I'm Home!

Hey guys,

Sorry it has taken me such a long time to finish this blog. Once I got home on July 13th, I was just swept up by school, moving back to Austin, and all that stuff.

Coming home was definitely a lot weirder than going to Australia, I don't really know why. I was weird driving again and not being overwhelmed by people everywhere I went. I do miss Sydney and the city, but I'm glad to back and start my final year at college.

My aunt and her friend came to visit me during my last two weeks in Australia. We traveled up the east coast and ended up in the beautiful Cairns. I will post pictures of our adventures soon!

Love,

Karen

NZ posting

I have tried posting several times but they are not coming out in the right order. Just find Day 1 and start from there.

Thanks,

Karen

NZ Day 3 - Greymouth to Franz Josef

where the gold mines used to be...

driving down the West Coast was very interesting. lots of rainforest type plants and tropical landscapes

the Southwestlands is a great area to drive through and most of it is a World Heritage Site

About 5 seconds after we arrived in Franz Josef, we had to go on our Glacier Walk so there wasn't much time for the craziness of what we were about to do to sink in...

This is my glacier hike outfit... I think ready to conquer the Franz Josef Glacier!

To get to the glacier we had to walk through some rainforest and over a river basin.

First sighting of the glacier!

love being surrounded by waterfalls...

but first before we could even get to the glacier, we had to climb up this huge and very steep hill. It was really tough, well at least for me :P

yep, those are the steps we used to get over the glacier...pretty cool

I kind of felt super cool doing this :)

a lot of the areas were a mix of stone and ice so it looked really interesting...

yay! I climbed in an ice cave! 

makes me think of the White Witch from Narnia and her castle...

the top of the glacier, finally get to see it since it was cloudy and rainy all day.

the climbing crew... it was challenging but fun. I'm glad I did it!