The Glaciers and Wanaka (Part 2)

[Note: This is part 2 of 2. Go here for part 1.]

Franz Josef glacier was just awesome. There's nothing else to say about it. What was also really awesome, though, was the valley the glacier was in - it had a ton of places to climb on, over and in. We saw glacial striations on the rocks - marks that are gouged into the rock by the moving glacier - and even two excellent outcrops (here and here) of a small fault (waterfalls/streams are great candidates for finding faults). We walked right up to the glacier itself; there were stairs going up it for the guided (read: paid) tours. After checking out the sweet river coming out from the bottom of the glacier - it struck me as something coming out of the depths of hell, albeit an icy hell - we were forced to head back by the inevitable rain.

Just a half hour drive south, we saw Fox Glacier. Once again, very, very cool. Andrew, Mary and I made the short walk out to a good lookout - no need to go right up to it, once you've seen one glacier, you've seen 'em all, right? Ha! In the picture, you can sort of make out the layers of snow and dirt going across the glacier, especially dipping in the middle where the river comes out. Nice.

That day, we drove 4 hours back to Wanaka, both because we didn't want to drive 8 hours home to Dunedin in one day, and also because it was Andrew's 21st birthday, so we wanted to be somewhere a little more amenable to fun, namely a BBQ. The drive, like all of the drives on this trip, was stunning, particularly Lake Wanaka, with its turquoise blue water. Shadowfax - Carrie's trusty steed of a Toyota Corona - was really in her element here. The hostel we had was right in town and had a grill, so we were all set. Sausages, portobellos, peppers and cucumbers - a veritable birthday feast!

The last day, Monday, we woke up to more gorgeous weather, and in Wanaka that can mean only one thing: Puzzling World! We were quite ready to be a-MAZED, so we made haste. This wonderland has two main attractions: a series of 'illusion rooms' and a huge outdoor maze, which can take up to 2 hours to finish if you try the hardest method. The illusion rooms were great - highlights included a room of scowling faces like Ghandi, Churchill, Lincoln, etc. which appear to follow you as you walk around with one eye closed, an Ames room, which makes you look alternately huge and tiny, and a tilted room where balls and water moved uphill, and you can stand 'askew,' as it were. NUTS. And yes, we did the maze (albeit with some cheating).

So, all in all, it was a magnificent trip. We drove about 1,400 km - 870 miles. The oil-guzzling, WOF-free Shadowfax handled it like a champ, and we saw some incredible stuff. Best to go out on top, I say.

The Game Plan

So about a month ago, Andrew, Carrie and I decided that during finals we should do a tramp on one of NZ's Great Walks. Since I've never explained them before, briefly, they're a set of tramping tracks on the North and South Islands, managed by the Department of Conservation. Each track has well-maintained tracks and huts spaced about a day's walk from each other, meaning it actually costs quite a bit, usually $40 per hut. They have a booking system, too, to keep pressure on the tracks to a minimum, so really popular tracks like the Milford and Routeburn fill up fast. This brings us to the tramp we planned on: the Kepler Track. It was actually built in the mountains near Te Anau to alleviate pressure on the Milford and Routeburn, and is really nice - particularly the second day of the tramp, which is almost exclusively walking along alpine ridges.

Unfortunately, it's that ridge line that's caused us problems. We were going to do the track this weekend, but because of some late-season snow, crampons and ice axes are required, which is something we can't really muster right now. So briefly, the outline of our fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants plan:

• Go to Kepler, and hike the first (passable) section, and stay at Luxmore Hut Friday night.
• On Saturday, hike out and make an epic, beautiful drive to Haast and the West Coast, and stay in a hostel.
• Sunday, we'll go to the glaciers at Franz Josef and/or Fox, which are the most accessible glaciers in the world. At the same time, we should get a great view of Mount Cook across Lake Matheson. Maybe camp out Sunday night, and head back to Dunners Monday.

Cool, eh? It's gonna be great. Cheers.

Our Spastic Weather

I'm not totally sure if I've ever really conveyed how ridiculous the weather can be here, but man, it can be really crazy - especially in the spring, like it is now. Take last Wednesday as a pretty good example.

