21st in Queenstown

A 21^st birthday lives in on in infamy for most people. Not going to lie, I was worried about having this milestone birthday in a country which has a drinking age of 18. But I think everyone was determined to make sure that everyone’s 21^st was awesome.

My birthday fell in the middle of break. My friends were pretty much scattered all over the South Island in various groups. Damon and I were in Christchurch, Nicole was with her aunt in Greymouth, and everyone else at Mt. Cook. So we decided that Queenstown would be a great place to congregate and celebrate. I was nervous for sure about if we would all be able to come together at the same time in a place none of us had been yet with minimal snafus, but we were going to try.

Damon and looked at our various options for getting to Queenstown. There was car, plane and bus. Plane was definitely out of our price range. So we turned to cars. Our previous adventure had cost us a pretty penny in gas, so we scoured the internet for cheap cars taht we could get for the next day. The prices were outrageous of course. But then we found it. The cheapest car rental ever. I couldn’t believe it and had to call the agency to make sure. Can a $1 car rental really exist?! Yes, yes dear reader, it can and it does. At least in New Zealand. Apparently what it was, was a ‘relocation’ rental. Basically someone did a one way car rental from Christchurch to Queenstown, and the car people needed that car back in Churchurc by t he 17. That is where we came in. For a dirt cheap price, we move that car for them, paying only for gas. It was beautiful, oh so beautiful.

But a few problems popped up. First you had to be 21 to rent a car. BINGO! Guess who would be turning 21 when she rented the car?? Yep. Lined up perfectly. But new problem, the car was a manual (stick shift) and I didn’t know how to drive one of those. But luckily Damon did. We just had to figure out how I was going to get the car out of the lot. But we would figure that one out when we got there. For now we had to find a way from Churchur to Queenstown. What’s up Atomic Shuttles. Getting you from A to B for 50 bucks. We were good to go.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to catch our bus. When we go on, there were hardly anyone on the bus and we could really stretch out. It was wonderful. The ride was very nice, I could just sit there listening to music and enjoying the country while we drove on (the bus ride was about 6 hours long). Damon and I played a lot of Cribbage, Uno and other card games. Before we knew it, we were in Queenstown!

Driving

Well, riding I suppose

We had a few hours to burn until the others got there. They had done the Mulluer Hut tramp at the base of Mt. Cook. Queenstown is a really great little town. It reminded Damon and I of Colorado, Jackson Hole for me. There was a spectacular mountain range called the Remarkables behind the town and Lake Wakatipu in the front. Pretty amazing to look. Always a view. A majority of the stores were really nifty as well, cute and artsy.

Founder of QT

Hopefully, if all went well, everyone would meet up at a famous restaurant called Fergburger. This was a crazy hole in the wall place recommended by everyone you talk to. It started off a bunch of years back, literally in a crappy alley way. But the building was condemned or something along those lines and moved into a much nicer location. The hours are bananas, and definitely cater to the younger drinking cliental. They open at 9am (perfect after a night of drinking) and close at 5am (perfect for a night of drinking).

Right about the time we were all suppose to meet up, the texts came in. We’re here and will meet you soon. Beautiful. I still can’t believe that it went off without a hitch. We all came together, tired and hungry to descend upon the amazing deliciousness that was a Fergburger. They were HUGE. Like face sized burgers. They came in amazing flavours too. I went for orginal. But there were types like southern swine (burger with bbq and bacon) sweet Bambi (deer with plum chutney) the Cod Father (fish burger) The Bun Laden (don’t really remember) and many others.

The taste of love.

We all finished in record time, and that is when I had my first official drink of the my life. It was just a Speight’s beer. A lager brewed in the Dunedin area. But it was actually pretty good. I was pleased. While we were sitting there, a guy came up and asked us if we were lanning on going out that night. And we loked at him and said “as a matter of fact we are”. He said great and gave us some wristbands that gave us half priced drinks at a place called the World Bar. We were pretty excited for this night.

First shot!

We started off our Queenstown bar tour and a place called Monty’s where we had some beers and listened to some sweet acoustic music. Then we moved on to the World Bar for half price ‘teapots’. The World Bar has a pretty distinct hipster vibe to it. It was pretty fun with some electro dance music playing on the dance floor. Their gimic is that they mix the shots in a teacup. Then they give you this teapot with a few shot glasses and you go from there. It was actually a lot of fun and really good. We had some called Ginga Ninja (which ended up tasting like alcoholic L&P or really gingery ginger ale) Smoochable (a butterscotch apple, very sweet) and Illusion (a fruity punch one). Sad days though, no one really got drunk properly as should be done on a 21^st because we had just consumed a half a pound of fresh greasy burgers. But that didn’t matter. We all had fun dancing. The last bar was Winnie’s. There was another really nice band there, and every few minutes, the roof would open up and allow the smoke from the fireplace to clear out and cool the bar down. So much fun.

