Haka Time

I first heard about the All Blacks when I was about 10 years old. I never played rugby, I never desired to play rugby, but for some reason I always wanted to see them play. I never thought that the day would come...but here is the evidence.



Our seats..the cheapest in the house, were only 4 rows back from the field. You could hear the bone-crunching hits, in fact you could feel them. Imagine 40000 people standing up and cheering when the All Blacks were pushing for a try...undescribable!

We were absolutely thrilled to be there..plain and simple

The after-glow of a victorious All Black

As the stadium cleared out I tried to stay as long as I could just to get the last buzz of the nights atmosphere before the long walk back to the hostel.

Later on in the night we partied at Disco Fever...guess who with...the All Blacks. Nothing could have capped of a perfect day any better than that.

Mac and Cheese

No matter where I go, I seem to find friends that are passionate about food and even more passionate about wine. Homemade mac and cheese was on the menu tonight, cooked by a friend, Holly, from the US. We were so hungry that I only barely managed to get a photo. Her secret...a butter-sauteed ritz cracker topping...WOW!


The salad was a perfect combination...simple...rocket, mixed greens, orange slice, goat cheese, and a home-made balsamic..bueno!

The small amount of wine was also a great addition. One of the bottles even had a cork! That is a rare occurrence in New Zealand...I may have kept it.

Cruizin Milford

It was easy to round up a couple friends to plan a trip to Milford. You will understand in a few moments why this is so..it is unlike any place I have ever visited. So off the four of us went, me, Danni, Jason and Christian.

Driving into Milford Sound was like driving into another world. As you make your way there the mountains slowly creep in on all sides but they don't dominate the land - and then you enter the Homer tunnel. As you emerge, you become dwarfed by the mountains. They stand mighty and tall all around and on the day we drove in, the mountainsides were painted with waterfalls.

Finding balance in nature

The gruesome trio

The tagline for Milford should have been "land of rainbows". We saw one nearly every half hour

This waterfall was around 150 meters tall...we were getting hit with mist from it on our cruise boat

It was not a calm day on the water...it had been raining for 5 days straight in Milford..o yea, and there were 170km/hour winds though the fjord

Just another waterfall on the side of the road

Another great trip with some great new friends. I couldn't have had a better time. There is literally adventure around every bend in New Zealand, and we made sure not to let any of them pass by us.

One last picture before the drive home

The Beautiful Catlins

Picture Perfect. That is the only way to describe it. Every stop in the Catlins was visually stunning; it was almost impossible not to marvel at the beauty.

The newly formed Dunedin Duo. 10 days of partying behind us, we were ready to enjoy a different side of New Zealand, a more natural side. That is exactly what we got on our trip out to Nugget point (notice the "nuggets" behind us); the road was less than stellar, but our 12 passenger bus did the trick.

The rest of our hodge-podge group of Internationals. We couldn't have asked for a better crew!

The bus that made the trip possible. You would not imagine my skepticism of driving this bus..not only did I have to drive on the left hand side with a full load of people, the damn thing was a standard! O well, within 30 minutes I was loving the freedom of being back on the road again.

Our home away from home for the weekend

Some of the beautiful sights in the south of New Zealand that we were lucky to see.

They are everywhere..when you see your first field of them you want to snap a picture...after half an hour you wonder if you can go 10 minutes without seeing one.

No, Pocahontas was not showering in this waterfall

You choose..

Yes..that is a real live penguin..there was a whole beach full of them!

Architecture of Dunedin

Stunning architecture is something I am not used to, now I get to see it everyday. Here are just a few of the buildings that have caught my eye.

Too the Peninsula!

It was a beautiful Sunday morning and all the International students I had met on the train trip wanted to do a little boat cruise out to the Peninsula. Being on that boat that day was so peaceful, not to mention the sights were amazing.

If you look closely at this picture you can see some native New Zealand birds just hanging out. They have the coolest natural mohawks I have ever seen.

At one point we were allowed to get off the boat. A ten minute walk from the wharf and I stumbled upon the coolest little shell sanctuary.

I also stumbled upon this guy! But he just wanted to hang out...he didn't mind that we were on his beach

Looks pretty inviting for a winter day doesn't it?

The end of another great day in New Zealand! I was all smiles, life couldn't be any better.

Nothing Like a Brewery Tour

When I was invited to a Speight's Brewery tour...there was no way I was going to say no! I wouldn't be a true scarfie (Uni Student) if I said no.

You can only imagine how much beer they brew in these solid copper containers. Don't try to go for a swim though, you wouldn't make it our alive!

This room distinctly smelled like stale hops. At first it was overwhelming, but then it became somewhat endearing; most likely because the end result is a nice, cold beer.

This guy was the man...he didn't just drink beer, he drank it out of the skull of his enemies.

The best part of the tour was the beer afterwords. Our tour guide gave us free reign of the taps for 25 minutes! Seven different types of beers, 5 thirsty uni students, you know how it goes from here.