The South Island

Oh hey look, a month has gone by since my last update (aka HOLY CRAP WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?!?!?!?!). I guess I should update the big stuff. In this fantasmical nation of two islands, a two week mid-semester break can only mean one thing: epic roadtrip holiday to the South Island! You can continue reading this entire post to find out every little thing we did, but here's the main jist of it: living in the Misty Mountains, scenery that makes you feel ity-bity-tiny, landscapes that made me swell so full of life, RAIN/COLD/WIND, camping every night (aka sleeping in a van covered in hibiscus paintings and a borrowed tent on the side of roads/sneaking into hostels to shower/bathing in lakes/cooking every meal over one propane burner), FREAKING BIG MOUNTAINS, gaining the ability to properly identify a seal colony simply by scent, waking up to 300+ dolphins leaping in the ocean 50m from you, CLIMBING A GLACIER, going to the southernmost point I will probably ever be in my life, amazing stars, unsuccessfully hunting for kiwis, eating more pbj and oatmeal than I ever desired, and taking countless pictures.

If that isn't a good enough recap for you, here's the play-by-play of our trip:

Saturday 4/4: With 20kg of luggage in tow, we dragged ourselves to the bus stop, to the airport, through security, onto our flight to Christchurch, onto the bus, and up three flights of stairs to our hostel. We explored Christchurch a bit, took lots of very excited looking pictures, ate kebabs, drank Monteiths, and passed out with visions of glaciers and mountains dancing in our heads.

Sunday 5/4: Wake up early to get the car- apparently the rental guy thought he could come to work an hour late because it was daylight savings and we fell forward an hour. So after a longgggggg wait we finally got our van- a beauty named the "Blue Hibiscus" by the rental company because of the paintings on the side (hippie van to the max). We drove around Christchurch running some errands (getting the tent and some groceries- we had a burner to cook on and a hand pump "sink" so we could cook a bit) then headed out to the Port Hills north of the city and caught our first glimpse of South Island beaches. When the sun began to sink low, we started our drive to the interior of the country to Lake Tekapo, where we pulled over on a dirt road for the night. We cooked our first meal of bean and rice burritos lakeside and enjoyed the stars and an incredible sense of freedom (NZ has super liberal free camping laws- basically you can pull over anywhere and sleep in your car and/or set up a tent- we did both).

Monday 6/4: We awoke to a luminous purple sunrise on the shores of Lake Tekapo and began our routine of breaking down the bed, brushing our teeth with our water bottles, and making breakfast of oatmeal and cereal. From Lake Tekapo, we headed west to Lake Pukaki, where we could see a storm brewing above Mt. Cook, which, at 3754m, is New Zealand's highest peak. Of course, we were heading towards the storm to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park. We decided to hike the Hooker Valley track, which was supposed to yield excellent views of Mt. Cook and the Southern Alps and end at the foot of several glaciers- what we really got were driving winds and horizontal rain and hail. The winds were so strong that we had trouble standing and at some points, we were literally blown off of the trail (gusts up to 100km/hr). We reached the end of the track after approximately four hours (it was supposed to take 2.5hrs), but we could barely lift our heads in the stinging rain to see the glaciers. We threw a few pieces of ice at one another, then booked it back to our van to change out of our wet clothes (bad idea!!! bags of wet clothes smell reallllll bad at the end of two weeks, thank you Erin). We decided to try and drive out of the weather, and ended up camping the night near a boat launch at Lake Waitaki under a sky with few stars.

