The past 24 hours have been quite the adventure. I set out with 9 of my friends to go camping at Long Beach, a place not too far (or so we thought) from Dunedin, where we heard there were beautiful caves that could be slept in. So we packed up and left yesterday, Friday morning, for the bus to Port Chalmers, and from there we intended to hike to Long Beach and set up camp there for the night.
Well, we took the bus to Port Chalmers and then saw no sign of a hiking trail. We found a sign directing towards Long Beach, but figured we should probably ask for directions. We went to the Port Chalmers library where a lovely librarian lady gave us directions to Long Beach and said if we walked along the road it should take us a couple of hours.
So we set out! But after carefully looking at the map and reading signs we realized our destination was a good 12 kilometers away, along a winding and steep road. Thus, hiking would take us probably about 6 hours at the least, with all the stuff that we were carrying. So we decided to hitchhike, which in New Zealand is legal and safe (As long as you are not dumb about it, meaning I would still never do it by myself). And about 5 minutes in to this hitchhike plan a man with a pick up truck pulls up and picks all 10 of us up! It was insanely lucky! So my friend A.J. hopped in the front, and the rest of us hopped in the bed of the truck. Now this probably all sounds terrifying and dangerous, but this is not America. The guy was on his way past Long Beach, and he drove really slow and carefully, so we were perfectly fine. After riding in this truck for about 25 minutes we realized we were crazy for thinking we were going to try to hike this road.
Then we arrived at Long Beach, and had the whole day to enjoy it! We played Ultimate Frisbee, swam in the ocean, and chatted with our cave neighbors who were also camped out for the night. Then we had a bonfire and roasted hot dogs and vegetables and listened to a guy playing guitar around the fire. It was a hippe/caveman experience, and it was awesome.
This morning we woke up to watch the sunrise over the ocean, which was insanely gorgeous. As we sat there enjoying the serenity of dawn, a man walking down the beach came up to tell us there was a Tsunami warning (As a result of the earthquake in Chile), and it was supposed to hit around 9 a.m. Well, that got us up and moving. We left the beach and climbed up the first hill of the road, and decided to sit and watch the Tsunami, because it wasn’t supposed to be that big. But then it just wasn’t coming and we thought we better get a move on, and conveniently a guy headed to Dunedin drove by and stopped, and asked us if we needed help. My two flatmates, my friend, and myself hopped in the car and he gave us a ride back to Dunedin, where he was headed anyway. Again, it sounds sketchy, but taking rides from people happens all the time on the South Island, and I was in a group so it was perfectly fine. The rest of our group also hitchhiked back rather easily, some got a ride all the way to Dunedin, but the rest got a ride to the bus station in Port Chalmers, which was enough to get them home.
It was overall a most interesting and fun experience, and I think the Tsunami warning this morning greatly aided our chances of getting a ride back from Long Beach. Next time we will have to investigate our hiking trail a little better, but it all worked out well in the end.
PS I would add pictures, but the picture uploader is not working! More to come once this thing cooperates.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
My new home is superb.
Here is a picture as promised, it is from the first day of orientation: me with the city of Auckland behind me! We hiked up on to this bluff and had an amazing view of Auckland and the surrounding area.
The internet here so far has been TERRIBLE, so that’s why I have hardly been posting! So I am currently in the library using their reliable internet to update you on my life.
I arrived here in Dunedin on Saturday, Feb 20, and I don’t actually start class until Monday, March 1, so basically this is the equivalent of the University of Michigan’s Welcome Week, which we don’t have at Denison. I’ve been walking the streets and the campus and being my usual directionally challenged self, but I pretty much only travel in groups so I never get lost because I am always with people that know their way around (Don’t worry parents!). But at the same time I personally have no clue where anything actually is, cause I never have to pay attention…I’m workin on it.
