kyle's blog

G'day everyone,
This is Kyle, and I'm here to share some of my favorite New Zealand pictures with you.
The first, is when we were at our farm stay. The farmer, Bruce, had me jump in the pin of hoggetts and catch one. A hoggett is the name of a sheep that is older than a lamb, but younger than an adult sheep. At the farm stay, Bruce, had his sheep dogs move sheep from one pen to another using a high pitched whistle. He could have a ten acre field covered with sheep cleared in only about 3 minutes He would use different patterns with his whitle to make the dogs do different things such as fast, slow, left, right, sit and bark.
My next picture is of us on a jet boat. This was in The Shotover River Canyon near Queenstown. Our driver was very experienced and skilled. He was going over 80kph(50mph) through the canyon dodging rocks by less than 30cm(one foot). The jet boat had impellers that it only needed 10cm of water to not touch the bottom. Also the jet boat would do multiple 360 degree spins. You can see we have just done one by the prop wash.
On the very same day we went bungy jumping! Where we bungy jumped was the original bungy site of the world. It was 43 meters tall(about 145 feet). That's equivelant of jumping off a 14 story building. My dad went before us, and then my sister and I went together. They had us stand out on a plank and did a count down from 5-very fast. This was one of the most terrifing, exciting, and memorable days of my life, especialy when you include the jet boat.
This next picture was taken when we went on a hike to a lake at the base of Mt. Cook. Mt. Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zeland. It is the mountain directly behind me. On the Hike there were dozens of glaciers calving off. They were really loud. We really lucked out with the weather because the day before we couldn't see 30 meters in front of us because we were so socked in with rain. We almost left, right when we got there. That would have been a huge mistake because this ended up being one of my favorite hikes I've ever done.
Next, is also of Mt. Cook, but many kilometers away. The water below is Lake Pukaki. Isn't the water beautiful?!
This next picture is just a close up of the Shotover jet boat. I'm on the left,three rows back.
I hope you enjoyed looking at this very small portion of this adventure just merely started. I now have an email adress at ksteen93@yahoo.com. I look forward to hearing back from everyone.
CHEERS,
Kyle

Jakob's NZ Adventure

THis is Jakob. THese are pictures from NZ. One of these pictures is from the Abel Tasman hike on the bridge over a fast moving river. Another picture was from my 9th birthday. I also lost a tooth that day. For my birthday I got a snorkling set and a cricket set. Another picture is from a hike to the Franz Joseph Glaceir. Kyle and I were goofing around on some rocks and my mom took a picture. One of the pictures was me luging down a mountain in Queenstown. It was fast and fun. The last picture is of Kyle and me in our Australia hats.
I have a new e-mail address for those who don't know it is jsteen66@yahoo.com.
I miss you guys,
Jake Steen

Mariah's HUGE Blog

Mariah's Blog Entry

Hi everyone,
These are some pictures mainly about me (Mariah), from our trip to New Zealand. The one with our tongues sticking out is from our Christmas Eve Maori dinner/show. That was a very fun night out of about a million. We got to see some of the games that they play, the songs that the sing and the dances that they do. We also got to eat a feast. The main course was lamb. There are many, many lambs in NZ. Another photo is the bungee group, that consists of Kyle, my dad and me. My dad went first. He said that he was scared.......you could not tell though......he went to the top of the bridge and just dove off. On the other hand, Kyle and I went double and were way more scared! We got to the top and hesitated...then just fell and screamed. The bridge that we bungeed off was the place where it was invented. We felt pretty proud that we bungeed at a "historical Monument". That was the scariest thing I had ever encountered. Another photo is from our farm stay. We were getting a tour of the farm and Bruce(the farm owner) let us try to catch a sheep. as you can see....I got one! Kyle, my mom and I all caught one. Our farm stay was another highlight from NZ. The next pict is of my mom and I in the wild Lupine field. NZ has many lupines that cover the beautiful land. The final picture is at Mt. Cook. We did a beautiful day hike in the valley of the mountains. We could hear and see the glaciers that come down on the mountain range. There are many peaks, although Mt. Cook is the tallest.

