April in Wanderlust: Yeah, I'm kind of awesome with a shot gun

While some in my group went hiking over the Tongariro pass (a 7-hour hike with clamp-ons) many of us went to a town called Whakahoro (pronounced fuck-a-whore-o. No, I'm not even joking.) that holds the Blue Duck Lodge. The Blue Duck Lodge is a pretty special place. It’s a working farm and is all about preserving the endangered Blue Ducks that naturally find their habitat on that property. The farm has sheep and cows, along with natural boar, goats, deer and such… which are often shot because they are considered a pest in NZ. While I may not 100% agree with going out and shooting animals for sport, they do make a tasty meal at the end of the day because I found out the food there is AMAZING! In addition to their working farm, they also make the famous Manuka honey that is known for it’s own medicinal properties. Some of the activities that we did there are 4-wheel driving, kayaking, clay pigeon shooting, and hiking. I went on a lovely hour long hike with a few people through the Blue Duck property where we could witness cows being cows, sheep being sheep, ducks being crazy ducks, and just witness the gorgeous beauty that is the Blue Duck property. We were fortunate enough to see a pair of blue Ducks as well which I hear is quite rare as they scare easily and there aren't very many of them.

Now, since I was in NZ during the Olympics and was traveling with people from all over the world, we felt the need to have friendly little competitions. While the Irish girls won in just about every drinking game, I was somehow able to represent America just how America is often be thought of – that everyone has a gun and uses it. So we had a little friendly clay pigeon shooting competition and the majority of us had never done something like that before. And frankly, I’m terrified of guns let alone holding them and shooting them, so this was my first time. However, it seems that I have a bit of a knack for shooting a shotgun. I was able to shoot 9 out of 11 clay pigeons with the last one being done left-handed. Not a bad day’s work for an Ameican. And I quite enjoyed it.