Burnt Food, Lots of Chilli, Seals and Sun

Hello to the world,

Guten Tag tout le monde,

Well we left the base in Papakura and said our goodbye to George and Carolyn.

Finally our grand voyage awaited us and we were all excited what the journey would hold for us. Our first stop was the lovely village of Taupo. Getting to our first holiday park we jumped right into the thermal hot pool, before cuddling up to watch a chick flick.

Thomas, Karolin and Phil felt it would wake them up to go bungy jumping before church. Phil's yelling woke up the neighbours and was fun for everyone. At the Baptist Church in Taupo we helped double the congregation and the preacher assumed we where all Norm and Christy's children ;o)

After church we quickly headed to the Desert Road and saw our first sight of snow, then reached cold Levin.


On Monday morning we left Levin quickly and hit the road to Wellington. We spend a few hours in the Te Papa National Museum which enlarged our knowledge of lovely New Zealand.

It was an early morning on Tuesday to catch the ferry to the South Island, and some of our stomachs were struggling so we sat outside to admire the beauty of the mountains floating by. We finally arrived in a lovely spot, Chris and Liz's Backpackers located in Riwaka. This is a gorgeous place!!!

Getting some fresh air on the ferry

Kiwi-Burger-Experts

Here we met Ruth and Daniel (ex-TEA-teamers) who where staying and helping out at the backpackers. Thank you for the great dessert Ruth!


On Wednesday we left for our second tramp in Able Tasman National Park which is situated in the northwest corner of the South Island. We arrived at Anchorage hut at dusk and were incredibly impressed by the amazing view from the beach. What a stunningly peaceful place!

The special of the day: (created by the guys) pasta and "smoked" cheese and mushroom sauce. We could safely say that our taste buds were as abused, while eating, as our shoulders were while tramping. Not to mention the overuse of chilli-powder...???

The lovely sunshine gave us an oppurtunity to take a walk before lunch where we bumped into a few New Zealand fur seals. We then used the brains of our engineers and artists in the group to create the photo below:



In the evening we sat down and played a few games in a full and hot hut, where we had our first interesting discussions.

Today we had an early morning and enjoyed the gorgeous sunny trip back to the van. After the walk, we appreciated the showers back in Riwaka and sat on the veranda to enjoy lunch.



Thank you for your prayers!

Please be praying for the coming weekend, that we will have a good time to recover from the past trip and also will have the chance to meet new people to spread the word. Also pray for our 5 day tramp next week (mon-fri). Pray that the Lord may send us many people on our way to share the Good News with and that God will talk and move through us.



Amen!



Phil & Bea & the TEAm