South Island, New Zealand, November 24-December 4, 2009

     Open mouth. Insert size 10 women’s shoe inside mouth. Cringe. Feel terribly bad. Single tear. Apologize to New Zealand for the harsh words of the last blog. Smile and thank New Zealand for her forgiveness.
     Ok, ok, so I was horrifically wrong. New Zealand is not overrated at all. Overpriced, yes, but definitely NOT overrated. In the past week we have truly experienced some of the most spectacular scenery that we have ever encountered, and we owe it all to New Zealand. After a long and exhausting trek, I had a moment with this beautiful country and all of her wonders. I finally gave in and thought . .this isn't that bad after all. .
    Franz Josef Glacier is an Ice Age materpiece. Simply marvleous darling.  We were expecting it to be quite chilly, but as you can see, the sun is out and it's warm enough to be outside without a snowsuit on. Yippeeee! The hike to the glacier was through the receding glacier channel, and was tricky yet manueverable. The only thing missing? Ice pics and crampons for B-rad.  

  To Queenstown from the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers we meandered our way through the mountains and into the wild wild west (or so it seemed. . . ). The Cardrona Hotel was a unique bit of history combined with a timeless appeal of sex. Just seeing if you are paying attention. He he he : )

    We aren't old are we?

     I only say this because after spending a day in the adrenaline charged city of Queenstown I felt my true age of 27.  Hello? Where did the crazy skydiving, scuba diving, mountain climing, thrill-seeking junkies we all know as Sam and Brad go?? They must have hid somewhere very far away and I am ashamed of them. We were in the presence of every adventure sport in the world, literally right at our fingertips. . . Bungy jumping off of everything and anything, skydiving, canyoning, and a ton of other almost obscene concoctions, but we chose. . . drum roll please. . . horseback riding. Yes folks, I said it. You heard me correctly. Horsebackriding. But, I must warn you, this was not your ordinary horsebackriding trip.

As everyone knows, The Lord of the Rings was filmed in NZ, and this horseback riding trip advertised that it would take us to the place where they filmed several parts of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Series. At first we were sceptical, but decided that if they kept their promise this could very well be one of those "once in a lifetime experiences", so we booked it, and it was.

The trip was so epic words simply cannot describe it. We lied and said that we were experienced riders, so they put us in the advanced group. There was only four of us and our guide. Our guide gave Brad the most difficult horse ". . . because Brad has the most experience. . . "he he. We just looked at eachother with a wee bit of panic and thought it's only horsebackriding, how crazy could it get?

I almost fell off, Brad almost fell off, we were laughing so hard snot was coming out of both of our noses. We cantored and cantored and our butts slowly became numb to the bouncing up and down on the hard leather saddle. Then our guide said" who's ready to gallop through the fields?" That was all it took. Saying the word gallop in front of a horse is like saying the word walk in front of a dog. We didn't have time to answer, our lovely horses answered for us an in an instant we became jockeys on the race track and we were floating over the grass in a full on gallop. It felt like flying actually. Who needs bungy jumping, seriously. That gave us more of a natural high and adrenaline rush than we ever could have imagined. It was so extremely senational I only hope that I get to do it again soon, very soon.

     The scenery was stuff that dreams are made of. There was a point that I looked back at Brad and started to cry. . . it was that beautiful. This was one of the best experiences that we have ever had. We had to cross the river in the valley several times and our guide explained that the river bed changes daily and we need to be very careful of quick sand. Was he joking? Apparantly, because this river is in a glacier bed it is very unique. In fact, there are only two other rivers in the world that experience the same type of activity, i.e, quicksand and other, not-so-fun things. He checked the first crossing and immediatly his horse started to sink. OH NO!!! ATREYU! ATREYU!! Where's Valcor when you need him?. . .

Eventually we found a safe crossing and only managed to get slightly wet. It was a day for the record books. We will dream of it often.

Next we were off to the Milford Sound. Which is not actually a sound at all, it's a fjord, but I won't bother you with the technicalities of fjords and sounds, I actually want to keep you awake. We splurged and opted for a boat cruise through the fjord, and it was worth it! We won't tell you how much we paid, but we will say that we saw several types of endangered birds, including penguins, alpine parrots, and guinea pigs. lol. Sea lions also made several guest appearances. The steep cliff faces dropped dramatically into the black ocean. Cascading waterfalls everywhere. Yes, oh yes, new Zealand is FAR from overrated.

Brad taking in the serenity of a waterfall on one of our various hikes through  enchanted forests.

Thanksgiving was rough for us. We were both incredibly homesick and tired of the wet, cold rain. We bought a bottle of champagne and decided that we were going to go out and treat ourselves to a wonderful meal, being Thanksgiving and all. Well, we started playing Yahtzee, and lost track of time. We were starving so we headed out to town. Of course, all of the resaturants were closed, except. . . Furgburger. I thought is said Furburger and almost shat myself. So, Furgburger it was. Nice freaking Thanksgiving. I want cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, tofurkey and MY FAMILY!!!!! We have had many adventures in NZ, and here are just a few photos for your enjoyment.

Mirror lakes, South Island

This is me holding a rare and highly endangered land octopus, only found in New Zealand coastal areas.

The southernmost tip of New Zealand. If you look closely you can see Antartica in the background. You can certainly feel it.

Just in case you need to do any revamping Mom. . . he he he ha ha ha

Ducky feels bad that we are spending so much money and he confided in me that he wanted to help the family out. I insisted that it wasn't neccessary, but Brad thought he should start contributing at least to the beer fund.

Ducky was gone for days. When he finally returned( I think he was hungover, but I am not sure), he exclaimed "I got a job modeling!"

So, Ducky is now a model. Awesome. Go, Ducky!! Show us the money!!!

Hopefully he won't get any complexes, you know how those model types are.

Love to you all from the land of hobbits, orcs, sheep, and cows- Sam and Frodo