Weekend in Taranaki

it's not lucky for me that i have strep throat. but it's lucky for you if you've been wanting pictures. let me take you through my weekend with my lovely friends!

we drove from wellington to new plymouth about 5 hours up the southwest coast, i have mapped it out in white for you. behold:



this was our chariot which rode us into the weekend. the party bus of champions:




here's a look on the inside, full of happy campers:


this is what mount taranaki looks like, it's very beautiful:
unfortunately, due to weather, this was our view of it:

sooo we headed to a museum in the center of the city full of ancient maori tribal relics. how scary would it be to be locked in there at night? very.
they also had some pretty art in the museum:
after the museum everyone went shopping, and i decided to go walking along the water. i watched the waves crash onto the rocks and listened to radiohead and bjork for about an hour, it was a really peaceful afternoon.

then that evening some of us headed out to the rugby game, which ended up being a tie and was a highly enjoyable game. i shared fish n chips with my friend liam and we were very happy about that.
also, the stadium is apparently sponsored by some bread company, or so i've been told, and they threw loaves of bread out to the crowd during halftime, like, you know, instead of t shirt guns? just chunking bread. david caught a loaf and made a french fry sandwich. which i thought was weird, but he seemed to enjoy it so that's what matters i suppose. please note that the rays of light were added by me in editing for effect.



luckily, on the second day, the sky cleared for a short time and we were able to see how lovely it was there:
also, we got pretty and went out to paint the town red. this is elizabeth, emily, me, and lauren. they're some of my exchange friends!



we stopped at this pretty lookout on the drive home:




we also stopped at dawson falls, a gorgeous waterfall:

this is me in the van, ridin' dirty. i just thought i would remind ya'll how cool i am just in case it's been too long for you to remember.


have a great day, everybody! and please don't take for granted your ability to swallow. you miss it when it's gone.



*photos (without permission but on good faith) by may tobar, emily rogers, aaron dolan, liam mccartney, and emma nichols