A few weeks ago, my friends Erin and Emily flew to New Zealand. I met Erin in 2009 outside of organic chemistry class in college. We started studying together and have been friends since. The trauma of that class probably formed a special bond (no pun intended). I met Emily on Craigslist in 2017. I had just matched for residency in Greenville, South Carolina, and I was looking for a place to live. She was renting a room in her home and had posted an ad online. I messaged her and after a few emails and a video chat, she agreed to lease me a room. I told her it would likely be for about six months until I got more settled. We ended up living together for four years!
Erin came out to Greenville to visit me during my intern year, where she met Emily & they quickly became friends. A few years later, Emily and I went out to visit Erin in Texas. Fast forward another few years and they both were bridesmaids in my wedding. When they heard I would be living in New Zealand, they both wanted to come visit. I suggested they reach out to one another to see if they could coordinate their trips. The plans came together, and they arrived in New Zealand at the end of February for an epic girls trip.
Erin flew in first, and we spent a beautiful day on the beach in Auckland. Later that night, Erin, William, and I went up in the Sky Tower to have a drink and appetizers on the 53rd floor. The views were great and the company was fantastic!


The next day was rainy, and Erin and I spent the day wandering around downtown Auckland- going to the art museum, walking down Queen Street, and visiting cafes. The next day, Emily flew in and I picked her up from the airport. It was another dreary day, but they were up for an adventure, and we drove to Piha beach, about 45 minutes west of Auckland. Even though it was raining, we had a blast at the beach- marveling at the black sand and cool rock formations.
The next day was gorgeous. We took a 'hop on-hop off' bus around Auckland, which showed us
the highlights of the city & gave us some commentary about different areas. Later that afternoon, we took the ferry to Waiheke Island for some wine tasting. We had dinner at Mudbrick- amazing food & wine.

The next day, William dropped us off at the airport and we flew down to Blenheim, in the South Island, to start our road trip. Blenheim is one of the cities in the Marlborough wine region. We had lunch & tastings at St Clair vineyard, which was incredible, then drove about 2 hours to Moteuka for the night. The next day, we hiked Abel Tasman National Park. Most of the park is on the northwest coast of the South Island. You can spend about 4 days hiking the whole Abel Tasman Track through the park, or you can do a day hike on a portion of the track. We took a water taxi near Moteuka, which dropped us off at Bark's Bay.

We hiked 12km along an incredible coastline and ended at Anchorage Bay, where we were picked up and brought back to our original starting point.

We had a fantastic time!

The next day we drove five hours down the west coast to Hokitika. The scenery was amazing- we kept saying we felt like we were in Jurassic Park and would see a pterodactyl fly out from the mountains. We did a short walk to the Hokitika gorge, which was a brilliant blue.

We walked on the beach in Hokitika and enjoyed some down time.
That night, we ventured out to see glow worms covering a mass of rocks near Hokitika. The pictures are heard to capture how beautiful it was- like looking at a tapestry of stars.

The next day we drove from the west coast (Hokitika) to the east coast (Christchurch) across Arthurs Pass. This is supposed to be an incredibly scenic route, but we missed most of it because of low hanging clouds and rain. However, we ended up having good weather for a brief stop at Castle Hill, a filming spot for several movies. The rocks seem to emerge from the hillside, and the surrounding mountains are majestic.
We spent the night in Christchurch, then they dropped me off at the airport- I had to go back to work the next day.

They continued on to Mt Cook, Wanaka and Queenstown to round out their New Zealand trip.
I had such a blast with Erin and Emily. It was fun showing them around our new city, exploring new places in the South Island, and just hanging out. I'm grateful to have friends like them.
My own GoPro videos were originally inspired by Erin- she makes one for each trip she goes on. Here is her video of our amazing adventures!
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