Best Day Ever

Saturday was straight up awesome. We had another free weekend, and I kind of just assumed that we'd all just sit around and I'd have to find ways to burn time. I thought maybe I'd go for a run or something. We all woke up pretty late. I got up at 9, and was one of the first up. On weekends we are allowed to have eggs for breakfast, so I took the opportunity while I had the stove to myself and had a delectable breakfast of eggs, 2 of the pancakes I bought, tea, and a slice of toast. One of the girls had the idea that we should go and climb the Mount later in the morning. I was going to meet with my small group leader at 11 so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to go, and I didn't really feel like calling to reschedule, but she called the house like 10 minutes after so I got that moved and saved my place in the van along with 6 other girls and a staff member driving us that was going to the Mount.

It was a gorgeous day, blue sky and warm. We started our trek, and with all the stairs I started to get tired pretty quick. Luckily we stopped many times to get pictures while going up. It was so gorgeous when we got to the top. We could see all of the Strand, Leisure Island coming off of the beach, and the Pacific as far as the eye could see (sea. Ha). I took tons of pictures, and hopefully my package from home will arrive soon so I can actually show you, since I really can't do New Zealand justice. At one point, the other girls had the idea to make a music/dance video at the top of the Mount, so they did that. The staff member held the camera, and I took care of the music since I didn't want to dance. It was a funny video though. We then headed down the Mount to go on to explore Leisure Island (I keep wanting to call it treasure island for some reason). We all took off our shoes and walked on the beach towards the island, attempting to jump over waves as we went. The shells on the beach were really pretty, they looked like ones you would buy. This one girl has small gauges, so she broke off these shell pieces and put them through her ears.

Leisure Island was probably my favorite part of the day. It's not actually an island, since it is connected to the beach by a thin strip, but it has all these big rocks on either side and grass and trees in the middle. We spent around 20 minutes leaping and climbing all over the rocks looking at starfish, sea anemones, and whatever else we could find in the tide-pool-esqe crevices ( they weren't quite as cool as tide pools, they mostly had kelp growing in them, though I did see a dead crab in one. The guys claimed they found an octopus under a rock, but we didn't come across any of those.) Then we headed down the path towards the tip of Leisure Island. They had these big, steep rock formations all around the tip of the island, and waves were crashing in. Naturally, we climbed down them too and explored the rocks there, well, at least 3 of us did. It was really fun, but also kind of dangerous. The rocks are sturdy and all, but it would've been easy to slip and fall to the rocks and waves below. Surprisingly, I wasn't that scared, even though I normally hate rock climbing and heights. The staffer was kind of worried, but no one even came close to getting hurt, and it was a blast.

By the time we climbed back up to the tip of Leisure Island, we were all pretty hungry so we went and got fish and chips (which they just wrap in a bunch of newspaper), ice cream, and the staffer bought us 2 deep fried Moro bars (kind of like a Milky Way) to split amongst ourselves and it was delicious. Deeply satisfied, we headed back to the house around 4. After dinner, they announced that there would be a movie night at the classroom if we wanted to go. The movie was (wait for it) How To Train Your Dragon. I was ecstatic. We had time to go to the grocery store and buy snacks for the movie too, so people were passing around chocolate and popcorn, and I brought a ginger beer for myself. It was excellent. The perfect ending to the perfect day.