My loves

After a while though, it was time to head back and find a place to crash. We ended up camping outside of Queenstown at a place called Lake Hayes. Turns out there was a no camping sign there, but we made out just fine. Sadly we had to part ways because the boys and Emily were going to Milford area, and Nicole and her aunt were off to some other awesome adventure. Now it was time to figure out that whole car situation. But lady luck was smiling upon us. The Budget lady said that they had upgraded us and if this was okay with us. Of course it was!! And the car we had was awesome, it was a sweet as SUV. That car drove really nice if you were wondering.

Lake Hayes

The drive back was really nice. We stopped by the place where people bungi jump and the LOTR shooting location of the Anduin River. It was from the scene when Frodo leaves the group. We also saw Mt. Cook which was AMAZING. Mt. Cook is the mountain the Sir Edmund Hilary practiced on before he climbed Mt. Everest. Badass point for New Zealand. It’s the tallest point in New Zealand at a height of 3,754 meters. We really want to get back there and climb part of the mountain to Mueller Hut. Fingers crossed!

LOTR Recreation

Mt. Cook

So overall my 21^st was great. It got to a part of the country I hadn’t been yet, met up with my friends and had a great dinner. That night wasn’t particularly crazy, but who wants to try to sleep drunk in a tent? I want to thank my friends again for a great birthday and my family back in the States for remembering me and sending their love! Thanks guys!

For more pictures, simply place mouse HERE and click!

P.S. I thought that I would link the video that I’ve seen dozens of times when I fly. Its hugely popular and is one of the most viewed videos on YouTube. It’s from Air New Zealand and is their safety video. Its so popular because the people in the video are naked with their uniforms painted on. It took me a few views the actually catch they were naked, but it’s hilarious. Boy do I love New Zealand. Click here for the link!

Why Not?

After a crazy trip to Able Tasman and that intensive bio lab, I was pretty ready for a break. A majority of my friends were tramping to Muller Hut, but Damon and I decided to pass. So we planned a day trip to Arthur’s Pass for some sweet day trips. The plan was drive to the Pass where we did a short hike or two then after lunch go to Castle Hill for some sweet boulders and to check out the site where the filmed the end battle scene for Narnia. Then after that go to Cave Stream which is a kilometre long underground stream that you can walk through. On our way out of my flat, I went to check the weather and Damon said “it’ll be nice, let’s just head out”. Infamous last words my friend.

Castle Hill

The beginning of the drive was great. I love NZ scenery and I don’t think that it’ll ever get old. Seeing the end of the Southern Alps looming over the Canterbury plains with those golden rolling hills between us, it’s amazing. But as we got close to Arthur’s Pass, the weather became more and more dismal looking. Then the rain started. And by the time we were in the village of Arthur’s Pass the wind had picked up. And we’re talking whip open your car door wind. It was brutal. But we went to the visitors centre (by the way, I have my word in NZ English for papers so I don’t get docked points for ‘miss-spellings’, and my spell check was angry and spelling it center, just an interesting tid-bit) to check out some short wanders in the area. The lady looked at us like we were crazy. This is the following conversation...

Me: Hey there, we’d like to do some simple wanders, any suggestions?

Park Ranger: *cocks her head and raises her left eyebrow* Well, there is some nasty weather going through, mostly a day to catch up on sleep or a movie...

Me: *nods, states intently*

PR: Alright, well we aren’t really letting people doing climbs above the tree line today because there is an electrical storm warning, and these tracks (wide sweep of the hands) are closed because of potential flooding... and yes... this one *points to Devil’s Punch Bowl Falls* would be your best bet. But you’ll get pretty wet from the rain.

Me: Wet? That’s alright, we’re planning on doing cave stream later today and we’ll be pretty soaked after that.

Male Park Ranger from rear room: Oh you won’t be doing Cave Stream.

Me: Why not?

PR: Well you can... *dramatic pause* ... if you want to die.

Me: Umm... wow, okay? *Damon and I give them confused looks*

Park Rangers: *Give us the ‘are they stupid’ look, look at each other then continue*

PR: Well considering it’s a one kilometre (another spelling correction) stream, that’s completely under water, with max ceiling of hardly 2.5 meters in some places,

Male PR: and we’re expecting 250mm (that’s 10 inches) of rain today that will be draining into this small enclosed space,

PR: in addition don’t forget to the rain that’s draining from all the Eastern slopes of the Pass,

Male PR: you’ll more than likely drown.

Damon and I just stare at each other, eyebrows raised, I take a look at the map, then to him, and we just nod and say thanks as we head out.

