Our wake up time was bright and early this morning. We started off with a breakfast at the hostel--toast and cereal were on the menu. After a quick breakfast, we were off to our first visit of the day.

We woke up on May 16th at Mt. Nicholas Station in time to see our first New Zealand sunrise come up over the mountains. The group enjoyed a delicious breakfast featuring homemade jams and farm-produced Manuka honey. We then spent our morning with Kate Cocks learning primarily about the station’s massive wool production system and touring just a small portion of the 100,000 acre property. The tour, as with most of the trip, provided some fantastic picturesque views of the mountainous landscape. 

We got off the plane in Auckland around 5:45am. Our layover was approximately 2 hours. During that time we ate a snack and exchanged our US dollars for New Zealand currency for the rest of our trip. We boarded the plane to Queenstown around 9:10am and that flight lasted 1 hour and 40 min. We were picked up by Phil Morrison, our Kiwi guide after we landed and headed to the Queenstown waterfront. There, we went to lunch at the Ballarat Trading Co.

We arrived in San Francisco on Saturday night and had a two hour lay-over.  We ate supper, called our family and friends, saying our last goodbyes before flying to New Zealand. Many of us realized this would be our last time for a while to contact our loved ones while we traveled half way across the world.  We boarded the plane at 9:10 and everyone was quite impressed with the high-quality flying accommodations. The plane appeared to be new and the staff gave a warm Kiwi introduction to how friendly the people of New Zealand are.