The past two weeks have been busy with sunny weather, rainy weather, finishing up big trimester projects and organizing what time I have left way down here. As I had mentioned in a previous blog, I spent my mid trimester break back packing and hiking around the South Island. Despite the rain, I experienced some magnificent views and met some pretty awesome people who I’m sure that I will never forget. While much happened on that trip however, I’d like to reflect a little bit more on my return to Wellington.

Before I hopped on the Ferry and headed to the South Island, I couldn’t wait to get out of Wellington- this city that I had spent the past couple of months living in- I couldn’t wait to check out the wonders of the South and jump into the adventures that it held in store (positive that they would be more brilliant than I could imagine). Ironically, my return to Wellington very well may havebeen the best part ofthe trip! As I was walking down Lambton Quay (pronouced “key”), the biggest shopping street in Wellington, on the way back to my flat, I suddenly realized that it felt different to be there. It was the first time that I no longer felt like I was visiting Wellington, but rather understood that I was returning to it. It was a home base. I entered my building only to be welcomed by hugs from friends I had never hugged before, and exchange some pretty amazing smiles. Throughout the next week or so jumbled full of catching up with friends over coffee, taking walks to my favorite parts of the city, getting to know people better, and decorating the walls of our flat (finally!), I gradually felt more and more like I belong here. That I live here. And so, as it goes, Wellington has become mine. Wellington is a home to me!

I’d like to share a little bit more of the life around Wellington, but due to the raininess that winter brings here on the bay, I’ll have to wait a little while to get some more decent pictures…

In the meantime, I hope that everything back home is going well and that finals are wrapping up brilliantly!

10 Hours of astonishing sights, temperatures, and burning muscles…

The Tongariro Crossing is known as “New Zealand’s Finest One Day Tramp” (tramping = hiking here). As the summer winds down and weather becomes more unpredictable, they allow fewer and fewer trampers up the crossing, as conditions can go from sleet and hail one moment to sun, rain or snow the next… and the wind is always pretty intense, so some of my friends and I really lucked out in making just about the last beautiful weekend up to the National Park!

Though the track started up above the clouds, it was a flat start up to the volcanos. Our first real challenge was getting up Devil’s Stair Case. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but there are tons and tons of people tramping up the left side of the terrain in the foreground.

Once we made it to the top we took a nice break to recover our legs and keep them from collapsing from the constant uphill tramping… we hadn’t a clue of what was to come…

Mount Ngauruhoe, better known to many as Lord of the Ring’s Mount Doom, was a 1500k straight up climb along loose lava rock. But we did it! We climbed for a solid hour and a half straight up to the top, taking a lunch break at that greater jumble of big rocks just past half way.

The climb up was pretty tough, but it wasn’t hte steepness that was the most challenging, it was having to keep from sliding down with the rocks beneath your feet!

One thing that kept the climb exciting was the spontaneous shout of warning: “Rock!!” from above as a large rock might have escaped its stationary place on the ground, and tumbled down the mountain at high speeds. Yikes!

But all of the climbing made for some pretty fantastic views at every point we stopped at… This picture was where we ate lunch, about half way up Mount Ngauruhoe.

This was what our way up looked like…

…And this our way down. The way down was basically a balancing act going through roller blading type motions… constantly picking up each foot so as not to stop too quickly, and just basically sliding down, hoping that if you fall, you fall backwards rather than forwards! It took us maybe 30 minutes to make the trip down Mount Doom. Though Frodo’s trip might have been more exciting, I think that ours at least provided some pretty sweet as thrills!

From the top of Mount Ngauruhoe! (Shaun looks like he’s about to jump in…)

From the top, we could see people walking around the outside of the ridge on the other side. Because of the high winds and our lack of time, we decided to just watch in awe the size of the people scampering across the volcanic ridge across from us.

…and check out the preview of more tramping that lies ahead of us… we walked along the bluer lake in the back ground eventually.

…And the descent begins.

Although much of the Tramp lacked any kind of foliage- or even anything other than volcanic rock, there were some absolutely brilliant colors and rock formations along the way.

The Emerald lakes along the Crossing are another of nature’s wonders, sacred to the Maori. Despite their state of being Tapu (Sacred), one wouldn’t want to go swimming in them because of the level of acidity in the water (which makes them green…)

This was looking back at one point toward the end of the 10 hour tramp… (well, with maybe 3 hours to go…) You can see Mount Ngauruhoe in the background, and another up/down saddle that we made our way over.

We continued through some grassy trails and down to a hut, leaving us about two hours to finish and get back to our shuttle.