Tuesday 7/4: We awoke to a beautiful morning with the sun shining onto the lake and reflecting the trees, which were yellow with the colors of fall; the lake looked so good that Erin and I decided to take our first baths since Christchurch right there in the lake. After we had washed our hair and dried off, we pointed the van east, back towards the coast, with the goal for the day being Dunedin. Along the way, we stopped at the Moeraki Boulders, giant spherical rocks that sit in the breakers along the beach at Moeraki. (Geology nerd fact: the boulders are actually concretions, and are formed on the seafloor as minerals form around a central nucleus (such as a shell fragment or piece of bone) and grow spherically layer after layer. in time, the concretions are buried and lithified, then the rock they are in is uplifted, and they emerge as giant spherical boulders as the cliffs around them erode). Since Erin and I had bathed that morning, of course we were the ones who got soaking wet running into the surf to take pictures with the boulders. And of course after we were dry and had changed out of our drenched swimming clothes, it began to rain again. We stopped in several other small towns as we drove down to Dunedin, where we walked up Baldwin Street, the world's steepest residential street (look it up in the Guiness Book!), and visited the train depot (supposed to be life changing architecture, but the best part was using a clean bathroom). Dunedin is famous for penguins, beer, and chocolate, so Erin and I opted for a brewery tour of the Speights factory, where we saw all the brewing mechanisms and had a half hour of all-you-desire taste testing (amazing! during orientation, Speights was actually the first beer I had in NZ, and their Distinction ale still remains my favorite). Needless to say, I was not in the mindset to give driving directions when I finished at the brewery, and with Paurakh as our navigator, we ended up spending the night basically camping in someone's front yard.

Wednesday 8/4: Get up early for a penguin hunt!!!!!! EPIC FAIL. We drove out to the Otago Peninsula super early to try and catch a glimpse of yellow-eyed penguins coming ashore to feed, only it was pouring, windy, and cold. We decided to make the hike out to the beach anyway (yay!), and although we did see a few seals (and a dead penguin washed up on the shore), all we got for our efforts was soaked clothes and runny noses. We headed back to Dunedin cold and frustrated from the weather, and decided that we needed to find a laundromat to dry our clothes and an internet cafe to make a few reservations for later in the trip. For a few hours, Dunedin served as our save harbor- we warmed up, got some good food, sent a few emails, bought provisions (long underwear for me, meatpie for Erin, rainjacket for Paurakh), and felt a lot better about our situation. Personally, I rocked the homeless look (aka sweatpants, lumberjack hat, flip flops, gloves, scarf, sweatshirt and fleece), went to the dairy, bought two six packs, found a starbucks with a fireplace and parked myself with my book until I could feel my legs again. When we all felt better, we drove south towards the Catlins, a section of coastline near in the south South Island known for its rocky shores and rainforest. We hiked out to the Nugget Point lighthouse at dusk, which was amazing because we could see the moonshine creating patterns of the clouds out on the water and we could hear the wind literally whistling against the rocks and the seals barking below the cliff we walked on. We spent the night at Kaka Point (meaning "parrot" in Maori, not the Spanish meaning of a similar term), where we found warm showers (!!!!!), and of course, it rained all night.

Thursday 9/4: The most important part of this morning was realizing the immense amount of alcohol Pree and Paurakh consumed the previous night: 8am- "that was a great idea! we were so warm last night! why is all our stuff so wet? and why am i wearing your sock?" 9am- "ugh, can you slow the van down? these curves are making me nauseous" 10am-"crap, do we really need to do this hike?" 12pm-"i need to throw up" (the best part of this one is that as Pree is trying to throw up at a scenic overlook at a beautiful tropical beach cliff side, and bus pulls over to our spot and an entire bus load of people watches her dry heave) 1pm-"there is no way i'm leaving this van"3pm-"ok i'm never drinking again." Pree and Paurakh tried to recover while Erin and I had a great day tramping through the rainforest and along the beaches of the Catlins, exploring places such as Purakauniu Falls, Curio Bay, Jack's Blowhole, and McLean Falls. We all rallied for the end of the day trip out to the southernmost point on NZ's South Island and the drive to Invercargill, where we did some grocery shopping before spending the night in Bluff.

Friday 10/4: In rough seas (aka it was like a roller coaster ride- Paraukh threw up, Pree and Erin needed a good 45 minutes of recovery time) we crossed the Foveaux Strait to spend a night on Stewart Island, NZ's third major island. We spent most of the day hiking around the island- though we quickly found out that it was a much larger land mass than we had thought. At dusk we got fish and chips to eat near the water, then went kiwi hunting. Supposedly, Stewart Island is the best place to see the highly endangered fightless bird, but we were completely unsuccessful in our endeavour, although we did convince ourselves that we saw a few penguins frolicing in the harbour. Back at the hostel, we enjoyed the practiacally religious experience of showering and sleeping in a real bed, at the most southern point of our trip.

