Away Again

I'm off again this weekend updates to come.

 more later when the internet stops hating me.

Who chose this Backdrop!? Down to the south island for Easter Break

Let me preface this long post by explaining the title. The south island was unbelievable. I'm sure I said this in an email at some point, but really it was just unreal. Every time we turned the corner on our over 2000km road trip around the south island, it seemed like someone had just pulled down a different poster of a scenic backdrop. It was almost like the default landscapes that come on computers and phones. So that's that.

In terms of the actual travels, we (charlie, liz, and I) went from Christchurch on the east coast of the south island northwest through Arthur's Pass, then south down to Queenstown where we picked up Molly R (from my potomac years for those of you who don't know), a loop around to Milford Sound on the west coast, down to the Southern Scenic route along the whole south coast, then back up through Dunedin, and finally all the way back up the east coast to Christchurch for our flight home. This took us from Thursday afternoon till Tuesday evening for a grand total of 2192km traveled.

So the journey begins on our delayed flight out of Auckland on Qantas. In our mad rush to the airport, we discovered that we did not in fact have to be there 30 minutes before our flight but a mere 15. Security was the best I've ever been through, and not too surprisingly I felt much safer since I wasn't basically strip searched and interrogated as they would in the US. I don't think anyone really wants to attack NZ but this is just speculation. So finally upon arrival in Christchurch, we were picked up by the rental car company who gave us Dexter Franklin III our chariot for the trip. A lovely white Mazda Familia, Dexter rocked through and through even though he struggled up hills at no more than the equivalent of ~30mi/hr.

So here we go driving through Arthur's Pass, an amazing cut through Arthur's Pass National Park and Craigiburne Forest Park. This four or so hour drive took us all the way on our cross country road trip to the west coast of the south island. We hit Kumara, a town on the coast and turned south to head down to Franz Josef where we had reservations for the next day to spend all day on a glacier hike. We arrived quite late and just found a random Holiday Park campground where we could set up our tent (a three person villa really.) Charlie called middle that night and was really the only one with appropriate gear. I had a sleeping bag but didn't have ample time or energy to get a sleeping pad before I left Auckland, so with my lovely back I slept on the hard ground. Liz was far worse because she had decided that since she was hot while packing for the trip, she would not need her sleeping bag for the journey. She instead brought a silk liner.... yes we've made fun of her for this "interesting decision" as Charlie would say. It was a sleepless night for her and I, though I did manage to weasel my way onto Charlie's sleeping pad for a good portion of the night. Either way, it was too late for my back by that point. I will say that Charles has gotten quite good at cracking it though.

Well after a night we will try to forget, we got up bright and early to head over to Glacier Guides. They suited us up with Gortex jackets and pants, a couple pairs of sock, gloves, (hats that Liz and I missed out on), crampons (spikes that make it possible to walk on ice), and blister friendly boots that resemble something out of military. The bus ride to the glacier was short, but the hike to the terminal face was about 1:15 minutes. The first bit the large group was together, but after about 30 minutes we ended up splitting into smaller groups for the actual trek. We somehow decided to be in group 1, the fast enthusiastic group, and so off we headed first towards the face. After putting on our crampons we started the trek up thousands of ice stairs, crevaces, and otherwise awesome terrain to the first ice fall. We spent all our time here though there are three or so ice falls before reaching "the frying pan" or the flat top portion of the glacier. Franz Josef Glacier, one of two in the area (Fox Glacier is the other,) is located in a temperate rain forest. It's one of 3 in the world. The other two being in Patagonia, Argentina, and Fox Glacier down the road. The reason it's able to survive in this rainy warm climate is because of it's fast moving pace. Franz Josef Glacier can move up to 20cm a day! So that's pretty cool I think. I don't much know how to describe this experience other than to say that Jason was an amazing guide who made us explain the US election process (which we soon realized sounds ridiculous.) In NZ the way elections work is quite simple in comparison. I don't want to go about explaining it all here, but really you vote for the party you want to hold office, and then also a party that you want to have a seat in Parliament. This is a very basic description but the general idea. Also, there are no candidates, whichever party wins choses the candidate they want to represent them. So there we go. Look it up, it's what they use in some parts of europe as well. Moving on...we had an amazing 8 hours with the Glacier and our guides. The pictures are up on facebook and in the snapfish album I sent out.