Dunedin is a beautiful place, it is very hilly and is surrounded by gorgeous rolling hills that I want to hike sometime soon. There is so much to do and see! Yesterday was my birthday and it was a most lovely day. I woke up and my flatmate Sammy made me some banana pancakes (but of course not nearly as good as your buckwheat pancakes dad) and I put large amounts of peanut butter and nutella on them. It was a superb birthday breakfast. Then me and a few of my Arcadia friends decided to walk to the beach! It was quite an undertaking because the beach is a solid 4 miles away…..it took us about an hour and a half to get there one way, but it was a fun walk. By the time I returned I came home to a flat full of people cooking me my very own pasta birthday feast! I have been here only a week but I have met some of the nicest people. They also made me a huge and delicious chocolate cake. Oh, and also on my birthday I went to the liquor store! And bought my very own bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc to try! It was really exciting to be able to legally do that.
Then last night there was a toga party that someone was hosting at their flat that most of the international students were planning to go to, so I put on my sheet-toga and went out to partake. Well…apparently there’s a tradition in Otago to have a toga party for the freshmen, and that was also going on last night. And part of the tradition is for upperclassman to throw eggs at freshman as they walk by in the streets. So, as I walked to the party with my group of international friends, none of us freshmen, we got eggs thrown at us! We tried to yell that no, we were just Americans and Canadians and so forth, but that didn’t help our case. New Zealand is wild…. Both nature and people-wise!
Tomorrow is the clubs and societies fair, so I am going to check it out and try new things! Yahoo! More to come later, hopefully the internet will work in my flat one someday soon.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Kia Ora from Dunedin!
I have been here in New Zealand for a solid 5 days and it feels more like a month! So much has happened in these last few days, and i will try to recount most of it here.
Things got off to a grand start when I spent my 13 hour flight from LA to Auckland with the Australian and Samoan rugby sevens teams. They were all so muscular and handsome, so that was an awesome perk to such a long flight. After arriving in Auckland me and my fellow Arcadia (The program I came through) members got on a bus and I experienced driving on the left hand side of the road for the first time! It was crazy, taking a right turn was especially thrilling, no joke! In general the first day was really disorienting, cause I hardly slept on the plane and had to try to stay awake all day in Auckland. We just walked around and had a tour of the city and I think it looks and feels a lot like any other big city. I was disappointed to see a bunch of starbucks and mcdonalds.
I went to bed at the grand old time of 8 pm that first night, and slept like a rock. The next day we left for Rotorua, a town about two hours away from Auckland. This area is very touristy, as it is known for its heavy Maori culture and crazy cool geothermal activity and formations. The only major drawback was that the whole place stinks of Sulfur, it was like smelling rotten eggs every time you took a breath. There we went to this little zoo place where I got to see a real life kiwi! It was a furball with a beak, which makes me wonder why New Zealand has chosen that for its national icon. Then we went to a sheep show! It was on a huge farm (a very nice respectable sustainable farm, just what i like) and we saw a bunch of different sheep as well as a sheep being sheared. The show was actually way cooler than I expected. At the end the host asked for volunteers from the audience and had about 4 people come up onstage. He gave them all white bottles filled with liquid and didn't explain what they were for. Then he went and opened a door to the side of the stage without explaining what the surprise animal behind it was going to be. It happened to be a bunch of lambs, and the bottles were just milk for feeding them. Now, one of the volunteers was a Korean boy, prob no older than 10 and when the lambs came out this kid just about jumped out of his pants. He threw the milk bottle and immediately latched on to the sheep show host. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. This poor boy was petrified of lambs!
That night we went to the hot springs in Rotorua and I enjoyed many naturally hot pools while gazing up at the lovely New Zealand night sky. It was a great time to chat and get to know people in my group.
Thennn the next day was the coolest! We spent the morning touring a geothermal wonderland (thats actually what it was called) and I saw some crazy rock things. There was even a lime green pool! Its hard to describe all the cool naturally occuring things that I saw so I will have to post pictures.
In the afternoon we went Zorbing! And you prob have no idea what that is! Basically, it's this GIANT plastic ball that you partially fill the inside with water and then it is taken up a hill and you get in the ball and roll down the hill in this giant plastic ball. It sounds strange but IT WAS SOOOOO MUCH FUN. New Zealand claims Zorbing as its own invention, and I have to say I like they're ridiculous thinking cause Zorbing is the bomb diggity.