With our hopes of being ace spelunkers dashed, we retreated back to our Green Corolla Hatchback called “The Lime” to sort ourselves out. Damon was pretty pumped and was working really hard to get me excited. And it worked; I eventually convinced myself that it would be totally awesome and that even though I was guaranteed to get wet with my apparently non-waterproof jacket, it would be worth it. Why not, let’s do this thing.

So I went to the bathroom to change out of my jeans (cotton kills kids, remember that) and when I came back, this is the scene that unfolds:

Damon: *with map in his hands looking way to excited* Liz, we can totally make it to the West Coast. We’re half way there!

Me: *giving him the what in the world are you thinking look* What? Are you serious?

Damon: Yea, I mean, we’re half way there! *points out our position to the map, looks up at me all excited* We can just do the walk and be there by 3!

Me: Umm...

Damon: ....

Me: Sure, I mean, why not. We have the car for the day? Right?

So off we went. Hello Devil’s Punchbowl, goodbye Cave Stream and certain death. The ‘hike’ to Bridal Veil Falls was really easy. Lots of stairs, but because of its popularity it was very well maintained. So, I know there are a lot of ways to use chicken wire, but the Kiwi’s certainly have utilized it in more ways than I could imagine. Lining their stairs and bridges is ingenious. Saved my life a few times I’ll tell you that.

Devil’s Punchbowl Fall is a 131 meters (430 feet) water fall. Pretty intense. You can see it from the road and like I said, we saw it for a majority of the accent and descent from Avalanche Peak a few weeks prior. Right before we got to the viewing platform, I decided that I wanted to check it out from some smaller falls (maybe 4 or 5 meters tall) right before the platform. Damon took it a step further and jumped out onto some rocks. Then (slipping, sliding and almost dying) skipped over more rocks to the others side. Now after watching him do this, and keeping my less than graceful ways in mind in addition to the fact I was wearing old tennis sneakers and that it was raining. I just accepted that there was a %110 chance that I would end up in the river. So I beat fate to it and just walked right through the water between rocks. I figured that at least this way I would avoid a painful and potentially dangerous fall and take my losses. It was great fun, at one point I was pretty much in the waterfall. Thankfully my jacket was waterproof enough to keep my camera dry!

The fall itself was absolutely gorgeous. The Maori people named it _________ after flax weaving. Much of the water doesn’t even make it to the bottom as you can see. It was definitely worth the wet walk to see it.

So after drying off, we set down 73 towards the West Coast. No plans really to what we wanted to see, I had a free guide book from a tiny restaurant, but that was it. We were being spontaneous today and would see where we ended up.

Our first stop was Death Corner. Pretty nice view of the road ahead; notably the gorge and some sweet bridges. The drive overall was pretty uneventful. We just listened to music, talked and enjoyed the views. I started to take pictures of the billions of one way bridges that we drove over. Fell asleep for a little. But when I woke up, I saw a sign that said “Londonderry Rock, 800 meters to the left”. I looked at Damon and said “Let’s do it!” So he swung the car onto the dirt road and there we went! Before we got to the rock, we saw a sign “Londonderry Rock, The 3,000 kilo boulder”. We were in for a treat for sure. As the Lime rumbled down the pot hole dotted gravel road, I got ready to go with my leaky rain jacket, jandles, hat and of course, the camera. The path to the boulder was really neat, a simple walk that we jogged down. The West Coast is heaps rainier than the South because of the mountains in the middle. The forest here is fern dominated, there is moss everywhere and you could swear you were in the Congo or some other generic rainforest. It was surreal.

Then as we continued on, around a corner, our path was blocked by a house sized rock. It was just sitting there unceremoniously. No plaque, label, sign. Just oodles of graffiti. It looked like it was about 30ish feet high. I have no idea how wide though. When we got back, we found a little sign that had some legends about it. Obviously it was from a glacier, but it was partially buried originally (in the 1800’s) but during the gold rush, it was dislodged from sluice water. Apparently when it fell, it shook the town of Londonderry so much that the post office clock stopped. Impressive.

After our fun little detour we headed on down the road to the coast. When we got there, we took a quick detour to the coast. We saw the starting line of the Speights Coast to Coast race. A crazy 243 multi-sport race from the Tasman Sea to the Pacific Ocean. To be honest, I didn’t really know what I saw until a bit ago, I thought they were just some sweet totem pole things. Oh well. So it was raining pretty considerably, and the road to be beach didn’t look Lime friendly, so we turned around and beat feet to Hokitika. We had two choices for Westcoast towns, either Hokitka or Greymouth which could be translated to this. We could either go to the old mining town in Greymouth or to Sock World in Hokitka. Guess which one we picked. Go ahead, I dare you. I bet you’ll get it wrong.