The morning starts off chilly and gray, and soon enough, it's raining as I head off for my 8 a.m. class. Lovely, really. The weather clears up while I'm in class, and by the time I'm out of geography just before 10 a.m., it's only cloudy. No less than 45 minutes later, we hear the sound of banging on the roof, but much louder than rain, and it turns out it's hailing out - a lot. Incredibly, I leave for my 12 noon class, and it's sunny and beautiful out, almost as sunny as you'll see in Dunedin. Of course, I got too excited about this, and once I got back to my flat in between class and lab at 2 p.m., we got even more hail. Top it off later that evening with rain, and you'll have a complete day of weather in Dunedin. Nice.

Also, I've gotten some feedback about my post, 'Geology Escapades,' about my field trip down to Nugget Point, and apparently the geo may have been a little much. No worries, though! This isn't a geology blog - I just wanted to give a little taste of what I was learning, particularly for those who have a geo background. I have given a lot of thought to maybe writing a geology blog next semester, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Anyway, back to hoping for the wretched high winds that've moved in to blow away to sea.

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...
  

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.

Scarfie Life

It's been a bit since I last posted, but as the title suggests, I haven't been up to too much...just living life as a scarfie, which is a university student. Basically all that means is I've been saving money as best I can - especially on food, poorly on alcohol, going to classes, studying and checking out on-campus clubs. I've actually joined the Otago University Tramping Club and gone to several of their meetings.

It's a pretty well-organised bunch - fairly similar to OTL (if you're lucky, or unlucky as the case may be, you can see me on the front page 'jumping off a cliff' at Big Sur during Spring Break 2006) - who run trips every weekend, have a good gear room and a lot of good outdoorsy-type leaders. I get a ton of emails from the mailing list (like OTL), too. There are differences though. First, I think OTL is fortunate to be either way more subsidised than OUTC, or costs are just much higher here. I'm not sure which one it is, but I do know it cost me $30 to join the club, and trips here run for a lot more than at Claremont. At the same time, it seems like there are a lot more club meetings - two per week, plus Happy Hour at The Cook on Tuesdays, Jazz Night at The Robbie Burns on Thursdays, and a weekly walk every Wednesday night.

Anyway, I'm going to be going on my first tramping trip this weekend, to Mt. Aspiring National Park, in the Southern Alps. I picked quite a good first one, albeit an unorthodox 'tramp.' It's called Bushball 2007, and it's part of a 30 year tradition of going to the beautiful views of Aspiring Hut for what is basically a formal party out in the bush. I won't waste any more space on the particulars, but suffice it to say it should be spectacular; expect a post recapping it next week.
On Saturday we finally had our long-delayed bus trip to the Otago Peninsula, put on for the international students at the uni. It's ironic that the last trip was canceled due to poor weather - it had snowed the night before it was scheduled - because the weather couldn't have been much better this time. At times it was quite nice - temperatures in the mid-40s and calm, but when we were at the beach, searching out seals and yellow-eyed penguins, the rain, and wind especially, could really kick up. We did find some nice moments though; you can see me at the albatross colony with Annie, Laura and KC, from left to right. They had some pretty cool exposures of basalt flows down the cliff too, and since I can't help myself, I might as well throw in a picture in hopes that some budding geologist will find it as cool as Andrew and I did. We also went to the Glenfalloch Woodland Garden; above is a panorama taken from there. Looking across the Otago Harbour, you can see Dunedin off in the distance on the left.

In other news, I lined up early, before going on the peninsula trip, to buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. KC and I were really surprised to trek into The Warehouse, where we had reserved our copies, and find that at 9:30 am - 1.5 hours before release - we were 7th in line for the book! We'd thought we'd be lucky to be close enough to get the book and run off to catch our buses for the trip, but we actually were able to grab our books and get out of the store by 11:08 am. Of course, we proceeded to hurry back to our flat and do a mini-photo shoot of us with our books. Why? Well I guess a simultaneous, worldwide release isn't really worldwide. As bookstores in Britain opened at 12:01 am, 21 July, at 11:01 am New Zealand stores did the same. In the New York, though, it was only 7 pm on the 20th. Naturally, KC had to take advantage. Anyway, I really enjoyed the book, and without spoiling it for those who haven't read it yet, I think that it did a really good job wrapping things up.


