food and everything he had to everyone on the mountain.

2. We walked into a spa in Wellington our first night there to look into massages. This particular spa couldn't take us so the girl at the front (Jill) called several other spas to find one that could. Not only this, but she hooked us up with gym passes so we could work out and shower at the gym and got us a dinner reservation at the best restaurant in town... all just to be nice and helpful. She told us to not bother going to the nearest campsite because it was about 40 minutes out of town and that we should just park along the waterfront called Oriental Parade and shower at the gym! We took her advice and had the BEST time in Wellington. Oriental Parade was beautiful and it was so nice not to have to spend 40 minutes commuting in and out of the city! Funny story, we had the massages that Jill booked for us the next afternoon and then had just planned to shower at the spa before going to dinner with Rach's friend Rob's parents that night. Well... we were able to shower at the spa, but they had no place for us to blowdry our hair.. YIKES! We were going to a nice restaurant and wanted to look somewhat presentable. We only had 30 mins before dinner so we couldn't drive over to the gym we had passes for so we tried every gym and public bathroom nearby we could find.. NOTHING! Gym's bathroom was under renovation and the public bathrooms had no plugins. We continued looking and eventually found a hair salon that was nice enough to let us dry our hair.. OH.. the experiences of traveling :) We barely made it to dinner on time, but we did make it.. pheeeew!

There are more stories like these and a really good one about Rach managing to get something brought to her in Franz Joseph that she accidentally left in Blackball over 200 kms back... It's a crazy story! We'll put that up soon because we have to go now... we are going to go and see if we can skydive now!!

Miss and love you tons!
Rach and Steph

Hello from Nelson Lakes New Zealand!!

Things here are still going really well! We have been traveling around New Zealand in a campervan and staying in National Parks, Mountain Lakes, etc... all have been extremely beautiful, but don't offer much connectivity ... feel lucky to get a hot shower :) We are in route now to the West Coast of the South Island and found an internet cafe in a small town called Westport. It's been a while again since we've updated and there's so much to tell so we'll just give you some highlights for now and continue working on the pictures to give you more detailed descriptions... cool?

Thailand:

We ended up extending our time in Khao Lak so we could spend Christmas there, attend the Tsunami Memorial and attend the New Year's party at the Orphanage. Our last few days there were really special! Christmas didn't feel like Christmas at all, but it was a ton of fun. We had gotten the girls from the Orphanage a gig to perform their Thai Dancing at the Le Meridian during Christmas Brunch, but when we showed up there was barely anyone there so they went and danced at at Memorial celebration instead ...because they are Budhist they celebrate the death/new life of their loved ones. We took 3 of the girls back to our hotel, fed them lunch and took them swimming. We had sooo much fun and such a treat for the girls... they never get to go swimming so they were pretty excited. After they left we took a walk on the beach to see sunset... was beautiful, but we ended up walking too long and got stuck on the beach in the dark. It's completely safe except for the attacking mosquitos and the rocks that break Rachel's toe... yes I said broke Rach's toe! It was really dark and we were hauling you know what to get back to the hotel when there was a big rock that jumped up and picked a fight with Rach's right foot.. unfortunately the rock won and Rach was left with a broken toe :( That night we met up with a bunch of friends we made in Khao Lak and had a huge Christmas dinner consisting of Spicy Thai Salad, Lab Kai (spicy chicken), and some cheap wine (it's all you can find in Thailand). It was a really good night and a great distraction from missing our families during the holidays.

The next day was the Tsunami Memorial... we knew this was going to be a tough day. We spent most of the day at the orphanage helping the girls get ready for some more Thai Dancing and then watching them dance at another Memorial. We then sat in a HUGE line of traffic (and there's never traffic in Khao Lak) trying to get to the big Memorial at the beach. We were so worried we weren't going to make it, but we got lucky and ended up being able to follow some crazy locals that drove down the other lane and then ended up behind the Princess so they moved us even further along. We got close enough where Steph could walk and Rach could hobble along side her :) On our way down we ran into a girl who works at the Le Meridian and that we'd gotten to know from our visits there. She used to work at a hotel that was completely destroyed so she lost a lot of her friends. She was there on her own so we stayed with her through the ceremony. The Memorial itself was really spectacular. The princess gave a nice speech and then they let off 5000 huge lanterns that float up into the sky... was really the most beautiful thing we've ever seen and it was like you were sending people off into Heaven. After the ceremony we headed down to the beach to find all of our friends! There was a lot of crying, but overall it was a really positive time and people were really happy to be there remembering their loved ones.

The New Years Party was at the orphanage was the next day.. it was a huge success. Over 200 kids came and you could just tell they were having the best time. Each kid got a New Years Present and we had wrapped them ahead of time to make it more fun for the kids... many of them had never opened a gift before. It's very different than at home...they were just cheap toys and many kids got something that wasn't even for their age or their gender, but they were still really excited. We also did a big shop down in Phuket to buy a bunch of clothes (many of them even needed underwear) and handed those out. We've never seen people so greatful just to get a new t-shirt! That night after everyone left, Rotjana, several of the kids, and her entire staff gave us a send off we'd never forget. Rotjana started crying as did several of the kids as they were hugging us goodbye. Steph held it together pretty well because she knew we were going back, but Rach completely lost it. We all basically cried, thanked eachother, and promised we'd meet up again in March or April. It was so hard to leave even knowing we are going back.. we can't imagine how it's going to feel leaving next time.