SOCK WORLD!

Yup. Sock World.

So we pulled into Hokitka and parked. Checked out some Greenstone stores and some other stores. I think I should take this moment to talk about Greenstone. People get really confused because these green rocks are called Greenstone, Jade and Pounamu. Greenstone is the Pakeha (white person or non Maori) word for Pounamu. And Pounamu is Jade found in New Zealand. So what’s the difference between Jade and Greenstone? Think of it this way. All Bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon because bourbon is whiskey that comes from Tennessee. So all Greenstone is Jade, but not all Jade is Greenstone because Greenstone is Jade from New Zealand. Brilliant!

We then made our way to Sock World. We were pumped. And Sock World was awesome. It was basically two rooms. The front one with merchandise and the other one with a bunch of weird machines. We really had no idea what was going on until the shopkeeper came in and showed us. There was also a machine that processed raw wool into yarn. Then the shopkeeper showed us the machines that her boss handmade. Apparently she is the ONLY person in the world who makes these. CRAZY. They go for 2,000ish NZ bucks a pop. I asked what kind of market there was for these expecting not so many... but yea. 600 units sold last year. To the US.... alone. That doesn’t include her world market. BANANAS.

The $600 machine

But it gets better. The shopkeeper was insane. Somehow we, well, just me, got on the subject of kids? Yea, I have no idea either. How we started talking about that blows my mind, I have been running over the conversation a million times in my head trying to figure out the lead up, but nothing. So anyway this is what she says. **Disclaimer, this is verbatim from her, none of these are my words or ideas but for the sake of the story they are uncensored, children be warned!**

Shopkeeper: Ah yea, I hated being a mother. Being a grandmother is so much better.

Me: Why?

SK: My daughter was a little b*tch.

Me: *eyes wide, mouth slightly agape*

SK: *does not notice mine or Damon’s stunned look* Oh yea, she was a regular demon that one. Piece of f*cking work . Heaps of trouble. Started off in the nasty gothic stage wearing black and hideous clothing. Then started in with the whole self mutilation thing. Ugg, what a little b*tch. A real slut too. She had 4 miscarriages!

My face was of complete horror I’m sure, and she had moved between Damon and I, with her back to Damon thankfully because Damon’s face was amazing. It conveyed ‘wtf, confusion, horror, amazement and the desperate need to leave immediately’ but there was no leaving at this point, we were trapped and she was not done yet*

SK: Oh yea, and that’s not the half of it. She did every drug imaginable, drank like nothing else, had all sorts of nasty STI’s (same as std’s) and hated me. At least 4 times a day she’d tell me she’d like to cut my throat and watch me bleed to death. Nasty girl. Say “b*tch, I should kill you!” Oh she was awful.

I can’t even remember what in the world I was thinking at this point except for exit strategies.

Me: *stammering a slight bit* Oh, god, I’m so sorry. That must have been tough. But she has kids now? It’s all better?

SK: Oh yes! Love the children, it’s so much better this way.

Somehow I we got on the topic of the shop thankfully. Or so I thought.

Me: So do you guys get a lot of people here for the museum?

SK: Oh yes, lots of tourists, but those Asians, they are awful! They come in here 8 at time. Two of them will occupy your attention asking questions and the rest will just help themselves just like that! I turn around and then they’re gone. Stupid Chinese.

Me: *completely floored again, no words come to mind except “you’re kidding” and I don’t know if that was referring to the fact that people steal, or she was blatantly that racist*

SK: Oh yes, completely. So you know what I do know?

Damon and I: *shake our heads*

SK: When I see ‘em coming, I just up and lock the door! Closed! Heaps better that way.

Me: Well, I guess closing the door would help for sure... but yea... we need to get going, long drive ahead of us.

SK: Of course, where are you off to?

Me: Christchurch, we’re at uni there

SK: Blech! I hate it there! To crazy, I feel more on holiday here at the shop then there! You go to put your blinker on like a decent person for a spot, and some dumb bloke will just up and cut in front of you taking your damn spot just like that! Damn inconsiderate them city people.

Me: Oh, don’t come to the states then. If you think Christchurch is stressful, you’d have some issues in the US.

And that was that, we peaced out like there was no tomorrow. No lie, we almost ran. But now looking back on the whole ordeal, I question if Sock World was really that amazing or if it was actually the encounter with crazy.

Crazy before we knew she was Crazy. That is a sausage of socks.

