Preparing for J-Term 2009

I just set up this blog site, in preparation for my J-term trip to New Zealand and Australia. Our professor said that there are many internet cafes and places to check email, etc. so I should be able to write on here every few days.  Hopefully it will keep all of you stuck in the cold updated, as well as help me record some of my memories that might otherwise become a little fuzzy over time.  

I leave on January 1st (4 days...eek!), my parents are driving me up to Minneapolis on the 31st because I have to be at the airport at 7Am, and that just sounds a lot more pleasant than trying to drive up really early, especially with the partiers of New Years driving on the roads at that time. 

We fly from MN to San Francisco, where we have about 8 hours of layover, we're planning on tooling around San Fran for a little bit before catching our overnight 13 hour flight to Auckland, NZ, then our flight to Christchurch, NZ (we are spending our time on the South Island of NZ so get to take yet another flight that day to get from Auckland on the north island to Christchurch on the south).  We will arrive on the 3rd of January, thanks to the overnight flight combined with crossing the date line.  We'll then hop in vans and then drive to Kaikoura, and stay at Dolphin Lodge www.dolphinlodge.co.nz and hang out there for 2 days, before heading to Punga Cove, Hanmer Springs, and having a few days of hiking.  We'll eventually catch another plane in New Zealand to head to another part of the south island, experiencing Queenstown, TeAnau, Milford Sound, and hike the Routeburn Trek.  On the 21st we'll fly to Brisbane, Australia and spend 6 days in Brisbane and Byron bay (taking surfing lessons for a few days!) before heading back to the states on the 27th!.  

We'll be hiking a bunch, we have some kayaking, biking, white water rafting, surfing, and plenty of other adventure activities that we'll be doing, so it should be a fantastic trip. 

I am a little anxious being gone for a month, but I know it will fly by and feel like I was barely there!