Spring break #2 - Exploring the north island

So it has been a while since I have updated my blog, which I apologize for, so I feel it is necessary that I update everyone on what has been going on with me in the past 2 weeks.

It is very weird hearing that people back in the U.S. are just now starting their fall semesters of the new school year, whereas I have been in class for over 2 months now at Otago. Two weeks ago we had midterms and I had a busy week of 3 papers, a test, and an in-class writing assignment. After this hectic week it was time for the 2nd spring break of 2009. It was very weird to think I was having a spring break in August, but it was extremely necessary after the amount of work I was doing. For my spring break, 8 of my friends from my flat complex and I did a massive roadtrip up to the north island with two cars full of kids. I'll give you a play by play of what we did.

Friday, August 28 - we packed the cars at around noon and were on the road at about 1:00. It was a day of driving and nothing else. A lot of us have explored the south island pretty thoroughly so we didn't spend much time there. We drove from Dunedin, up to Christchurch (4 hours), then continued up to Kaikora, and onto Picton which was our final destination where the ferry would take us from the south island to the north. We stopped at some cool spots along the way. We saw some crazy round boulders on a beach and some other interesting towns. It was a total of about 9 hours of driving from Dunedin to the very top of the south island and a very scenic drive (when isn't it in NZ?) all the way there, especially along the coast.

The Moeraki boulders

Saturday, August 29 - We slept in our cars in a parking lot Friday night because the ferry was leaving at 6:00 am Saturday morning. After an uncomfortable 5 hour sleep in the car (some people in sleeping bags in the parking lot) we woke up, checked in at 5 am, and drove onto the ferry. The ferry ride was pretty cool. It was a 3 hour drive from Picton to Wellington, which is the lower part of the north island. When we got off the ferry at around 9:30 am, we spent the better part of the day in Wellington, just walking around the city and enjoying a break from driving. After walking around Wellington and enjoying the city, we hopped back in the car mid-afternoon, and drove up to Whanganui National Park where we spent the night camping. Whanganui is located more towards the western and southern part of the north island. We pulled our cars right up to the campsite and because of our lack of tents (which we later purchased more), some people slept in the car, some slept outside on sleeping bags, and 3 of us in a tent.

Sleeping the night before the ferry

Sunday, August 30 - We woke up early in Whanganui and gathered our things before going on a hike (or a tramp as kiwis would say). Right next to our campsite there was a 5 hour long track each way. Because we had to get back on the road later that day we only hiked a couple hours and then decided to turn back. Although it wasn't as scenic as other hikes we've done, it was still good to get out and do something active and to hike in a new area too. After our hike, despite being soaking wet from the rain, we all hopped back in the cars and continued driving. Our next destination was Raglan, a surf town on the west coast about 4 hours north of Whanganui. We stayed there for two nights in a very cool hostel.

Monday, August 31/Tuesday, September 1 - The next two days we spent exploring the scenery that Raglan had to offer. A couple of us brought surfboards and gear hoping to surf (because Raglan is known for amazing surfing) but the waves were massive and choppy the whole time we were there. A big bowl of chop. So instead, we drove to a couple beaches and relaxed and also went kayaking. Some of us used the ocean kayaks and went across to the bay to an area for cliff jumping. My friend Christoph and I decided to take out the other kayaks and just cruise around the estuary in front of the hostel, which was very scenic and relaxing. Wetsuits were a must for the cliff jumpers. Even though the water was warmer than Dunedin it was still freezing. I didn't wear one kayaking but I can assure you that after kayaking, the hot tub in the hostel felt amazing. Tuesday afternoon, we drove to Auckland which is about 2 hours north of Raglan. We stayed in Auckland for a few hours and walked around just enjoying another new city. Auckland is New Zealand's biggest city with around 1.5 million people. Because most of the country is so laid back and slow-moving, it felt weird being in a fast-paced big city, especially because I had only been driving in NZ for a few days. After a few hours, we decided not to spend a night in Auckland and just to drive up to the Bay of Islands, way up on the northeast coast of the tip of the north island. Tuesday night we decided to camp in the Bay of Islands and drove our cars up this dirt road in the forest and literally parked on the side of the road, walked into the forest with our gear, and set up a campsite in a random spot. This is where we camped for the next three nights.

Wednesday, September 2 - after driving and walking around the bay of islands and simply taking in the amazing scenery, we decided to go for a hike. It was a very cool jungle-like hike through the forest along a river until we got to a cool waterfall at the end. We had some bad luck with rain again but it was worth it. The entire hike was 10 km roundtrip.