After that, we went on a bathroom adventure to the beach where there were some public bathrooms. Boy had the rain picked up since we met up with Mrs. Crazy. I swear it almost ripped the door of the Lime, but I took off at a jog to the Tasman Sea. It was wicked out there. Terribly huge waves, an angry ocean. The sky was gun metal and the ocean dusky brown and grey. As stopped to watch, the wind whipped cold rain on my face under my hood and pebbles onto my exposed legs. It actually hurt to stand there. But Damon and I did the obligatory toe dip into the sea as does any person who approaches a strange ocean and booked it back to the car without a second look.

I had a long night prior, as had Damon and after all of this madness, we were tired. We found the only parking lot in the only grocery store in town, the New World and parked. There we slept for an hour. A glorious hour. Then up again and out on the town for some food stuffs. Om nom nom. It was Purdy’s fush and chups for dinnah!

The original plan was to eat dinner then at 7:30 we’d hike to a glow worm cave just off the highway home. But it was pouring so we drove home. The way home was tough, it was really rainy and with all the turns it was a little scary at times. But Damon kicked butt driving. Once we got through the pass, like magic the skies cleared. We stopped at least three times to pull over and check out the amazing stars. I remember when I was younger out west looking at the stars thinking there were so many. But I swear, there were millions more that night. You could see the band of the milky way so much more distinct than I have ever seen. Even more than that night in Kaikora. It was just so amazing.

I had so much fun on that car ride, we listened to oodles of country music. I think the ‘redneck’ playlist was my favourite. Had some classics on it. My personal favourites were International Harvester and Fishin in the Dark. The chorus to International Harvester is so catchy!

Cause I’m a son of a 3rd generation farmer
I’ve been married 10 years to a farmer’s daughter
I got two boys in the county 4-H
I’m a lifetime sponsor of the F.F.A.
Hay! That’s what I make
I make a lot of hay for a little pay
But I’m proud to say
I’m a God fearin’ hard workin’ combine driver
Hoggin’ up the road on my p-p-p-plower
Chug a lug a lugin’ 5 miles an hour
On my International Harvester

While enjoying this fun country marathon we decided that it would be awesome if we just kept driving after we got back to churchur to Sumner so we could say we went coast to coast! We got into the city around 10:30 which wasn’t too bad, but we didn’t get to the beach till about 11:45 because we got stupid lost. Heaps lost bro. After our toe dip in the low low low tide we ran back and headed back to our beds. But yea, we got really lost again and didn’t get back until past 12:30. But it was worth it for sure. Because today was our day of spontaneity, country, why not’s and crazy. A highlight of my trip for sure!

Click here for photo-fixation!

The 32 Mile Walk

A really cool thing about New Zealand is that they give you a super fantastically long break between terms. Usually like a 2 week break. And Canterbury goes above and beyond this awesomeness (once again re-affirming its place as the best uni in NZ) by making its mid-term break a whopping 3 weeks long.

That’s

36 day

846 hours

51840 minutes

3110400 seconds

Of break. And because my classes are awesome, I had no work due during or right after this break. Adventures here I come. And adventures I did have.

The day after finals, April 2, Jon, Stephan, Juli, Damon and I left bright and early to go pick up the two cars we somehow managed to rent at the last minute. When we got back and had finished packing the car, Damon realized that he had somehow misplaced the keys. This was really surprising because he usually keeps track of things really well, but they were nowhere to be found. Not in the tiny strip of grass between the car and his building, not in the barren stairwell nor in his immaculately cleaned room. They were nowhere. As I was searching my flat for the 3^rd time, I heard a shout. Damon found them... in the key lock of the trunk. Haha. So after that miss-hap we were off!

The drive was pretty nice, your basic crazy amazing New Zealand landscape that will never get old. We switched half way through driving and I got to drive for the first time! Driving on the left wasn’t too hard to get used to. We all kept hugging the left shoulder, but for the most part it was easy. But how could I mess up with Damon shouting KEEP LEFT every time I turned. It was a pre-emptive measure that was fail proof.

Nelson Lake

When we arrived at Nelson Lakes, we just explored for awhile and looked at some trail we could do the next day while we waited for Max (we met at the beginning of my NZ adventure in Auckland, he goes to Victoria in Wellington). Jon and Steven decided they were going to ‘quickly’ climb a mountain to a hut that day. So while the other ladies drove them to the trail head, Cameron Damon and I explored for a place to camp.

We found a recreation area outside of town that was next to some logging land. There was a nice little trail of sorts that lead to a clearing that was perfect for camping. We went back and waited for the girls while we laid around in the grass by Nelson Lake which was absolutely beautiful. When we took them to our campsite for the night, there as a little worry, but Cam said we’d be fine.

