First big adventures.

A lot has happened over the last two days. We arrived at Arthur's Pass this past Tuesday planning on a couple of days of hiking. After our quick trip that afternoon, we set camp about 7K south of the town (basically a store and a hostel). We had the first minor dissapointment of the trip after our stove wouldn't light that evening (hopefully fixed now) and enjoyed PB and J for dinner as well as lunch that day. The weather turned for the worse as the night went on, and by morning we woke fairly wet....and surprisingly cold. Our sense of cold was explained an hour after we woke up as Arthur's Pass was suddenly dumped on with snow. Serious snow. We high-tailed it out before they closed the roads and set out for Oamaru.
The drive was simply the most amazing we've ever had. We left the sealed road and pulled up to a sign telling us we'd have to ford a river or five on our route. After the shortest moment of hesitation, we kept going. Nina and I were rewarded with some of the most breathtaking views on Earth. There's only one picture posted now because no camera could come close to capturing what we saw. Rolling hills, snow covered (southern) alps, emerald green lakes, amazing tree life, and sheep (obvi). After the drive, we landed oursleves on television in New Zealand. We both starred in Empire Backpacker's Hostel new television ad campaign. Now we're regular celebrities over here. After gaining our newfound fame, we hiked across and out of town to view yellow eyed penguins-amazing sights just 5 or 6 K form our hostel.
That brings us to this morning. We packed up in the car and drove about 30K south to Moeraki in search of the most amazing boulders. They're sixty million years old and shaped about as perfectly round as can be. Not far down the road we heard about a lighthouse that was far out of the way, but worth pursuing. This was our big reward of the day. We arrived to find a nice cosy viewing hide that looked over a number of seals and sea lions laying on the beach. After twenty minutes or so, we turned back toward the car. We took one last detour to check out a Maori Pa site-mostly because we couldn't figure out what "Pa" meant. As we walked along the ocean, all of the sudden, we had another penguin standing next to us. It was a very different experience from last night where were on removed platforms. Today we had hiked beyond the posted fence. It was entirely an end of the earth experience. We were surrounded by seals and sea lions, and everywhere we looked another penguin seemed to arrive. The wind almost blew Nina into the Pacific (check out the waist straps on my backpack in that first pic). We ended up there for an hour or so, with the greatest feeling of connectedness and childlike amazment for our surroundings. I easily shot off a hundred photos there.
Now we're back at the hostel, cooking up some pasta, and enjoying the best sense of just feeling great, like everything could go wrong and it couldn't begin to ruin our moods or attitudes. I really can't remember the last time I've felt this good.