Mid-semester break

Well, tomorrow I leave for a ten day road trip for our mid-semester break (MSB). I haven't really said anything about it yet because I didn't want to jump the gun and give out our plans before they were pretty much finalized. There are seven of us - me, Andrew and Kelsey, along with Annie, Page, Laura and KC. We've rented a sweet van, and our plan is to basically tour the north part of the South Island - you can check out our stops on the map below:

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Basically, we're going to drive from Dunedin north to Arthur's Pass, a little mountain village in the Southern Alps. From there, we're going to travel from spot to spot in a clockwise direction. Among the plans:

• Arthur's Pass: We'll get there in mid-afternoon, with any luck, and probably have enough time to explore some little trails in this part of the national park in the afternoon and the next morning.
• Greymouth: We aren't staying here for the night, but we'll likely stop for a bit to visit the Monteith's Brewery - Monteith's is one of the best makers of beer in NZ.
• Punakaiki: This will be one of the most fun stops - it's a geologist's dream. The 'pancake rocks' are particularly famous.
• Takaka: This is our longest stop, for three nights, on Golden Bay. It's supposed to be gorgeous, and we're really close to Abel Tasman NP, which is excellent. This is the farthest north we'll go.
• Nelson/Picton: Not really sure what the plans are here, but both are near some cool places, like the Marlborough Sounds.
• Kaikoura: Over on the east coast, we'll stay a night and explore the coast, and maybe go whale watching.
• Hanmer Springs: This will be a great place to begin winding down the trip, the home of popular hot springs.
• Christchurch: We'll hit up Chch, as it's abbreviated, for a night, and get to ease back into city life. Then back home to Dunedin!

Well, that's just a cursory overview of what's going on...there's going to be a lot to do. I'm bringing my computer, so with any luck I may get to check in with a couple posts, but no promises. You, my large, faithful audience, may have to wait a whole 10 days for me to write again, but I'll see what I can do...I couldn't just cut you all off like that. Have a good one.

Mt. Cargill

You may remember that back at the beginning of the semester, me and a few of my friends thought it would be a good idea to summit Mt. Cargill. Of course, it drizzled all the way up, and provided the lovely view from the top that you see to the right.

Now that was fun enough--we had a good time trying to solve stories about how/why people died. My favorite: there's a man (dead, of course) sitting at a table, surrounded by 53 bicycles. What happened? You get to ask the person telling it yes or no questions. I'll write up the answer to it next time.

Anyway, it was nice and sunny out, and 50 degrees seemed warm enough to head up Cargill again. The best photo of the day would be below (so you don't just look at the photo above and think that was what it was like), showing the entire Otago Peninsula and Dunedin, but Blogger is being sketchy, so I'll pop it up below once things decide to work. You can still check the pics out in my Picasa Web Album.

Qtown adventures

Amazing. Incredible. Mind-blowing. Breathtaking. You could find more synonymous adjectives here. I'll include some of my favorite photos here, but definitely check the full album out by clicking here or scrolling down to it in the right hand column. Here's my all-time favorite: That was view that we had from our parking spot at the base of the Coronet Peak ski field, at about 9:30 am, on Sunday. The skiing itself wasn't amazing - the whole area was open due to extensive snowmaking, but was pretty icy - but the fact that we could ski in August, with panoramas like this, made it completely worth it. That and the fact that the exchange rate has plummeted to make the Kiwi dollar just about 67 cents US...this compared to 80 cents just a couple weeks ago.

To get back into some sort of chronological order, we headed out to Queenstown Saturday morning - a four hour drive. We ran into Julia, Katie and Sven there, amazingly just as they came back from a two hour kayaking trip out on Lake Wakatipu. We grabbed lunch at a cool Irish pub (I had an obligatory Guinness, of course) and then headed up to the Skyline Gondola, which takes you up a 1500 ft. vertical rise immediately above the city. We got some spectacular views of Queenstown, the lake and the Remarkables. It was just really unbelievable. Up on top of this, well, mountain I guess, we went luging, which is kind of like an alpine slide, but the track is wide enough to have several people going at once, and you can steer your sled. The races got intense, with 8 of us going around slippery, banked turns.

After a night on the town Saturday - the nightlife in Queenstown is very good - Katie and I split off from the other six in our group (who variously went bungy jumping and kayaking again, something I'll do another time) to meet up with Andrew and his friend Mo to go skiing at Coronet Peak, which is a half hour from the city. As you can see above, it was pretty great up there. We hit the slopes (along with quite a few other people that day) and had a blast, despite the icy conditions. It probably doesn't help that the mountain isn't that tall (5400 ft.) and there's a lot of traffic on it, what with the night skiing and being so close to Queenstown. Regardless, it was fun to get back out on skis again, and especially in August. After skiing all day, we headed back to Dunedin, along with a lovely stop on the road to see the sunset outside Alexandra. After a quick meat pie at the 24 (a delicacy here), we were home and not-so-ready to start the week. And to think I wasn't doing anything this weekend as late as 4 pm on Friday...