After Franz Josef we headed south towards Queenstown where we knew we had to pick up Molly the next day. It was late by the time we headed out but since we didn't really stop to eat most of the time (PB&J, crackers, and fruit), we made pretty good time. Eventually we stopped in Albert Town a good 60km+ outside of Queenstown for another fun camping night. At some point not too long after we went to sleep liz freaked out because she though the wind/rain was some sort of animal person, and she just launched herself across charlie and I. I don't know how she moved that fast because she doesn't often make such quick movements, but it woke grumpy Charlie up (he was on the far side from her), and made me laugh uncontrollably for 5 minutes. Charlie, the chivalrous gentleman gave me his sleeping pad for the rainy night. Once again, he slept well, liz just got cold and wet again even though she had on every article of clothing she brought and Charlie's fleece, and I just had a hurt back as per usual. I did sleep more but was still unbelievably tired and cold in the morning. Either way, this all was hilarious and since we picked up molly the next day, the small tent was out of the question for the rest of the trip. Plus it smelled horrendous and was wet.

The morning brought an air show road block followed by a white knuckle ride down a windy road to Queenstown. We happened upon the airport on our way into town and had perfect timing picking up Molly off her flight. good karma. We headed straight into town where we met up with Jane for coffee and breakfast (Jane's one of our directors.) The garage was a great cafe and quite refreshing. I was still in my pajamas, which was just unfortunate looking. Post this first meal in two days, we went bungee jumping! Kawarau Bridge is the original site of bungee jumping in 1988.

It's 43metres tall over the Kawarau River just between Queenstown and Cromwell. Amazing is all I have to say. I would love to go again in different place, possibly tandem off the Harbor Bridge in Auckland?? All four of us took the plunge without any major incident. They lower you into a boat at the bottom after letting you dangle upside down for a bit. I have a video of it, which is brings back the rush every time I watch it. We went to a pro rugby game after the jump. We only got there for the second half, and this very nice lady let us in for the kids ticket price. The whole thing was set up so most everyone was sitting on this slanted grass ring around the field. The field was surrounded by mountains (another back drop.) Mostly it was beautiful again and the rugby was great.

The night we spent finding a hostel in the packed Easter weekend rush followed by hanging out with Lyns, Jess, and Vikki (and there friend Charlotte) at a club called Altitude. We actually ended up seeing some of the Ausie rugby players at this club too. It was nice to see the girls and hang out for a bit, though it was too short for my tastes. We ate a long breakfast in the morning as well, but had to rush out to head off to Milford Sound. Lynsey and I kept realizing how weird it was that we were sitting in a club in NZ together. This is us at altitude (the first place I didn't get carded...though I think it's because I walked in with all the other guys who don't look 12.)


Let me just say that the drive to Milford was the craziest drive ever. The people at the cruise boat said I couldn't make it there in time so I took it and ran. Without speeding I will say, I drove us down this great windy road through the mtns, rainforest, and otherwise beautiful scenery down to Milford Sound where we made it with 14 minutes to spare! I felt like a rock star for making it, but was so tired from all the concentration. The others had a joke that I took on a different driving persona with my sideways Oberlin Horsecows hat and sunglasses. Good stuff.

Once again, the cruise was crazy awesome. We went up right underneath a waterfall, got soaking wet, and mostly just cruised along the Fiord. A fiord is caused by a glacier and a sound is caused by a river. Both are basically drowned river valleys. It's called Milford Sound because the British were wrong again. It should be Milford Fiord fyi. It gets the second most amount of rain in the entire world. lots and lots of metres.

Charlie drove back up the road and we headed for a hiking trail along Milford road. We did this 5k hike and ended just as dark was hitting. We started at the divide and went up to the terminal peak along a portion of the Routeburn Trail.

We left this for Te Anau where we had accommodation for the night at a small hostel. Good pizza and some sleep and we were off the next morning for a long drive along the scenic southern route. It took us along the south coast of the island through Invercargill and back up to Dunedin. Once again, amazing. Highlights included the Catlins, curio bay, Moeraki Boulders, and the southern most tip of the south island. There was a sign there pointing to both the equator and Antarctica. Antarctica was closer of course.


