glacier time

 We finally made it up to the glaciers and found a place to stay for the night. Exhausted from the long drive, we hit the hay early and woke just as early for some hiking and glacier time!

First stop: Lake Matheson. in the rain.

sweet, sweet moss

mt cook somewhere in those clouds

Then, glacier time!

raging water...

she'll be comin around the mountain...

crossing some creeks

fox glacier

awkward family photo

rainforest, glacier, and beach. all in one day. this place is not real!

queenstown round 2

This weekend's extravaganza began in Queenstown again!! woohoo! Lindsey and I accompanied a large group from Katie's flat and caravanned westward. {Erin's mom is in town so she stayed to play tour guide with her}

without erin, lindsey and i made some other friends

While some of the others went bungee jumping (at the high price, i figure once is enough for me right now), Lindsey and I just walked the town and enjoyed not doing much of anything else. It was pretty great. We spent most of our discussions on what our lives would be like if we lived here... dream big!

future home? i could live with that

our hostel was right next to the gym so we watched people pump iron while we showered and changed

out on the town

 After another big night out in Queenstown (as it usually is), we had a last Fergburger and hit the road north for the glaciers. {we created a story for ourselves on our night out– we were members of a bluegrass band. specifically, we were Yonder Mountain String Band. Did it work? most certainly!}

the yonder mountain string band

what a crew
Lindsey, Katie, Nora, Boo, Julia, Tara, Jake, David, Me

Made a pit stop in Wanaka on our way up.

titanic

On the way out of Wanaka, there is this sign: Drink DrIvE. terrifying. As we were driving by, we wanted to get a picture so came to a screeching halt in the road, Boo trying to grab Katie's camera from under the consul to get a picture. The car in front thought we had broken down so they stopped and turned around. It was mayhem. But we got the picture we were going for!

Stop on the side of the road for Thunder Falls:

beautiful, ladies.
katie and nora

the boys trying to ford the river for a better picture

 Then a continued drive (long one at that) to the glaciers.

funday quote

In honor of the many hours spent on the road this weekend:

You never know what you'll find!

photo source

home is where the heart is.

Ok, I love Snoop. I love NZ. 

Put em together:

funday quote

Contrary to all the exciting fun I may seem to be having, this weekend was a pretty normal, doing nothing kind of weekend. All of us GGG's were in town. Scotty's cousin and fiance were in town. 

We watched movies, did homework, slept in, had another farmers market date, got ear piercings, and embraced doing not much of anything. It was quite great actually!

making plans to return to wanaka and queenstown...

"Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

Winnie the Pooh

lazy sunday

Our trusty 3rd wheel (erin) decided to ditch us this weekend for some 'other friends.' Well she sure did miss out on some shenanigans.  With her gone, Lindsey, Katie and I planned to go to the Catlins which is just south of here. Come Friday evening, it started raining and The Lucky One (nicholas sparks story with zac efron) looked more and more appealing than riding in the car and camping in the cold rain. So the three of us split a large popcorn and gushed all over the dogs and sexy scenes in the movie. It was delightful. It won't be winning any awards, but it was beautiful. 

We then raided on Cory's poker night with his flat. Katie bought in and Lindsey and I just cheered her on and provided chocolate for everyone. We also discovered Cory's flatmate/kiwi host, Robbie who is quite hilarious and now serves as our Dunedin Owie.  Basically, the night ended with a large sleepover at Lindsey's abandoned flat. Yep, four of us in her double bed. It was snuggly to say the least. (and Robbie is just under 6'6"- doesn't fit well in the best of conditions.)

lindsey, katie, and robbie in his kiwi hat

After only a couple hours of sleep, Lindsey and I headed to the farmers market for a lovely picnic date outside. Tasty, fresh food and lots of happy people. It was great. We then video chatted my family which consisted of a great debate over whether soda should be allowed at Nate's party on Saturday night. Never a dull moment in that house...

With our bellies full of our latest great discovery: Whittaker's peanut butter chocolate, we decided to go for a run along the water. We got down there and felt like we were going to puke chocolate so turned our run into a walk. It turned out to be the best walk ever. We saw lots of dogs and children and people on bikes all out enjoying the nice weather. We talked about life and love and never wanting to leave. Yes, eyes got a little teary.  I literally don't know what I'm going to do without these girls!!!

We then made reservations for the speight's tour round II. And we also discovered video chatting each other! woohoo! So, now we can video chat whenever we're not together. I think we were apart for no more than a matter of minutes the whole weekend. It was great bonding. We got all dressed up and wore dresses for the first time here and conversed over video chat what to wear. The two of us speed walked down to the brewery in twenty minutes (it took us 45 to get home...) and walked through another long tour to get to the unlimited tastings at the end. {there were groupons for the tour so we all racked up on some as cheap, good drinking options.}

and dinner included hops tastings

And we found a poster of The Lucky One where Lindsey's face conveniently fit just in front of Zac Efron:

singing in the rain

fall leaves!

here we are, back on campus

Then we returned to all our friends and made the rounds: Steve's birthday party, then Katie's to rally some troops, then to Cory's flat for prom.  {they have this thing call red card events where each person in the flat gets to pull a red card for the year and make the flat do whatever he wants. So Cory's flatmate's red card event was a mock prom where each couple had to finish two bottles of Scrumpy and dress up as prom dates}  Lindsey was Cory's prom date. Cutest couple. 

fish faces!

scott and conor

The night proceeded to some downtown activities and lots of dancing. It was me, Katie, Scott, Andy and Jacob (Katie's flatmates). We lost Jacob in one of the first bars and then somehow Scotty and I ended up alone so just walked home and crashed. 

And then Sunday was the epitome of a lazy sunday. We ate 'breakfast' that we'd been planning all morning at 3 pm. It was the laziest day ever. And some storms were rolling in so Scott, Lindsey, and I went to go see Avengers 3D. It was awesome. 2 movies in one weekend. wow.

gone huntin

After our ride on the beach on Monday, Ted mentioned a hunt on Wednesday (ANZAC day - so no school) and said he'd call around to see if he could find me a horse.  Well, I got a call yesterday saying he had a horse if i was interested. Well of course I was! So he picked me up a little after 7 and we headed off to pick up horses and head to the hunt. 

We divided and conquered and had the horses and tack loaded up in no time. From there, it was off to central otago- towards Wanaka/Queenstown.  A couple hours later we arrived to a pasture of trailers in the middle of a huuugeeeee valley with sheep pastures as far as you could see. I was given my horse for the day: a little shit called Ringo. We saddled up, got a briefing from the huntsmen and we were off chasing the hounds!

Flying through sheep pastures, jumping barbed wire fences, and people boozing on flasks of scotch– what an interesting hobby!  After a couple of hours, the hounds finally caught a hare! We all dismounted, cracked a beer, and celebrated the successful hunt.  Then it was back in the saddle and at it again.  More galloping. more whips. more scotch. and more fun.
We finally called it quits when the sun was beginning to set and headed back to the trailers.  As a day well spent, we finished with a big potluck and toasts.

One of the BEST days of my life!!!

Uncle Pete was there taking official photographs- i'll try to get them to show yall.

Uncle Pete!

Tim (who lent me the horse and gear) and me

Ted and GLOM huntsman, Dick

me on Ringo and Tim

jump, hounds!