Weekend Three

So I'm a bit behind in posting. Oops. Here goes of what I remember from last weekend.

TO begin with, I went out clubbing for the first time. I substituted Boysenberry Nip for Manachevitz and had a fine time. One of the kiwis that I danced with made my night by randomly bringing up Old Crow Medicine Show and being able to sing his drunken way through a song. Also during this clubbing venture, I found out that kiwis prefer German accents over any other, that Party in the USA is not just restricted to USA parties, and that there are such things as clubs made to look like you are under the root system of a tree. I do not think my dance partner at the time appreciated such musings such as why the roots had no mycorrhiza and that the surface area to volume ratio of the roots were foolish. I didn’t much like him anyways.

We left Wellington the next afternoon and embarked upon an 8 hour drive that was suppose to take 6. We stopped for PB&J dinner in a motel parking lot and learned that Kiwis can be touchy about private property. Our Hostel was quite nice and included a very friendly (especially if you had food) cat and dog. We woke up early the next morning and visited Waitomo Caves. Our visit included rappelling 27 meters into the cave and rock climbing out which was great fun. My favorite part was the glowworms of the cave. They are the larva stage of a fly that use bio-luminescence and sticky 'fishing lines' to catch flies. They looked like little blue stars and with the lights off (and a tube slapped against the water to scare our eyes into adjusting faster to the dark) outdid any night sky I have seen.



The biologist within me was very pleased and pissed. Pleased because of the beautiful bioluminescence of the gloworms in the cave but pissed because I rubbed clay of unidentified composition all over my face (a cave facial if you will) and then ingested an unidentified species of fern (albiet at our guides recommendation).



In order to relieve our sore muscles, the next morning we drove through Rotarura and visited some hot springs. While they were not as amazing as we had hoped it to be, it still got the job done and we went on to Hells Gate...another Geothermal area. Hells Gate was very impressive and very, very stinky. That's what happens when you have enough sulfur spewing out of the ground to make Yellowstone jealous.



The final stop of a very busy day was our Maori Cultural Experience. At the Maori event I ate some Kumara (a native veggie almost like a sweet potato), enjoyed some lamb and ate other interesting and novel foods. The Maori show after the meal was extremely entertaining but compromised a bit of education and seriousness to be more touristy.


On Sunday we started back to Wellington but with a long chunk of time spent kayaking the Whanganui River. Everything went smoothly until the very end. We finished the paddle so quickly that there was 45 minute downtime as we waited to be picked up. The females were satisfied with sleeping/sunbathing on the cement boat ramp but the males had to go and show off their Y chromosomes. Two of these said Y chromosomes decided to kayak down the next set of rapids only to discover that they couldn't get back up them. In the process of walking them back up the river one of them got swept back downstream and for a while we were all very very worried. But we did all survive and tomorrow is a new day afterall.


We continued onto Wellington with only a slight hiccup from somebody (not me, definitely not me, oh no, not me) leaving their purse in a Subway and not realizing it for 30 km. What a busy busy weekend.

"Baa-Baa Black Sheep...where the heck are you?!"

This first full weekend in New Zealand meant a trip to the South Island. Our entire group of 38 Techies caught a 6pm ferry from Wellington to Picton Thursday evening. The ride went smoothly...played some hearts and revived the old favorite "Go Fish".

We landed in Picton and checked into our Hostel, which smelled unfortunately like Curry scented B.O. Things didn't get better from there...our group wandered off to find some food only to discover that nothing is open in Picton at 10pm...except for a sketchy Indian Restaurant that served even sketchier chicken nuggets. Then I spent a cold, cold night with no covers, not even a sheet, getting really great sleep.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny so we set off for Nelson...about a 2 hour trip. We took lots of pictures and passed through Havelock, "Mussel Capital of the World". Did not eat mussels.

We saw some tremendous landscape that in some ways reminded me of Montana with the rugged and barren hills, cows, and farmland. New Zealand doesn't have the same violent beauty as Montana though...it has lush and inviting forested mountains as well as amazing contrasts between water and mountains. Here's a youtube video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMfuUh-9k6c. We later stopped to frolic in a stream that reminded me again of being out West.



Upon arriving in Nelson and checking into a much nicer hostel, we headed off to a local beach to enjoy the fact of being on a beach in January. We found a flounder that had not followed the tide out to sea and the biologist within me was quite pleased. Steven then decided to swim out and climb a rock and we girls had to figure out a new way off the beach since our route there had been covered by the incoming tide. After that we went grocery shopping and whipped up a delicious pasta and meatsauce and sweet corn dinner. Yes, I cooked (though Steven was quite the help browning the beef).

