Tunnel Beach

On Sunday, my flat went to lunch at Juni's host-family's house. On the way there, we went to Tunnel beach, which is this beautiful beach surrounded by cliffs, only accessible through a tunnel one of the early settlers dug through the rock!

On the sign right at the top it says "Tunnel Beach walk- 20 minutes downhill- 40 minutes uphill". It was pretty accurate!

After the beach we went to the Dunn house and had a wonderful lunch. They are coming over on Saturday with the two girls (10 and 12 and so much fun) for Nanette's 21st birthday dessert. I was going to make it Nanette's 21st / Beckie's 20.5 (May 22) birthday... but then Alex said, "Beckie just wants attention!" So, it remains Nanette's 21st.

Crazy weekend!

Last weekend was so hectic!

A few of my friend were in this 48 hour Film Festival, where you have 48 hours to write, cast, film, edit, and produce a short film- my barbershop quartet agreed to do a scene with them for the opening credits, for which I had to write music late late on Friday night. Then on Saturday morning we went to the Otago Harbour where we were shooting a lot of the film on a family friend of Logan's huge yacht. The weather was beautiful and we sang relatively well, considering I had just written the music. Then, I got my rugby stuff together and met the team to drive to Carisbrook stadium [The House of Pain]. We had the honour of playing at the professional stadium, which was great! I also got to start on wing, which was also great because these are some of the best woman rugby players in the world! The team we were playing against was the Woman's A team from "Pirates Rugby Football Club". These (wo) men were HUGE, especially the fullback (#15). Depending on the play, it was up to me a few times to tackle her. The first time I attempted this she sent me literally flipping though the air! I did a complete backflip and then summersaulted on the ground for a good 5m. I wasn't hurt, and I think she did end up dropping the ball forward, so I suppose the tackle was even effective, but these girls are BIG! I am remembering to keep my mouth guard in!

Later, we had Clubbies at the team clubrooms where the premier A teams (my team) wear all black and fancy scarves or ties. I had to do my rookie jug scull (Rooking is an ongoing process here) for the scarf: drinking an entire jug of beer at once! (In the interest of my liver most of it was spewed back up shortly later - classy I know). Later that night they made us do another skull as well. All in all there was a lot of alcohol consumed that night. We had a team lock-in in the change rooms after the fancy dinner. We got to dress each other up in costume- and Olive dressed me as "Little Bo Peep". In the pictures there is one of the Backs singing "Build me up, Buttercup" for the judges. Yes, these are some of the most talented rugby players in Otago, NZ and even the world, and this is what how ridiculous we looked in costume!

I got home at around 10pm because we had just had so much alcohol at which time wise people just told me to go to bed, and so I felt better in the morning.

Queenstown (and Milford Sound)

Lately I've been really busy doing lots of assignments and lab reports. It turned out that there was a break in the flow coincidentally last weekend. My flatmate and her boyfriend are both pilots and Xander wanted to practice, so Laura and I got a private 4 person airplane ride to Queenstown. We left on Thursday afternoon into some fine weather, and got back on Sunday. The view out the plane windows was just fantastic - central Otago is breathtaking! Then we got to the mountains, and they were really spectacular. There are all these bright blue lakes and rocky-ish type mountains... which are really impressive to the Americans. Its awesome, they're like "Wow check out the SNOW on the MOUNTAINS!" At the same time, I'm thinking how lame NZ snow is, but its still fantastic. The area near Queenstown was used in a few major LOTR scenes, and its pretty recognizable. How random is it to go somewhere and feel like you've been there before? Except for the part where they edited out the entire town, etc.

On Friday, we had a nice relaxing day - I walked around Lake Wakatipu and picked the exact location of where my wedding pictures will be (the photo with the bridge over the water!) . Laura and I went jetboating on the Shotover river which was really moving from high rainfalls previously. We also went up the gondola and were able to see the entire town and mountains from above- we hit it right at sunset, which was great. We then Luged partway down the mountain, which was great fun.

On Saturday, Laura and I went on a trip to Milford Sound with a little tour van. It was worth it for the drive there alone. Along the way we stopped for numerous lookouts and scenic photo spots. We also saw Lake Te Anau (2nd largest in NZ, the largest being Taupo -I've also been there, 3rd is Lake Tekapu - been there as well!). Along the way we stopped at a bird sanctuary with some really rare birds. In NZ there are no native mammals, so the birds expanded their ecological niche and so there a lot of fat birds who don't fly with no natural predators. The scenery is like nothing else - so spectacular! Milford Sound is one of fifteen fjords on the west coast that are all protected in Fjordland National Park, and it is arguably the most accessible and photogenic. We got onto the boat, and there were just ~10 of us on this huge boat! The boat went up and down the entire fjord. Its something else to see mountains plunge right into the water. There are also many waterfalls because it is always raining on the west coast. (although we had perfect weather)

Saturday night, we went to town in Queenstown. Its a party place, but don't worry I used my rugby skills to ensure I could fight off any kind of attack. (haha) Also, Krystle's boyfriend is 6 foot 3 and he's protective of his friends. But it was mostly me.

On Sunday, we all flew home, and I thanked Xander for his excellent flying by throwing up in the plane. Classy.

Pictures are being nasty and not uploading. Will try again later