…More adventures soon to come :o)

I apologize for the lack of pictures in this upcoming blog… I promise that when I get a chance I will upload some pictures of the most recent adventures I’ve taken part in (Including a 10 hour hike of the Tongariro Crossing [see previous blog..] plus a 1500 m straight up climb to the top of The Lord Of The Ring’s: Mount Doom).

Hmm… Who will read on now, knowing that this story is not yet being told?

While for many of you at home in the states the end of the semester is in view, we down here in New Zealand have just completed the first half of our trimester and are currently on a two week break from everything Uni. To start off my refreshing break from the dense wall of work that I just broke through, I entered a race in a suburb of Wellington called Upper Hutt. Having to rely on the train to get there, and knowing that I’d have no particular place to keep anything, I shoved some cash into my running shorts, tied my shoes, threw on an extra long sleeve shirt and made my way to the railway station. When I arrived in Upper Hutt 45 minutes later, I made my way to the race beneath the somewhat forboding looking sky.

There was a 21k (Half marathon) and 10k to choose from, and not having run much more than 6 or so miles in some time, I went with the 10k to be safe- boy what a good decision that was! The race started in a heavy drizzle, and only progressed from there. Not 5 minutes into the all-grass course, lightening struck and thunder followed… apparently that’s the signal for the rain to pick up! Carrying on the pattern, the next strike of lightening turned the huge rain drops into hail! I couldn’t help laughing at times- what an insane race! Luckily by about 5k in the worst of the weather was over, and it continued to digress to a heavy drizzle by the end. Phew!

Worried about being chilled in the very little clothes that I had with me, I changed into my dry top and considered skipping the awards ceremony and instead working my way back down to Wellington. But the sun came out! And it was warm and drying- and I ended up being quite comfortable, talked with some wonderful people in the Wellington area, and ended up staying through the awards. The awards were the basic First place runner for each race, youngest finisher, earliest entry, etc… what wasn’t expected is that there was an award from the male and female from the furthest away! (lucky me!) There were two international individuals in the race- me (from NY) and a man from Great Britain! So I won a nice thermal tshirt, and found myself quite proud to have been at the small road race from so far away :o).

I made my way back to my flat on The Terrace, and had a marvelous night’s sleep. That was 3 days ago. Now, I’ve just finished packing a big frame pack that I’m borrowing from a friend, and am heading to the south island bright and early tomorrow morning for a week and a half long back packing trip! I’ll spend the first couple of days on my own in Picton and Nelson, and then I’m meeting up with two other people who I’m going to be hiking and camping with for the rest of the time… So I’ll leave you in dire anticipation of what stories are next to come, and get a good night’s rest.

Goodnight, Friends!

Some Panoramas!
(Afterall, who doesn’t like to look at pictures??)

I just thought it would be fun to post up some panoramas of New Zealand that I’ve made:

This is (most of) the city of Wellington! The picture is taken from Mt. Victoria- the highest point in Wellington- AND where a good deal of the Hobbit footage was shot (You know that tree they hid beneath when the dark rider came? That’s on Mt. Victoria!

So, that’s the city that I live in… and THIS is the building that I live in! The closeup is from some place in the center of the second image from the right. That’s Stafford house! (minus the bright green outline)

Just a bit more proof of the amount of sheep here… on some beautiful hills. This is only a small portion of the amount of sheep that I’ve seen here so far…

Kapiti Coast is one of the big scenic attractions on the north island. On our way up to the Ironman in Taupo that super windy weekend, we stopped along Kapiti coast in a random town for dinner. It was so windy, though that we ended up eating in the car after we took in the view. Unfortunately, this isn’t the best of panoramas… it’s suppose to be straight, not curved- my bad! But you can still get a sense of how beautiful it was along there.

And here’s another view (on a different day) of Kapiti Coast! And from higher up… From a different point and on an absolutely clear day, you can see the South Island across the sea!

This is a manual panorama that I took as Solny wrote in the sand on The Great Odyssey Adventure…

AND this is another Manual one that I took while we were up in Coromandel. I hiked up to the top of this breathtaking lookout- to the left is Tairua Harbor (I think..) and to the right is the Pacific Ocean!

Hello again!

Fall has arrived here in Wellington, and with fall comes rain. (Something that I hadn’t taken into consideration when packing all of my tank tops and tshirts) But despite the weather, New Zealand continues to provide fullfillment for the curious, adventurous individuals with a drive for experiencing such a brilliant culture! (Yay!)

