Alright, now the time has come for me to update you once again. Commencing now. Last Wednesday, Megan, Brittany, Olga and myself went on a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate factory. Let me tell you, it was quite a good time. Definitely worth the $16 cover charge. Throughout the tour, our guide would ask questions based on what she had said so far, or random questions about the process of making chocolate to see if we knew anything about it. If you answered a question correctly, she would give you a piece of chocolate. Good stuff. I'm not talking like a little m&m or something, but a full candy bar. I ended up wracking up some serious chocolate at the end of the tour cause I managed to remember a lot of specific things in hopes she would ask about them. So, that was a good time. And it claims that the factory is like a real life Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and it really is. The amount of stuff that goes on in the factory is insane. Pipes and conveyor belts run all throughout the entire place, which is about 4 city blocks in length by the way. Two highlights of the tour: eating liquid chocolate and watching a ton, literally a ton, of chocolate fall in waterfall like fashion. Crazyness. Oh, also, the night before visiting the chocolate wonderland, I saw Inception. Quality film and I'd recommend seeing it.
Cool. Moving on.
A few days later, 25 peeps packed into 3 vehicles in order to go camping. The vehicles included 2 station wagons and a 10 person van. The van turned into a 15 person van so it was kind of a tight squeeze. We drove about two hours to the Catlins and began setting up camp. The location, which I didn't realize the full beauty of until I woke up the next day, was situated right on the edge of some forests and by the ocean. Really cool. The sky was very clear that night which provided us the opportunity to do some sweet stargazing. The view of the milkyway was incredibly clear. A few hours in, a red ball starts rising on the horizon. The moon. Said red ball was possibly the brightest red moon I have ever seen. Seriously, it was crazy to see.
Next morning, we woke up to rain, so the happy tent members (Megan, Greg, Trevor and myself) kicked it in the tent til the rain subsided, then we emerged. Everyone kinda split up into some groups and went wandering. A bunch of us had some fun on this crazy rope swing. It was one of the best rope swings I had ever been on, and it didn't even launch you into water. If you are friends with Trevor on facebook, check out the pictures he added. After swinging, some of us spotted two sea lions and headed in that direction. One male and one female were chillin on the beach, so we snapped some pics and tried to provoke them to look like we were being chased. We succeeded slightly with half chase attempts. Then, we saw an opportunity to split the defense. They were a perfect distance apart for someone to run between them. I started to stroll behind the two beasts, keeping my distance so they did not really notice me or get startled. I positioned myself about 15 yards behind them and waited for the opportunity. The big dude was scratching himself like a dog and the female was just laying there not paying attention. I took off. I headed straight for the middle of the 2 and they still had no idea I was coming until I was just a few feet away. They both reared their heads and roared at me just as I was about to throw a little heisman pose towards the big fella. Scary stuff. They both whipped their heads around so quickly it was astonishing. I continued my run through and they decided not to follow which was probably a good thing cause apparently they can haul. So that got my heart rate going. Totally worth it.
Righto. After wandering around the beach and swinging and such, Jethro led us on some various adventures. We drove around to a bunch of different forests and waterfalls and such. It was pretty cool cause all the forests were like straight up jungles. Some of the trees were really crazy. We found one area that reminded us of Pandora. A couple of peeps took a dip in the pool at the bottom of a waterfall but I didn't really have clothing on that was conducive to swimming, so I had to skip out on that. And yes, it is winter here in case you have forgotten. One of the places we went to was a coastline where penguins like to kick it. Thats right, we saw some guins. I didn't get too close to them, but I did watch one waddle over some rocks for a while.
After adventuring for a while, it came time for a bunch of us to have to head back to Dunedin. 14 of us to be exact. We crammed the 14 peeps into the two cars and hit the road. My car got kinda lost while heading back to the campsite but it worked out in the end and we all made it back.
Next day, IFSA-Butler had another trip organised for us. (spelled that with an s cause thats how it is spelled here. z is rarely used, even though Zealand starts with a z. funny business down under.) Anywho, the trip we had was visiting an ecosanctuary outside of Dunedin. We were set up to check the place out a little bit and then plant some trees and bushes. We plowed though the bush planting and then ate some lunch on a very scenic deck. It overlooked the sanctuary and some mountains in the background. To get an idea of what this place looked like, just imagine jurassic park. What I mean is, imagine a fence going a very long way around with forestation inside. Thats the general set up, but it was very pretty. After lunch we got down to some serious tree saving. Thats what we referred to it as anyway. Tree saving involved putting mesh fences and some plastic bags around some little trees so pests can't get to them. It was very nice to help out and such. So, yet again, we had another great weekend. I'll write on here again in a couple days or something. Adios muchachos
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