Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. In New Zealand.

The three of us on the Kepler treck

This is Lucy

Us in Milford Sound.

Hello everyone! We are alive and well! we live in a hippy van in New Zealand. We flew into Christchurch and chilled at the Holiday Inn there for a few days. We had to go pick up our van. She is called Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. And has The Beatles on the side with lyrics to Lucy in the Sky. The back says "When God talks to us we're schizophrenic". She is amazing. Hopefully more pictures to come. We then met up with Kat's Highschool Tbay friend Brodie. We then drove to Lake Tekapo and did a hike up the mountain for a few hours. We camped for free on the lake and headed to Mt. Cook. We did another 3 hour treck there and saw beautiful scenery. We stayed at a campsite there for 6 dollars each and we have been making some good meals, mostly due to Brodie and Claire who have dominated the kitchen. Aka the gas stove at the back of our van.

We then kept going to Dunedin, where we met up with Liz, our friend from treeplanting. We stayed at her place for the weekend and drank a lot of wine and chilled on Earth Hour with just candle light. We toured the greenpeace boat and made a lot of tacos. We set up tents in her backyard and did some laundry and showered for the first time in 4 days. We then left dunedin and headed towards Milford Sound. We stopped in Te Anau, just before the Keplar Track in a free campsite. There are these birds here called Kias that steal your stuff and chew and destroy things. Brodie was lucky enough to have one chew his hiking shoe. I think we heard one in the woods one night too and Kat was scared.

We spent the next day doing a tramp on the Keplar Track for most of the day, and booked a cruise of Milford Sound. We headed towards Milford that night and camped just 35 kms from Milford at a 6 dollar campsite on the edge of a lake. It was pretty packed but we met a nice old couple from the North Island. We drove into Milford the next morning and took a 2 hour cruise of the Sound. So many beautiful waterfalls and massive mountains. We saw a dolphin and got soaked by a waterfall that the boat went under. It was raining most of the time, and we were freezing, but it didn't matter. We drove to Queenstown that afternoon and that is where we are now. We camped last night at a site just outside Queenstown for 7 dollars. We chilled and made tacos while drinking some beer. It's really cold here, compared to our hot time in Australia. It was about 5 degrees last night and is now about 15. We are unprepared. 2 more weeks in New Zealand and we are back to Australia and then onto Canada again...

Sorry to make this so short, but we will try to update more frequently. But remmber, we do live in a hippy van. We haven't shwoered in 5 days.

Love and miss you all!!!!

Kat Claire Kira...and Brodie