We spent the night at this great hostel called the asylum. It was extremely homey and warm, I plan on going back someday. The owner had all these awesome old cars and the dorms were in the old administration building of a mental asylum. it's no longer there...

Mostly this was all the craziness of our weekend. There are lots of little things along the way, but I'll just have to add those in conversations along the way with you all. I'm going away this weekend with the Arcadia kids to one of our directors' parent's home near the Bay of Islands (north of north island.) Hope all is well! Obies, enjoy your spring break. I've added more pictures above since it's hard to format in the blog.

south island!

I'm off for the the weekend so if there's a huge emergency call my cell

Other than the bungee jumping we're also going on a 7 hr glacier hike... 

I'll post all about it next week sometime so stay tuned.  Hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend!

much lovin' from the land of all three kinds of kiwis, L

A day with Mt. Victoria

This will be a short post about yesterday's excursion.  After I finished with class (Liz's were cancelled again,) we thought we would head out to Devonport, a town of sorts across the harbor.  So we walked down to the fairy, got on for a ride across and landed in Devonport around 4:20.  We were contemplating the beach but opted for a hike up Mt. Victoria instead.  This is one of two old volcanic cones that sit in the cute little town that is Devonport.  So we thought it would be a good idea to not take the switch backs but instead to climb directly up the side.  This almost involves crawling because it's so steep, but it was good fun and we made it safely with no major falls.  Once at the top we ran around, took a lot of ridiculous and stupid photos, discovered this bizarre field of MarioLand-looking mushroom poles, then stupidly went back down the same side to catch the ferry back home.  So that was yesterday's amazing excursion.   Oh yeah, and the trees here are amazing.

leaving for home

Guess I'll go eat worms and other antics

The past few days have been quite the experience here in Auckland. I don’t much remember doing anything particularly crazy on Friday night, and Liz doesn’t either so we’ll start with Saturday. In the morning time I got up early to go down to Queen St (a major avenue here in Auckland) to do a homework assignment for my geography class. I ran into a great street market on Queen and so procrastinated for a bit as I wondered through the tents. The hw mostly involved looking at buildings and determining the change that’s taken place on the street over the past century. It turned out to be interesting, especially after I ran into two other girls in my class. We were all about adventuring around the area and we ended up finding some cool things as we explored several of Queen Sts older buildings.

I left the girls and walked home to meet Liz by noon. The plan was to walk to Mt. Eden to get some field hockey stuff for my practice the following day. It’s about a 3km walk to the store, which turned out to be refreshingly nice (but uphill as always.) Something I may not have mentioned about Auckland is that no matter where you’re walking it will inevitably be up the biggest or longest hill you could imagine. Makes for nice leg muscles I’m hoping. After playing around in the store for a while, we walked back towards Unilodge. Liz branched off to Queen street to find a new pair of sunglasses since she’d lost her first pair.

Soon after this escapade, Charlie texted us about the Blues game at 5:30. For those of you who aren’t completely engrossed in the rugby scene, the Blues are Auckland’s home team. The plan was to go to their game, but this soon changed when Liz lost her credit card. Liz, Alex G, and I searched the apartment entirely (found her old sunglasses in the process,) checked to make sure no money was gone, and finally figured out that the card was at a store she had been to the previous day. So all ended well on that end. The three of us headed to a local pub on Queen to watch the game on a big screen since it was far too late to head to the stadium to join Charlie and Alex Falenczykowski (we address him by his full name because it’s amazing and sounds to me like Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc.)

The Blues were winning the whole game but lost it at the very end. After the game we left that pub and headed up yet another gigantic hill to another Pub called Shakspeer’s. We had some really good wedges and were eventually joined by Charlie and Alex fresh from their own rugby practice and the game of course. We headed home around 9 so Liz and Charlie could get ready to go out for real. As per usual I didn’t.

