Suba Aluth Arudthak Vewa (That means Happy New Year in Singhalese)!

We arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday afternoon, and were met in the Airport by Senushi's Auntie Lina, who, (after a few wrong turns) took us to Auntie Menaka's and Uncle Darius' house where we have been staying. When we got to the house, we were greeted by Auntie Menaka, Senushi's grandmother, and her very entertaining cousins Keanu (age 10) and Kiara (age 6). Everyone was very kind and welcoming! After being there for just a few minutes, I realized that the house is really a hub for all of their friends and family. The phone is always ringing, friends seem to just show up at the door, and it's just a very fun atmosphere all around.

When we  were planning our trip, we just happened to schedule our time in Melbourne during Sri Lankan New Year, so I was told that I was in for quite a celebration, and it definitely didn't disappoint! All day yesterday was dedicated to cooking and preparing for the celebration later that evening. When it came time for the party to start, the table was absolutely covered in delicious looking curries and sweets, and as guests showed up the amount of food continued to grow! It was some of the most delicious food I have ever had, and although I quickly got full on the chicken, lamb, and salmon curries, I just had to try everything, so I ate until I was almost sick! We spent the rest of the evening getting to know all of the family and friends. Everyone was so nice and so comfortable with each other that it seemed like one big family, and we sat around talking until after 11 that night. Overall, it was a really fun night and a fantastic first experience with Sri Lankan New Year!

Today we had to spend most of the day in the passport office to get Senushi a replacement Aussie passport for the one that Cubby decided he would eat a couple of months ago, but after that we got to take the tram around downtown Melbourne and see a lot of  the city. It's a very diverse place, and it seems like there is delicious looking food wherever you turn! We have another 4 full days here, and we are both looking forward to spending more time seeing the city and spending time with Senushi's family!

We're in Oz!

We made it to Cairns, Australia a couple of days ago. We're staying at a great little hostel called the Traveler's Oasis, and we feel very lucky because a lot of the hostels here are hostel/nightclub hybrids. On our first day we bought some groceries at the Sunday produce market. We tried dragonfruit and bought a few other things to cook during our stay in Cairns. The next day we went on a day trip to snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef, which was a lot of fun. We didn't rent an underwater camera to take pictures this time, so I don't have any shots from our trip. You'll have to take my word for it being beautiful. We swam with a couple of sea turtles too! After a full day of snorkeling around we got back to the hostel, had some dinner, and got some much-needed rest. The next day we decided to explore the small, touristy town of Cairns. It's sunny and about 90 degrees here, so it's quite a change from southern New Zealand and even Melbourne (where we're headed next). There's also a ton of bats in Cairns-- specifically Spectacled Flying-foxes. They have a wingspan of up to 3 feet!! You can see them hanging upside down from the tropical trees even during the day. I know I shouldn't be scared of them because they only eat fruits and stuff, but they do scare me to death. Of course, Ry thinks they're 'awesome'. Our next stop is Melbourne where we're staying with my family...and no bats!

Milford Sound

We spent our last three days in New Zealand in the southwestern corner of the South Island called Fiordland. Te Anau is the major town in Fiordland and closest to Milford Sound. Most of Fiordland is dominated by the steep sides of the snow-capped Southern Alps, deep lakes and its ocean-flooded, steep western valleys. With an average annual rainfall of 22 feet on 182 days a year, Milford Sound is known as the wettest inhabited place in New Zealand and one of the wettest in the world. Rainfall can reach 10 inches during a span of 24 hours. Lucky for us, we had a whole day of sunshine to go see it. It's steep cliffs and "sea mountains" were all created by glaciers long, long ago. It's also one of the only places in the world where you can see rainforest vegetation along with snowy mountains, the Tasman Sea, AND several waterfalls. We booked a boat ride tour with a very small company, so there was only 6 of us on there. Milford Sound is probably one of the most beautiful places we've ever seen, so I can see why some people have said it's the eighth wonder of the world. Even the hour and a half drive there was gorgeous. Pictures won't do this place justice, but I hope you'll like them. Fiordland was the perfect end to our stay in New Zealand!

Okains Bay, Lake Tekapo, and Queenstown

Now we're going to cram a little. After swimming with the dolphins we made it over to the Banks Peninsula-- more specifically a tiny backpackers in the remote town of Okains Bay. I felt like it represented the real South Island of New Zealand in its quaintness and beauty. As the rest of New Zealand has been, Okains Bay was gorgeous. We stayed at a great backpackers owned by some Dutch expats called the Double Dutch. There we cooked up some mussels and pasta for dinner and just enjoyed the beautiful views. Close to the hostel was a little beach, where we looked at the tiny mussels living on rocks and enjoyed the isolation of such a lovely beach. In the morning, we were off to Lake Tekapo. It was the most beautiful lake I've ever seen! The water is such a unique shade of aqua marine because the glaciers grind up the rocks to tiny particles in the head water, which are then suspended in the water. When the sun hits the water, the water shimmers skyblue. We hiked up Mt. John to the famous Astro Cafe, where we had some coffee and took in the breathtaking panorama of Lake Tekapo and the surrounding summits. After descending Mt. John, we packed up the car once again to drive three hours to Queenstown (the adventure capital of New Zealand). On the way there, we saw even more beautiful scenes. When you're in New Zealand, don't plan on rushing anything. Half the fun is being able to stop, get out of the car and just stare at what's around you. We were pleasantly surprised to find that although Queenstown is quite commercialized, it's really pretty. There are mountains all around and tons of things to do. We chose to do the Shotover Canyon Swing AKA the tallest cliff jump in the world and one of only two canyon swings in the world. Not gonna lie, the added peer pressure from Ryan is probably what made me do it. After free-falling for 60 meters (backwards I might add), you swing the remaining 70 meters into the canyon gorge. It's terrifying, fun, and beautiful all at the same time. We treated ourselves to New Zealand's most famous burger joint afterwards-- FergBurger. Ryan said it was the best gluten-free bun he's ever had!

