Freshers: Bridge Swing over Manawatu Gorge

Kia Ora!

I apologize for the long delay, it's just taken me a while to be able to write this entry. Last week Saturday I attending the Bridge Swing through the Massey University Alpine Club. It was tremendous fun. You can see my video below... which was quite terrifying/awesome. 

The reason this entry was so difficult to write, was that later on in the afternoon there was a fatality on that bridge. A club member by the name of Catherine Peters lost her life during her second bridge swing. If you'd like to know more details you can google it, there is plenty of information in the New Zealand press, but needless to say it was quite a horrific experience. 

However, after having time to reflect and process all that I saw and experienced, besides an extreme sorrow for her family and loved ones, I've learned what it is I need to take away from this experience. The main thing being, that even though terrible things happen like this on rare occasion, it would be unhealthy and unwise to live my life in fear from now on. It's thrills like this that are a part of who I am, just as they were a part of who Catherine was. So while I will be much more careful of whose hands I put my life in, and of course double checking that those hands did their job, to banish these experiences from my life forever would be cutting off a piece of myself. It might take a little while to work up the courage, I'll get back out there again, keeping my loved ones' sanitys in mind as well. 

So I apologize again for the long silence.

If you would like to see all of the pictures I've taken on my journey, you can click the picture on the right hand side of my blog, or follow this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/lafflilmoore

Until next time....

From Freshers

Gorges and Wind Mills

Kia ora!

Well this weekend was exciting, I had the chance to spread my wings a little bit more. The International Students on campus were taken on an "Operation Friendship" excursion through the Manawatu Gorge (the Manawatu is the region of New Zealand that I live in, you can think of it as a county of sorts) and up the mountain to visit the Manawatu Wind Farm. Operation Friendship is a campus organization sponsored by Christian fellowships around Palmerston North who's goal is to help international students acclimate to Kiwi life. We only just drove through the gorge, but I took a few good shots along our way to the farm.

 I think that I am going to make an online album so that you can look at all of the pictures I take a little more easily if you would like to, and I'll just post a few up here. Stay tuned for the URL.

Anyway, finally we made it up to the wind farm. The weather was a bit testy as you can probably see from some of these pictures, so the haze from the wind and rain clouded some of our view, but it was still a beautiful sight to see. We carpooled with a Kiwi gentleman by the name of Greg who is the post man in Palmerston North. Like many of the Kiwi people, Greg was very hospitable and offered his and his wife's home to us for afternoon tea or dinner any time we would like.

After escaping the rain at the Wind Farm we were all brought back to enjoy afternoon tea in a Kiwi home. This couple was Karen and Ishmael, and they were members of one of the local churches who were helping to put on the event.
 

That's all I have for now, in the mean time I'll work on getting that album set up, and I believe next time I'll share my experience of jumping off of a bridge over that Gorge pictured above. Until next time...