A weekend in Wanaka

This past weekend I went to Wanaka which is in Central Otago (middle of the South island) and near the Southern Alps. There were about 20 of us who all stayed up in a rented house in Wanaka. This was the 2nd weekend in a row that I was fortunate enough to travel up to the mountains due to Case's excellent car purchase. Its a 1992 Mazda Proceed and its named Marvie. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Marv

It takes about 3.5 hours to go from Dunedin, where my school is, to one of the many ski resorts on the south island. The two main towns that most of the resorts are near are Queenstown and Wanaka which are both very lively, fun towns. We woke up and left Dunedin at around 9:00 am on Friday morning and made it up to Cardrona for a halfday of snowboarding. The snow was fresh and really nice compared to last weekend's ice and wind. The only bad thing was the clouds were sitting really low, like fog, and it was very, very hard to see.

Saturday we woke up at around 8:30 am in Wanaka and got out to Cardrona for an early start. We rode from about 10:00 am all the way until close at around 4:00 pm that day. It was the best day that I've had snowboarding so far in the southern hemisphere. There were bluebird skies all day, the snow was good, and it was overall a really fun time. Saturday was also one of the longest days of snowboarding I have gotten in in a while. Having a season pass can make you pretty lazy sometimes, so when you have to buy lift tickets each day, you take much better advantage of a full day.

Here are some pictures of the snowboarding.

Peaks

A view from Cardrona's parking lot. This was actually another day, there was not 1 single cloud on Saturday!

A picture from the top of the hill at Cardrona


Pete, Cristoph, Me, Case

Hand drag

Lake Wanaka

Tomorrow starts the 3rd week of classes here at Otago. Things are going well, classes aren't too tough, and I'm having a really good time so far. Also, I wanted to show that I've been cooking my own meals. And even though I really only know how to make about 3 types of things (food on the grill, pasta, stir fry), I'm pretty impressed with myself so far.

Stir fry

Week 3: A way to keep up

I have now been in New Zealand for 16 days. It already feels like I have been here for months. I have done many exciting things, seen many places, and met plenty of cool people from all around the world. I decided that this would be an easy way for people back home to be able to see what I have been doing in this foreign country since contacting me is a bit difficult, especially with time change. So I apologize I didn't make this three weeks ago, but I will do a little bit of catching up right now.

I arrived in Dunedin on July 5th, in the morning. I had no idea what time it was supposed to be considered I had just travelled for a full 24 hours. Almost (yes, I do say almost) all of the flights went well throughout the trip and I had a nice break from travelling when my friend picked Case and I up at LAX to get some In N Out burgers. The reason I say almost all of the flights went well is because we had to take one extra plane than we planned. On our way from Auckland (north island, NZ) to Dunedin (south island, NZ), the last flight of my journey, the pilot said that a warning light had come on in the plane and we needed to land in Christchurch. After an hour and a half of getting our bags, following poorly given directions, and checking into a new flight, we were back on a new plane.

We arrived in Dunedin at around 12:30 pm on July 5th, about three hours later than our scheduled arrival. I was dissapointed my snowboard bag had gotten on a later flight without me, but it was delivered to my doorstep later that day. I got settled in and met my flatmates, a girl from Detroit, a guy from Germany, and my kiwihost, who is from Auckland on the North Island. Everything is going well and all my flatmates are very nice and compatible.


On the left is a picture overlooking Dunedin from a hill. On the right is a picture of the outside of the flats that I live in.




















Since moving in, I went to orientation, registered for classes, and many other things. I am taking a class about the New Zealand Maori culture, a class called Understanding Contemporary Media and a fiilm history class. As I write this, I am now in the 2nd week of classes already. And its July 21st!

Another reason why the date amazes me is because it is 48 degrees here as well. It is truly winter in the southern hemisphere, and with no indoor heating in my flat, I have to stay warm all the time. But besides heat, the coolest part about winter is I am snowboarding in July. This weekend I went to Queenstown with some friends and went to two New Zealand resorts, Cardrona and The Remarkables. It was extremely windy and the snow was not that great, but overall it was aweosme being able to ride in July. Here is a picture of the view from a balcony of the place I stayed at in Queenstown. And below is a picture of The Remarks resort from the parking lot and a picture of my friend Pete on the mountain.






















Snowboarding was fun, but something even crazier that I've done since I've been here is surfing! For the first time in my life, I surfed and snowboarded back to back days. Last Friday, some friends and I rented wetsuits and booties from the Uni recreation center and headed to the beach. The water was 48 degrees F or 9 degrees C!! I got up on a wave or two but only after about 5 minutes each time I had to get out to take a break. Without a hood or gloves my hands were so frozen I couldn't take it for very long.
















Getting out was another experience in itself. Going back to the car, we took our wetsuits off trying to get warm. Standing there in our boardshorts, in 50 degree weather, we felt extremely warm compared to the cold water. It was funny being outside in our bathing suits when there were people on the beach/pier in winter jackets shivering.

















Cold!




Well, that is all for now. That was an extremely long post just to catch up with the things I have been doing so far in Dunedin. I will try to update this somewhat regularly as my trip progresses here. There are so many cool beaches, mountain ranges, cliffs, and plenty of other things to see!