New Zealand!

So we had one day to catch up in Sydney, then we were back to the airport again the next morning on our way to New Zealand. Luckily we got to bring a suitcase for this one!
Our hour long bus ride to the airport at like 5 in the morning. Way too many of these early-morning-airport trips.

We flew into Christchurch in New Zealand. This is the famous church right in the center of the town.

We stayed at this same motel 3 different times while in New Zealand and we loved it. It's called 'Hotel SO' and I wish I could put more pictures of it and explain it more because it really was SO cool, and cheap! But that would just get boring so if you want to know more, just ask me.

That night we ate at a chinese restaurant and Jayne got all this sick seafood that she cooked right there herself. I'm sure all you seafood lovers would have thought it was the greatest thing in the world, but it looked nasty to me! Brighton and I stuck to our usual sweet and sour chicken dish.

The next morning we took a 5 hour shuttle ride to Picton (at the top of the south island) where we were supposed to catch a ferry up to Wellington (the north island). This is a pretty view of Picton.

Unfortunately the swells on the ocean were worse than they've been in 50 years so our ferry was cancelled. We had to run find a motel in Picton for that night and book the next ferry tickets available for the next day. This is Kristi from Canada who Brighton befriended after we found out our ferry was cancelled. She stayed with us that night and she's way great!

The next morning we ran around trying to figure out flights and other options to get to the north island because the ferry's were still being cancelled so if ours was again, we wouldn't have been able to get on one for a few days. And we only had a few days so that wouldn't work! Apparently the luck was with us this day because the ferry we were scheduled for was the first one that got to go out. This picture is of us happily waiting to get on the ferry.

The ship we were on was like a cruise ship so you could walk around and they had cafe's and movies playing and all that fun stuff. The swells were still incredibly bad so it was really funny to walk around because everyone really was falling over from how bad the ship was rocking! A ton of people were getting sea sick and they had people walking around with ice and stuff to help. It was crazy! We went outside at the top of the ship to see the adventure, of course. It was so windy, as you can tell from my hair. I really had to hang on to the railing to stay up. It was so fun (and freezing) to play up there. When we were completely frozen we went back in and sat down and the sea sickness hit our dear little Jayne. Her face went white and it was not good. Luckily she was able to fall asleep so nothing too drastic happened.

When we got to Wellington, we rented a car and drove 3 hours to Wanganui, where we stayed with a family that Jayne's family met last time they were in New Zealand. This is Brett and Di.

The next day Di took us all around Wanganui. We went to a market and then to the beach where we saw someone she new who was out riding horses. We all took a turn riding this big guy for a second.

Then we went on a bush walk where we learned all about the New Zealand Kiwi bird. These big green hills full of sheep is what it looks like in so much of New Zealand that we saw.

The next day, Brett took us to the Wanganui museum.

Practicing my teaching skills. Jayne makes a great student! That night we watched the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team play the Wallabies, which is Australia's rugby team, at their house. It was a big game. They explained all the rules to rugby to us that night and I instantly became a fan of the sport!

We had a lot of fun with the family that weekend and were so sad to leave. This picture is the last night we were there, after playing some serious games of mafia! These are the 4 kids, Lochie, Angus, Chloe, and Bridget. They are all seriously so amazing at sports and everything they do and we swear they're going to be famous some day!

We drove back to Wellington and walked around there before catching the ferry back to Picton.

King James in Wellington.

We took the 3 hour ferry ride (after driving 3 hours in our car) then got right on the shuttle for a 5 hour ride back to Christchurch. Let's just say we got to see a lot of New Zealand! We always ended up on the crappy little van shuttles so I tried to focus on the beauty of New Zealand instead of the ride. We stayed in Christchurch that night then got up the next morning and took an 8 hour shuttle ride down to Queenstown. This picture is on the road right by our motel in Queenstown.

Brighton and Jayne decided it would be cool to go jump 440 feet with only a bungy attached to their feet. Crazy, I know. Ask them to see the video and they'll be happy to show you! It's sweet.

On the gondola on the way up to see a pretty view of Queenstown.

Queenstown. That mountain range in the back is called the Remarkables. It's the only other mountain range, along with the Rocky Mountains, that runs north and south. Pretty cool!

On Thursday, we went on this tour bus to Milford Sound. Jayne's face makes me laugh so hard in this picture! And it shows how pretty we look when we're traveling. As you can tell, we were freezing. It took us about 5 hours to get there, but we stopped a lot to look at things and take pictures so it wasn't bad. Not to mention that Bret from Flight of the Conchords was our tour guide! Okay, so it was just a look-a-like and sound-a-like, but that would have been cool if it was really him since we're slightly obsessed.

One of our stops. So pretty!

Snow in July? I know you're all jealous.

Milford Sound!

We took the ferry out to see everything. We were on it for 2 hours and it was 2 hours of pure beauty! We saw a lot of seals, but no dolphins or penguins like the group before us saw.

We took that tour bus back to Queenstown and spent a couple more days there. The whole time we were there, everyone kept telling us we needed to eat at 'Fergburger'. They forgot to mention that we should only get one burger for the 3 of us to share! They were ridiculously huge!

We had another 8 hour long shuttle ride back to Christchurch for our last night in New Zealand. It's a good thing this was our last shuttle ride because it was definitely the worst! I don't know if you could have got us on another one after this. Unfortunately we didn't snap a picture. It was insane at how crammed in there everyone was though. This is a picture of our last meal together (we really felt how we look, they gave us so much food!) because Brighton and I were flying back to Sydney early the next morning and Jayne was going up to Auckland and then back home to Utah. Sad!