Holy shit...

This is a view of The Remarkables from Coronet Peak - just a taste of what I saw this weekend in Queenstown. Details and full photo set tomorrow.

Off to Queenstown

Random! As of an hour ago, I wasn't going to Queenstown - a really popular international ski town in the mountains - this weekend. Now, I am. I got a text from a friend who's already in Queenstown for the weekend saying I should come out tomorrow morning and ski - they even have a bed for me tomorrow night - so I figured, why not? I'm here to be spontaneous, right? Right. Expect some great photos after the weekend.

This is why we conserve...

A $357 power bill.

Okay, here's the situation. We live in a flat that's about 80 years old, but was probably renovated in the last 15-20 years (or so it appears). It's winter here, with lows in the 30s and highs in the 40s. Given that, does a $357 bill seem reasonable?

I really don't know. This isn't a cry for help either - Butler gives us money for our share of power bills, and it should be fine. In fact, it's a $387 bill, but we get 10% off if we pay by a certain date. That equates to $282 US, by the way, or $70.50 US per person for the month. I guess I never really realized how much power costs? Maybe 14.664 cents per kWh (10.7 cents US) is normal...I can't say (and my appreciation for my parents paying the bills has certainly grown).

Anyway, I've already looked into more energy conservation strategies. By changing all of the 100 bulbs in the flat to their CFL equivalents, we would save about $30 a month alone. There are possibly other things we could do, but the weather is a real bitch as far as energy-saving alternatives go. Line drying would be a big help, but it's too cold and damp at times for that to be efficient (I've succeeded once with it). With more sunlight, of course, we wouldn't need to use the heater as much either - despite the fact that it's pretty efficient (6 kW of heat per 1 kW of power) which we set at about 64 degrees when we're in the living room, something that could be lowered I suppose. We already wash our clothes with cold water, which is good. Besides these things, there's not much else we, as temporary flatters, can do. Efficient, quality insulation and good seals around doors would do wonders, but we have little control over such things.

I know this may have turned into a disjointed rant, but in short, I suppose I don't understand why people won't try to conserve energy, if not for the environment, then at least for their wallets.

The weather gods have smiled upon us...

Finally! A beautiful, gorgeous, warm day! I couldn't believe it. Of course, everyone took advantage of this fine weather to go outside and generally enjoy life.

Without Friday classes, I was able to wake up at the crack of noon, go outside and take my laundry down from the clothesline (my clothes smell great, but I think maybe the soap or the sun made them a little starchy). Then Andrew came over and we went to the Dunedin Botanic Garden, which is just a 10 minute walk for me, but is right out Andrew's back door.

It was a little windy out, but still not enough to deter me from wearing just a t-shirt and shorts, along with flip flops, for the first time since I've been in NZ. The gardens were great, with a ton of trails through different types of forest, an aviary, rock garden (not a garden for rocks, apparently, but lichen and moss - sadly all the rocks were the same), and a fantastic sandwich place, among other things.

With any luck, it'll stay this way tomorrow, and I'll maybe get another change to hike up Mt. Cargill...the same place where a bunch of us hiked up a few weeks back, only to get to the top and be in a rainy cloud (as opposed to a dry cloud?). But with the nearly unpredictable weather we have here, I can't count on it; I'm enjoying the warmth while it lasts, because next week it'll just be in the 40s and cloudy again, no doubt.

Dunedin photos up, first time driving

Yes, Dunners means Dunedin. That album title may change, though. Check them out below or to the right.

From Dunners

Other random things...

• The weather's been teasing me. I bought a used tent from someone in the Tramping Club after Bushball, which was almost a couple weeks ago now, and it was a little wet after the tramp. Every time I go to the backyard to set it up or hang it to dry, though, it'll be nice out for about 5 hours, then promptly rain. My luck may be changing though, since it looks like upper 50s and no rain for the next few days...but weather forecasts here are notoriously awful.
• I drove for the first time here! It was totally bizarre. KC and I borrowed our friends' Pat and Rob's car (a beat-up Honda named Pam, after the ubiquitous supermarket brand) to drive to South Dunedin to the cheapest supermarket around, Pak 'n' Save. Staying to the left wasn't the weird thing though...the pedals are actually even the same setup. The hardest part was the directional signal lever being on the right and wipers on the left (I don't think washing your windshield means 'I'm turning left') and I barely even used my mirrors - especially the rear view - because I couldn't find them quickly. Also, there's no turn on red and if you're turning left while oncoming traffic is turning right (onto the same road), the oncoming traffic gets the right of way...weird, I know.
• There are some extraordinarily bad American shows on Kiwi television. Among other shows that don't air in the States anymore (and I hadn't heard of before anyway): Medical Investigation, Summerland, Love, Inc., and Dr. Phil - it should be off the air, anyway. Of course with just 4 channels, there's not much else to watch during lunch...
• Speaking of, I made the best lunch ever today: ham, egg and grilled cheese. I wish I were this motivated at home...
  

