Far From Home

As I begin writing this it has been exactly two months since I left home, maybe about an hour off (the time it says this was written was the New Zealand time). I've never been away from home and family for more than two weeks before this so this is a huge change for me, especially when I think how much more time I have here. When I look back over the whole time I've been here it seems so long, but when I think about how it's a fifth of the way over it seems too short.

I have already had my spring break here, it just ended last week. It was a two week "study" holiday between 3rd and 4th term. During the break I went on two day trips with my family; first to Te Anau, and then to Curio Bay. At Te Anau we went to the Glowworm Caves. It was a bunch of tiny worms that looked almost like fireflies, just dimmer, and they shone constantly. They were deep in a cave, so it was pitch black, and they were above water so I was in a boat. It was so dark I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face, only the specks of yellow light. This made it impossible to tell the distance they were away from me, making it look like stars in a pitch black night. I couldn't get any pictures of them because any light or sound disturbed them enough to stop glowing. There is some pictures of the boat ride to the island that the cave is on though. Going to Curio Bay during the break was almost exactly like last time (I'll get to that later) except I was better at kayaking.

As well as those two trips I went on three other day trips with my host family before the school holiday. The first of the trips was to Curio Bay were we went to the Petrified forest for a little while, and then just played on the beach. The petrified forest is an old forest that is now a bunch of petrified wood stuck in some rock by the ocean. It's cooler than it sounds. At the beach we borrowed some of our friend's kayaks and went kayak surfing (above), which was really fun.

View from petrified forest.

The other two trips were skiing at The Remarkables, in Queenstown, and going on a trail walk in Bluff. At the Remarkables I went snow boarding, and my two host brothers went skiing. It was a day trip, so we were only on the slopes for probably 6 hours. Because of this I was still warming up and not as good as used to be, but it was still really fun.

The walk at Bluff was a pretty normal walk, but it was very scenic (picture to left). Everyone in the family came so it was nice. It was a long walk, but not too hard, so it was very enjoyable.

All three of these pictures are from the walk at Bluff. Click on any picture to make it bigger.