Oh, something to note, we were short a tent. As it was, we were putting 3 people in each two person tent that we had. So we had to find somewhere to put the 3 people that were left over. Thankfully Max wasn’t there so we had time to figure that out. Damon and really had no choice but either sleep outside or in the car. We picked car. There was a lot of dead branches laying around though, I got the idea to build a lean-to. And Damon went along with it! I have to say that it was a pretty awesome lean-to. When we woke up the next morning, the tents were covered in dew and their sleeping bags slightly damp, but not us! Brilliant.

Back at Nelson Lake we decided upon the lake trail. It went around Nelson Lake and was suppose to take 5 hours. That was perfect timing to come back and find Max and the guys. The hike was pretty good. Really easy, nice and flat with great views of the lake. The forest was much more lush than what we were used to down in the Chch area. We would stop and skip rocks, watch swans swim and the clouds lazily float around. The sun was warm, water cool and the breeze light. A perfect day indeed. When we stopped for lunch, Damon had fun throwing huge rocks into the lake so we could see the rainbows in the spray. We were pretty sure that the family down the beach from us thought he was ‘our special friend’. Haha. We loved it.

After about 3 hours of leisurely hiking with some jogging, we got to a hut where there were some older people, prolly around their late 50’s sitting after hiking. Of course we talked with them and they asked where we were going. We told them we were doing the lake loop and they said ‘you’re planning on making it before evening? You know there’s a river crossing too, about up to your waists’. We all sort of just stared. We were definitely banking on making it back within the 2 hours that we had left. So now we had 2 hours, to do what took us 3 hours. And with our goodbyes, we started to jog away. We pretty much power walked/jogged/ran the whole way back. And yes, we made it in under 2 hours! Either we were walking really slow at first, or we were moving really fast for the second part. Either way we were tired.

We met up with Max no problem and found the guys safe and happy after their summit. For dinner we grabbed some fish and chips and then we set off for camp. Sad days though, there was rain in the forecast that night. But luckily Max had some traps just in case. So we fortified our lean-to with tarps and it did the trick. As we were snuggling into our roomy lean-to, I looked up and saw a crazy HUGE bug. I said, we need to get out! Bug! And grabbed Damon by the shoulder and ran out. That was seriously the biggest bug ever. It turned out to be a Weta, which are the biggest insects by mass in the world. And there was a species of that big bug 6 inches away from my FACE.

After a night of absolute terror and killing giant cave crickets, okay, there weren’t any more cave crickets... but it did rain a little, we woke up early to head off to the Abel Tasman! Everyone was super pumped and the drive wasn’t bad or very long at all. The plan was to get into town, find a grocery store to stock up at and then hit the trail. But there was one small problem... it was Easter Sunday and that means that pretty much all the stores were closed. Luckily though we found a farmer’s market and the Asian food store that were open. That was good enough for me and the others.

There were a lot of people at the trail head. It was a good start though, walking on a boardwalk through the estuary. IT was cool because people wrote messages with rocks in the shallow waters. There were messages like ‘Jack loves Sally’, ‘Happy Birthday’, ‘Will you Marry Me’, ‘ Happy Mother’s Day’, stuff like that. Some people found their names written out, but no such luck for me.

Once we left the bay area, we walked into a pretty neat forested area. It was so much lusher than the Canterbury Plains. So many ferns and palms. We were headed to our first camp site, Anchorage Campsite. We all had a good laughs that we were going to Alaska. It was about a 4ish hour hike. We wished we could have taken our time with our first day on the trail, but we needed to go at a strong pace to get to the site before dusk and what looked like impending rain. Most of the trails were in the trees and bush, but every so often we would walk into a clearing area that allowed us to see the surrounding hills, beaches and bays. It was really neat. At one point when we were along the ridge line, we all swore that we were in Jurassic Park. No lie, with the tropical trees, huge mountains and beaches, I was ready to see a Pterodactyl or a Brontosaurus just looming around the bend. We even ran into some people who were on the same mind set of us with the Jurassic Park idea and were trying to figure out the theme song to the movies. We were thankfully abelto help them out.

The campsite was mad crowded! So many people in one area, like a tent city or something. And many of these people were camping in luxury. I walked past a family who had steaks, a propane grill, wine glasses, the whole nine yards! I was trying to figure out how in the world a couple and their two small kids brought all of these luxuries down a 4 hour hike! The forest may have secretes, but readers, I am abelto read the forest’s subtle hints to uncover the mysteries! And have no fear, for I know that you long to know as I did, how these people bring all of these amazing stuff!? All shall be revealed dear, dear reader.

