wanderingandquitepossiblylost

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

North Island Holiday Part 6: WIIIIIIIIIIIND!!! (Send help!)

After the fun exploits in the snow, now seems like a good time to talk about extreme weather.

On the 6th day of our journey, we got up super early so we could take a shuttle bus from our hostel to the start of the Tongariro Crossing, in Tongariro National Park. The crossing itself goes all the way up and over the Red Crater; from there you can go an hour out of the way to the summit of Mt. Tongariro, or continue over to the parking lot on the other side. We only got as far as the Red Crater, though a few people decided to climb over and see the Emerald and Blue Lakes (they couldn't, but we'll get to that later). Here's a map of the crossing with elevation measurements:

Anyway, we started on the crossing at about 10 to 8 in the morning. It was cloudy, but the hike itself was pretty nice.

We actually hiked upward much more than we thought without really noticing it. By the time we got to Soda Springs, we were up fairly high.

Tongariro also continues the fine New Zealand tradition of having the most scenic pit toilets known to man.

From there, the track gets kinda steep, and keeps looking pretty barren. When you remember that there are several dormant volcanoes surrounding it - and one active volcano a few miles off, which was actually in the process of erupting when we were there - the terrain makes sense.

By the time we got to the South Crater, we were basically standing in a cloud. In order to get to the Red Crater, you have to hike along the bottom of the South Crater, which was pretty surreal.

You can see the rim of the Red Crater from this picture.

Let's talk for a second about wind.

As I mentioned before, and as you can see from the above picture, we didn't have the most clear day for this hike. And by that I mean that we were basically standing in a cloud the whole time we were around the South and Red Craters. Aside from the clouds though, the weather up to that point had been pretty good.

That changed at the Red Crater. Drastically.

Most people who've lived for any period of time in the Midwest has, at some point, been acquainted with what a 40 mph gust of wind feels like. Close your eyes and try to imagine what that feels like for a minute. Not very pleasant, huh?

Now imagine that same 40 mph gust, constantly. That was the Red Crater.

The wind was so strong that I had trouble breathing. We couldn't stand up straight for fear of being knocked over the edge. The path that we were on usually had about 10 or 15 feet of clearance on either side (although it did get pretty narrow sometimes), but on either side was a drop either to the floor of the South Crater, that we had just left, or down into the basin of the Red Crater, which was at least 100ft lower. Since we were in the aforementioned cloud this whole time, all we could see was the path, and then clouds.

It was creepy, but still pretty cool.

And yes, those are socks on my hands. And yes, I was in shorts. Surprisingly enough I actually wasn't cold as long as I kept moving.

Since it's kind of hard to see what that sign that we're clinging to says, I'll rewrite it as best I can for you:

"Day visitors should not go beyond this point.

Track is open to Otuarere [?] Hut. 700 meters of this track is inside the Volcanic Flying Rock Zone. People should not step inside this zone. Track to Ketetahi Road end closed beyond Blue Lake."

That's right folks, there is a real thing called a VOLCANIC FLYING ROCK ZONE. I'm not entirely positive as to what that means, but remember that volcano I mentioned earlier that was erupting when we got there? I imagine it's got something to do with that.

Either way, myself, Kate, and Sabrina decided not to find out. We turned around at the sign, but Chrissi, Lena, and three other friends of Kate's that we met on the route decided to go to the other side of the crater to try to get a glimpse of Emerald Lakes and Blue Lake. They couldn't really see much because the clouds were still there, but oh well.

Right as we were about to get off the crater rim, the clouds cleared for about 60 seconds and we were able to see into the crater.

On the way back down, we met up with a few members of the group of friendly senior Australians who were staying at the same hostel as us (they gave us their dessert leftovers the night before, so we liked them).

By the time we got back to the hostel it was raining, which made for great napping weather. The next morning, however, we got a treat before we left. Mt. Ngauruhoe, which is the mountain where most of the scenes from Mt. Doom were filmed in The Lord of the Rings, was visible outside of the hostel. We hadn't been able to see it the previous day due to the clouds, and though we could have made a detour from the track to get to the summit, it would've taken us 3 hours out of the way in bad weather, so we decided against it. We were glad that we still got to see it, even if it was from a distance.

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Snow update:

I can no longer see the hills around Dunedin. Snow is falling in bit fat chunks. None of my classes have been cancelled.

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The weather this morning:

Me this morning:

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

North Island Holiday Part 5: Māori Cultural Centers and Human-Sized Hamster Balls

Our half-day in Rotorua started with a brief tour of some bubbling hot springs and mud pools near our hostel, at around 7 in the morning. Rotorua, much like Yellowstone, is situated in a volcanic cauldera, or a depression in the earth where heat from the mantel escapes through geysers, hot pools, and mud pots. It was cool...

