This post is going to be broken up again, sorry folks, but, here goes.

Well, it’s been a long, long time since I’ve checked in – so sorry, I know you are all waiting eagerly to hear about my adventures, so get ready, because adventures we have had.

1. On Valentine’s day, I sold my car, moved out of my flat and piled the back of a blue Subaru with all my possessions, minus a few Christmas decorations we gave back to the Salvation Army – salval really has been so good to us.  Then we had a delicious $10 lunch special of thai food with some lovely qt kids, and quietly snuck out of town.  Open road, here we come.  Or, Stewart Island, rather.  We made it to Bluff, booked a ferry, set up the tents for a night, and then hopped on the boat the next morning.  Then we trotted off on the Northwest Circuit track, a ten-day tramp around, you guessed it, the northwest part of the island.  It was so awesome!  Beaches that reminded us of the south pacific  (well, reminded mel and ash of the south pacific, because I haven’t actually been there), big jungle forests with ferns larger than we were that reminded us of Jurassic park, pink sunsets and purple sunrises, jagged mountains and islands that looked like lagoons in never-neverland, and lots of mud.  Actually, compared to all the crazy stories about the mud being the worst thing in the entire world, knee-deep and everywhere, the mud really wasn’t that bad.  After a few days, my feet started to really hurt - I misplaced my trusty duct-tape cure-all on day one, oops.  So then, I got the worst blisters and sores of my entire life, huge rashes all over my toes, unlike anything you’ve ever seen.  And my feet swelled up and hardly fit in my boots and rubbed in all the sore places and got worse, and by the end of day 7 I couldn’t really walk, even without shoes on, so that kinda put a damper on the last leg of the trip.  Luckily, there was a ranger at that hut who gave me some gauze and tape, and we caught a water-taxi out the next day.  Also unfortunately, ashley’s camera broke on day one, so our entire journey was undocumented.  But, luckily, there was a really stellar german kid named Frank who was on the same sched as we, and he agreed to give us some of his pictures, so as soon as we get those from him, they will be posted.  For now, you get just this one, of a huge skull we found on the first beach.  Sweet as.  

there is a chain from the mainland to the island, and this is part of it. 

what kind of skull is this? who knows.  my guess (wish) is shark.