Kaikoura, New Zealand...

What a unique and magical place! Greg and I went on a whale watching boat and saw 3 Sperm Whales and a pod of Dusky Dolphins. Then we wandered around the coast near the town and found seals, hermit crabs, star fish (like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants), and the cutest little penguin!! I finally got to see one up close in the wild :) Here are some pictures of my adventures.

Animals of New Zealand

We've seen a lot of cool animals so far during our stay here! The bird with the large wing span is called an Albatross. They were flying around our boat when we took a cruise to a place called Doubtful Sound. We have found those seals on the cruise that were relaxing next to the Tasman Sea. Also, we've seen seals on the beach near the town of Dunedin. The funny looking bird on the ground is called a Kea, that liked to follow people around and get on top of cars :) There are more sheep than people in New Zealand, so we visited a sheep and deer farm. We got to watch the sheep being sheared so they can sell their wool. I haven't seen any penguins yet, but I hope I can later!

A hike to the top of Key Summit

We arrived in Te Anau which is right next to the Fiordland.  This is the area where Lord of the Rings was filmed.  It makes sense that movie directors would pick this place because it looks like we are on a different planet! 
Today we took a 2 hour drive to a place called Milford sound.  That was used in Lord of the Rings also.  There were tons of places to park your car and hike around.  We took a 1 and a half hour hike up to a lookout where we had a great view of the mountains!  Here are some pics from our journey!

Skyline Gondala

What a great view!  Greg and I took a gondala ride just outside of Queenstown.  We could see the whole town and surrounding areas.  There was a really fun racetrack that you could take a luge cart down, which is a small cart.  It was so fun, with sharp turns and little drop offs, that we rode down 6 times!

Just flew to Queenstown

We stepped off the plane in the southern town of Queenstown and were surrounded by enormous mountains!  The view from the plane was awesome.  The sun sets early here, at 5 or 6, so I'm looking forward to seeing the sites tomorrow.  I also included a picture of the rugby match we went to.

Auckland

Hey everyone! We are here in Auckland and loving it. The flight was 13 and a half hours and it took forever! It was worth it though. Auckland is a cool city with lots of pretty scenery. We've had a sports-filled weekend, with a soccer match and our first rugby game! Also, the food is really good. We've been eating good fish and something called meat pies. That probably sounds weird :) I have some good pictures from this weekend that I can upload later. I hope all of you are enjoying the summer!