Thursday, September 3 - Thursday might have been the most fun day of the entire trip. After a fun night of camping, we packed up our things at around 9:30 am and drove tot he pier in town. We decided to rent two boats and go for a cruise. The Bay of Islands is a chain of 144 small islands all clustered together in what creates a massive bay. It is a very, very cool area and it was really fun to be able to explore the islands on our own. The 9 of us rented two small 90 hp speed boats for 5 hours and spent the better part of the day driving around, seeing all of the islands from the water, and anchoring and spending time on a random beach. The water was still very cold, but the sun was out and it felt great to get some warm sun in compared to Dunedin's cold rainy weather. We camped again that night.

Friday, September 4 - Friday was another relaxing day. We decided we wanted to spend our last night before driving back in a hostel instead of in the woods. So after waking up Friday morning we loaded the cars and drove straight to a hostel so we could have somewhere to relax during the day. It was another very cool hostel with very cool people. This place had a hot tub, a game room with a pool table, ping pong table, dartboard, a tv room, a big kitchen, and free kayaks and bikes to use. All of this for $20 NZ ($13 US) for a whole day and the night! After getting settled we all decided to do different things. Me and 4 others drove to the west coast where we planned on going sandboarding. After that fell through we just hungout on a beach all day, hiked some sand dunes, and saw some wild seals in the ocean. We also went to this forest that has the largest tree in NZ. I believe it was 58 meters tall and 15 meters wide if I remember.

Saturday September 5/Sunday, September 6 - We woke up early and drove straight through to Dunedin. A 24 hour drive with a 3 hour rest on the ferry in between. I took the night shift from Whanganui to Wellington, slept 3 hours on the ferry, and then drove from 5:00 til around 10:00 to Christchurch. I really enjoyed the morning shift because the sunrise along the coast was amazing. It was a really fun roadtrip, but after all of that driving it felt great to be back in Dunedin.

Here is a picture that shows where we drove in New Zealand. My school is on the southeast coast of the south island in Dunedin. We drove a total of 3700 km (about 2500 miles) roundtrip.




I finally have taken the time to post pictures online. They are on facebook. Because it takes so long to upload pictures to Blogspot, I am posting the link instead.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=2048477&id=1145100154&ref=mf

Enjoy.

Shredding at Temple Basin

This weekend I went on a trek to a place called Temple Basin. Temple Basin is one of many "club fields" in New Zealand which are smaller, very low key, member ridden ski fields. This one was up above Christchurch, about a 6 hour drive from Dunedin.

Let me start by saying there is absolutely no place in the U.S. that compares to what Temple Basin is (some say Silverton does, but I've never been there). It is essentially an all inclusive resort without all the bells and whistles that you might get at a high class American resort. First off, Temple Basin is right in the center of the Southern Alps so the drive up to the mountain was a mix between grassy and mountainous areas with rivers and jungle/rain forest looking sections. When you get there, you park your car in a cutout on the side of the road and it is a 45 minute hike through rocks, water, and snow up to the base. There is also a goods lift where you can put all of your gear in so you don't have to carry it to the top. Its kind of like a mini gondola just for snowboards, clothes, sleeping bags and of course beer.

Once up at the top, there are two small lodges, a few rope tows, and endless amounts of terrain waiting to be hiked. The coolest part about Temple is the atmosphere. Everyone eats meals together cooked by the chef that lives there, and everyone hangs out together at night. Its very much like everyone is there on a trip together. Its cheap too. I paid $140 NZ (roughly $100 US) for two nights staying in the lodge, one day of amazing snowboarding, and breakfast, lunch and dinner each day while I was there.

They also use these things called nutcrackers, which was an experience in itself. Envision a ropetow, except instead of holding on with your hands, you grab the rope, rap this metal nutcracker over it, which is attached to a harness, and let that support you as you ride up.

I don't think I have ever done so much hiking (or sweating - it was a really hot, sunny day) in my entire life. Because they call it "In bounds backcountry" there are endless places to hike and ride. Although the snow conditions weren't so great, the guys from Canterbury University found a great place with some nice snow to have the Gnomes freeride competition. It was two very long hikes up to the top where the competition was but it was well worth it for some fresh snow. The contest was based on difficulty of the line you took, aggression, technique, and a couple of other things. Out of the snowboarders, I placed 2nd and my friend Case placed 3rd.


Because my internet is so slow here, I thought I would just post a link instead of posting all of the pictures of Temple Basin. If you want to see pictures, check them out on facebook.

