Mt. Cook!

We arrived in Mt. Cook National Park after the sleepness night. As we entered the Southern Alps, we drove right into a beast of a storm...howling wind and bitter cold, stinging rain. That's the condition we set up our tents in...and we crawled in later that night, cold and wet. The day itself was exciting just because we were in Mt. Cook Village, close to the tallest peak in Oceania. We couldn't see a thing the first day, though, but made the best of it by going to the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre, a tribute to his first ascent of Everest and his tremendous influence in mountaineering and antarctic exploration worldwide. We also went to the world's most southern planetarium and 3D show. Way cool...

the following morning, we woke up to a GORGEOUS day...the sun was glistening on the peaks that we didn't even know were there. Pictures won't do it justice...did a fantastic day hike up the Hooker Valley to the Hooker Glacier at the bottom of Mt. Cook. OUTSTANDING!!! Such a contrast from yesterday too! Spent the entire day researching the mountains and planning a mountaineering trip down there next month! Yeah!

EDORAS!

After a crazy day on Avalanche Peak, we took the rental station wagon off road the following day on Audra's pilgrimage to Edoras, where the LOTR set was constructed. This beautiful craggy hill, Mt. Sunday, is set in the middle of an enormous valley surrounded by the snowcapped peaks of the Southern Alps. We took the liberty to cross some private land, cattle ranges, and sheep grazing hills. We had to ford quite a few braided streams, thigh deep, and go through ankle deep manure, but finally we arrived on the summit of Edoras for a nice, well earned lunch! We left after a ton of photos and a few hours to head to gorgeous Lake Tekapo, where the sunset over the southern alps lit up this tiny stone church, the Church of the Good Shepherd. AMAZING. car camped and didn't sleep at all that night, but nothing could dampen the day!

Arthur's Pass!

This was one of the most action packed days of my life! Woke up at 5am to drive/hike/climb up a boulder and watch the sunrise with Kate. We then picked up Kat and Audra and headed for the Pass, only a 35 minute drive from Castle Hill. We got some maps and info at the iSite, then bundled up and took the Avalanche Peak trail...it was INTENSE...crazy waterfalls, steep sections, and no level or semi-level ground to the summit, at nearly 2000 meters. Insane views...awesome exposure. We had perfect weather, too. Took Scott's Track down the peak and ended up in the tiny town of Arthur's Pass Village...we got some great pub food, our first eating out experience all week. I took the night shift, driving all the way down to Mt. Somers that night. LONG, but epic day...pictures don't do it justice!

CASTLE HILL!

We spent 2 and 1/2 days and 2 nights camping in Castle Hill, one of the most outlandish "moonscapes" I've been in. As a climber/adventure junkie, I fell in love with the place. Here's a brief rundown of our stay there:

Monday: arrived from Christchurch in the afternoon, wandering in awe of the over 20,000 enormous limestone boulderings (torrs as they're called), some of which are larger than freestanding 18 story buildings!

Tuesday: climbed and bouldered for a while, enjoying the heat of the day. Set up an ENORMOUS single-rope rappel, probably over 140 feet off a freestanding boulder. Went to this long (over an hour without the light of day), narrow, freezing cold, deep underground cave that we walked upstream, sometimes chest deep with our headlamps. Way cool, literally. Set up a big rock climb at night under the stars...it had this tricky frog-move crux to get off the ground and this commiting dyno jump to reach the top...a blast!

Wednesday: drove/hiked to the top of a big boulder to watch the moonset and the sunrise with Kate. Picked up Kat and Audra at the campsite, and drove out early to a full dayhike at Arthur's Pass. Yay!

ELECTIVE WEEK overview.

So this past week, Kate, Kat, Audra and I were the only students not taking Environmental Literature. We opted to go on an amazing roadtrip in the middle of NZ's south island. We departed Kaikoura, rented a car in Christchurch, drove to Castle Hill for climbing, bouldering, rappeling and caving, then to Arthur's Pass for an INTENSE day hike/climb up Avalanche Peak. We then took the rental station wagon off-road to Mt. Sunday, AKA the film location of Edoras, capital of Rohan in Lord of the Rings. Stunning location and scenery. We then made our way out to Mt. Cook Village, nestled right under the monsterous Mt. Cook and the Southern Alps. OUTSTANDING location to finish our week. I'll going more in depth with stories and pictures in each of my following blog posts!

cheers!

Some New Experiences

Howdy again...still experiencing technical difficulties uploading photos from Samoa...sorry, I'll keep working on that. Last week was an awesome week of a class entitled "God and Nature"...lots of reading, writings essays, making class presentations, etc. Very informative though, and I gained a totally new perspective on how God relates to what He created, and therefore how we as humans should relate to it. Surfed twice (once with my proff!) at Mangamanu, a beautiful right-breaking swell about 20 minutes north of Kaikoura. Great times, big waves, and cold water! Stream Ecology started this week, with a proff. from Indiana. He's lived in over 10 countries, and has a thick Italian accent...pretty awesome. We've been out in the streams already collecting benthic macroinvertebrates like mayfly larva and dragonfly nymphs. yum! Did some analysis on these indicator species, then will be taking a "midterm" and "final" for a 5 day class! Basically, so much has happened that I just need to upload photos, but i'll keep working on that. How's life in the big USA? All i hear about it from here is that things are falling apart at the seems...will it even be there when i fly home in May?! shoot me an email if you'd like to elaborate


blessings!

Back in NZ/Samoa Thoughts

Well, gang, Just arrived from an arduous 48hrs of no sleep and travel from a remote Samoan village to home here at the Old Convent in Kaikoura. Samoa was great, although many aspects of my two week trip took me quite by surprise. I had no idea, somehow, that Samoa is very much a third-world country as far as poverty and lack of infrastructure and development. I felt out of my comfort zone pretty much the whole time, especially with the language barrier. I knew minimal Samoan, and my Samoan friends new very broken English. The first week of the trip, we were all together as a CCSP group. We stayed together in Safua, and took day trips around the volcanic island of Savai'i on which we lived. We visited blowholes, volcanic craters, saw flying foxes, cyclone damage, lava flows over entire towns, etc. Very informative week, especially in a geoligical sense. The second week was more relaxed, constituted mostly by downtime in my village homestay. I filled in the time by snorkeling, climbing coconut palms, journaling, and tilling taro in the inland plantations. Very good trip, but exhausting after a while because of the lack of communication. Food was very rich...lots of meat and starch of all sorts...It's good to be back home in NZ...photos soon!