Photos, etc.

So I've kinda caved and posted some of my photos on Google's Picasa Web Albums. I put almost all of my photos up on Facebook, so if you've got an account you can see those here. Since I only put select pics up in my blog posts, I figured it would be good to give those who aren't on FB a chance to see them. To see my albums, just go to the right-hand column in my blog and click on the album you want to see. I didn't upload at the highest quality, so if you want to see them better, just leave a comment or shoot me an email. I've only put up my orientation photos so far, so expect more in the next week or so.

I've also put up most of my best landscape photos and panoramas from the last couple years (or at least the best I've been able to do with my camera) on Panoramio, which is a website also owned by Google. While both this and Picasa allow you to map where your photos are taken, Panoramio is made specifically so the photos will be shared on Google Earth (Google Maps, too) - if you're on Google Earth and have the 'geographic web' box checked off, as you zoom in on a location, you'll see little dots pop up representing pictures of that site. Pretty handy, I think. Anyway, you can see those pictures in traditional layout here, or you can see them mapped out here (my favorite spot is California).

And finally yes, I know many of you may have been confused, but that championship curler you see in the picture below is indeed, me.

Shuffleboard on Ice

You'd think that means I think curling is lame, no? Well it definitely isn't. More on that later, though.

First things first, we took the Taieri Gorge Railway from the Dunedin Railway Station (gingerbread house, remember?) to Pukerangi. Basically, the railway is a tourist line that runs on the original railway that went into Central Otago back when its economy was driven by gold mining. It's quite popular, especially during the summer, although even today there were quite a few people on the train. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the Green Mountain Railroad, and the White River Flyer, in particular. And both are equally outrageously expensive (US$34 one way on the Taieri, $17 on the WRJ - and that's at least half the distance). Anyway, it was a nice ride, complete with commentary on the history of the railway and the gorge, and a snack car with nice mince pies...mmmm.

At Pukerangi, we got off the train and hopped on a minibus, which took us to the small town (permanent pop. of 100) of Naseby, which also happens to be home to the 'only dedicated indoor curling rink in the Southern Hemisphere.' That may sound surprising, but up on what is called the Maniototo (yes, this was Rohan - I was excited), curling has been popular here ever since it was settled by Scottish gold prospectors in the 1870s. In fact, the Olympic-regulation rink showed us an into to curling video taught by the skipper of the New Zealand Olympic curling team, based not far from Naseby.

History aside, the curling was actually pretty fun - it's a lot like either shuffleboard or bocce ball on ice. Shuffleboard because of the court layout, bocce because only the team with the closest stone to the target gets points. Of course, it's vastly different because you're sliding 42-pound pieces of granite (YES) across the ice (the 'curl' comes from when you release the stone with a little rotation, so its path will curl left or right). Then there are two sweepers, who'll sweep to either straiten your stone's path, or to speed it up; the ice melts slightly when it's swept. Each team has 4 people - one thrower, two sweepers and a skipper who directs the sweepers - and everyone on each team gets two throws per round, for 11 rounds. That's pretty much it. There's actually quite a bit of strategy and skill involved, since you have to be able to throw the stone the right distance without it going out of play, and be able to either hit or avoid other stones, depending on the situation. It's good stuff. Normally, as I'm pretty 'link-happy,' I'd include a link to the Wikipedia article on curling, but I'm pretty sure that no one would ever click it. I wonder if anyone will even read this paragraph I wrote about it...

Naturally, I ended up playing pretty decently in a sport that I may never play again. It's a shame, it could have been my true calling.

Since (I) Been Gone

I know, I know, I've done a sort of poor job posting for the last week, so I trying to make up for it now by annoyingly posting a couple times in a row. Ryan's a bad blogger.

