Lots to tell :)!

Howdy!



Sorry for the major delay in updating this!! We have been on the moe quite a bit and today is the 1st day we have been somewhere with decent internet and time to update!



Where did I leave off...oh, we did the Queen Charlotte Track - which is a 3 day hike in the Marlbrough Sounds region. It was INCREDIBLE!!! The 1st day it poured down rain and Jess and I do NOT have rain gear...everyone was like, you don't have proper rain gear? All I could say is uhhh in the States, if it rains, I don't hike. Duh :) but apparently we are idiots! So we are just going to have to say our prayers that it doesn't rain on our other hikes!! But the next 2 days, the weather was PERFECT!! We met a guy named Neils ( he was like it's like Neil but plural :)) from the Netherlands - I think he had the hots for Jessie. He was super nice and interesting - we really enjoyed meeting him! We also spent a good amount of time with a girl named Julie Anne who we accidently were calling Jo Anne for 2 days straight :) from Germany. She was sooo sweet and was fascinating! She does all kinds of work in Germany - she is a therapist and she deals with people who survived the Holocost - so amazing!!

Oh we also met a few interesting men at our hostel along the way...one in particular had a legit handlebar mustache - with the tips curled up and everything - of course this is the person who has the hots for me on the trip. Jess gets the cute, successful Dutch guy and I get the weirdo with horrible breath :) hahah - Jessie couldn't even be within a few feet of him for fear of gagging. Elizabeth and Ned, you two would have been goners with this guy's breath. (They have weak gag reflexes.) C'est la vie!

Then we spent the night in the little town of Renwick that we love. Read: it's in the winery region :) and we are drinking Sauvignon Blanc like it is water :) It is UNREAL, my friends. Do yourselves a favor and make it point to come over here just to taste the wine!!

Then we went on to Christchurch where we stayed with - get this - our 5th cousins in law :) hehe, yeah, pretty distant cousins but they were SO nice and we went to our little cousin, Cameron's (he is 11) touch rugby game - it was so cute! There were also cricket games going on on the other fields...I haven't quite figured that one out - but it looks cool! We had dinner with the Champions and then Cameron put on a juggling show for us! He is an amazing juggler!! You can see him if you go to youtube and type in "youngjuggler" - you should def watch! His little sister is Catherine and she was so precious!! And they have a golden retriever named Murphy...I spent most of my time petting him and thinking of Julep. I have problems. I told Jessie I wished I could call Julep and she looked at me like I had lost my mind. But you other dog owners - you know what I mean :)

In ChCh we traded our little micro machine car "Scottie" in for a bigger car. Tear. It was sad to say goodbye to our litte thing, but our stuff barely fit in there and we were told we could get a bigger one if we thought we needed it....and when you feel like you shouldn't have had that muffin for bfast when your car is huffing and puffing to get up the hills around here, you know it is time to upgrade. We did do a photo shoot with Scottie before turning her in. There is an excellent one of essie on the crawling on the roof like a sex kitten. I was laughing so hard I could barely take the picture. There is now a dent in Scotties roof. Don't tell :)

So we now have "Queen Charlotte" - she is a Nissan Pulsar and is real beauty - a nice plum color complete with confetti interiors and cigarette burns on the seats. She has a real trunk for all our crap. I have been driving more these days. Godbless all the souls that are on the roads with me. My personal speciality is stopping in the middle of roundabouts and asking Jessie in a panic what to do and she is screaming - anything other than STOPPING in the middle of the road...I am working on it :)

We drove from ChCh to Lake Tekapu which is a gorgeous turquoise lake. There really isn't much there other than the lake and a beautiful old church called the "Church of the Good Shepherd" - so there were LOTS of tourists there snapping photos. We did a small hike the next day for some great views of the lake and then headed to Omaru. Omaru is on the coast and is know for its penguin colonies. Last night, we went down to this teeny town called Moraki to see the penguins. You get in this "wee" hut called a penguin hide - it's a tiny wooden fort - with windows you can look out onto this protected beach where penguins will come ashore. You have to be super queit so as to not scare them away - they are really sheepish. We also saw LOTS of fur seals on the beach too! It was really neat to see.

Let's talk about food, my real love in life. We went to a restaurant - our hostel is so cute but it's really remote so we are aways from the closest grocery and we didn't have much to cook for dinner - so we decided it would be a good night to eat out. The restaurnt is called "Fleurs Place" and it's right on the water and all the fish they serve is caught that day, rinsed with sea water and cooked for you that night! It was DELICIOUS! I had "Moki" a white fish and Jess had "Monkfish" - and we split the most incredible seafood chowder I have ever eaten!! It was such a treat!! And I bought the cookbook and Fleur herself signed it for me :)

Today, we are staying in our little farm hostel again for one more night. It's a litte cabin with 3 bedrooms and we are right in the middle of a sheep and llama pasture :) You can walk through the pasture straight down to the beach. The beaches here are not always sandy or safe for swimming and this is both so we were hoping to lay out and go for a swim today and use today and kinda a rest day. Of course, the weather isn't cooperating...that is always the case when you want it to be sunny! - so that gives us a great excuse to catch up on emails and for me to update you guys!

Next on the agenda is the town of Dunedin. It's about 2 hours south- if that - from here. It's a college town - the University of Otago - is there so we have heard it's hoppin' :) We will stay there for one night and then go down the coast to The Catlins. The Catlins are pretty remote so we are hoping to see some pretty scenery. Then - weather permitting - we are planning to take a ferry over to Stewart Island and do a 3 day hike there...fingers crossed for no rain :) Then we will start heading up the middle of the country to Queenstown!

I am going to try and post some pics...so stay tuned!

Sorry this was so long!!! I wanted to catch you up to speed! We love you and miss you!! Write me - alleypic@gmail.com - I love hearing from you!

love,
Alley