After a delisious dinner of Mei Gorange instant noodle dinner, avocado and capsicum (bell pepper) some of us went for a walk down to see the beach. And what did we find? But a bay full of boats! And yes, that was the answer, people sail their boats there and chill for the night. Cheaters. Down at the edge of the bay, there was a natural wall of rocks. It was incredible because there were names and dates carved into the rocks. Not in the same fashion as earlier in the day, but rather older, like names of ships and dates that first landed there! It was really surreal to touch something that had been there for a very long time and think about what New Zealand was like when people first landed. Before the hills had been burned for grazing, before sheep peppered the hills and house were built up. I mean, New Zealand is beautiful now, imagine what it was like before the Europeans got here. Very cool. After a little free lance climbing we walked back to sit around, play some cards, tell some stories, play some music all while the sun set.

Sometime after that, a few others returned with tales of a cave! A cave of wonders! Not the same as Aladdin’s cave filled with jewels, but a natural gift of... GLOW WORMS! Woot! Glow worms are little worms that have natural floceflouresence and just chill on the roof of caves. Bu t Jon told us how when they crawled into the cave and turned their lights on, the ceilng was covered in HUGE weta. Heaps of them. So when we walked back you can imagine after my battle the night before with the weta, I was not to keen on entering the cave fully. But was quite content to stay a bit further out of the tiny bit and see the glow worms. It was so neat. You would just stand in this nearly pitch black cave entrance and just look up and see dozens of tiny pin pricks of greenish light that look like stars. And you blink a few times, try to focus, and you feel like you’re looking up into an alien sky filled with strange green stars but you realize that you’re in a cave and these are little animals chilling, clinging to the ceiling. Not stars. No matter how much you look, they never get old to look at either. Very magical looking. Apparently the inner cave was even more amazing, but I really just couldn’t overcome my recent weta trauma.

When we walked back it was completely night and like the glow worms, the boats bobbing in the bay looked like more stars that were closer to earth. And it was so neat because the sky was filled with stars, so many stars. That paired with the boats in the bay and the glow worms in the cave was just a neat experience.

That night was our first night in the tarp tent. And as all things go, they only get better with time and experience. That is a kind way of saying our first tarp tent was crap. We only had two tarps, one for the roof and the other for the floor. The way we tied and staked it, it was pretty questionabellooking for sure. I’m sure we were the laughing stock of the camp site... but we were fine with it. At one point when I was laying out my sleeping bag, I saw a guy starring at us in the tarp tent with a look saying something like “wow, what armatures. Sleeping under a tent, what city did they walk out of! Phsa!” Boy did I stare him down. A good minute or two until finally he was scared and stalked away defeated in the staring contest into his tent. Win for the tarp tent!

With two other guys in the tent, and me on the outside, I would get pushed out of the tarped area quite a bit. I would have to say that Damon stole part of my sleeping bag pad. But overall, not to bad a night. At least it didn’t rain. We woke up nice and early the next day. It was going to be a long day (about 8 hours) I believe. We left without breakfast because we had to do a low tide crossing. If we missed it there would be no way that we could make it to our next site by night fall. We were off and moving around 7 am. I really wish I was more of a morning person, because I love waking up early and seeing the world come about, the sun rise, the animals start to explore. Its fun. The bay crossing was most definitely over romanticized in my mind. Instead of exciting sand flats, it was boring smelly sticky mud flats. I don’t know what I was thinking, honestly I should have known better, but hey. After we did that crossing we sat and had breakfast on a beach watching the sun come up a bit more. Then off we went.

Low Tide Crossing

I wish there was more that I could talk about during the day. But honestly the trail could have just been a huge circle because it was all the same. Ferns, palms, trees, ferns, palms, tress. There would be the occasional hill that would be a touch of a challenge with my pack filled up, but nothing I couldn’t handle. There were some amazing look outs onto bays or the ocean or a bay. All very picturesque. But you couldn’t really stop for long... or else they would come... What would come you ask... sandflies. I cannot recall whether or not I have mentioned these little buggers yet, but if I have not, here we go. These are tiny little flies that bite and suck blood. Similar to mosquitoes but heaps worse. They are relentless, bite multiple times, you actually really feel them (like it hurts!) when they bite you, and the bites itch for a good 2 weeks. Sometimes with mosquito bites, when you scratch them away and you just have an area of raw skin, they’ll stop itching. But not so with sandfly bites. Those bites will itch for what seems like ever. UGGGG. They are awful. I will never ever be angry at mosquitoes ever again.

When we finally got to the site, I was so happy. We all just sat right down. I didn’t even have the energy to take my heavy as pack off. When I finally got up it was the weirdest feeling! I felt like I weighed nothing, almost like floating. I mean, I hadn’t really taken my pack off all day and we had been walking solid since the morning. I’m pretty sure that my child was the same weight of a 2^nd grader. So I guess you could say that I am now capabelof carrying a kid on my back up a mountain! Awesome!