Swimming with the Dolphins in Kaikoura

Scenic drive to Kaikoura

 We arrived in Kaikoura after a stunning three hour drive through vineyards and along the coast from Nelson. We arrived in town in the later afternoon, and spent the day exploring the little town and taking in the beautiful scenery of the area.We then went for a drive a few minutes down the coast to a seal colony, where we saw a few lethargic seals that we at first thought were dead. Turns out they were just sleeping. Kaikoura is famous for its seafood, especially crayfish, which we decided to try for dinner. We ended up going to a restaurant called The Green Dolphin, and after discovering that crayfish cost around $100 each, we settled on the catch of the day instead, which happened to be the most delicious monkfish I have ever tasted.

Kaikoura at sunset

The seal that woke up for a picture

Anniversary dinner at the Green Dolphin

Panfried Lemon Monkfish with Hollandaise

Large pod of Dusky Dolphins

Getting used to the underwater camera

The dolphins weren't camera-shy.

The next day we got up early and headed to Dolphin Encounter, which is the company that we decided to use for our swim with the local Dusky dolphins. We were fitted in full wetsuits, including hoods, and then set out on a bus to the pier where our boat awaited. After that, it was a 25 minutes boat ride to where the dolphins had been spotted that morning. The Dusky dolphins are very gregarious, living together in groups called pods, which in the Kaikoura region can consist of individuals numbering anywhere from 100 to over 1000 in each pod. These are wild dolphins-- they're not fed or lured into the area nor are they trained to do tricks. Being able to swim and interact with them is entirely up to the dolphins, so we felt very lucky that we encountered a pod containing about 200 dolphins. They were very curious and weren't shy about coming right up to our noses to check us out. I took the guide's advice and dove down into the water to get the dolphins even more curious. When I did so, a few of them would play around me flipping over and showing off. Senushi and I really enjoyed the dolphin encounter and would highly recommend that you do it if you decide to visit New Zealand. We rented an underwater digital camera (it was pretty difficult to use), so a lot of these photos are taken below the water.

The beginning of the South Island: Nelson

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since a blog post. I suppose it says something about how much stuff there is to do on the South Island and maybe how rare great internet is here too. We thought about trying to pack the last 5 days into one post...but it's just not possible, so we'll start with Nelson. Nelson is the oldest city on the South Island and is known for nearby Abel Tasman National Park (unfortunately we didn't get to see that), the wineries that surround it, arts & crafts, and its lovely Saturday market.



We stayed in a great hostel called The Bug (theme: an ode to all things Volkswagen Bug), and went to the Nelson market Saturday morning. If you're a fan of farmers markets in the U.S., then you'd love Nelson's morning market. Food stalls abound, you can grab a delicious breakfast while walking around, and there are plenty of friendly vendors inviting you to try yummy samples. We spent the better part of the day wandering around the market and enjoying the sunny weather. There was even a gluten free baking stand, so Ryan got to buy a made-from-scratch gluten-free loaf. After having our fill of the sunny market, we got back in our little rental car and headed three hours south down the Eastcoast to Kaikoura-- a town famous for its marine life.

Taupo, Mount Doom, and Wellington

Hey everyone! We've made it to the South Island and are staying in a gem of a hostel called The Bug. One of the best parts about staying at this place is...FREE HIGH SPEED INTERNET! The reason I'm so excited about this is because high speed internet and free hardly ever go together in Kiwi-land. Anyways, In the past three days we've visited wonderful places on the North Island. After Rotorua, we headed to Taupo (known as the skydiving capitol of New Zealand) and saw the beautiful Waikato River (the longest river in NZ), Lake Taupo (the largest lake in NZ), and Huka Falls. Taupo was great and as a tip to future travelers to New Zealand, we'd recommend skipping Rotorua altogether and heading straight to Taupo.

We didn't get in on the gorgeous skydiving (~$400/person), but we did some beautiful hikes that really showcased Taupo's natural beauty.

We also went to a lesser known attraction called the Honey Hive. New Zealand is known for their various types of honey and this place allowed us to have free samples of everything from lavendar honey to high quality mead. Ryan insisted on acting like a honeybee afterward... After wearing ourselves out from hiking, we slept well and headed to Tongariro National Park. The Park is one of three World Heritage Sites in NZ, and one of its three volcanic

peaks (Mt. Ngauruhoe) makes a cameo appearance in the Lord of the Rings films as Mount Doom. It's still an active volcano and quite the scene to behold. There were other hikers also there making a much more hardcore trek than the two of us...to be a serious hiker you'll need hiking boots, bandanas, a backpack, and walking sticks! Ryan and I had shorts and a tshirt on along with our running shoes...I also wore my fedora which probably made me look really lame to the hardcore hikers. After gazing at Mount Doom for a few minutes, we headed back to the car for a 4 hour drive to Wellington. We stayed in a great little hostel called Moana Lodge about 25 km outside of Wellington but RIGHT on the beach. It was beautiful! We drove into Wellington city for dinner, ice cream, and a short trip to the famous Te Papa Museum. Our time in Wellington was far too short, and we wish we'd had longer in the museum because it was really the most fascinating museum I've ever been to (very interactive)! It was nice to see where I was born though :-)

We left our hostel at 6am to get to the Cook Straight Ferry Terminal and took a 3-hour ferry to the South Island. We've been told by pretty much everyone that the South Island is even more beautiful than the North Island...we're not sure how this is possible but we'll spend the next 9 days seeing if it's true.