On a positive note, we have some GREAT news on the volunteering! We raised enough to build the house, buy Christmas (really NewYear's presents) for all the kids, and sponsor atleast 9 kids for a year!

We bought Bai's land and managed to get it filled before we left and now have some good friends that are going to make sure it gets built. Our last update told us the concrete was poured yesterday. We had wanted to have it happen before we had to leave, but with theTsunami Anniversary.. it just couldn't happen.

While we were there we also spent a lot of time helping Rotjana with the business side of things. The orphanage really needs money to build a real orphanage (it's currently a tent) and for basic necessities so Steph and I put our business skills to work. We created flyers and donation boxes and then pitched every hotel, grocery store, internet cafe, etc. and convinced them to help us by putting our donation boxes and flyers on their counters. It ended up being a huge success. Not only did we raise money for building the orphanage, but people also took our flyers and brought food, toys, washing machines, fans, and more directly to the orphanage. Was really an amazing experience to be able to see the direct effects of our efforts. Every day Rotjana had a new story about something that happened as a result of the advertising :)

We ended up staying in Khao Lak for over 3 weeks and it felt like we had a full time job the entire time, but we loved every minute of it. Leaving Khao Lak was sooo hard (we shed many tears), but we can't wait to go back to volunteer a little more, see our friends, and of course.. see the finished house for Bai. We are sooo excited!

Australia :
There's not a whole lot to say about Australia just yet because we were only there for a few days over New Years, but we can tell we are going to ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! It was gorgeous and sunny the whole time, the people are really friendly and there's lots to do :) We will be going back to do more, but in the short time we were there we went down to Sydney Harbour for a good dinner with a view of the bridge and drink with a view of the Opera House. We then spent New Years at Darling Harbour and had a blast. We hadn't been out partying in a while so we did it pretty big. Steph's brother has a few friends there that hooked us up with tickets to a hot spot on Darling Harbour. We first went to a house party with some friends we met a few nights prior (they are also now currently in NZ so we've been able to have some locals show us around here too!) and then met up with Steph's brother's friends and danced the night away. Steph even made a guest appearance on stage with the DJ.. it was hysterical! We were then at the airport a day later and were stopped by a few people who said "Were you at Cargo on New Years? You were the one dancing all night on stage weren't you?" And she was famous :) We didn't get to see the fireworks at Sydney Harbour, but there was also a show in Darling Harbour that we watched from the deck of the bar. We were going to go and watch the big fireworks, but fighting a million people wasn't so appealing.

New Zealand:
We are in NZ now and have been for a few days. It's absolutely GORGEOUS here, but the weather isn't so great. It's been sunny somedays, but still cold and windy. We rented a campervan which has been really cool, but haven't been finding many people our age... we are hoping now that we are on the S. Island we'll find more. We started up North and hit some really cool little beach towns, but it wasn't beach weather. We then headed to Rotorua to sit in some natural hot mineral pools and see the huge steaming geysers. We then headed to a town called Ohakune to do an 8 hr. hike on the Tongariro volcano with the friends we met in Sydney... it was an amazing experience. We've never gone across so many different types of terrain and through so many weather conditions in one day.. it felt like we did 3 separate hikes. Wait until we get the pics up and you'll see what we mean. It was blue sky and sunny when we started and then FREEZING cold, super foggy, and blowing harder than we've ever felt towards the top. We were walking in a volcano though so it was still really cool.. just felt pretty dangerous because the wind was litterally blowing you over and it was sooo cold you couldn't feel your fingers. Once we started down it all changed though.. turned into more of a national park type scenery.... views of lakes, lots of mountains, trees, etc. It was still windy, but warmed up quite a bit.You ended on a path that felt like you were in the jungle walking next to a river. It was crazy.

We just spent a few days in Wellington and absolutely loved it! Between Rach's friend Rob's parents, our new friend Shane (who we met in Sydney) and Jill (a new girl we just met when we pulled into town) we were completely hooked up! We didn't even need to go to the campsite to hook up because we had a place to camp along the beach, gym passes so we could work out and shower, and tourguides to show us the city.. it was a blast! We've been hiking almost every day, but having a gym for a few days was really nice!

We took the boat the the South Island two days ago and are now headed to the West Coast. We stayed one night in Blenheim. It just happens to be the main town in New Zealand's biggest wine region, Marlborough, so we, of course, did some wine tasting! Our new friend Craig (another one we met in Sydney, but is from NZ) met up with us yesterday to show us the good vinyards and now is making the trek with us to the West Coast. Went to about 4 vinyards and bought a bottle to have a picnic.. the picnic ended up being in the van though because it was raining.. wine was still yummy :) We spent last night at the Nelson Lakes at a campsite that had a view of the Alps... stunning! We were going to hike the alps today, but the weather isn't cooperating... rainy, cold and windy :(

So we have to sign off because we have a long drive ahead of us. Sorry we didn't get the pics of New Zealand up yet... we'll do so soon.

Miss and love you all.
Rach and Steph