Woke up the next morning and visited the infamous Nelson Market. It was much like an American market just with different gimmicks and a bit more cultural influence. I bought a bone carving necklace originally for someone else but then I decided that it would be quite appropriate for myself right now. The symbol is a spiral, or that of a fern frond opening and it represents bringing new life and purity to the world. It also represents peace, tranquility and spirituality along with a strong sense of regrowth or new beginnings. I've been wearing it almost nonstop the past two weeks.

From the market we drove to Abel Tasman National Park and went Sea Kayaking. We rowed our arms off to go see some furry seals which were just as cute as expected but did make some strange, non-cute noises. While the seals were cute, my favorite part of the trip was coming upon a stream and deciding to traverse up the streambed. The streambed was full of boulders and I quickly discovered that green moss was a good soothing foothold (bare feet) and that red algae was dangerously slippery. I traveled up the streambed with 3 other guys on the trip, who all brought their wine bottles with them, for 20 or 30 minutes. The stream was completely devoid of animal life, both visually and audibly, which was rather disconcerting but I was glad New Zealand doesn't have any snakes to speak of. I can't do the stream justice in pictures or words or explain how profoundly I connected to it, just that I have to return to it sometime and somehow. Allison and I split up for the row back to shore and let the boys do the work...our arms were shot.

Driving back to Nelson, we were struck by the fancy to visit Rabbit Beach. I was against this as I only wanted to get back to the Hostel, eat, and sleep but I'm glad we stopped. The sand was very nice and warm so I mostly sat around in the warm warm sand while Allison galloped around and Steven took loads of photos.






Sunday we drove back to Picton, bought some souvenirs, and caught the Ferry back to Wellington. The crossing was very choppy and there was a wave that washed against our window...on the 7th floor of the ferry! Weekend completed upon arriving in Wellington to the usual mist and gloom of Sundays.

Day Three

Yesterday was the first day of classes which means less time for adventuring around. Classes seem interesting enough, though I'm a little disappointed that my Biology class is spending 3 weeks of the 6 weeks learning about rocks.

It was beautiful weather yesterday; sunny and quite comfy with a light sweatshirt on. We went and roamed about the Botanical Gardens again in order to attend a Brazilian Samba outdoor concert. I attempted to dance and succeeded enough, but not too much, that the rest of the GT group wasn't too embarrassed to come join me. There are 28 nights remaining of free outdoor concerts...lets see how many I make it to. Alternative rock group playing tonight...but the light all-day-drizzle is discouraging.

Nap time now!

Day Two

So it’s just before our third dinner in NZ and I’m already a less picky eater. I’m still supplementing my meals with somewhere between 3 and 4 pieces of fruit but I’m eating food that I would never have touched back home such as Beef Pie and strangely prepared eggs.

But more importantly, the happenings of yesterday.

We went on a tour of Wier House which is the dorms of Victoria University Wellington that we are staying in. Nothing too crazy about the campus except for, as I’m suspecting cannot be avoided, the monstrous hills of the area

After that, we frolicked off to the Botanical Gardens which are a mere two minutes away from our dorms. As we climbed that first hill, the view opened up and I snapped a few pictures.

As we left this beautiful panoramic, a large bush/tree wall appeared. It quickly proved to be begging to be climbed, so our group obliged and scrambled on up. Feeling a bit daring, I clambered high enough to peek over the edge and glimpse the cityscape below. I was not nearly as confident in my climbing abilities as Steven so I did not bring my camera, so I’m stealing some of his pictures.

After observing some nice NZ fauna we made our way to the playground, which as everything NZ, is Xtreme.

We wandered about the gardens for several hours, at which point I almost didn’t make it up the last hill. So I hit the sack for an hour or so after lunch and then woke up to go visit Te Papa, the NZ version of the Smithsonian. The wind at this point was gale-force and made the walk into down a bit more precarious then I like to dwell on. We only barely scratched the surface of the museum so I plan on returning there soon. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that a good museum is worth all the attention you can give it.

We returned for dinner, at which point the gale force winds starting being accompanied by driving rain. This meant no outdoor concert at the Botanical Gardens sadly enough. However, I did play some post-dinner ping-pong and discovered one of my professors plays the fiddle and contra-dances! One of the other professors plays mandolin apparently, so we’ll see what develops musically. That’s about it for yesterday….I’ll post about classes and such tomorrow.