Sunday turned out to be a laughably horrible day. The morning was bad for stupid reasons…and then I headed off for field hockey practice. The bus was supposed to leave around 11:15am, but didn’t come till about 10-15 minutes later. The 6$ nearly 45 minute bus ride made me motion sick and not all together too thrilled about playing field hockey. I traveled with this girl Jaime who happens to live in the same building complex I do. We had an hour before practice started so we watched the adorable coed kids tryouts. They were of course intimidating but adorable nonetheless. In the middle of the game though, these huge sprinklers, I mean the kind that could water a crop field, went off on the field. Evidently it’s common to send huge jets of water across the turf during play because the kids barely flinched. Later during our practice I got hit with one jet and was entirely soaked from head to toe. Not to mention that the water gathered in these gigantic puddles on the field. I don’t much understand it, but it felt pretty good under the 75 degree ozone hole sun. So the long in short of it was that field hockey practice was fun, but quite the new experience playing on turf. I’ll get used to it though, and it should be fun to play games.  Right now I'm remembering the soreness that accompanies the first field hockey practice of the season.  Mostly on the left as usual.  Dad says I can't come home if I get injured (again playing fh) so here's to hoping something happens so I can stay in this beautiful place : )

So for the sake of y’alls reading, I’ll just say that I got a ride home from another player, realized when I got home that I somehow left my stick back at the field, had to jump back on the bus (liz came with me) to go back to the park. We both got sick on this bus, my stick was just where I had left it, probably because there were so many people around and so it just blended right in. We laid on the unbelievably soft grass to get away from getting back on the horrific bus.  There was this great minty smell but we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.  Probably because neither of could muster the enthusiasm to get up.  Either way, we did finally get back on the bus, rode back to the central business district (home), laid once again on the grass outside our apt building to calm our stomachs, and ended up on our faces in the living room. Good fun all around. Mostly I just felt like a complete idiot for leaving my stick there. I don’t usually make such idiotic moves but I was distracted after the stressful morning I suppose.  Funnily enough, I kept thinking on the way home that I had forgotten something, but kept running through all the little things and they were all there. Well now you all know my stupid move so that’s that.

Today, St. Paddy’s day was good fun. We went to street festival from about 3-8 and listened to some live music, danced a bunch, and got our faces painted by these fun girls at the table next to us.  As you may be able to see from the picture, she painted my eyebrows green. I felt like all my facial expressions needed to be exaggerated because my eyebrows were so over done. You can probably see this in some of the pictures.  None of the boys wore any green so she painted their faces in total.  That's Falenczykowski on the left and Charlie on the right. 

 

This is a short story of Charles Baldwin the first describing his face washing experience once we arrived home.  "I tried washing my face, but when I came out, I looked like the incredible Hulk...So then I used soap.  I'm smart like that."  He speaks the truth.  My eyebrows were died green for a bit even after intense scrubbing, but a shower did it for me.

So continuing on, we went to Burger Fuel on the way home for the most satisfying of meals. It’s too bad most of y'all will never get to experience this place because it has the best burgers. I’ve gotten the Combustion Vege twice now (it has no meat,) but I here from all the others that the meat burgers rock as well. They're about the size of my face and they can, if one can exercise some level of self control, be used for a meal and a snack.  The self control bit is key and very difficult.  Kyle would probably just think it was a snack.  They also have kumara fries (that’s a sweet potato here.) 

So that’s that, there are some other random photos that illustrate the good times of Auckland. This one is Liz and I eating a bowl of icing we made after discovering Leighanne hadn’t made it with the original batch of brownies it came with. Good good good, I can’t wait till we make the next box that’s currently taunting me on top of the microwave.  (no matter what this photo refuses to rotate so I give up)

This coming thursday Liz, Charlie, and I are heading to the South Island for our Easter vacation…yeah we get a five day weekend for Easter. Molly Ryan (for any Potomac folk reading this) will be joining us all the way from Perth, Australia, and Lyns, Jess, and Vikki should be in Queenstown Saturday evening as well.  It’s going to be fun and we’re going bungee jumping!!!

It's late now and I have class and a field trip bright and early so I'm off to sleep. I'll try uploading more pictures when I have more patience for the internet.  Hope this finds you well wherever you may be in the world.  

Life and its anomalies

Thursday March 13, 2008 (but 17 hrs earlier on the east coast with this new daylight savings time thing you guys in the US are participating in)

Well it's a calm mostly quiet morning. The sun hasn't quite made its full appearance high in the sky, but it's definitely light out. It stays light here extremely late. Certainly no more 4:45 OH nights. The first few nights we were here it was bright till about 9:30pm or even later.