...if a bit smelly.

After this brief escapade (don't worry, there's more to come), myself, Kate (on the far left), and Sabrina (on the far right) decided to try Zorbing.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of Zorbing, it's where a person is put into what is essentially a human-sized hamster ball with water in the bottom, and then rolled down a hill. You get pretty soaked in the process, but the water's necessary because it lubricates the inside of the ball and keeps you from getting super unpleasant plastic burns or tumbling and falling all over the place.

This is what the ball looked like:

There's a video of me going down the hill taken by Lena and Chrissi (who elected to stay at the bottom), but Tumblr's being ornery and not letting me upload it. :/

After Zorbing (and drying off), we made our way to a place called Te Puia, which is both a Māori cultural tourism center as well as the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute, with two fully functional schools of both traditional carving and flax weaving. The entire facility and schools are owned and operated mainly by the local iwi (tribe), and they retain the majority of the profits from it.

The full name of the actual site is:

It's quite a mouthful, but Paul, our delightfully snarky tour guide ("I have a very traditional Māori name"), managed to say it with relative ease at least four times. But then again, he speaks the language and probably gets a lot of practice, so there you go.

The tour was really interesting; we got to see a demonstration of how flax weaving works...

...and got to see the outside of the marae (pron. mah-RYE), the Māori meeting place and center of most communal cultural activities...

...and we got to see a kiwi (but we weren't allowed to take pictures of it, so here's something that I found online, with the human included for perspective)...

...and we got to see the geysers and mud pots. There are two main geysers at Te Puia: Pohutu, the largest, and the Prince of Wales's Feathers geyser, which gets its name from the time that the Prince of Wales came to visit New Zealand and thought that the geyser looked like the feathers on his (probably very impressive) hat.

There were also a lot of colorful streaks in the rocks around the geysers, made by the deposits of sulphur and iron that the water was spitting out:

We'll come back to the geysers later, but after the tour ended, we went back to the marae for a Māori cultural performance. It started with a representative from inside the marae coming out to greet our designated "king" (a randomly-chosen guy from the audience), and after they had greeted each other, the group was formally invited into the marae. The people on the steps were singing to us as we walked down the front walk, which was really cool. Once inside, we were asked not to speak or clap until the greeting ceremony was completed, which, thankfully, everyone complied with.

After that, the group performed a greeting song, a traditional Māori love song, and a war haka, among other things. Once it was over, people were allowed to go up and take pictures with the performers:

And yes, that guy on the right made that face, or one like it, for every picture he was featured in.

After that, we ate lunch and got some time to go back to the geysers for more detailed picture-taking, so enjoy some geology spam:

After about half a day in Te Puia and Rotorua, we made a few stops along the way to our next hostel. We stopped at a very blue waterfall:

...and also at a lake so we could take pictures of the view (we did that quite a lot, actually).

Up next: TONGARIRO!!

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

Thank you for sharing this blog! Inspired to go to NZ now. :)

D'awww, you're welcome! It's a completely worthwhile trip if you can manage it. :D

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

North Island Holiday Part 4: Rocks are Cool

We started off this day of the tour with a visit to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. For obvious reasons, I wasn't able to take pictures inside the cave (it shocks the glowworms and makes them turn off their lights), but I found this picture online to give you an idea of what it looked like:

I did get some pictures coming out of the cave. The quality isn't very good, but here you go.

After the cave (and a very carsickness-inducing drive), we ate lunch at a black sand beach. The sand is black because it's made of crushed volcanic rock, and MAN ALIVE WAS IT COOL.

We didn't know it at the time, but we ended up getting to the beach right as high tide was coming in. It was both awesome and a little terrifying to watch the water surge higher and higher onto the beach with each large wave.

We also parked the car over a lookout where you can see the beach, the town, and the mountains surrounding it.

We made a few stop-offs at smaller locations on our way to the next hostel, such as Piripiri Caves. It's not nearly as big as Waitomo Caves, and you can only walk on the wooden stairs, but it was still interesting.

Unfortunately, caves do not make for good photographs when you only have a point-and-shoot.

Our other brief stop-over was at a natural fossil/sandstone bridge. It goes over a stream in the middle of the woods, and it's about a ten-minute hike to actually get to it.

Here's a close-up of the rocks that make up the bridge and the surrounding landscape. As you can see, they're riddled with little fossilized sea creatures/

Also the area that we had to walk through to get back to the car was really scenic (if you ignored the cow pies, which are found literally everywhere in rural New Zealand).

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

North Island Holiday Part 3: A Waterfall, A Movie Set, and a Really Large Soda Bottle

After the Coromandel Peninsula, we headed down the island for more sight seeing. However, before we got very far, we stopped off in a tiny town called Paeroa.