First things first, I wrote my first essay this week. It was for my Human Geography class - a class I actually enjoy, but apparently not enough to actually begin work on my paper much ahead of time. It actually came out pretty well; the title of it was The effects of development and marketisation on the subsistence-driven culture of rural, mainland Southeast Asia. Makes me sound smart, eh? Essentially, I wrote that the culture of mainland rural SE Asia - one in which families practice slash-and-burn farming and use the nearby forests as a food resource - is actually being degraded by attempts at development, in which families are relocated from the mountainous interior to low-lying regions. In fact, the rural way of life appears sustainable, even with the slash-and-burn farming (swidden agriculture). It seems to me like the best parts of sociology and economics combined.

In other, more fun news, yesterday Annie, Laura, KC, Page, Andrew and I went to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory for a tour of Cadbury World. The factory is only a ten minute walk from my flat - on the same street no less! - but I never noticed until yesterday that as you walk by on the sidewalk, you can smell the chocolate in the air...I felt like I was going for a tour of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

The moment I stepped in the door, that feeling was more reinforced. In fact, I felt like I was in that happiest place on earth. This was only added to as we were given hairnets and snoods (to cover beards, clearly not a problem I have) to wear on our way through the factory. Normally, I would have taken a ton of photos, but like other factory tours (Ben & Jerry's comes to mind) we weren't allowed to. Regardless, the tour was great - we saw the process of making chocolate, and even better, got tons of candy for free! Among others, I got a couple Moro Bars, Dairy Milk, and Crunchie Bars. Naturally, not many will know what these delicacies are, so basically it's like Milky Way, Hershey's Chocolate, and Butterfinger (but way more rich and not sticky), respectively. Not only that, but after the tour I bought about $15 worth of chocolate, including kiwifruit-filled, three layer (milk, white and dark all together), and blackberry-filled. Oh, and a bunch of creme eggs. It's lasted 24 hours so far, and if I care about my health, I'll make that 2 kilos last at least a week. We'll see.

Today, Annie, KC, Laura, Andrew and I went down to St. Clair and St. Kilda beaches, ironically, to go ice skating. That was fun, you know, except for how I suck at skating, and all of the stupid little kids zooming past me (or across me) made me want to smack them...I'm really grown up, obviously. Anyway, tomorrow Butler is taking us on the Taieri Gorge Railway, which goes into Central Otago. Some curling will be in order, and beyond that, I'm not sure. Free dinner though! Well, that probably covers everything...cheers!

Bushball 2007

After a long delay, I present you with my account of Bushball (a bit shortened for my desire to finally have it over with, and just a little censorship as well):
Now that I'm done with the week, I thought it would be nice to update about last weekend. I headed out with 48 other people in the Tramping Club for Bushball 2007: A Red Carpet Rendez-Vous. We went to Mt. Aspiring National Park, about a 4 hour drive from Dunedin. We stayed over Friday night at the trail head, near Wanaka (a little resort town, from what I saw, similar to Killington). Since it was 2 a.m. by the time we got to bed, we couldn't see our surroundings well. The next morning though, was a spectacular sight:From there we spent the day hiking into the park, towards Aspiring Hut, which is in the middle of the West Matukituki River Valley. It was drizzling a little bit, and was super wet on the trail, as you can see on the left. Of course we couldn't carry all of our wood, cooking and partying equipment in, so we had a 4x4 to take care of it, with a little help from us in the mud.

After getting there in the mid-afternoon (after a few beautiful stops), we proceeded to get the hut ready for the formal dinner. It was a really nice hut, big and well-maintained. It has 38 bunks, a kitchen, wood stove, and 3 big tables which were perfect for seating our huge group. We made stroganoff, salad and had desert, then cleared the tables out and partied the night away.The next morning, we all woke up (somewhat of a struggle) and packed our things up, giving the hut a good cleaning. Thankfully the weather on the tramp back to the trail head was really nice, so it was pretty refreshing, going through the valley. The best part about the whole trip was that out of 49 people, I was one of only 2 Americans (a relatively low number for Bushball), and the only other internationals included a handful of Canadians and a few Germans. Actually, there were a bunch of Brits too, but they hardly count as internationals here, particularly at the Uni. So as has been my desire since I've gotten to NZ, I finally got to meet some Kiwis!

It's pretty funny, their sense of humor. The liked to give me a hard time about being an American; here's one exchange:

Me: So I hear you guys have a real possum problem over here.
Kiwi guy: Yeah, but not as bad as our American problem!

Of course, it was all in good fun. I also had a pretty good conversation with a Kiwi girl, comparing our education systems. For example, Kiwis start school at 5 and finish at 17, and apparently it's really easy to get into university, but that the first year at Uni is used to weed everyone out; it's not like us, where we stress about getting into college while we're in high school.

So all told, Bushball was an unqualified success. A lot of people, a lot of fun, a lot of Kiwis.