Taupo

It’s officially SUMMER for us in beautiful New Zealand—well, the locals don’t consider it summer yet but by my standards it is definitely here. Plus, we are finished with school, so that’s automatically celebration for ringing in summer. It is the start of Brit & Bri’s Backpacking Adventure and we are enjoying our time so far. It is night number 2 in the beautiful town of Taupo on the North Island. We arrived here yesterday and it just so happens that Ruth was also in Taupo with her parents who are here visiting until the end of the week so we went out to dinner with them. They don’t speak very fluent English so it was an interesting experience but they were such wonderful people and full of great stories. Oh, ALSO—minor mishap with my cellular device—Ruth smashed it in the trunk of her van... whoops! My fault for setting in it the prime spot to be smashed I guess L So. Had to invest in a new cell phone today... boo. It’s a piece of crap but it was cheap so whatever.

Hm, you know.. I guess that’s about all the excitement that we’ve had today.. Other than that I bought new running shoes since my other ones have become a muddy mess from hiking Pirongia Forest Park. Oh, totally slipped my mind.... We went BUNGY JUMPING today. Haha, ok just kidding it didn’t actually slip my mind. It was incredible. Brit and I did a tandem jump where you go together, at the same time. We were hoping to get dunked in the water but didn’t make it..which is all right I guess. It was such an adrenaline rush and not as scary as I had anticipated. We are pretty sure that is because we were together though, so it was inevitable that we were going to go through the same thing. I bought a package of the pictures and video so that will be up at some point hopefully.

Tomorrow we head to Wellington at 10am and reach our destination at 4:45pm. Long day ahead on the bus! We are just staying up late tonight on purpose so maybe we can get in a few hours of sleep on our trip. Veryyy excited to see Wellington! Have heard a lot of great stuff about it and it’s our last stop on the North Island before taking the ferry to Picton! Yayyy!! It feels good to be on the road! We’ve just got our backpacks and a messenger bag each which holds our whole lives. Quite an odd feeling but really liberating at the same time, it felt pretty great to leave stuff behind. Said our goodbyes to Hamilton yesterday... It was fun to think back on all the memories I’ve had there and all the great people I’ve meet but I know that it is not goodbye. Honestly, I’m happy to be out of that town but so grateful for the amazing people I’ve become friends with there. A lot of my friends from uni (who are also international students) are headed to the South Island soon or are already there so it should just be one big party down there for the next month or so! Can’t wait!

Peace, Love & Adrenaline,

--BreezyDownUnder