Yet again, I have let my blog (and whatever readers I may still have at this point) languish, abandoned in some forgotten corner of the internet. I have returned to New Zealand from Australia, and I don't think I've ever been happier to be somewhere (even if it is cold here).

Australia was fantastic, but very hot. I spent about a week going up Stuart Highway through South Australia and the Northern Territory, stopping at the opal mining town of Coober Pedy and of course, in Alice Springs for the obligatory trip out to Uluru (Ayer's Rock), Kata Tjuta, and King's Canyon. I spent another week or so travelling down Queensland's East Coast through countless little touristy/backpacker-infested beach towns to ultimately meet Weston in Sydney for another two weeks exploring Sydney and Melbourne. I got to hold a joey (baby kangaroo) in Coober Pedy; I saw camels, wallabies, dingoes, and a river that is dry more often than it runs near Alice Springs, brush turkeys and kookaburras in Cairns, and more wallabies, penguins, koalas, and wombats in Victoria.

I got back to New Zealand about 10 days ago. Since then, I've visited Christchurch, Mt. Cook (NZ's highest peak), Queenstown, Milford Sound, Te Anau, Invercargill, and Stewart Island, where I am now. It's cold here! Probably not much above the 50s, I'd say. Anyway, I'm not entirely pleased that my tours of the South Island have been so rushed, but I've loved being here. Stewart Island, especially, has been a lot of fun. It's where people go to see native birds in the wild, including kiwis. I haven't seen one yet (and am not willing to pay NZ$120 to go on a kiwi-spotting tour), but I have seen tui, fantails, bellbirds, and a bunch of other birds whose names I have forgotten. Since, up until this point, I had only seen a pukeko (not even a tui!), I find this really exciting. It's a strange place, too, because everyone here is really into bird-watching. I've never been at a backpackers where people care more about spotting birds than drinking. Or where people care about spotting birds at all. Also, I've met more Americans since being on Stewart Island than I have in the entire 7 months I've been here. I met a guy at my hostel from Sun Valley, ID, and I met a family on a walk I took who, though they now live in Christchurch, were originally from Green Bay! I certainly didn't expect to meet anyone from either ID or WI, much less who were familiar with places I know!

Tomorrow, I leave Stewart Island to go to the Catlins, then Dunedin, then to make my way back up to Auckland to fly out on the 29th. I'd much rather stay here, but as I've applied to a master's program in library science, I need to get a job that actually pays, and going home is the most sensible (if not the most appealing) thing to do. Since returning to New Zealand, I have come more determined to move here one day. Now I just have to figure out how.