New Zealand!! Aug 2008

New Zealand!! Aug 2008

Before officially coming back the US, we wanted to go on a long trip before we came back to the few days of vacation in the US:) Matt had a wild trip since he traveled to the Netherlands for a conference before we headed down under. He flew back through the US and we met in the San Francisco airport. We were overjoyed when we heard that the flight to Auckland was only a 12 hour flight--we thought it'd be 19 or more! The flight from Seattle to Edinburgh is about 10 hours so this was nearly the same:) We spent all of our time on the south island. The first day we felt as though we just flew to Scotland because we arrived on a rainy, cloudy day and drove around the part of the island with rolling hills and sheep. The next day we awoke to huge mountains, which certainly do not exist in Scotland. Overall the south island of New Zealand is a gorgeous and rural. You are either mesmerized by ocean or mountains. We stopped in Queensland near the Remarkable Mountains and did a luge ride down the mountain (courtesy of my brother Christian). We then headed down to Milford Sound which was a wild trip since there is one road in and you end up driving into a mountain tunnel that looks like a mouse hole when you approach it. The hills and mountains look very tropical but are covered with snow--it's amazing! We spent our time driving around and checking it all out and we just loved it. Our favorite was a little ski town called Wanaka, they had great beer and wild pizza (venison and crainberry sauce) and amazing hiking. New Zealand is one of the most beautiful places on earth and we hope to go back again.