Thennnnn that night, the last night of orientation and traveling and cool activities, we went to have dinner at a Maori village. It was a little more disneyland-feeling then I would have liked but it was cool just the same. The people were legitimate Maori people and they were dressed authentically and did everything the traditional Maori way. When we first arrived they performed the Haka for us! (The war dance that the All Blacks rugby team infamously performs before each game)
And now I am in Dunedin, in my flat, and I love it. I have my own room, my bed is a full size bed, which apparently is the college standard in New Zealand. Much better than the twin size standard in the US! My flatmates are all really nice and really cool which is great.
And now I am dead tired so I will have to explain more about Dunedin and the university of Otago later. And pictures to come!
Things got off to a grand start when I spent my 13 hour flight from LA to Auckland with the Australian and Samoan rugby sevens teams. They were all so muscular and handsome, so that was an awesome perk to such a long flight. After arriving in Auckland me and my fellow Arcadia (The program I came through) members got on a bus and I experienced driving on the left hand side of the road for the first time! It was crazy, taking a right turn was especially thrilling, no joke! In general the first day was really disorienting, cause I hardly slept on the plane and had to try to stay awake all day in Auckland. We just walked around and had a tour of the city and I think it looks and feels a lot like any other big city. I was disappointed to see a bunch of starbucks and mcdonalds.
I went to bed at the grand old time of 8 pm that first night, and slept like a rock. The next day we left for Rotorua, a town about two hours away from Auckland. This area is very touristy, as it is known for its heavy Maori culture and crazy cool geothermal activity and formations. The only major drawback was that the whole place stinks of Sulfur, it was like smelling rotten eggs every time you took a breath. There we went to this little zoo place where I got to see a real life kiwi! It was a furball with a beak, which makes me wonder why New Zealand has chosen that for its national icon. Then we went to a sheep show! It was on a huge farm (a very nice respectable sustainable farm, just what i like) and we saw a bunch of different sheep as well as a sheep being sheared. The show was actually way cooler than I expected. At the end the host asked for volunteers from the audience and had about 4 people come up onstage. He gave them all white bottles filled with liquid and didn't explain what they were for. Then he went and opened a door to the side of the stage without explaining what the surprise animal behind it was going to be. It happened to be a bunch of lambs, and the bottles were just milk for feeding them. Now, one of the volunteers was a Korean boy, prob no older than 10 and when the lambs came out this kid just about jumped out of his pants. He threw the milk bottle and immediately latched on to the sheep show host. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. This poor boy was petrified of lambs!
That night we went to the hot springs in Rotorua and I enjoyed many naturally hot pools while gazing up at the lovely New Zealand night sky. It was a great time to chat and get to know people in my group.
Thennn the next day was the coolest! We spent the morning touring a geothermal wonderland (thats actually what it was called) and I saw some crazy rock things. There was even a lime green pool! Its hard to describe all the cool naturally occuring things that I saw so I will have to post pictures.
In the afternoon we went Zorbing! And you prob have no idea what that is! Basically, it's this GIANT plastic ball that you partially fill the inside with water and then it is taken up a hill and you get in the ball and roll down the hill in this giant plastic ball. It sounds strange but IT WAS SOOOOO MUCH FUN. New Zealand claims Zorbing as its own invention, and I have to say I like they're ridiculous thinking cause Zorbing is the bomb diggity.
Thennnnn that night, the last night of orientation and traveling and cool activities, we went to have dinner at a Maori village. It was a little more disneyland-feeling then I would have liked but it was cool just the same. The people were legitimate Maori people and they were dressed authentically and did everything the traditional Maori way. When we first arrived they performed the Haka for us! (The war dance that the All Blacks rugby team infamously performs before each game)
And now I am in Dunedin, in my flat, and I love it. I have my own room, my bed is a full size bed, which apparently is the college standard in New Zealand. Much better than the twin size standard in the US! My flatmates are all really nice and really cool which is great.
And now I am dead tired so I will have to explain more about Dunedin and the university of Otago later. And pictures to come!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Hasta La Vista America
I leave for my great New Zealand adventure TOMORROW. I can not believe it is finally upon me, when it feels as though I have been preparing for this trip for forever. I'm all ready to go, with a year of my life packed away in to about 70 pounds of luggage (who knew that was even possible!). This blog is where I will be documenting my travels and sharing my stories, so you can read it and check it at your leisure. More to come when I actually arrive in the land of the kiwis and sheep!
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