A beautiful country

The trouble with an adventuresome lifestyle (e.g. that which I have adopted in NZ) is that it's hard to find time to stop and do things like write about adventures rather than continue to have them. I have not taken enough care thus far to write about how gorgeous this country is, so I need to make sure to do that now before you think it's all about funny lingo and candy and beer.

One thing that totally kills me about Hamilton is that they see so many rainbows that they don't even appreciate them anymore. Every time I see one I'll point it out to my friends and they'll respond "Are you serious? It's just a rainbow." The climate in Hamilton is such that on a rainy day it will be more like patchy rain rather than rain all day, so there will usually be patches of sun as well so they see a lot of rainbows. However, there really isn't much to do in Hamilton and most people I meet will ask me why I'm based in Hamilton of all the way beautiful places in NZ. At least they have rainbows?

 I took a wonderful roadtrip with my wonderful flatmate Jodie, and we saw some great stuff :)
First stop: Orakei Korako, a thermal park thingy just outside of Taupo. Taupo and Rotorua are in an area where there is crazy geothermal stuff going on and there are some parks where there is steam coming out of the ground, boiling mud, cool colored water from minerals, and hot springs.

Most of the North Island is covered in these amazing green hills that are just everywhere and dotted with cows and sheep. The farther South we went on the island they got more and more picturesque. Up by Hamilton they're nice, but down by Eketahuna where Jodie's parents' farms are, the hills just couldn't have been prettier!

We visited the Mt. Bruce Bird Reserve while in Eketahuna and this is Jodie's favorite bird. It's called a Takahe, and it looks like a fat Pukeko, which means it's pretty much one of the most awesome New Zealand birds.

We saw some kiwis too! They actually had recently hatched a white kiwi bird chick but they only brought it out on Sundays and we went on a Monday :( Brown kiwis are still pretty awesome though!

We also visited the cows on Jodie's dad's farm. I'm a big fan of cows, we don't have them in New York City. They were all scared of me though! I tried to pet them, but they would all just run away!

This is what their farm looks like, no big deal, only one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

This is how we got to that beautiful place, a 4 wheel motorbike, and I was holding on for my dear life!

The next morning they dressed me up like a farmer and I got to feed out the cows with Jodie and her step dad. These ones were scared of me too :(
I'm going to have to finish writing about the roadie another time so that I don't miss my shuttle to the airport to go to WELLINGTON!  :) many more adventures to come!