Saturday 11/4: We took the ferry back to the mainland, then began our trek back northward towards Milford Sound along the west coast and Fiordland National Park. FYI- a fiord is a drowned glacier valley, while a sound is a drowned river valley (thus the world-renowned Milford Sound should actually be named Milford Fiord). We drove to the town of Te Anau, which is known for its beautiful lake and as a staging ground for visitors to Doubtful Sound, Milford Sound, and the Great Walks of Fiordland National Park. We hung around in town, had a photoshoot near the lake (Paurakh is a photo-whore), and had a generally recovery day with two pizzas as we did some laundry.

Sunday 12/4: Happy Easter! We celebrated the holiday with a visit to Milford Sound via the BARBEQUE BUS! A guided tour was worth the splurge, as this was pretty much the best idea ever; not only did we get to hang out with a great guide, we didn't have to drive (and could thus take all the photos we wanted and not ever have to pay attention to the road), we saw a few spots we probably never would have stopped at, we had great commentary, and we got lunch! While a few awkward Germans stood around and watched us, the four of us each managed to down several lamb kebabs, sausages, bread, orange juice, coleslaw, potato salad, and curlies- at the time, we thought this was pretty much the best food we had ever had. I think everyone was in shock watching us ravenous college students eat. Milford Sound itself was completely awe inspiring, just as everyone had said it would be. We took a cruise from the start of the fiord out to the Tasman Sea, then back again. Despite low clouds, the view of Mitre Peak and the surrounding topography was amazing- there were more waterfalls than I have ever seen (a product of all the rain we had been suffereing through), and we even got to see a few seals lounging around. That night, through a series of odd events, we managed to meet a few locals that let us stay in their campground for free, so we stayed in Arrowtown, a really fun small town near Queenstown that is intensely proud of the gold mining heritage and part in "flight to the ford" in the LOTR movies. With all the trees changing colors, it reminded me of small town upstate NY in the fall.

Monday 13/4: Paurakh decided he had to get back to Auckland (because he had "so much work to do," his girlfriend being there I'm sure had no impact on his decision), so we dropped him off at the Queenstown airport, which was smaller than my house. We decided not to spend a lot of time in Queenstown since we had a long drive up to our glacier tour the next day, but we stopped to watch some bungy jumping at AJ Hackett (the world's first!) on the way out of town. We drove up through Lake Wanaka (where we were supposed to skydive- thank you for overbooking Wanaka Skydive), where we could see Mt. Aspiring and beautiful views of the Southern Alps, through Haast Pass and the town of Haast, and by Fox Glacier. As a nation, NZ finds it completely impossible to build a road that is straight, and this was some of our most white-knuckle driving. We were thankful to get to Franz Joseph, where we parked it for the night right at the feet of the Southern Alps.

Tuesday 14/4: If I had to choose, I would say this was one of my favorite days. Pree, Erin and I took a full day guided hike of Franz Joseph glacier- it was sweet as. We strapped on crampons and explored crevasses, the waves, ice waterfalls (yes, ice flows just like water does!), and I got to see all the features I learned about back at WM. Finally, I have seen blue ice! That night we ate like kings and slept within view of the glacier, surrounded by the Milky Way and infinite stars above us and the Southern Alps to each side. Plus, we snuck into a hostel for showers!

Wednesday 15/4: We drove most of the west coast of the Southern Island, from Franz Joseph all the way up to Motueka, near Abel Tasman National Park. Along the way, we stopped in a few small towns to explore, most notably Punakaiki, where the Pancake Rocks are (here, the sedimentary layers have been eroded to look like stacks of pancakes), and Cape Foulwind, where there is an amazing seal colony- the best part was the incredible number of pups, all playing and fighting with eachother. We spent the night about 10 meters from the shoreline of Tasman Bay.

