Daisygirl

Last couple of days have been....shall we say full on? Saturday I took our new exchange student Benni (17 years old, Italian, such a lovely person) to the War Memorial Museum, where we met up with a Spanish student. That was great, I got to browse through the wildlife photography gallery and visit my favorite exhibits . Afterwards though...grrr. Spanish student said he needed to get something from a souvenir shop for his mum (was a black rubber bath toy duck with a rugby ball...) and said it was on queen st, 'not too far down it from K'rd. Note: distance from museum to K' Rd = 1.6 kms. At this stage I'm pretty happy to walk to the top of Queen St, as leg wasn't bothering me too much (think it is just a muscular problem from not enough prep for tramp)...THEN we got onto Queen St, and followed it down to the souvenir shop. Which was in Britomart... Distance between K' Rd and Britomart is 2 kms. By that stage my leg was sore, I was a long way from my bus route and this damn dude had taken me on a massive tikki tour. He is a lovely kid, I just was not very amicable towards him in my mind at that stage. Dropped him and the Italian at the appropriate bus stop (she was having dinner at their house) and then went to find one for me. Ended up taking a different bus home and then walking the extra distance. Sunday was a little bit more relaxed, nice to kick back my heels. Went for a bit of a walk . Monday was that wake-up-early-and-go-to-work feeling and ended up staying at uni till late for lectures. Tuesday I finished early and took Benni to Kelly Tarltons, which was awesome (public aquarium, featuring penguins, sharks, lots of different species of fish...) then walked home from Britomart, so good exercise. Wednesday I took her to Rangitoto after work, which is a 3-4 hour walk to the summit of it and back (Its an Island/volcano/forest/bird sanctuary about 20 mins ferry ride from central city, so lovely ) but did not wear socks in my sneakers...big mistake haha!!! Today couldnt walk so well because of blisters, so took a bit longer to finish work (I have to walk around a lot). Afterwards I took Benni to the zoo and we went and had a look at all the natives (kea, tui, kiwi, etc...) and the not so native . The little otters completely won my heart as they chowed on some pidgeon wings-- the babies didnt know what to do with them, kept swimming round and playing with them in the water! Food-wise I am a little bit terrible with accepting those 'a little bit more' 'just a bit of this' offers at the moment. Gym is literally right there so I am planning on going to a gym class tomorrow sometime after work But for now, I am going to continue aquascaping (or my attempt at it ) in my fish tanks with the pohutukawa driftwood and basalt rocks that I brought back from Rangitoto. Have a good night all! Daisy

Nope we haven't done the Copland track yet tho sounds like its going on the list hot pools are excellent! we did the St James Walkway track last year and in 2010 I did a different one somewhere in Arthurs pass...can't quite remember where though. Its the same one as the 24 hour Iron man (I think it was..) used we did it over a few days tho. Legs are okaaaay did about an hour walk today and they were fine except when I went up/down too many stairs or when I had been sitting down a while they felt very sore afterwards.

