Rafting Trip

Some more pictures from the rafting trip. These arent the offical ones from the professional photographer. If we can get our hands on those we'll post them, but these are pretty cool. Rotorua New Zealand. The largest commercially rafted waterfall in the World...

Mel, La Nae, Rhett, Mark and ME

The falls, bigger than it looks!

Some of us weren't so lucky...

More Random Pictures!

Austin got to be the bartender for this Dinner that the Elder's Quorum of the YSA ward put on for all the sisters in the ward.

I got to be a waiter. These are all BYU Study Abroad Students. Behind me is the setup for the band that played. It was sweet.

Another picture from our roadtrip up north last week. This is at Haruru Falls.

This was my favorite photo from the roadtrip home from Queenstown, taken from the car as we were driving by.

Look at this girls KNEE! They have a Womans Rugby League here..... You should have seen the other girl!

NZ North Country

So a couple of our friends just so happened to have a few days off of work. We were all bored texting eachother trying to decide what we should do. Finally, Melanie came up with the idea for a little road trippage to the North Country. It was super fun. We all packed in Chantelles 4x4 Mitsubishi Montero and I got behind the wheel and drove us about 10-12 hours to the very northern tip of New Zealand and back, in 2 days. Wow. Talk about jam packed full of fun. From 90 mile beaches, to majestic shorelines. From massive sand dunes, to heards of sheep on the roads. From skurfing in sewage water, to off-roading... the fun here seems to never end and it wasn't letting up on this excursion...

Austin Rhett and LaNae. Tip of New Zealand...Cape Ranga?

A picture from the drive back from queenstown

Ah Mazing!

Lake Matteson, one of the Mirror Lakes







Mt. Cook







This is from the "Shot Over". Jet Boats that fly through the canyon walls. Twin Supercharged V8's on a tiny little boat speed next to canyon walls over 4 inches of water... And throw 360's out of nowhere... It was out of control...









Lord of the Freakin Rings




Queenstown Arial Shot. This is the most amazing city ever. Its like the action/adventure capital of the world. You can sky dive, bungie jump, canyon jump, whitewater raft, river surf, helicopter ride, jet boat, rocket swing, and tons of other stuff all out of this one city. This picture is from the top of a Mountain where there is a restraunt and louge and gondula...





This is an action shot during a 360 on the jet boat. You can tell I'm spinning by my hair. Both pictures...same 360. Sweet as









You were right Don... Unreal!

This is Queenstown. Gollum hid in this cave in one of the Lord of the Ring Clips...

There was a huge Asian Festival downtown Auckland a few weeks ago with tons of entertainment. Entertainment including this contortionist chick. This clip doesn't do her justice... One time she was litterally sitting on her head while spinning frisbees on both hands and feet. I couldn't do anything but watch in horror, let alone catch a picture. Sorry...

This is our Raft for the excursion down the rapids. We have tons of pictures that we'll upload later. Be excited is all I have to say...

We stopped at this Wild Life Park in Christchurch. You could feed the Giraffes out of your bare hands. It was mean as...

okay...the computer is being retarded...We'll upload more in the morning...

Well, we are alive! Sorry, to make everybody worry. We have honestly not been home for over a week... So much has been happening its crazy! But come on...Honestly, have a little faith. Where to begin? Hey, we are actually curious who looks at this thing. So leave us a comment by clicking on the comment part of the blog and let us know who you are. Don't be bashful...

So Rhett and I were planning on going to the South Island the whole time we were here, but never seemed to find the time with everything going on, and all the stuff we were doing... We had decided to just not go, since time was almost up, and we figured the north island was sweet enough. Well, after reading an email from Jeff Billen the Big Kahuna and talking to some of the locals here who said it was probably one of their most favorite places on earth, we decided, ahh, we might as well! So we made a few phone calls, talked to a few people, and we were off! We left Auckland Sunday afternoon at like 3pm, and drove straight to the south tip of the North Island, Wellington. There we were supposed to stay with Brendons family, but didn't get to his house till like 1am so we decided to just drive to the parking lot of the Ferry, and sleep there for the night. At 7am we hopped out of the car, hopped onto a Ferry for 3 hours, which took us from Wellington to Picton, on the south island. As soon as we arrived in Picton we drove straight to Queenstown, getting there at like 10:30pm. We stayed with some friends of the Crouches. Ashley and his sister lived in this big Cabin and owned a Pizza Place in town. We went in one night for some free pizza, and were pleasantly suprised with how good Venison Blueberry Pizza tasted! We stayed in Queenstown Tuesday Wednesday, and Thursday morning at 8 am we were back on the road! We drove straight to Picton, only stopping this time in Christchurch to visit a WildLife Park. With wild Lions and Tigers and Cheetahs! We got to feed giraffs and be less than 1 meter from a wild rhino. Sweet as. From Picton we slept in the car in the ferry parking lot, and caught a 5am ferry to wellington. From Wellington back up the way we came, making it home Friday night to Auckland around 7 or 8pm. Holy Hell that was a lot of driving! Well, you might be asking yourself...Why didn't you stay longer? Well, the answer? Becuase today, Saturday morning, we had a river rafting trip with the YSA here, that we couldn't miss! We were supposed to meet up at 6am this morning to leave for Rotorua, but somehow Rhett and I didn't wake up until about 8am! Haha. We were pissed, then we laughed, and drove the 3 hours down ourselves to meet up with everybody. The river that we charged was a 5 on the River Craziness Scale, and has the biggest waterfall drop commercially rafted in the world! 10 meter drop! Ohhhhh MAN! It was like the coolest thing I've ever done! Rhett agrees! We were on the river for lke 45 minutes, where within that short amount of time we hit 3 falls, and tons of rapids. It was awesome! We just got home from that and are exhausted!

So today was our "last Sunday" here in New Zealand, and the singles ward that we have been attending had us bear our testimonies as like a departing testimony in sacrament meeting today. It was sweet. They really love us, and we love them! The funny thing is that we thought today was our last Sunday, cause our original plan was to fly to Sydney on saturday. But to our suprise, The Crouchs have announced their love for us, and told us they were paying for us to stay two weeks longer! They paid for our ticket change and us to stay! Haha, we love it, and we love them! So we told everybody bye at the singles ward today, and now we are going to stay 2 more weeks! haha, Looks like we won't be going to that ward anymore! haha.

Where's Old Zealand anyway?

A sweet little cave behind the Bridal Viel Fall. I had to hold it up so it wouldn't crush my head

Rhett, I think I dared him to climb it, or maybe he just did. Anyway, the company sure was impressed. He was up there for like 5 minutes while everybody ran to get their cameras.

Nothing like a road trip. Haha, if I die on my trip...will somebody blowup this picture and hang it like a flag over my casket? Mainly just Rhetts face...

The surf trip, Gisborne New Zealand. The little guy is ole Daveski

More falls on the way to Gisborne. Thats a lot of water aye

We would dive off this rock and swim underneath the water and follow the noise to where the waterfall landed. Then we'd pop up right underneath the falls. It felt like hands punching you right on the head and top of the shoulders. It kinda hurt, but man was it fun!

I like this picture cause the water drops and the jungle and waterfall and the sky and clouds all in the background.

I like this picture because Rhett looks very handsome, and muscular...