PICTURES ON FACEBOOK

"Study" abroad

Since I've started this blog and shown people pictures and what not, most people seem to get the impression that "study" is definitely not the key word in "study abroad." Because of this, I thought I'd post a picture just for reassurance that I am indeed studying haha. Here is about half of the first paper that I have due on Monday. And to the right of my computer is the best deal on New Zealand beer you can buy...

Camping

The greatest part about New Zealand is there is always something fun to do. Weather you go up to the mountains, go on a hike, mountain bike, or camp, there is always something fun and relatively close. I went camping again this weekend. It was the same beach that I went camping on a few weeks ago, except we were in a different cave this time, a much smaller and cozier one. I'd like to go camping in other areas too, but I don't think this cave will ever get old anytime soon. There is just nothing like sleeping in a cave on the beach, hanging out with friends at night, and playing a few acoustic guitars. It was a really good night besides the fact that I barely got any sleep and the wet wood made it nearly impossible to get a fire going. But it was fun.

Here is a picture of the cave we were in.

This weekend I am going to Temple Basin which they claim is "In bounds backcountry" in New Zealand. I'm doing a freeride competition there so it should be a really fun time. Supposedly Temple Basin is a members only backcountry kind of place to ski, so I am really excited to be able to go this weekend. I'm going with the Otago University Alpine Sports Club, which is why I'm able to go. I'll update later with pictures on how it was.

Next week is the last week before semester break, which means soon I will get to do some more camping in new spots and explore many places I wouldn't be able to visit in just a weekend. But before then I have a test and two papers due, so it might be a long week of working and studying. For semester break I am traveling to the north island and doing a massive road trip to a bunch of different places, the final destination being the Bay of Islands, which I am really excited about. We are going to go hiking, camping, kayaking, and some of us probably surfing and diving. I am super excited.

Just thought I'd do a short update on things.

Queenstown is awesome

After the past few weekends I think Queenstown might be my new favorite town. Its a town nestled between huge snowy peaks, an amazing lake right next to it, and it is a very lively ski town. There is so much to do there too. This past weekend I went to Queenstown and stayed with one of my friends who was at Otago last semester and is now living in Queenstown. On the way up, we took an alternate scenic route on a curvy and bumpy dirt road. There were some cows blocking the road in some parts it was pretty funny.




We also stopped on the side of a river for a little while and just relaxed for a little bit. It was a really cool area.




We got to Queenstown around 5 oclock Friday afternoon and there was a rail jam right in the middle of town. It was awesome because I had never actually been to a live pro rail jam. It was an invitiational of tons of different kiwi, Japanese, and American snowboarders and skiers. Here are some pictures of the setup. I couldn't get very good shots though just because I was pretty far back.


Here are some cool long exposure shots of Queenstown from later that night.




The next day I went snowboarding at Snow Park. This was really exciting for me because Snow Park is a place I have been wanting to go to for a long time. It is a pretty well known place because many film crews go and film snowboard videos there when it is summer in the U.S. My expectations were pretty high, and I have to say, I don't think they were completely met. Overall, it was a really fun day (besides the low visibility) and the park is really, really fun, but I've come to the conclusion that the videos make it look a lot cooler than it really is.





Sunday I went for the best hike I've done so far in New Zealand. It was a massive loop up in the forest and mountains in Queenstown. It took about 3.5 hours to do the entire loop with multiple scenic stops on the way. The hike switchbacked up the side of the hillside through the forrest until there was an incredible view of the lake and peaks at the top, above the treeline. After that, the loop went back down into the valley on awesome trails full of creeks and rivers.

Here is a picture of the top of the hike once we got above the treeline.


And here are a few really cool long-exposure water creek shots that Pete took.

Long Beach - Camping in a cave

Last night I went to a beach in Dunedin called Long Beach that has a bunch of caves on it. I had been there before during the day to walk around and hangout, but never at night before. Yesterday we went to the store and bought lots of bundles of firewood and headed to the beach. We got there at around 3:00 pm and began to set up the tent.


More people started coming and we spent the rest of the day hanging out on the beach and getting situated in the cave. By the time the sun went down (around 5:30), most people were there. Once everyone got there, I would guess there was somewhere between 30-40 people in the cave. Most of the people were from two different flat complexes of international students, and there were kiwis as well.

We had some fun with Marvie on the beach before it got dark.

We had a generator inside the cave to play music.


One of the kiwis was doing some fire dancing and fire blowing, it was pretty crazy.

Fire breathing/blowing too, or whatever you might call it.




I also tried fire dancing! This is me haha


Early morning sunrise on the beach

It was a fun night.

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