Also, for those wanting more pictures of my exploits here in NZ, I haven't really decided if I'll open up my Facebook albums for the public to view, or if I'll throw up an album or two on Picasa web albums or something like that. Obviously I have a lot more pictures than the ones I've put up on this blog, and as you can see from how many cameras Andrew here has (I hope no one thinks they're all his), everyone has a ton, so I may try to get some of my friends' pics too, just so they might see the light of day. Until next time, I can only recommend you to my new favorite website of the moment...I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? Be sure to hit 'random.' Brilliant.

Kia Ora = Hello

Hey all, apologies for the long break in posts, but getting my act together has taken a bit of time here. I suppose it would be best to start at the beginning and go from there, so here goes:

To start off, I had the best flight over here from LAX. Waiting in the airport sucked, although as time wore on I had a lot of fun meeting other kids in my program (Butler) and in another program (Arcardia) which happened to have the same flight to Auckland. Air New Zealand is sweet airline, and even though the flight was 13 hours(!) it was probably the best I've ever had. They served us two meals (I was so tired at first that I passed out through the first one) and had free in-flight entertainment, so I got to watch Blades of Glory and other movies not even out of theaters yet.

After we got off the flight at lovely 6:30 in the morning, Auckland time, we went through Customs (not a hassle) and were whisked off into a couple vans to go to Shakespear Regional Park (yes, that's the right spelling, you crazy English majors) YMCA Lodge. As you can see below, the weather was stunning:In fact, despite the rainy, wet, damp coldness of it all, the landscape and the park were really beautiful and looked a lot like Ireland (I think). The shot above is from the porch of the YMCA Shakespear lodge, which is where some sheep farmer (surprise surprise) lived 100 years ago. I suppose you could think of it as a Kiwi version of the Billings Farm and Museum.

So here are some facts for those interested about our stay at the lodge: there are 21 kids in my program, from all over the country, but most of them are based in the northeast. We ate five times a day (like the hobbits?) because of morning and afternoon tea, so I'm pretty much addicted at this point. We did a ton of different activities - staying active is he best way to get over jet lag - that included but were not limited to:

• kai
  
• orienteering
• cricket
• kai
  
• rock climbing
  
• wine tasting at the Villa Maria Estate - pretty cool, because now I can look sophisticated when drinking wine (and maybe even act sophisticated too).
  
• rugby - we played the touch variety. It was a lot of fun and in explaining it, learned that the Kiwi impression of American football is: 'A bloke runs five yards, gets tackled by a bunch of linebackers, a bunch of officials blow their whistles, you sit on the bench for five minutes, they have a replay, cut to a Budweiser commercial, come back and line up for the next play'
• sea kayaking over the shipwreck of the SS Wainui (it was sunk on purpose, no dead bodies)
• kai
  
• hot thermal springs at Waiwera Resort - they smelled like sulfur and weren't 'natural', but there were hot waterslides and there was a nice pub across the street
• an overnight visit to the Te Puea Marae - this is the sort of meeting house/village for a particular tribe of Maori people who live in the Auckland area. The Maori did a traditional welcoming ceremony for us, which included being charged at by half-naked, tongue-waving, staff-toting men, a peace offering, and speeches made by two tribe leaders (I was one, haha) to the Maori. We even sang two songs, one in Maori and an American one - America the Beautiful. After that, they taught us the haka, which is probably most well-known to outsiders as something performed by the All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby union team. It's awesome.
• kai. In case you didn't know (you probably didn't) kai is a Maori word for food that gets used fairly often here. I love it. We eat a lot of it, too.

Anyway, yeah, we did a lot of stuff. And amazingly, the weather cooperated when we wanted it to:I wish I had taken more pictures, but it was hard because I didn't want to kill my camera from the rain. Our program coordinators took a lot though, and (eventually) we'll get those. Anyway, I'd love to write about my move into Dunedin, but I'll have to do that tomorrow - the Uni (as they call it) is taking the international students on a trip to the Otago Peninsula today, home of many seals and yellow-eyed penguins. Dunedin's awesome, is pretty much all you need to know. And yes, my flat and flatmates are all cool too, so no worries.

Finally, in case you're wondering, I'm 16 hours ahead of the east coast and 19 ahead of the west. Easy way to figure out the time here: subtract 8 hours (or 5 if you're on the west coast) from your time, then pretty much that's the time here, only it's tomorrow. Crazy, I know.