Follow the Journey

Hello All! Just finished up an amazing 5 days in the Outback. We arrived in Alice Springs on Easter Sunday (Happy Easter Everyone!) and the next morning were picked up by our guide Tam, and her trusty steed Nelson (aka her truck), which was basically a small army tank. Greeted by the energetic and all smiling Tam we climbed into Nelson and started on our journey. After stopping to grab… Read More

Hello friends, family, and random readers! Well, we’re back in Adelaide! We just recently finished doing conservation work with the Conservation Volunteers of Australia. I think I speak for all of us when I say it was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. The week started out with us being divided into two groups. Me, Liz, Conor, Hannah, and Matt with Gwen as our leader in one… Read More

Hongi group is back in town after volunteering with Conservation Volunteers of Australia in two different locations.   More to come, but the group wanted to share a couple group pictures of them receiving their volunteer certificates from CVA. They will be updating the blog over the next couple of days.  Great job Team Hongi!… Read More

So since we were getting some complaints about a lack of pictures here are some more random pictures from our time in New Zealand. The first two are from our hike up Avalanche Peak, the next two are sea kayaking at Able Tasman National Park, and the next two are from the pancake rocks and our stay with the Maori.… Read More

We have come to the end of student directed travel as well as our time in New Zealand. After a long process I’m pleased to say that student directed travel was a success. We started with a bang by going to Tongariro National Park Mt. Ngauruhoe or Mt. Doom. It was a legendary pilgrimage for some and a beautiful hike for others. Personally, as a Lord of the Rings fan,… Read More

Wow, what a week! These have truly been the quickest 5 days so far! We started by meeting Tran, the most awesome dude in the universe, at a hostel in New Plymouth. He drove us to a cottage on the outskirts of the city with the most amazing view of Mt. Taranaki where we slept, cooked our own food and played games (night crawlers). Tran broke the ice by taking… Read More

This week on hongi student adventures, we departed from the warm stay with the Maori and arrived at Sentry Hill, a WWOOFing farm. ( World Wide Organization of Orgainic Farmers). PJ, Tom and their three awesome kids, were our amazing hosts that kept us organizaed and made us feel right at home.We sweated hard as we herded and milked cows, cleaned paddocks, and for Liz and Annie castrated bulls. Even… Read More

We went for a hike with Richard (a member of Ngati Whatua tribe we were staying with) who led us up Mt. Atuanui. The weather was far from ideal: rain, serious winds, and cold temperatures were all tough for most of us. Richard led us up a ridge where the wind and rain nearly knocked us us off our feet! After a short walk we entered the rainforest and were… Read More

Sadly we had to leave one of our group members in Nadi. Jess, after a lot of thought, decided to return home for family reasons. Our hearts are with him and his family at this time and we hope he’s doing okay stateside! We arrived in Auckland after some difficult moments. As if our daily activities didn’t throw us enough curve balls in Nananu (we love the curve balls), we… Read More

Yesterday we said our tearful goodbyes the people of Nananu. After an all night Kava ceremony with endless dancing and inevitable yawning, the Nau’s and Mangu’s sang us off as we loaded onto a bus to Tavua. We were sad to leave the village that gave us so much and welcomed us as family the moment we stepped into their homes. In such a short time, we were able to… Read More

Six days ago we left the resort at Mango Bay and traveled half way across Fiji to the village of Nananu. There we started working on the pathway throughout the village. We all love our home stay families and everyone has been so incredibly welcoming, nice, and accepting of all of us. On the first night, they told us that we will forever be part of their family. Today we… Read More

Hi from Olivia and Cameron!! Fiji is beautiful! We have been staying at Mango Bay resort and Wednesday we leave to the village for our two week home stay. We have been exploring the village today and the people here are some of the nicest people we have ever met, it’s so great. We visited a beautiful Hindu temple and experienced a local cava ceremony. Though we didn’t get to… Read More

so in this update we are going to go over a quick list of the highlights so far, first of these i would have to say is the water which is a joy to swim in which is teaming with life.  the next highlight having some freedom to adventure around town and being able to hang out with the group as a whole.  Fiji is totally amazing and very lively.… Read More

Hey Everyone were in Fiji! Orientation has been great! The group is really good! The resort is really nice, but coming in to the town is a bit of a surprise! there is a little bit of culture shock! but its still amazing!  hope all is well at home and stay tuned!… Read More

Hello readers! We’re here! The resort is really nice and the food is delicious! 🙂 The first thing we saw when we arrived were gorgeous mountains and we can’t wait to expand our travels beyond the resort! The group is wonderful, we’ve got great chemistry together and it looks like we’re going to have a great three months! We’ll be at our resort until Wednesday, then we leave for the… Read More

this is our third day in Fiji and so far it’s been a blast! It’s rained a lot (every day) but it’s at least a warm rain. It’s also veeeeeery hot and humid here but we’re all bearing through it together. Today is our first day in town so we are all making a blog post. We will post more later.   -John Whittlesey and Liz Demmon… Read More