So this post doesn't have much to say, just the little things of day to day life here (i.e. feel free to skim or skip.) First of all, after many wanderings and nearly two weeks of classes, I've learned that there is just a completely higher degree of dressing up for class than I'm used to. Granted, Oberlin is probably not a good representative sample of colleges, but even so, so many fancy shoes and heals. There are certainly the jean wearers, but there's usually something nice to spruce that up too. Furthermore, I don't ever wear jeans because it gets so hot. I suppose for them this is like fall...? It's about 70-75 F everyday so I don't know what that's all about, but I'll go with it.

So yesterday I went to the climbing club for the first time. They meet at the climbing wall in the gym at 6:00pm every wednesday. I had a good time, got in a few climbs despite the massive crowds, but had to leave eventually because it was so hot. There is probably more horizontal climbing space than Oberlin, but they don't have a bouldering cave (very sad) and the wall is even shorter. There are some cool under cling spaces but if you drop off, fall, or otherwise want to be lowered, you go flying out over the climbing space very quickly, and often hit your partner....yeah I didn't do it. The stupidest thing, is that if you want to keep going then someone almost has to push you back up to the wall. It's a bit crazy. Oh, and the ropes are so short that I couldn't even attempt the sit start for this green route I'm working on. In fact, to even get to the wall, Tom had to climb up the adjacent wall to give me a chance to run and grab the wall without being pulled back too hard. Don't know the purpose of this, maybe that's how they save money, but it's not practical in the slightest. Anywho, I did that for awhile and met two guys who go tramping and climbing some weeks and said they might have space for me. Could be cool depending on when they leave and come back. I have class monday mornings and they were thinking of coming back monday afternoon. So we'll see, perhaps in the future or for just a portion of that.

After this climbing adventure, my flate mate Liz ...and I suppose everyone's incessant name calling (mostly nerd) of me, convinced me to go out with them for a short bit yesterday evening. First of all, they wanted to go to the campus bar, Shadows. Liz put eye makeup on me for fun (mostly to see if I would end up looking like a hooker as any eye makeup tends to do,) and we went down the guys room to see when they wanted to go. When they opened the door there was a "Lauren you're wearing makeup...first time in your life eh?" It was pretty dark and funny. So we eventually went to shadows, but when I got there I realized that I had forgotten my 18 + card. Basically says I'm 18. Eitherway, even with makeup on I couldn't pass for 18 so I walked back to the flat thinking I would come back with the Alex's who were planning on coming in about a half hour. I did some engineering then went back out with them only to discover that the bouncer was claiming it was closing at 10 (though the bartender said 12) and so wouldn't let anyone in. Well so mostly I'll just stop trying to be even remotely less dorky and stick to bed. We went to Forde's, this quiet bar next to our apt building, and I talked to the bartender for a bit with Liz over a really good ginger beer. The rest of them eventually left around 11 while Alex F and I came back. So that was that...except that the eyeliner is still lingering today, though in much more subdued quantities.

I'm thinking I'm going to play field hockey here so that's cool. Practice this sunday hopefully!

Well, I hope you all are doing well. I have six hours of class today so I've got to be off.

a "cultural" experience

So it's finally friday and I'm all done with classes for the week.  My kapa haka class yesterday seems like it's going to be amazing.  We'll be learning the dance, a lot about maori culture, and the women get to learn how to make poi (I believe this is the correct spelling) and use the single short.  Look it up if you're curious about what these are.  

