The End of the Beginning

The summer program here at Earthwise Valley has come to a close a few days ago.  In the last few days here we had some time to wrap things up and share all our photos and music and all that good stuff.  We also had an afternoon of the Gnome Olympics.  Laura and Hannah went down to the land to set up some random games and stuff like a scavenger hunt, obstacle course, egg toss, blind/dizzy race, and a frisbee game (similar to cups).  We split up into two teams and competed for nothing in particular, but it was a good ol time.

On saturday, Nico and I took Jon, Laura, Hannah, and Dani over to Coromandel town, as their ferry to Auckland was that arvo.  It is defo a bit weird, and much quieter here now without all them.  I think we may meet up again, since we all are going to be travelling around this country for at least the next month or so.

I have also gone through all my pictures that I've taken since being here and chose a whole bunch as a greatest picts sort of thing.  It is on my picassa site here.  There are some good ones in there, so enjoy.

Nico and I are now getting ready for the next part of our adventure.  Main thing right now is pimpin out the van.  We are building a bed in the back and getting all sorts of gear together that we are borrowing from here.  Then on Monday we are going to start driving south and do tons of hiking all over the place.  Since we'll sleep in the van and cook most of our food, diesel should be our only big cost.  We also have only a few ideas of places we definitely want to hit, and I am optimistic that we will have time to randomly go and stay wherever seems nice.  Our main limitation at the moment is that we are going to be helping out Jon to run the winter program at Earthwise which begins in June.  So we'll have to be back by then.  I am really excited though to get down to the south island and get deep into some awesome mountains and glaciers.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures, and here's one last one of the group.