Thursday 16/4: Of course, it rained so our day of sailing and hiking turned into just a day of hiking. We explored a few trails, and took shelter in a cave on the beach when it really began to downpour. Unfortunatley, my rain jacket likes to suck earings out of my ears, and I lost one of my favorite pairs (the same thing had happened at Mt. Cook! Maybe it's a good thing that I also lost that rainjacket in Marlborough Sounds later that day). By midday, we were soaked, and decided to spend the afternoon driving around Marlborough Sounds, which were gorgeous, though we didn't get the full effect we would have on a nice day with no cloud cover (when it rains here, the clouds are usually pretty low and all the peaks are covered). We spent the night in Picton, and got another shower.

Friday 17/4: Best day #2. Back on the east coast, we had a beach side lunch BBQ (well, really it was spaghetti over our propane burner, just like every other day), followed by a cruise to see the sperm whales! A huge undersea canyon brings nutrients to the coast of Kaikoura; these nutrients bring food (giant squid!), which brings sperm whales! We saw four whales- it is truly magical to watch these giant creatures just kickin it at the ocean surface. Sperm whales are the fourth largest animal on the planet, and could kick our ass in a fight. They spend up to 45 minutes at a time diving underwater to hunt for squid, then spend several minutes at the surface reoxiginating their blood- their lungs actually collapse and reexpand because the pressure is so great during their dives. The best part of the cruise however, was not the whales, it was the giganitic pod of Dusky dolphins we spotted on the way back to port. Dusky dolphis are known for being highly acrobatic, for living in large pods, and for being highly promiscuous (they pretty much have sex all the time- like, "hey how ya doin, lets have sex," "hey, i just ate a fish, lets have sex," "hey, you're a dolphin, lets have sex," "hey, it's daytime, lets have sex"). We saw a pod of about 300 dolphins jumping out of the water, spinning in the air, racing our boat, and in general just showing off. There were so many dolphins that I didn't know where to look- they were jumping everywhere around us! We were amazed. We decided for our last night, we had to find a great camping spot, so we pulled up right next to the ocean and parked it for the night.

Saturday 18/4: So that conspicuous seal colony scent? Yeah, turned out to be exactly that. I got up just as the sun pulled itself over the horizon and went down to the beach to pee, and you can imagine my suprise when the rock I was about to step on started moving and barking at me- I had almost tried to pee on a seal. I ran back to the van and tried to go back to sleep for a bit, unsuccessfully though after the seal-colony-next-to-where-you-are-sleeping excitement. I decided to read a bit while I waited for Pree and Erin to wake up, but I kept hearing this smacking sound out on the water. I was a bit creeped out, so I sat and watched for any movement through the fog. I finally realized that it was a pod of dolphins! By now, the fog had cleared enough that I could see that there were hundreds of dophins out in the water putting on the same show we had seen the previous day- jumping, flipping, and frolicing around, but this time close to shore. I woke up Erin and Pree, and while still laying in bed, we watched the dolphins put on their show. We thought nothing could beat the dolphin performance from the previous day, but that incredible feeling came over us again- once again, the South Island had amazed us. Unfortunatley, we had come to the end of our journey and we had to return our beloved (and stinky) van, so with sorrow in our hearts (at least that's how I felt), we drove back to Christchurch. It took a good half hour to clean it out, but we managed to identify several sources of the stank, and we cleaned it up enough not to get charged excess cleaning fees. We walked around Christchurch, ate some delicious food, checked our email, and sipped bubble tea. Exhausted from two weeks of travelling, we went back to the hostel around five for a "short nap" that didn't end until about 7am the next morning.

Sunday 19/4: Lame day. Flight back to Auckland, reunion with flatmates, depression because 1500 word essay due Monday and I hadn't started my research.

IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, CONGRATS- IT HAS TAKEN ME FOREVERRRR TO WRITE AND I'M SURE A RIDICULOUSLY LONG TIME TO READ, SO THANKS =)

Kiwi-A-Go-Go-Fever

Since the last update, I have spent a great weekend in Taupo/Rotorua, done some real school work, celebrated a few birthdays, and completely fallen in love with the city of Auckland!