This night we stayed at the Awaroa campsite. It was great because while we were setting up camp, we ran into Damon’s roommate and her friends who were also doing the AbelTasman. But they were only passing through and were going to a different site. They stayed here to wait for the tide to go out, by doing the low tide crossing you essentially cut off about 2 hours of hiking! In my humble opinion, this night’s tarp tent was the best! And this is a very good thing because that night it rained cats. Not cats and dogs, just cats. I woke up the day nice and dry!

This next day was a pretty easy hike, only a few hours to Anapi Bay site. We got there fairly early as you can imagine which left a lot of time to explore the area. Unfortunately it was way too cold to swim in the ocean. I, along with others, were pretty bummed out about this. To be honest, I haven’t done much swimming at all here. The campsite was really neat, it was in this grove of umbrella like trees that formed a pretty neat canopy. This was an excellent place for the tarp tent because there were a lot of places to tie the tarps down :D

Down the beach there were a bunch of rock faces along the shore. Within a crack cave, there was this awesome little blue penguin hiding! These are the smallest penguins in the world, and as I am led to be believe, are endangered. He was pretty cool, I wish I could have gotten closer of course, but we kept our distance. I am also sad to say that I didn’t really get a stellar picture. I know, I know. I’m an ecologist and I should have taken the coolest picture... but it was dark and the light was bad and we didn’t want to use a flash and hurt/scare the little guy.

Blue Penguin

Back at the campsite, Cameron, Damon Max and I played some spades. While we were sitting there, we heard a rustling in the bush. We looked, what could it be? And the gasp! Out from the bush out sprang a chicken! Nah, I’m kidding, it wasn’t a chicken. It was actually a Weka, not to be confused with Weta. Wekas are larger, chicken sized birds with dense legs and beaks that are super curious. He was weary of us at first, but quicly figured out that there were many tasty sandwich crumbs to be eaten around our feet. The cheeky little fellow even pecked at Damon’s toes! When we weren’t looking the bird even ran over and tried to steal a bag of chips. Crazy bird. The night was filed with cards, music, dancing and games. It may have been my favourite night on the trail.

Weka

The next day, Jon and Stephen woke up quite early and headed out. The unfortunate thing about the Abel Tasman is that the trail dumps you out 2 hours drive through the mountains away from where you left your car. But luckily there are buses that you can take back to you car for the low prices of $50 a person! Or you can take a boat taxi for $60. Yea... we are cheap. So those two headed out early so that we could come back and meet them at the end of the trail ready to go. Brilliant!

We finished the trail up in awesome time, about 3 easy hours. The area where we finished is called Golden Bay, and was quite lovely. Which was a good thing, because we had a long time to wait. But we didn’t know this at the time. For some reason we were having a lot of trouble getting a hold of the boys. When we finally did, we found out that the bus in fact did not drop us off where we intended and they had to hitchhike to our cars. A few hours later, when they finally came, we were all so excited!

On the way back we found out why it had taken so long, the road was super crazy. I’m talking crazy twists and turns up and down the moutnaints with scary as pin turns where huge 18 wheelers would meet you almost crashing. Terrifying. For a majority of the ride I was certain that this would be the car ride in which I finally lost my cookies. Oh man, it was bad. I almost kissed the ground when we arrived 2 hours later.

We paused only momentarily in Motueka where we ate dinner and what not before we went to Nelson to find a place to crash. It was pretty easy to find somewhere because they allow free camping everywhere! Whoo! We ended up in a park. It’s ironic because last year, I joked with Brain (who was in the North Island studying) when he told me how he slept in a park, but here I was doing the same thing. The next morning we drove around for a little and visited the jeweller who created the rings for the Lord of the Rings movies. That was pretty awesome! But we couldn’t stay long, that day we had to drive to Picton to drop Max off.

On the way back to Christchurch, we drove through Kaikoura to drop Stephen and myself off for biolab. It was great, we got there a day early, but they gave us an apartment on site and some food! It was great. The lab was pretty fun as well. We did plankton counts and identification (yay plankton!), tide pool collections, hermit crab studies and a bunch of other stuff. Then at the end we had to make up our own experiment. My group decided to look at limpets. Limpets are snails that have shells that look like volcanoes. These little guys pretty much live in one spot their entire life, and even create a dent in the rocks the live on. So we looked at whether or not the distance away from the ocean determined how big they were. And it did! But it depends on what species you look at because whether they are breeding or not makes a difference.

So over all, the first week of break was great.

Abel Tasman: A good engineers Great Walk, but over all pretty average because all of the sights were the same. But walking 32 miles feels really really awesome when you’re done!

Bio Lab: Super awesome to learn about the sea life that is around New Zealand and really reinforces that being an ecologist is what I want to do!

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