Aside from University, which I attend 4 out of the 5 weekdays, there have been festivals and celebrations galore the past couple of weeks! The first one that I went to with my friends, Solny, Matt and Chris was a music festival bringing the summer-long Anual New Zealand Arts Festival to a close.

It was held on an absolutely beautiful, sunny day down near the bay. We found a spot on the grass amongst hundereds of other people: Families, students, locals… all of whom enjoyed a vast range of live music for free from an acoustic, folky/bluesy band, to a south african band, a pipeband, and ending with Wellington’s own and favorite: Fat Freddy’s Drop.

Fat Freddy’s Drop is a group of Kiwi guys who “truly embraces the New Zealand spirit” by playing an audience-uplifting medely of instruments and create a reggae sound that can’t help but make you groove- sitting or standing.

The next big celebration held here in New Zealand was my friend, Solny’s birthday, for which a whole mix of wordly kids (American, Kiwi, European, and Asian) went out to a nice Indian restaurant to eat while wearing bright red party hats. After singing happy birthday amongst her bright candles flickering in a plastic choo choo train setting and embarassing her a proper amount, we walked the 20 or so minutes back to Stafford House through the city without removing the hats once. It was so much fun to watch people smile at our party hat mob and take pictures of us.

We also couldn’t help but celebrate with one of our favorite statues… That night, we decorated a bunny cake (mistaken at first to be a mouse) quite beautifully and Solny made her wish for the 20th year of her life! Yay, Solny!

We also couldn’t help but give her a New Zealand memento… just in case she doesn’t remember where she celebrated her 20th birthday.

The next adventure was one I just got back from today! My flat building, Stafford House, put on a day trip for anybody who wanted to sign up. For 20 dollars, we had a bus ride to Carterton, where we checked out the Paua Shell Factory & Shop, Pukaha Mount Bruce (New Zealand’s Wildlife Centre for Breeding Threatened Species), and *exciting drum roll…* A night-glow hot air balloon festival!
We were greeted kindly onto the Japanese bus (the symbols at the front of the bus mean “No Smoking”) By our driver, Rick.

He then took us the long way up to our first stop through a more New Zealand-y scenic route along the beautiful yet deathly frightening windy roads across the mountains. I had mentioned the state of many of the roads here before, but couldn’t provide a decent picture- so I thought I’d try again. Is it not absolutely gorgeous?

When we got to the Paua Shell Factory, the woman who greeted us told us a bit about the rarity of finding Paua Shells and of processing them. She showed us many types of shells- one of which is found off the coast of California, another of which is found only in the northern banks of the Mississippi River, some off of Australia’s coast, and then the ones genuinely unique to New Zealand- they just so happens to be the most beautiful of the bunch! “Perhaps America can do it bigger, but we can do it better!” our guide commented when showing us the difference in the brilliant colors of the two shells. I’ll have to agree with her.

We were shown them before cleaning and polishing, and then after. It’s an amazing difference!

After the Paua Factory, we headed to the Nature Preserve, where we took a beautiful walk through a bright green, mossy forest

and checked out some of the rarest birds in the world. One of which is the Takahe. At one point, sightings of the Takahe were so rare that they were presume extinct! Luckily, that was eventually proven wrong, though they are yet one of the most rare birds in the world to this day, native only to New Zealand.

After a sighting of the Takahe, we ventured to the Kiwi house!

Because Kiwi birds are nocturnal, they were kept behind large glass, lit up with red light. While it was difficult to see them clearly, we still could watch them eat and walk around. What a funny bird! Did you know that Kiwi birds have nostrils at the end of their beaks? It was fun to watch them sniff around the ground. Another crazy fact is that the Kiwi bird’s egg is almost the size of their body before being laid! This was my attempt at a long-opened shutter while in the nocturnal house.

This picture’s a little better, I suppose.

While continuing around the nature preserve, we saw a great variety of birds and eels… and ducks… throughout the walk.

At last it was hot air balloon time! We hopped back on the bus and arrived at the Hot Air Balloon Night Glow Festival just in time. While they didn’t take off from the ground, they lit on and off, often to the tune of a musical medely. The colors of all of the balloons were beautiful!

What better way to finish off a perfect day trip with than fireworks?

So celebrations galore! Other than all of this excitement that I just filled you in with, school has begun to really pick up, and work due-dates are coming up quickly. Our last weekend before mid term break (During which road trip number 3: The South Island is all ready being planned) is just this next one, and then the rest of the term is just going to fly by! I can’t believe how quickly this crazy adventure is going by!