The Adventures of Booge….and Chucky….Take Two!

Still feeling less than 100%, Suzanne decided to hang back in Picton and Kat and I took off for another adventure. We headed out to the Marlborough Sounds determined to get as much outdoor fun accomplished as possible!

We had to park the car and hike for 3-4 hours to get to the “resort” we were crashing at, so we loaded down our bags mostly with food!! Because of all the nasty weather the hike was a little muddy and I will admit I wiped out a few times. But we made it to Endeavor inlet and had the entire place to ourselves. Kat and I even had our own rooms, which is the first time I slept in a room by myself since I arrived in NZ. (I may have had a few nightmares….)

The best part about the Endeavor resort was the free use of their Kayaks and other water toys. So OF COURSE we headed out on the water…….then realized we were in the kayaks backwards…..I don’t think we were totally awake at this point.

On our way to the resort.

Endeavor Resort...not too shabby of a place.

How gorgeous is that view! This is what we woke to every day we were in the sounds.

It was so bright....it burned....

The best rowing team ever...wait a sec...who is holding the camera and who is holding the oars??

Every now and then the seals would pop up to see us and we saw tons of Jellyfish and other wildlife!

We later decided to do the waterfall hike…..now when I say waterfall hike, that usually means hiking to a waterfall. But because of the weather, AND the fact that it started to rain as we were hiking, this uphill trek was more like climbing up a river. There were parts of the trail that was a constant flow of water and we were completely drenched by the time we got there! (more pictures to come)

I think we took 18 photos at this waterfall - this is my favorite!

The next day we decided to hike up to a mine. This was by far one of the MOST difficult hikes of my life. But it felt amazing reaching the top. It was a continuous, STEEP, uphill climb for a few hours until we came upon this view.

And then we were like….Awesome, let’s keep going and check out these mines! So we kept going…..

Where the F&%@$ is the mines???

And we came upon a road……and that was it. At this point we didn’t even CARE about the mines anymore because we couldn’t believe how far we had already climbed/hiked. It was an awesome morning and when we got back we took the dinghy out on the water and proved how amazing of a rowing team Kat and I turned out to be! (it was a sight that some would pay money to see)

And sadly our adventures on the South Island have come to and end and we are now in Wellington once again. We enjoyed the ferry ride back, not only because we finally got to see Mamma Mia in the theatre, but we also snuck in our own doctored beverages, making it a much more interesting movie-going experience!

So back up towards Auckland we are heading, and soon I will have to say goodbye to the girls…..(*tear*)

PS – Here’s more photos – up and waiting for your criticisms!

Ice Ice Baby!

Pretty in Pink…..