Now for my story.  I was sitting in my engineering class yesterday just before it was about to begin.  There weren't that many people there yet because there is a prescribed course load for freshman engineering students so they were all trekking over from some maths class in the Physics building.  So I asked this guy a question about why there is no changing times between classes at Uni.  He was sort of the jockish type, and looked (can't judge cause I don't know him) but looked a bit like one of those boys...when his friends arrived this was further confirmed.  Anyways, he asked where I lived (not in a creepy way.)  I told him Unilodge, because that's where I live, and he asked if I liked living in a dorm.  Now let me just say that this is nothing like a dorm, it's like an apartment building but evidently they don't really have the dorming situation we have to deal with.  I told him that it was a bit different than dorms in the US where for the most part there were a bunch of rooms and people just share a large bathroom. ...and that at my school, where the liberals roam free (I didn't use these words because I'm trying to keep the weird factor under wraps for now), that nearly all the bathrooms are co-ed (once again gender neutral wasn't going to fly).  He got this really excited look in his eyes and asked if it was then true that girls walked around in their towels down the hallways.  I confirmed his dream.  Then he said, so then girls and a guys shower together.  I said, no usually there are stalls (I immediately thought of Harkness) and so a guy may merely be in the stall next to a girl.  This seemed to excite him still a great deal and he said, so if it's a liberal school why don't they just get in the shower together to save water.  A nice idea, but clearly wrong if you think about how that experience would really go.  So anyways, to avoid anything more explicit I'll go on with the story.  Class started and we were learning about coupling or something like that, and he leaned over (we were a seat apart) and he said, "hey do you have a rubber, (and the confused look on my face prompted)  .....ummmmm an eraser?"  I was a little taken aback I might say but once I processed the eraser comment I handed mine over.  My friend (sitting on the other side of me) laughed when I told her, and said that she had consciously thought about that a bit earlier.  I told him at the end of class and he was like, "yeah I suppose we call condoms that here as well but if anyone asks you for a rubber they want an eraser, not to have sex with you..."  This was said in the large crowd of people herding out of the room.  Yes thanks, I wasn't thinking that you did, I just thought it was funny.  So that was a bit awkward there at the end for obvious reasons.  So that is my cultural story of the week.  Here in the land of Kiwis they call an eraser a rubber and a condom just gets stuck somewhere in all the terminology.   

First week of class

Classes have now officially started here at the UoA. Bit weird being that it's first term here and second at home. I suppose it won't be too bad going from summer to summer. Everyone here thinks winter is coming but in fact it will merely be a nice fall as far as I can tell. Still warm for now of course. Everyone here can't believe I've come from weather in the negative C range.

So as for classes, they seem great so far. I have some how ended up with more class hours than most in my program but that's just life. The environmental class I'm in is relatively small for Uni, probably about 60 or so, and has a fantastic prof (or so it seems after two classes.) He's already explained about the two assignments we'll have in the course and they sound great. Both involve going out into the field and seem like they'll be fun to figure out. There are so many people here that there aren't barely any assignments and instead everything rests on a couple assignments or just exams. We shall see how that turns out.

My Geography class is also seeming like it will be pretty interesting. That's a huge lecture (though still comparatively small) with probably around 200 people (as a wild guess.) There are smaller tutorials to help with HW assignments and get a smaller group dynamic going, but the prof also seems good and still facilitates questions etc well in class.

Engineering class has two very adorable profs (or at least they looked that way from where I was sitting towards the back end of the hall.) The one that will be teaching us statics, the first half of the course, is extremely funny, and the second, seems like he'll be fun to have class with as well. This class also has tutorials but really no homework assignments. Seems unbelievably weird after problem sets at Oberlin, but I suppose I will adjust. Either way, the class looks interesting and I already met two people in it both of whom are not first years but 4th years working on their second degree. Sound like some good study mates : ) Since this is predominantly a first year general education for engineering paper (that's what they call classes here,) there are crap tons of people in it...probably 400 or so. This is all guessing but it was like putting a fair fraction of oberlin or more than my entire high school in an auditorium. Also, there aren't many women in the class, as one might have expected.

I haven't yet had my Kapa Haka class because that meets once a week for three hours on thursday, but once that happens I will update you about the performances we'll be learning there. There are some others from my program in the class so good fun in store.

My phone arrived today but I won't be able to activate it until Charlie comes home from class and gives it to me. We ordered our phones together off trademe, a website similar to ebay. They came today and it turns out Charlie's is pink...and not a cool hot pink, but a cute ballerina pink. Even the buttons and the screen border. It's fantastic and he pulls it off quite nicely. Probably won't be using it often except to keep in touch with people here when/if necessary.

We get an easter break in a couple weeks (so cool that christ is rising and giving us some time off school) and Liz and I just bought tickets to the south island. Going to be an adventure!!! I'll write again when more exciting things happen.