We just got to our new home in Old bar a few days ago. It is a lot larger and nicer than I thought it would be. Since only a single women owns it. At home I get my own room, although here I share a room with Jakob. We haven't really met anyboby new, except our new neighbors. They are very kind and invited us to dinner the other night.
Today was our first day going to the beach. I can only think of three words to explain it- It is Beautiful! Everbody tried skim boarding....only Kyle succeeded. Kyle, Jake, my dad and I boogie Boarded, we had done it before, so we sort of blended in with the locals.
I would love to hear from everyone, My e-mail is- flyingcuc15@yahoo.com.
Cheers,
Mariah

These are some of the pics from our 1st couple weeks in NZ that we finally got loaded onto this computer. They are from the Abel Tasman hike and some bungee jumping in Queenstown. Kyle and Mariah went together and they might be hard to discern. We rented kayaks in Kaiteriteri and cruised the bay for a couple hours.
We just got back tonight from our first time at our local beach. THe kids and I boogie boarded and all 5 of us skimboarded. The water is not as warm as Hawaii, but the locals say it will get warmer as the summer goes on. We equate it to the time we spent in the surf in San Diego with Sue's family. More later.
Mikey and crew

Adding pics w/ a 56K modem :(

We are moving at a snails pace trying to get a technology upgrade. In about 2 weeks we'll have broadband and be able to do much more. For now it takes over 5 minutes to add one small picture...I sit here playing solitaire as I wait and wait and wait...These pictures are from roadside wild lupines, Milford Sound, and Mt. Cook. Much more to come...Love, The Steens

In the Land of Oz

I am sitting at the computer in our new home in Old Bar. Look up Old Bar NSW Australia on 'Google Earth' to find out where it is. We got in last night after a long travel day from Christchurch to Auckland to Sydney to Old Bar. We have very nice neighbors who are seeing after us and they've been great so far. Our beach is beautiful and the town is small. No traffic lights...Karen and I took a walk at about 7:30 this morning and the town was like a ghost town until we got to the beach. There were probably 30 people surfing. The surf was much bigger than we thought it was going to be. It'll take a while for our kids to get good enough for what we saw. The weather is as advertised. The parrots and cicadas make a lot of fun tropical noises at night. Our house is very nice. Plenty big. Of course, we've been in tents and hotel rooms and cabins for 3 weeks! We have 3 bedrooms and it will work out great. Later tonight we're going to work on getting some pictures loaded onto this blog. We have a million details to work out right now so I will sign off.
Mike and family

Nearly done with NZ now

I want to thank any and all of you who are posting on our blog. Especially D.J. for all the sports updates. I just read about the Seahawks strange victory over the Cowboys. Sounds like it was wild.
We are now in Christchurch for the last 2 days of our N.Z. portion of the trip. We went down to Milford Sound and took a cruise in a downpour. At least the wind was only blowing about 40 kph, though... :( It was horrible considering what the fjord can look like on a nice day.
From there we worked our way north to Mt. Cook which is the highest mountain in the country. The afternoon we pulled in, we had 80 kph winds at the 2000' heights and 120 kph gale force winds at 3000'. Our van was in danger several times from some amazing gusts. It just poured all afternoon and early evening. We did decide to stay in the lodge instead of trying to camp since our tents may have blown away even with us in them. We were very sad as we really had had bad weather on the only other 2 mountain hikes we were hoping to do. This morning we woke up to low clouds, but no wind and some hope. Karen and I took an hour hike at about 8:00 am while the kids slept and it just kept getting better and better. We sat at an overlook watching and listening to the glaciers calve off down the mountainsides. By the time we got back got the kids geared up the sun was out in force and we had our best hike of the trip. We felt like we were in Switzerland or in the Canadian Rockies. We were ringed by 12,000' mountains with massive glaciers that were constanly calving. Once again we wish we were adding the pics now, but we will when we get to Shani's home in Old Bar. We think we have a lot of great ones. We'll let you be the judges..
Tomorrow we try to see Christchurch and get organized for the flight across the Tasman Sea the next morning.
We are all excited to get to Australia.
Keep those entries going as we love to read them.
Love, the Steens