Ak-ak-akaroa!

So where did I leave off last? Probably about 2 weeks ago, I haven’t really let you in on what we did in Akaroa so I shall have to do that now.

So we took 2 cars up to Akaroa with Bryan driving one and Stephen driving the other. And the drive there was absolutely ridiculous the roads were pretty much winding the entire time and there were so many hills going up and down. The scenery was quite gorgeous though.

When we first got there we actually got lost for about an hour because Google map had the wrong information! I have decided Google is no longer trustworthy. Their map led us completely off course to some random house at the top of this really steep hill. Haha it was so hard for one of the cars to get up there it was smoking so we had to wait a few minutes for it to cool off. And Stephen’s car could only go like 15 km up the really steep hills.

While we were looking for our hostel we found this other really nice resort that had peacocks walking around and we talked to the guy there to get directions. Stephen asked if we could perhaps stay there for free, but no luck. Ah oh well at least we tried. Even though we ended up being lost for an hour we did find our hostel. Our hostel is actually located in one of the highest places you can get a hostel in New Zealand, so it had a really amazing view of the ocean and the valley below us.

We ended up being the only people in the hostel, because it holds about 8 people and there were 8 of us so that was quite nice. Cameron, Angela and I got a hobbit room haha it was so funny we had to bend down to walk into the room and the door was really small. We also had a lord of the rings mural painted on the wall. Surprisingly enough I did not bang my head on the door, but Cameron did.

The first night we were staying at the hostel we could see this huge storm cloud coming in from over the ocean it was crazy (you could kind of see it in the pictures in the previous post). It was really cool though the storm came in and encircled our hostel, at one point you couldn’t see anything around you but white and the wind was blowing hail and rain all over the place.

The next day we woke up and most of us went into town to go to a café and shop a little bit. Then we went back to the hostel to pick the rest of us up and we decided we were going to go on a hike that day. We got slightly side-tracked and went exploring while we were driving as well. We ended up driving across these really narrow roads that wound around the hills and found this property at the bottom surrounded by hills in a valley-like area.

We could see the ocean in the distance from where we had drove down to so we decided we must find a way to get there. We started driving through this farm area and came up to these gates. We went through about 2 of them but the next one we came up to said something about “make sure you know the hazards located in this area”. So we went to the one house there that must have owned the property to ask them if we could go through. There turned out to be three young backpackers (two German girls and a Mexican guy) who were watching the farm for the people who lived there. They told us it was fine if we went through.

I can’t remember but I think I put a picture up in the previous post of the beach we found. It was quite lovely and there were even seals on the rocky shoreline to the left. We spent an hour and half there just exploring and whatnot. Near the end we went to the side of the beach and then climbed up to this ledge up high to see this amazing view of the ocean and some rocks below. Later that day we also went to some hiking trails and hiked up the mountain to this waterfall which was pretty nice too, but it was quite steep. I am pretty sure I fell about 8 times on the way down. Jordan or someone would warn me that it was slippery and then I would fall anyways haha.

The next day was my 18^th birthday (woo!) and we all woke up at like 5am to go watch the sunrise which was beautiful. After that we all went to bed again until like 10:00 am and then we went sea-kayaking. We took the kayaks out for about 4 hours and most of us had a partner, I was with Cameron. Akaroa has a main bay which is the focal point of the town and we started there and worked our way around the shape of the land. We took some lunches in a waterproof bag and kayaked to this beach you could only get to from the water where we ate and explored. We kayaked another 2 hours after that pretty much just getting back to the bay where we started.

After that we had some lunch and went to hang out at the hostel. We had a barbecue that night and they surprised me with some carrot cake afterwards haha. That night we watched Lord of the Rings (of course) which was pretty much required because we are in New Zealand. The next day we woke up at like 7am, very nice and early, and drove home. All in all it was a lovely travel weekend J

Shortly after...

So after travel weekend (November 16) we had Peter Thomas from Monvale (the Capernwray on the North Island) come to teach us about Hebrews. Peter Thomas is actually one of Major Ian Thomas’ sons; Major Ian Thomas is the founder of the Torchbearers International organization that runs Capernwrays all over the world. Hebrews was good it was basically talking to those who were struggling with the switch from Judaism to Christianity back then and the book just reinforces how Christ is sufficient and supreme above all else. We also had Dale teaching us that week instead of DVD lectures and he taught a theme called “Law vs. Grace” about the terms of the old covenant and the new covenant. I realize none of this is very in depth at all, but I feel like going into all the details of what I’ve been learning would take far too much time.

Oh one other eventful thing that happened the week after travel weekend was Cam’s birthday. That day Cameron and I got a combined birthday rap from Joel and Ben, which was lovely haha. That night Joel, Jonas, Joseph, Cameron and I went to a café and while we were gone the girls set something up in our room for Cameron. When we came home there were flower petals leading into our room, and when you went inside the girls had taken all the mattresses down to make one giant bed on the floor. On the giant bed made on the floor they had used flower petals to make the shape of a heart on the bed. Oh and to top it all off they had “Can you feel the love tonight?” by Elton John haha it was really funny, but very cute.