We spent our first official day in Australia touring Sydney and looking at all the landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and the Botanical Gardens. What struck me more than the landmarks was the way Sydney integrated the old and new. Sydney built on top of the old and worked with what was already […]
Treaty of Waitangi
On one of our first days in New Zealand we packed up for the day and headed over to the Waitangi treaty grounds to learn about the treaty between the Maori and the British and to see this historic area. For me, this was a good place to start because from what I have seen […]
Maungatautari
Welcome to Jurassic Park. Our bus screeched to a halt at the base of a looming mountain entrenched in green trees, and encircled by a foreboding fence. We hadn’t been given much information during our long saga towards the center of the North Island, but as we hastily applied sunscreen the guides filled us in. […]
Ready to Walk a Marathon
This week I walked more than I ever have (aside from hiking or running) in my life. Sydney brings blocks and blocks of food, bars, shops, malls, and miscellaneous business districts with every step. Each part of the city is a bus or ferry away; yet everyday I find myself traveling over miles of its […]
Australia’s natural and unnatural world
At the top of a mile-long staircase I stood at Evans lookout in the Blue Mountains and stared at the edge of the world. Beyond a few eucalyptus trees I saw nothing but mist. We are at the edge of the world in a quite literal sense. To get here we time-traveled over Friday, January […]