A Friday and Saturday that came unexpectedly and perfectly

Well despite the tiredness I'm currently experiencing, I just had one of the most amazing friday and saturdays ever.  A smaller group out of the larger 12 that is my program (Liz, Leighanne, Charlie, Alex F, Alex G, and Bryan)...and of course me, decided to rent a car and drive down to Waitopo to go on this black water rafting trip.  So black water rafting actually refers to black water tubing.  Turns out we just did lots of unbelievable things in the cave like zip lining, abseiling (repelling of sorts straight down into the cave!), climbing up waterfalls to get back to the surface, waterfall jumping, and a bit of low energy tubing.  The very coolest thing in all this was that there were glow worms on the ceiling!! It was a like a romantic starlit night.  Glow worms actually are the larvae stage of a fly and the glowing bit really comes from their poo.  They use it to attract food and then hang these fine spit lines down from the ceiling to catch them as they come close to the light...So our guide said we should probably just call them shit glowing maggots or something to that effect.  Charming really.  Here's me abseiling (bit of an unfortunate picture but gives you the idea) and some of of the caves and our unbelievable time caving.

 

Sosince we were down in the caves for about five hours (minus the bit of training we did on the surface,) we headed back to the hostel for a respite.   Our hostel was in sight distance of the place so we just walked up the hill, dropped our stuff in our room, and headed out for the trampoline and hammock.  This is me chilling in the sun shine with Liz's glasses.  They cover my whole face so they're pretty sweet glasses if you want to take a nap.

So then post this, we went to this pub called Curly's for dinner.  Turned out the food wasn't too fantastic but not really a huge deal after such an amazing day.  That night I slept on the 

trampoline for a bit watching the most unbelievable sky I have ever seen, and then went to sleep in the hostel where I tried to drown out the snoring of the boys who returned home later than me from Curly's.  

Saturday March 1, 2008:

We were up pretty early ready to head out for the day...or moderately ready due to fatigue.  The original plan was to head to Raglan, a beach town with black sand beaches for a bit, but since it was raining we thought we might detour around.  One of the few roads in the area was closed due to a bridge collapse so we figured out some alternative routes and first happened up on this amazing natural bridge. The tramp up was nice, sprinkled with these weird looking rocks.  We later learned they were fossilized clam shells...look at how big that clam must have been! (the pic is along the side) The bridge was even more fantastic... hundreds of feet high and pretty much just unreal.  That top portion above the light is all stone if you're confused about where the bridge bit comes in. 

So after tramping (NZ for hiking) around there for awhile, we set off again down this incredible motion sickness inducing road where we came upon another fantastic tramping opportunity down to this waterfall.  We ended up sliding down this extremely muddy pathway (it was still raining) where we went swimming at the base of the falls.  Some of the boys were skinny dipping and Alex F almost had an unfortunate encounter with an eel, which would have been extremely funny had this eel (which was pretty big) been braver.  Alex screamed like a little girl just for the record.

After this, we headed back down the road to some caves we had seen.  Another short tramp and we were inside this gigantic cavernous hole. It instantly got freezing in the opening, but unfortunately we couldn't go in very far.  Just a short staircase down. 

Afterwards, we hit up a pretty water fall called Bridal Veil Falls for a short tramp and a good view.  It seems pretty obvious why it got the name.

Our final adventure took us all the way back down that same winding road (I was driving and I was getting a headache from all the twisting) to our original beach destination, Raglan.  This black sand beach was beautiful even in the grayness of the day.  We have all sorts of crazy photos and videos here of us running around, taking jumping photos, and chasing these tumble weed type deals that kept rolling by.  

We spent a good long time here just bumming around before eating dinner at a local restaurant.  Nothing too exciting about dinner except just after we arrived this huge siren went off (sounded like a tornado warning.)  We were all looking around wondering what was going on when we see this guy running down the street and others just standing looking out their doors.  Turns out it was just the call for the volunteer fire fighters but we were wondering why everyone wasn't seeking safe ground at first since it was storming pretty hard.  We headed home after dinner in our blue minivan.  I felt like a soccer mom driving that around with everyone in the back.  We hit Auckland around 11:30, and it felt so nice to crawl into bed.  This blissful rest was unfortunately cut short by the bell tower just outside my window which decided it would be fun to toll on sunday morning for a good 10-15 minutes.  I'm going to look into disabling it.  

Start classes tomorrow...it's been awhile, wonder how that's going to go?