Greetings all from Sydney Australia! Its hard to believe that we are now in our 3rd and final Country.
We had an incredible free travel week, a week completely planned by the students, to close up our time in New Zealand. We kicked off our week with a beautiful ferry ride from Wellington to the scenic south island! Our ferry arrived taking us through a maze of small islands in the Marlborough Sound before arriving in the small port city of Picton. We then shuttled to the Outdoor centre of the northern south island, the small city of Nelson. Through an awesome job by our accomaditions crew (especially Lucy) we had a whole house to ourselves for the first two nights of free travel. Nelson was a hopping city that we thoroughly enjoyed exploring. Some students rented out bikes and explored via cycle, a group even found a croquet club and spent an afternoon playing some croquet. After Nelson, we headed north to the city of Takaka, located in Golden Bay. Our group then split up for a day, with some of us visiting Waitomo caves in Takaka hill, and a chunk of us going for an overnight sea kayak in Abel Tasman National Park. Both were spectacular, the cavers got to see some specatular stalactites and stalagmites, where as the sea kayakers enjoyed a dinner on a beautiful deserted beach, and slept under tarps just inland at Taupo point. After our adventures in Golden Bay we embarked southwards to the small outdoor hub of St. Arnaud, the gateway to Nelson Lakes National park. Our free travel week then climaxed with a beautiful 3-day, 2-night trek around lake Rotoiti and up onto Roberts Ridge. We spent our first night at Lakehead hut, at the mouth of Lake Rotoiti, getting spectacular views of snow capped peaks lining the Travers Valley. The next day we voyaged up the opposite bank of Lake Rotoiti, visiting Whisky falls, a massive 120 foot waterfall. We then ascended about 800 meters, bursting out above treeline to some beautiful views of the lake, right before reaching our final destination at Bushline hut, located at 1290 meters above sea level. Four of us guys, me(Arthur), Sam, Colin M, and Beans spent the night outside sleeping under the stars, which was magical. On our final day we woke up and explored some of Roberts ridge, a group of us even made it to 1690 meters tall Flagtop Summit, with beautiful views of the snow capped southern alps. It was a view that truly took you’re breath away. We all then descended steeply from Roberts Ridge finding our way down to Mt. Roberts car park, where we were all shuttled back to St. Arnaud for the night. Our final day of free travel was spent in transit to Christchurch, where we ended New Zealand with a wonderful night spent in the airport terminal before flying out at 5am the next morning. All in all, in my completely unbiased opinion of course, we knocked free travel out of the park. It was a truly wonderful way to close out our time in New Zealand. Everybody in the group stepped and contributed in some way to the planning process, and we all had a blast in the activities that we did. The outdoors rule! We also happened to come in significant under budget! Which was very rewarding.
We are now in Sydney, Australia for 3 days before flying out to Brisbane for our week at a buddhist retreat center!
Keep readin’,
-Arthur Moss-Hawkins and the Carpe Diem Walkabout Crew
P.S. Sorry there are no pictures, this computer does not like my camera for some reason! But do not worry, I have some great ones that I am determined to get up soon.