School has started to pick up a bit, although I still have very little work- I almost feel guilty when I talk to friends back at WM studying all the time. I had my first exam earlier today and an essay due the day I get back from break (4 April - 19 April, for those of you wondering- yes TWO WEEKS OFF!). I absolutely LOVE my Kapa Haka paper (here, they call classes papers and papers essays)- despite the fact that I am pretty terrible at the dancing. It still amazes me just how much my lecturers make references to the States, although sometimes it's pretty cool to see a map of the place I grew up but be talking about it from a completely different perspective. Six weeks have passed, I have the next two weeks off, then six more weeks of class before the month of finals- I can't believe how quickly the time is passing. I still don't know my finals schedule because they don't post it until after break, but I hope to do some traveling during finals month.

About our trip to Taupo: Alyssa, Erin, JoDee and I left on a Thursday night, right after I got out of class at 7, and did the three and a half hour drive down to our hostel on Lake Taupo. We tried to get to bed early since we were getting up at 5 to do our hike the next day, but we kind of failed at that and a mere 4 hours after we fell asleep our alarm clocks buzzed and we were up and at 'em. We drove around to the southern end of the lake, to Tongariro National Park, parked our car, and took a shuttle to the other end of the infamous Tongariro Crossing (a crossing is a one way hike, different from a loop hike). After hiring some fleecy pants to protect us from the wind (totally worth it!), we began our 19.3km journey up Mt. Nguaruhoe, aka Mt. Doom. The first few km were quite easy- flat and scenic, we forgot about the climb we had in front of us. Then we reached the Devil's Staircase, and our honeymoon was over. We were nearly blown off the side of the mountain by the strong winds, but through a lot of cursing, heavy breathing, and buckets of sweat, we made it to the top, where we were greeted by amazing views of the peak, the Emerald Lakes, multiple craters, and Lake Taupo. What a rewarding climb! We began the descent down, and transitioned from a barren volcanic landscape to grassland, and finally back down into a tropical forest. Exhausted, we headed back to the hostel, grabbed some food, and passed out.

Saturday, we woke up early, headed down to the lake, and took a scenic cruise to get out on the water and visit some Maori rock carvings on an outcrop at the far side of the lake. Afterwards, we soaked up a little sun on the beach, enjoyed the crystal clear water, and relaxed for the afternoon before we headed to Rotorua, an hour drive east of Taupo. Sunday, we explored New Zealand's most active geothermal area, including Pree's favorite, the Champagne Pool, before we made the trek back to Auckland.

Last weekend was Danni's birthday, so we celebrated in lavish style down at a harbour side restaurant at the Viaduct- something that was fun, but way too expensive to do again. So many people have birthdays while I am gone! I am sad that I am missing them- I guess birthday videos and tunes on the didgeridoo will need to take my place.

This past weekend, I did the 16km harbour to harbour hike across the peninsula on which Auckland was built. The hike traverses some of Auckland's most famous districts, countless city parks, and multiple volcanoes, including One Tree Hill (historical significance?) and Mt. Eden. After 16km of hiking Auckland, I was ready to chill, but Liam's band (the Nomadic Snails- check 'em out) had a show down on Queen Street, so I went with Erin to lend some support. Sunday I enjoyed more amazing Auckland weather and hit the beach with Danni and Alyssa at Mission Bay, a beach with easy access from the city center that I have come to visit often.

Wednesday I was out on the water again, for school this time- my restoration class to a field trip out to Tiritiri Matangi Island, one of the world's first and most successful ecological restoration projects. The waves were giant once we got out past the inner harbour, but by the afternoon the weather had cleared and we were able to enjoy trekking around the island and seeing many birds that were brought back from near extinction (including the takahe, of which there are only 200 worldwide, and was thought to be extinct for some time- on Tiritiri they will walk up to you and steal your lunch).

Hopefully the weather will stay gorgeous for the next two weeks (or preferably until I leave the country), as it is my mid-semester break, and I will be on holiday in the South Island on an epic road trip for 14 days. I will be mostly out of communication until the 19th of April, but I hope to talk to everyone soon! Btw- pictures have been updated on Picasa!