Easter Break, Week 1

To avoid going into great detail about my first week of break, I will simply share with you the highlights of the trip. As I may have said previously, Cara, JB, Bryan, Adam, and I borrowed White Betty, a car belonging to a couple from the church for our first week of touring. After a day of intense cleaning and tearful goodbyes on Thursday, we left for Mount Cook. I have dicided that I love driving at night through the mountains because it makes them look so much more majestic as you weave around tight corners with their dark shape looming over you and the stars overhead.

We had a guitar at our first hostel so we had a spontaneous worship session under the stars. It was really neat to see how God answered our prayers to give us opportunities to witness because as we were worshiping, a guy came out and started asking Bryan questions about God and stuff because he recognised some of the songs. We also met up with Michael and Jonas at our hostel and stuck with them till Monday in Te Anau.

While in the Mount Cook region, we visited the Franz Joseph glacier and had a quiet time somewhere between Mount Cook and Lake Tikapo.

On Friday night, we camped in tents on the side of the road (with JB and Michael sleeping in the cars) since all the hostels in Wanaka were full (because of an air show that was happening while we were there).

In Wanaka, we went to Puzzling World where we saw tons of awesome illusions and tried to make our way through a maze.

On Easter Sunday in Queenstown, we attended St. Andrews church in the morning and a ‘youth’ church in the evening. And in between, we did the luge (kind of like go-karts without a motor on a hill). And I almost forgot to mention, we all went out for lunch at Fergburger where they make the hugest burgers I have ever seen! And each burger was definitely worth the 10 to 15$ that we paid for them!

On Monday, we were in Te Anau (where we split up with Jonas and Michael). We drove from there to Milford Sound (2 hours), stopping occasionally on the way to take pictures of the beautiful scenery. Milford Sound is actually a Fiord (somebody woopsed in naming it...). It was absolutely beautiful! We took a cruise through the fiord and on the way out to the ocean the mountains were covered in clouds making them seem huge and majestic. On the way back in, the sun came out and shone beautifully on the numerous waterfalls creating rainbows for us to enjoy. In the evening, we (we being Cara and I) took a cruise across the Te Anau lake to see the glow worm caves. They are quite fascinating creatures and it was like staring at a sky filled with stars only each of the stars was within out reach.

While in Dunedin, we took a tour of the Cadbury’s chocolate factory where we were given tons of ‘free’ samples.

On our drive from Dunedin to Christchurch, we stopped by the beach to see the Moeraki Boulders. What an awesome creator we have! (I would highly encourage you to google pictures of these boulders.)

On Thursday, we had nothing else to do so we drove to Hamner Springs for some relaxation in their ‘natural’ hot springs.

On Saturday, I met up with Penny, my co-counselor from Te Mapua (Cara, Adam, JB, and Bryan flew up to the North Island on Friday where they met up with most of the other Capers and spent the week at a beach house in the Cormandel). Penny and I chatted, explored Christchurch, went kayaking along the river that runs through the botanical gardens, and went to an improve show.

I really enjoyed the first week of break. God taught me a lot about myself through interactions with the people I was traveling with. I was blessed to be the first one to wake up every morning (by like 2 hours) so I got to have some really good JAM time every morning (that’s the Te Mapua way of waying Jesus and me time :P)