Sorry for the long absence, I actually had to do some schooling this past week. :-( Anywho 2 weekends ago I went to the Hokatika Wild Foods Festival on the west coast. To say it was crazy would be an understatement. I rode over Saturday morning with ENSOC (engineering society; and incidentally the single largest social organization on campus). They rented out a bunch of party buses and we began the trek through Arthur's Pass. Oh and did I mentioned they're sponsored by Tui, a NZ beer company? Regardless, we had a great time and I ate lots of crazy foods including some Southern Alp oysters, grasshoppers, grubs and a few other oddities. It was more or less a giant party with the theme of "bring your own theme" so everyone was dressed up in hilarious costumes.

On the rebound from the weekend we celebrated St. Patty's day in full splendor. I cooked up some mean corn-beef and Irish Soda bread that went along with cabbage and onions, green mashed potatoes, and of course guiness.

This past weekend is up there in the running for coolest weekend ever. 8 of us planned a trip up to Abel Tasman National Park, which is the northern most part of the south island. 5 people headed up Thursday night, and myself and two of my friends returned a rental car from Christchurh to Nelson on Friday. From Nelson we hitchhiked over to Abel Tasman. This took a little longer than we anticipated and once we were on our way out to the park we realized that we had missed our window of low tide to make it across the flats to the campsite we were supposed to stay at that night. We made an impromptu decision at the intersection where we had to head towards the campsite or the trailhead, and at 8:45 pm we hit the trail and hiked out to Separation point under a cloudless sky with glow worms lining parts of the trail. The three of us spent the night under the stars next to the lighthouse on Separation point and woke up to an amazing sunrise over the water and the islands in Queen Charlotte Sound. I then lead the charge for a sunrise swim off the rocks on the point and dove in and swam with the local seals who were out and about. We then continued on down the coast track with our full packs stopping about every 20-30 minutes when we came to yet another amazing pristine tropical beach. At one of the first ones we stopped at for a swim we were graced with the company of a short tailed stingray who was about 2 1/2 ft. wide and was swimming right in next to the shore! The track took us from one beach to another through amazing jungle, made up of giant palm ferns and other amazing plant life. As with most things here, words can't come close to capturing the awesomeness so there will be pictures to come shortly.

This coming weekend, I'm hanging around Chch and playing in the NZ Ultimate Frisbee Nationals! Should be sweet as

Cheers!