Hi all!

We kept the fun going bright and early this morning as we met in the lobby at 8:20 for our full day excursion to Waiheke Island! To add to all of the excitement, today was also Charles’ birthday! Our guide from the Education Abroad Network, Ashley, met us in the lobby to take us down to the pier, which is only a ten minute walk from the hotel, in order to catch a ferry for transport to Waiheke.

After a windy ferry ride with great views of the Auckland skyline, we arrived at the island and met our Maori guides, Bianca and Brandy, who showed us around the island for the day. Our first stop was a lookout from the top of one of the many hills on the island. From here, we could see the Auckland skyline in the distance, as well as the Motutapu volcano which formed in the bay only 600 years ago.

Our guides then took us to to their sacred meeting house called the Piritahi Marae, which had elaborate wooden carvings. Here, they explained the significance of this building to the Maori community on the island, and connected it to a similar marae we had learned about in the Auckland museum the day before.

We then drove to a library (powered completely by solar panels) where Brandy showed us a music video she had been a part of that was filmed for a very famous song in New Zealand, and she explained how she has broken out of the traditional Maori role of working as either a teacher or for Maori TV. Bianca showed us a video of her TED X talk where she described her background growing up on the island of Waiheke and how that shaped her professional career in working in outdoor education with young people as well as the tourism industry. After these presentations we got back in our vans to head to lunch.

As a group we ate lunch at a cafe called Charlie Farleys.  There we ate some great seafood, fish and chips, and burgers.  Some of us also had some of their specialty coffee which was very good.  The restaurant was right next to the beach and after we were done eating we all took pictures by the water.  As part of Furman laking tradition, we picked Charles up and almost threw him into the ocean, but we decided to spare him from the cold water.  

We ended our trip on Waiheke Island with a trip to a local vineyard.  At the vineyard we sampled some of the best wines in all of New Zealand.  After the vineyard we headed back to the harbor to catch the ferry to go back to Auckland.  When we got back to the city we all went in separate groups to get dinner. After dinner we all met in the lobby of our hotel to go out for a night of karaoke.  We ended the night singing our lungs out before going to bed and preparing to visit the University of Auckland.

View of Auckland skyline from the ferry

View of Waiheke Island Bay

Group photo from the top of Waiheke Island

View of Motupatu volcano in the distance

Charles narrowly escaping a toss in the bay for his birthday

Hello family and friends, we made it to New Zealand!!! What a travel experience it has been…While it was only 36 hours technically, it felt like 3 whole days spent in airports and on airplanes. We are so fortunate to be able to say that we made it to this beautiful country without any major hiccups. We arrived at Quest Hotel Auckland around 4:30 on Friday afternoon with just enough time to put our things down and take a quick shower. Our guide from Education Abroad, Ashley, took us on a brief tour down Queens Street (the Main Street of Auckland) before we made it to our dinner reservations at the Mezze Bar. Ashley had pre-arranged a very generous wide array of tapas that we enjoyed until it was impossible to stay awake any longer. With no offense to the trip so far, hitting our beds on Friday night was probably the highlight of the trip since we boarded the plane in Dallas :).

After a wonderful night of sleep, we met in the lobby on Saturday morning at 9:30 to walk to the University of Auckland for our introduction to the New Zealand Education system. This presentation was given by Rachel Fenton, a woman who also works for the Education Abroad Network with Ashley.

As a Kiwi herself, Rachel was very informative about both the culture and education system of New Zealand. She shared in great detail about the various schooling systems (mainly public schools) that make up the country and what we can expect when we’re visiting schools in the coming week.

After the information session, we got another brief tour from Ashley of Queen street all the way down to the beautiful harbour. The group split at the base of the infamous sky tower for a quick lunch break before we hit the New Zealand Museum. We were greeted by two tour guides at the museum that took us on a very interesting tour through the museum. We learned about the history of the Maori and how they originally settled on the land.

After the museum, we had about an hour to regroup before we went to the Rugby Match. Even though this was an optional excursion almost the entire group chose to go. We were all very excited to watch (and hopefully understand) the game of rugby since we have heard about it so much upon our arrival. It was a great experience to be amongst such an excited crowd while cheering on the Blues.

Overall we have had a great start to our trip and we cannot wait for all that’s to come!

A whole group shot in front of the Museum!

The beautiful view at the museum

The Harbour

Rugby game!

Group shot at the museum

Hello May X’ers! We are looking forward to our Study Away trip to New Zealand and Australia. We will use this blog as a way to share about our journey with our friends and families while abroad.