Heya guys sorry I've been away from anything (apart from a few flashlights) with an electronic circuit for the past week and then was helping some couzzies move to Vietnam. Heres the lowdown: I went down to Christchurch (South Island city in NZ) with my boyfriend Motifier with two things in mind: (a) my cousins who live down there are moving to Vietnam for 2 years so wanted to spend a few days with them before they left and ( we needed to do our mid-winter tramp/hike of awesomeness through the snow in the South Island. We did one last year and it was AWESOME so was definitely something to be repeated! Food-wise I just kinda watched how much I ate but hey, my Cuzz is an awesome cook so sometimes the portions were a liiiiittle bit supersized...maybe... We spent about two days organizing for the tramp and helping couzzies with garage sale, entertaining their kids, that sorta thing. Then, once we had decided where we were going (Cass Lagoon Saddle/Craigieburn track in Arthurs Pass) and how we were going to get there (rented a car, jeepers a lot of those companies don't hire out to under 21s...) we were off! And the next three days were: Day 1: 6-7 hours walking into the first hut, I discovered my legs were NOT HAPPY AND WANTED TO SLEEP ON A COUCH THANKYOU! Bit of pain/stiffness that I am still feeling now, figure its them just being unfit. Was very very cold but thankfully no snow/rain at this point, a few river crossings but nothing too big. Lots of lovely mature beech forest, and we spotted a few korimakos (who make the most amazing songs, like bells, hence their english name, 'bellbirds') and NZ robins. The hut was a tiny wee three bunker built in the '50s with a bit of a leaky roof. Very cute but we ended up smoking out the hut trying to get the fire going...It 'twas an annoyance so we went without a fire. the first hut Motifier lookin good in the snow Day 2: Woke up and EVERYTHING was covered in snow AWESOME! Was only a few cms so didn't get in the way of our walking which was fantastic. We did a 4 hr trip over to the next hut, got there quite early so had time to build dams across streams and have rock throwing contests. Fire was so easy to set up at this place and the hut was super toasty the entire night. At about sundown we were visited by some keas-- these guys are endangered (very small numbers left) green parrots native to nz who live in alpine areas and are renouned for being super playful, confident, cute, curious, cheeky and a general pain in the bum sometimes. One of their most famous pranks is to eat all the sealing around car windscreens so when you drive off your windscreen collapses in on you...these guys took an interest in the hut and spent the night sliding down the roof, playing with the front doormat and the next morning one fell in love with Motifier's bag Day 3: We were up at 5:30, day went through to 7pm I think was when we finished and finally made it back to the car. Bit of rain, very cold but all the clouds cleared away leaving us with this amazing blue sky. Very beautiful, but so tiring. I couldn't have done it without Motifier-- he was so supportive when I was lagging, even carried my bag for a bit! When we got to the car we drove off and got fish and chips at the nearest town Then back to Christchurch and the following day we took a plane back up to Auckland. Now I've got some photos to sort through before work and uni begin again at the beginning of next week....

Update -- Food wise I am swell today (some days I am better than others), need to do some more exercise but that can't be helped tonight.

Hahah thankyou

Haven't got to the snow zone yet have to head south later this week for it

Hey KiwiChick hehe yes they are awesome, planning on getting a few more girls once winters over I'm heading down to Christchurch on Thursday and probably doing a 2-3 day tramp down there round Arthurs Pass somewhere.. then heading to Ruapehu for alpine training group so spoilt for choice really Thanks My break is about a month long in total About a month

well winter but thats equally awesome gna go tramping in the snow :D

EXAMS ARE OVER!!!! Last few days have been enjoying my freedom My big 60 L fish tank sprung a leak which was a big pain in the neck-- have to replace all of the silicon lining at some point for it to be useful again...-- so going to have to go look for a new tank whilst my bubbas reside in a tiny 30 L tank....hopefully I can get a 100 L sometime soon Run tomorrow-- exercise has been lacking last few weeks so going to ramp it up my weight has been pretty constant around 81.9-82.2 at the moment so figure the exercise will help bring it back down Food- wise I've been an angel past two days night all

Update-- have been more sedentary and err not doing so well with the food the past few days :/ think I need to eat far more veges than I am currently eating so am looking thru an old vege cookbook that I've found to get some different ways to eat them (I love veges but love them more when they are cooked-- Im not always a fan of the plain salads with lettuce/tomato/cheese combo, unfortunately my mum loves them so it's mainly my cooking nights that I can strive for an alternative XD) ALSO planned my next run for tomorrow so looking forward to some MOVEMENT!!! XD final exam in a few days, really looking forwards to getting it over with and getting on with holidays XD

They haven't always been my friend so it's good to have them on my side for a change

Yes XD three weeks old soon XD Thankyou

Heya just wandering past to say best of luck with your challenge always wanted to do a colour run XD hope thats a blast!! Iv just started a 5K program myself so will b drawing on cha for inspiration, you seem to be ahead of me! XD Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Will do Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Update-- Day 11 Had a look at my weight this morning and was in for a pleasant surprise-- I've dropped down to 81.9 kg which since i started this challenge is a weight loss of ~2.5 kg (started at 84.4) so I'm quite pleased with my weight loss so far not too much in terms of per week loss but i figure that small, steady losses are better for me than going way up and down per week now, onto lunch! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk