Greetings from New Zealand!

Gre

Greetings from New Zealand! It's been an eventful week down here thus far, starting with easy plane rides but lost baggage (or delayed baggage -- I can't quite figure out how my bag needed more than 3 hours to make it from one plane to the next, but it arrived the next day and that's all that matters). As promised New Zealand has been wet, but the beautiful mossy beech forests are one lovely result. My friend and I spent 3 days on the Routeburn trek, 1 dry and sunny, 2 wet and rainy! While walking through the forest area, we commented on how it looked like it could be hobbit-land, only to learn when we finished that we missed running into the filming of The Hobbit by one mountain!

There were loads of Avalanche Zones, many of which were perfectly safe. However, the Department of Conservation required a helicopter ride over one not-so-safe area (see, Mom and Dad, we were careful!). Their rangers and hut wardens are tremendously knowledgeable and helpful, even providing us with some newspapers to stuff into our very wet shoes in the hopes of making them slightly less wet. Because of the rain, we walked across, though, and in many a waterfall. This is the land of a million waterfalls, at least in the spring.

But for stunning views like this, it's all been worth it.

And this too!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the States!