MacGyver, look out!

In our quest to save money, we've decided not to buy an expensive camping stove or fuel. Taking a note from Dale Statler, a fellow tramper, we spent an afternoon making a soda can stove! With a couple soda cans, some aluminum tape and methylated spirits, this little guy is a wonder!

Carly sits at the table in front of the various constructive materials (it definitely did not require a drill)  we used to make the stove.

The MacGyver stove - it works like a charm - we can't wait to use it!

For those interested, here is where we found the instructions: Soda Can Stove. Happy cooking!

Wellyland

Carly hangin' at the wharf on Wellington! What you may not be able to read is the "Wellington Rowing Club" sign on a building behind her! Today we visited Courtenay Place, one of the hip streets downtown with oodles of restaurants, bars and clubs. What's sad, though, is that all the shops close at 5pm...we're definitely going to have to get used to this!

Rachel standing in front of a giant sheep in the Te Papa Museum - New Zealand's national history museum and basically every other type of museum rolled into one. It features a colossal squid on permanent display (the only in the world!) as well as an earthquake simulation. Pretty cool! By the way, we did attend the Unveiled exhibit and it was AMAZING! Among others, both Gwen Stefani and Dita Von Teese's weddings dresses were on display! Neither of which were white. We'll leave you all to ponder the significance of that, considering both of their marriages have ended at this point.

Tomorrow's adventure: wine tasting in the Wairarapa region!

We made it.

After a long, 13-hour haul across the very large Pacific Ocean, these Yanks made it to Wellington! For the next 6 months we hope to be clothing, housing and feeding ourselves while also exploring the wonders of the landscape that brought us one of the best trilogies ever: The Lord of the Rings. Yes, this mention is compulsory as we are currently residing in the hometown of the famed director, Peter Jackson. A trip to Mt. Doom is also required somewhere along this trip. Yes Sean Bean, one can simply walk into Mordor these days.  

Getting here was slightly interesting, as was mentioned above. When we arrived in Auckland, we realized we had exactly one hour until our next flight boarded. After getting through customs, which took about 45 minutes, we were told we couldn't drop our bags off at the international terminal and have them shuttled over. Since the flight was to leave in less than 60 minutes (at this point, about 20 minutes), we had to lug our bags to the domestic terminal, a 10 minute walk. So we, lugging our six month luggage, sprinted as fast as we could to the domestic terminal, and ran through security as they were calling our names on the intercom. Just as they were closing the gate, we stumbled up, and they were kind enough to let us on the plane. We felt rather bad for the guy that had to sit next to us on the plane - we must have smelt awful and looked a mess. But regardless, we made it to Wellington and have been having a blast exploring the city since.

In addition, we learned that chivalry is, in fact, dead. Yes ladies, even in Texas. Though some larger men with clear southern drawls were walking alongside us the entire way to the domestic terminal, not one of the three offered to help us with our luggage. Imagine: two tired, sweaty, struggling girls trying to get four giant pieces of luggage to the terminal (not to mention our heavy carry-ons) and all we got were queries from these "Texans" regarding our decisions to move to New Zealand. We have since realized an appropriate response: to get as far away from Texas as possible.

In summary, we have absolutely NO IDEA where we will end up, but we hope to be figuring this out within the next couple of weeks. A trip to the South Island is in our near future, hopefully with stops in Nelson, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown and Wanaka. But first, a visit to Te Papa Museum in Wellington! While we look forward to hiking, camping, and getting dirty, we still MUST go learn about Kiwi history and see the current exhibit - Unveiled: 200 Years of Wedding Fashion. After all, we're still girls right?