Stream Bashing

On Christmas Eve, we went "stream bashing" with a group of Jake's mates from Auckland. It was definitely one of the cooler things that I have done here in New Zealand. We hiked up to the top of a waterfall and then abseiled (a.k.a. rappel) down next to the falls. Then we proceeded to hike down the stream where the falls ended. Maybe hiking isn't the right word. We swam, scrambled, and did some more abseiling. The rocks were slippery, and I only fell down four times during the trip. I consider a fall to be when my butt hits the ground, so it doesn't count all of the near misses, and there were a lot of those. The purple-green hue of bruises can be seen on various places on my hips, shins, knees, and elbows.

This photo is of me abseiling down a little canyon with a water pounding me. It was a strange feeling to slowly lower myself down with an insane force of water pummeling in the same downward direction. Jake and I have noticed that we are wearing the same clothes in almost all of our pictures. I swear, we have other clothes. We just seem to wear the same ones everyday...