Faced with the decision of what to do next after leaving Nelson, I decided to postpone my fruit picking career and head down to Nelson Lakes National Park to do some tramping on the Travers-Sabine circuit.

This is an 80k tramp that crosses the Travers saddle and travels through beech forests, alongside rivers, and around a few different lakes. I spent 4 nights and five days on the track, including a side trip to Blue Lake. Overall, I had a really nice time tramping and would definitely recommend this track to others. The hut system is set up so well in New Zealand; it just makes doing multi day hikes so much easier when you don't have to set up a tent, carry a tent throughout your whole tramp, etc. Another bonus of this trail was that it ends very close to where it starts, elimintating the need to figure out transportation issues.

After finishing the tramp, I decided to postpone working yet again to head down to Ashburton for the holidays. My friend Nic had invited me to spend Christmas with his family down there, which I was pretty excited about. They were all super nice; it was just really good to have such nice people to spend Christmas with since I was so far away from my family and friends in the US. I had a great few days spending time there. Nic and I went hiking and swimming on Christmas Eve and then him and his friend tried to teach me how to play backyard cricket. Really, I think cricket is a game that requires a bit more skill than say wiffleball, so I wasn't super good, but it was still a lot of fun. I still pretty much have no clue about most of the rules of that game, but maybe there is time to learn them later.

On Christmas day I did what any good New Englander would do and made everyone a french toast breakfast with pure maple syrup, which had been mailed to me by my parents. I think they all definitely appreciated the effort, although I don't think anyone was nearly excited about having a big breakfast as I was. We just kept eating throughout the day and finished the afternoon off with a barbeque and desserts such as pavlova. Overall, I had a really fun time and definitely enjoyed my first kiwi christmas.

The next day Nic and I went for another hike/swim/run before heading to the boxing day horse races. Neither of us bet on very fast horses apparently, but it was still fun.

The next though, it was time to head back down to Alexandra to find some work fruit picking. I'll write more about that later!