Itinerary Email to Seth!

I just wrote an email to Seth explaining what our plans are for the next month... and i just decided to share it with everyone else!

yo!!!! yeah i am so psyched for thursday... thanks for all the links.. we will check them out!!! all the stuff we have done was only the north of the south island an we only had a glimpse of the wild west... so we had to go back!!! we set up an itinerary for the entire month.. and it wasn't enough!!! so here is a breif overview of what we got lined up... i figured you would like to hear!!!

we are going to drive down the west coast... stop in greymouth to the speights brewery... their black beer laura and i really like... laura likes a black beer.. awesome!!!.. then we are going to drunkily stare at glowormsin hokatika and then spend a one day hiking near okarito.. which is the area where the nz book "the bone people" was based.. laura read it and really wants to go!... and then we are going to do at least the lake matthewsen hike at fox glacier then to wanaka... then we are diving to Mount Aspiring National Park... i have heard from a few folks that we have met that this park is sick... so we are going to do a three day back pack close to the cascade saddle (this german guy said he has been waiting his whole life to try the cascade saddle and the weather couldn't hold)on the westside of the matukituki river... then to queenstown to get tranport to the Routeburn Track... which is another "NZ Great Walk" three day tramp that straddles both Mt Aspiring and Fiordland... i did some research about top hikes in the world and there were a few lists that had this as one of the top ahead of the milford... Look up some pics online... it seems sweeeeeeet.... then we get back to queenstown.. unfortunetly its not a loop and is in a really remote area near this road named paradise... then we hop over to te anu and then transport to the four day milford and when we get to milford sound (third day is my birthday) we are going to do a day of kayaking in the sound.... then back to te anu and then we are going to do three days of day hikes just in fiordland... lake marian.. lake manupouri.. lake hauroko and the lookout bluff track..just to name a few then we are going to do he scenic south coast drive stopping in a town called bluff to look at stewart island.. eat mussels... we will probably be really tired of eating dried food at this point... and then over too.. curio bay to see thousands year old petrified forest(tidal) nugget point.. blowholes.. dunedin..then otago peninsula penguins... christchurch.. camp in banks peninsula..(some other germans we met said there favorite campsite was here)...then over to Arthurs Pass for a few hikes. free camping here!!! and then back to picton to a ferry... then Laura is giving a presentation the next day at New Zealand's National Youth Environmental Leaders Conference!!! and then we will sleep!...

laura and i are picturing you whipping out a map!!! we basically..we meaning mostly laura.. read the whole lonely planet and another hiking book..and then crossreferenced conversations we have had with other travelers.. almost eveyone we met and then decided what we wanted to do this first time down... we will go down again... mount cook is way out of the way. we looked at doing another backpacking rip that is the start of the copeland track... which goes west to east ending close to mount cook... hopefully with you... we are going to do the canyon swing with you... only if you do the nevis highwire bungy with us... its the gondola with the glass floor 134m bungy... cool?.. coooool!!! anyways.. thats what we hope to do in a nutshell!!!

as you can tell we are kinda excited!