Lover of Nature. That is me.

While we were in South Island, we took the time to appreciate a lot of natural beauty. And I don't mean guys with hot bodies this time. No wait, there is one of those... (and now you're looking forward to that. See what I did there?) But mostly I mean big rocks, and trees, and water and all that stuff.

Our first nature outing was to Milford Sound. Don't know what a sound is? Neither do I. But that's ok because Milford Sound isn't actually a sound at all. It's a fjord. And a fjord is this. Thank goodness for Wikipedia, am I right?

We got on this here boat

And we saw some pretty cool things

We sat on the observation deck where you could see all the pretty things

But that also meant it was crazy amounts of windy

posing for a picture

candid shot. See the difference?

Our next adventure was hiking the Franz Joseph Glacier. I thought we would be hiking on the glacier so I was pretty stoked. But it turns out we just hiked rocks around the glacier. I guess it was still pretty cool, though I am not going to lie I was thoroughly disappointed.

the glacier

Franz Joseph did have it's moments though. I mean for starters, they gave us some hard core hiking boots to wear, which were fashionable and heavy enough to give us quite the leg workout. They were basically shape-ups. But better!
*Also, I need to again point out that I was under the impression we would be hiking the glacier, not around it. Therefore I dressed unnecessarily warm and way more rugged than necessary. I mostly just sweated through all my layers. As a result of my poor preparation and those heavy as boots, Earl makes an appearance throughout these pictures.*

Here's B-rit modeling our hot as boots on the bus ride to the start of the hike

Once we got there, we hiked through some trees. Not a glacier.

And then we hiked by some waterfalls. Still not a glacier.

And then we hiked through lots and lots of rocks. And yeah, well you get it.

As I mentioned, most of us still really enjoyed the experience. "How? How could you have enjoyed yourself when you were so clearly disappointed at the lack of glacier hiking?" (that's you at your computer speaking by the way.)

Meet Tour Guide Ken:

He gave me a crystal he found along the path... So I'm pretty sure that means we're engaged, right?!?

Ok, in all reality, the dude was a little bit of a weirdo and referred to himself as Donkey. Who in the world nicknames themselves Donkey? That's just horrible. Plus apparently he mentioned that he had himself a "Canadian Mrs." Blech. We may or may not be getting a little bit boy starved out here in the great NZ.

Moving on. The glacier moving has made the rocks into really cool shapes like this wave shaped rock:

And when you are blessed to come in contact with said rock, it only makes sense to take lots of mermaid/ surfer pictures

Katelyn throwing off my little mermaid pose

I do mermaid dancing. It's a lot of floor work.

They were surfing. I was the surfboard. Do ya get it?

Just wanting to show off my cute outfit apparently. Earl? Is that you?

And now here is a series of pictures to show the rest of that adventure

 

Also I licked and kissed the glacier, just so that I could say I did. So yeah, go run along and add that to your bucket list. Been there, done that.

Well hey there Earl! Sweet backwards cap.

We cleaned off a spot so it wasn't actually covered in dirt, even though it looks like it. FYI.

When we were leaving our tour I couldn't help but laugh at this sign

"Not worth the risk" hahaha love it.

Hooray for Franz Joseph.

 The end.