Meet Sam. He's a pretty brave guy. Not necessarily because he flies a plane (that too), but because he let me do some steering. Flying a plane made for ants and looking down at the world below knowing that people are going about their day as if nothing exciting is going on at all is an interesting thing. I wondered if any of them happened to look up and see me, a little dot in the sky, losing my cool entirely. Yet another reason it is always better to look up.
You may have noticed that ever so comforting square sticker that really put my fears to rest.*Note sarcasm.
Lake Wanaka, NZ
These white-capped mountains are topped with ice-cream! No just kidding, but glaciers and waterfalls are pretty sweet too! Pun intended. I envision heaven just like this, except warm.
This beautiful sunset, courtesy of Wanaka, NZ.
Someone on IG pointed out that my shoes almost look like feet here, making me look like a strange elf or fairy of some sort. I'll take it if it means I get to live in the thick of this forest forever. Add this to the list of places I'd like heaven to look like.
Haast Past, West Coast, NZ
We can usually bribe Lu to do the hiking if the likely hood of seeing a fairy or at least a fairy house is at least 80%.
Blue Pools, Haast Pass
No saturation done in the editing of this photo folks. The water is that blue. "I'm blue da ba dee da ba die"
Not looking super fresh here in my opinion, but Luce looks too cute to pass it up.
Lu got a polaroid camera for Christmas and takes billions of awkward photos of like...one of my eyeballs or my mouth gaped open while I snooze. This one is dece so I threw it in the mix.
I know what you're thinking. Yes, I'm sneaking him back home with me so you can all hear the way he says "Cassaaaaaaaaay" in his Aussie accent and squeeze those sweet cheeks.
Franz Josef Glacier, West Coast, NZ
"Ice, ice, baby..."
After our glacier trek we returned to the car to see this big boy perched atop the giant vermillion van we rented and at least 10 tourists taking photos and carrying on. The New Zealand mountain parrot (I'm naming Todd) definitely debated hopping right into the car while we loaded up. Cheeky fella.
Okay, I look like I'm pregnant in this photo, but G-bean basically demands this pic should be seen. Just look at her and try not to smile.
Punakaiki, West Coast, NZ
Pancake rock heaven.
Waikoropupu Springs, Nelson, NZ
Home of the clearest spring water in the world. Pretty neat eh?
Just a couple sailors en route to Abel Tasman National Park.
Bark Bay, Abel Tasman National Park
Again, not my finest...but G-babes throwing her head back as she lets out hearty laughter is out of this world beautiful and I want to remember it.
Wharariki Beach, NZ
I know I go on and on about how insanely beautiful the world is, but I just about fainted at the sight of this scenery. I had another one of those moments where I know God is there and by "there" I don't mean looking down from the Heavens, rather with me and all around.
Wharariki Beach is usually only walkable during 4 hours of the day at low tide. This means little rock pools, a fresh batch of sand every day and all the little caves and tunnels are spilling over with sea creatures. 
I spy with my little eye...
Look Closely! SEAL PUPS!
This beach was like a massive playground complete with the softest sand dunes in the history of the universe (according to Google). I may have had an epic sand-stache after rolling down the hills with the cool kids.
Lake Pukaki, South Island, NZ
New Zealand is so hideous.
Queenstown, NZ
Loved this little town. It's basically a bigger version of Park City and everyone here is jumping off of something (platforms, planes, mountains, you name it). Okay, not really...but Queenstown is the adventure capitol of the world in my book.
FergBurg pretty much makes my dreams come true in the burger, chips, pastry, ice cream (all the essentials) department.
On our way up the coast we found this little beach with hundreds of white rocks people had been leaving messages on. Creativity wasn't flowing, so I simple wrote my name. If you end up here, look for my rock!
Once upon a time their was a girl affectionately named Anal Annie who wouldn't even try a back flip on the trampoline or let her friends go faster than 3 mph while tubing behind a boat. Then this happened. I think a life lesson can be found in this scenario.
People change every day.
When you jump Kawarau Bridge they give you the option to be dunked as your face meets the ground! hahahahah....no thanks.
The Chartres family has easily climbed to the top of my favorite humans list within a matter of months. Some of the coolest peeps to grace this globe if you ask me. Thanks for being rad.
I'm honestly too tired to write out all the deets on everything we did this trip like I've been trying to do in my last travel posts. And honestly, I can't be bothered to right now. When your heart feels as heavy as mine does just looking at all these pretty pixels, you realize their are more important things. Like the love I have for these sweet souls above, the way Georgie grins when we make eye contact from across the room, when Lucy asked me if she had enough money to fly me back to Australia or the way Finn sweet talks his way into my heart when he's supposed to be snoozing in bed. These are some of my best friends right here.
The love I have for this little patch of land sinks down to my core. While I'm excited to see my U.S.A folk, I know a part of me will always be 9,429 miles away, surrounded by sea and eating beetroot with every meal. Side note: Australians eat a lot of beets.
I spy with my little eye Anangu paintings. I completely lost it with all the Indigenous artwork and bought 10 trillion souvenirs. I don't think I've ever looked more like a tourist.
My clique. It's strange when you move to a new place and you're just like...who wants to be my friend? These are a few of the beautiful humans I've added to my list of rad people in Australia. It's so refreshing to get lost with good company. Thanks for all the educational conversations, being patient with my bladder (made for ants) and not allowing me to wear my Tevas in the wilderness. Yeah, that probably sounds strange, but they laughed at my plans of wearing trendy hipster hiking sandals so I took them off and changed to my runners. Later that night we heard some screams and a few cuss words coming from outside the bathrooms and we went out to make sense of the commotion. We found a girl who was just walking on a dirt road (in her flip flops) and had been bitten by a spider. We also found said spider (all 5 hairy inches) just a few feet away, lurking in the shadows. Don't wear your Tevas in the Australian wilderness people.
Uluru is so ugly.
Meet Diesel the camel. He's a camel racing champ (yeah, that's a thing) and may have tried to buck us off once or twice, but I think he came around eventually.
We found this big dirt road that seemed to roll out just for us. It was soft, virtually untouched and most importantly, free of bull ants.
Yup, you can bet we found orange sand in some pretty unique places after our dirt road dance sesh.
