Te Anau

Hello All! We have arrived in Te Anau, and have made the necessary arrangements for the dusky track. We leave tomorrow, Monday the 28th, for 8 days of trekking. It should be wild. We plan on taking a couple of side treks, and if we get some nasty weather we can be out for 10 days. Don't worry, we will be prepared with a mountain radio and lots of food. The drive to Te Anau was amazing, especially the last day. Our first day on the south island was Friday. We drove all day to the town of Geraldine, and celebrated David's birthday with a bottle of absinthe at our hotel, then made our way to the local bar where Nick and Kevin were challenged to arm wrestling matches by the local dairy farmers. Nick beat a guy who was at least 6 foot 8 and I am pretty sure Kevin was undefeated for the night. We managed to get up early and I drove the first leg of the day. We past beautiful sites like the southern alps, and lake pukaki, which is a brilliant teal color. Then we held on for our lives as Greg zipped us through one of the most scenic drives I have experienced. After taking care of dusky business we camped for free in between a meadow and a river, and enjoyed the views until it got dark around ten. We have heard nothing but good things about the dusky, so we feel we made a wise decision. Having the car has been great as well, we can go at our own pace and we see a lot of New Zealand . I will not be at a computer until at least Feb 6, but I will try to find one with a USB so I can start to upload pictures. Hope everyone is safe and doing well! -- Mark

Greetings from New Zealand!

Hello All! We arrived in Auckland yesterday at 6 am. The flight was really long, but qantas airlines was very nice, with tons of in flight movies and free drinks. We arrived at our hostel at 8:30 or 9:30 but could not check in until 1, so we spent the morning looking for a way to get out of Auckland and to the south island. All the options were more expensive then we predicted, but we were able to get a great deal on a rental car for three weeks. We are all excited about the freedom that having a car will give us, but still a little nervous about driving on the opposite side of the road. We plan on camping instead of staying at hostels, so I am not sure how consistently I will have access to a computer. Hope everyone is doing well, comments are appreciated, let me know if for some reason they do not work. Pictures will come eventually, I am not sure how they work on the blog, plus I don't have any interesting ones yet. --Mark

First Post-Davis

Hello all! I guess i have already started to travel, I am in Davis! We leave tomorrow, I have a lot to do to get ready so goodbye for now! GO CHARGERS!!