End of the Journey!

Feb 6^th

Saturday Morning the group of 16 girls all said goodbye to our beloved Queenstown and made our way on a seven hour trip to Christchurch.  Christchurch has been known for the serious earthquakes from September and aftershocks that have been occurring recently.   There was a lot of construction throughout the city and you could tell that there has been serious damage.

The housing situation in Christchurch was about 500 steps up from Base X housing in Queenstown.  We stayed at the Motel Gothic Heights.  In my motel I stayed with Christine, Anna, and Heidi.  Christine and I shared the full bed and Heidi and Anna had their own back room with 3 twin beds.  Each motel had a bathroom, kitchen, tv/dvd player, and dinner table.  We were so grateful to have these nice living conditions. 

Saturday night we got to celebrate Waitangi Day with all the locals.  They had a big festival with dancers, singers, speakers, and fireworks!  

We laid out a blanket and enjoyed the show with thousands of other people.  Waitangi day celebrates the day that the Waitangi Treaty between the Maori and Europeans giving land back to the Maori people who were in New Zealand first. 

Feb. 7^th

Today was fast Sunday!  Heidi and I volunteered to be in charge of planning a big Sunday Dinner for all 20 people in our group.  We wanted to do something that would feed lots of people, be a crowd pleaser, and wouldn’t be too hard to make in our little kitchens.  So we decided to make a fancy Nacho dish J  

We had certain motel rooms cook up the meat and seasonings, other rooms cut up the lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and toppings and we put it out as a buffet line.  Everyone loved it and it was fun to plan a meal for such a large group!

After dinner we did our first New Zealand Tim Tam Slam!!!  Tim tams are the chocolate bars where you bite off two opposite corners.  Then you take Milo (new Zealand hot chocolate, not as good but its authentic to new Zealand) and sip it up through your chocolate bar.  

Once you sip up the milo through the chocolate bar you lean your head back and the whole thing melts into your mouth.  It’s a little bit messy but DELICOUS!!!

Feb 8^th

Today we visited a small French town, went to a museum, and took a scenic drive.  

Here's a picture of my favorite part of the museum.  A husband and wife decorated their entire living room full of these paua shells that are unique to New Zealand.

While we were on our drive our friend James taught us a Samoan song!  We haven’t perfected it yet but were working on it!

Feb 9^th

Today we spent the whole day at the beach!   

For part of the day we tried to dance on the beach as much as we can.  Nicole, Nancy, and I were trying to perform dance steps from our glory days in high school and sadly we are not as talented as we use to be.  But we had fun trying. 

Then we worked out the Hannah Montana Hoe down throw down dance!  Christine, Nancy, and I taught it to our very talented group of girls.  I thought we did pretty well together!

The best part of the day had the be the crabs!!! There was a large pier that we could walk out onto to look out into the ocean.  Along the pier there were lots of fishermen and crab hunters.  I was really intrigued at watching them catch all these animals!  Then one of the men started chopping off the fish heads so I wasn’t quite as intrigued with the fishermen.  But we made friends with one of the men who was catching crabs.  He even taught us how to hold these live crabs!!! So even though the crabs where wildly trying to claw me with their deadly claws I bravely grabbed them using my perfected crab holding techniques!

Feb. 10^th

We also spent a day visiting the beautiful botanic gardens. 

Heidi and I also spent some time in the beautiful Anglican Cathedral in the city.  We even attended part of a communion meeting.  It was a different experience but the people were very nice to us.

Here is a picture of the vans that we did most of our traveling in.

Overall I loved the south island trip!  It was so fun to be able to spend so much time with the girls and to visit somewhere that I had never been before!  It was nice to come back “home” to Auckland where we are familiar and see Phyllis again!