My dad likes to joke about seeing the world's largest ball of twine during (every) family road trip, and while I have yet to find that, I can say that I have found the world's largest bottle of L&P.

After this minor detour, we hiked to a place called Wairere Falls, where we got some great views of the New Zealand countryside.

It was nice and all, but it pales in comparison to what came next.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you

HOBBITON.

Here's all of us in front of a Hobbit hole:

And here's Lena and I in a Hobbit hole:

And here's Bag End (Bilbo and Frodo's house)! FUN FACT: The tree on top of the hill is fake; they wanted a specific one, but by the time they dug it up from where it originally was and replanted it in the ground they had to delay filming for a few weeks, and the tree started to die. So Peter Jackson had them strip all the leaves from the tree while recording their exact locations, then order fake leaves from overseas and send some unfortunate interns in to reattach all the leaves according to the ridiculously complicated diagrams and charts they had made. Must be nice to have that kind of delegating power.

This is the last place our tour stopped: the Green Dragon, or the pub that everyone hangs out in when they're not partying, farming, or destroying dragons. Part of the cost of entry included a drink of our choice, and the chance to hang out and squeal over the fact that we were having a drink in the Green Dragon. Which we did. Copiously.

A generally merry time was had by all.

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

North Island Holiday Part 2: The Coromandel Peninsula

After our half day spent in Auckland, we rented a car and drove to the Coromandel Peninsula.

For the record, New Zealand does drive on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right side of the car. What I learned from my German and Danish traveling companions, however, is that this phenomenon is not the case in all of Europe, as was my belief. Apparently, only the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and maybe a few other places do this, whereas other places (like Germany and Denmark) drive like the US.

Regardless, our first stop was a town with a short hike to a fantastic overlook of the bay, the mountains, the island, and the Pacific Ocean.

After this short stop, we proceeded up the coast to a place called Cathedral Cove, which is famous in New Zealand and the world for being the perfect place to take calendar photos. You can see why when you get there:

After Cathedral Cove was Hot Water Beach. This place gets its name from a series of hot water vents underneath the beach that flow under the sand into the ocean. Fortunately for the tourism industry, you can go to the beach with a spade, dig up some sand to create a hole about a foot and a half deep, and access the hot water pools, all without too much effort. And when they say "hot water", they certainly mean hot water. It was actually so scalding in certain places that we couldn't stand in it for longer than a few seconds without it being too painful.

The view was nice though.

After driving through the windy mountains for a while on an unpaved road in the rain (haha THAT was fun), we stopped off at a large tree, which is of a rare species in New Zealand and not seen very often.

I actually had to use the panorama function on my camera to get the entire tree in one shot:

We also stopped off on the side of the road to take pictures over the water before going to the hostel and getting a well-deserved night's sleep.

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So by now some of you are probably wondering what's going on in the wider world of New Zealand besides just my adventures.

Well I'm happy to report that earlier this week, New Zealand passed the Definition of Marriage Amendment Bill! What that means is...

LGBT couples have the freedom to marry, with all the same protections for partners as are allowed straight couples.

Children adopted by LGBT couples will be able to have both parent's names on their birth certificate, whereas before a child adopted by an LGBT couple could only have one parent's name listed.

Couples will be able to choose whether to be referred to as "bride," "groom," or "partner" on their marriage certificate.

Above is the video of the third reading of the bill in Parliament, which passed with 77 votes for and 44 against. Once the results were confirmed, the crowd in the viewing area broke into a Maori love song called "Pokarekare Ana."

The bill was spearheaded by Louisa Wall, a gay Maori Labour Party MP, who wore a bright rainbow-patterned robe to the third reading and gave a thumbs-up to her partner in the crowd when the singing started.

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

North Island Holiday Part 1

Hello again!

Last week was our mid-semester break here at Otago, so I went on a trip to the North Island with four friends from Uni.

From left to right are Lena and Chrissi from Germany, Sabrina from Denmark, and Kate from Maine.

We started off on a bus from Dunedin to Christchurch. In February of 2011, Christchurch and the surrounding area suffered a 6.3-magnitude earthquake that killed 185 people and caused about NZ$15 billion in damage (around US $13 billion). They've managed to rebuild pretty well, but you can still see evidence of the quake pretty much everywhere.

So when we arrived in Auckland it was only about noonish, so we spent some time wandering around. We visited the harbor, and got some great shots of the ocean and the skyline.

We also climbed up Mt. Eden, which is technically the remains of a volcanic crater that just kinda hangs out in the middle of the city. There are actually several of them scattered throughout Auckland, and they give a pretty sweet view of the city.

Here's another volcanic crater that's visible from Mt. Eden:

By the time we got back to the hostel, we were pretty pooped. Thankfully we had a rooftop kitchen and a great view to relax with before going to bed.

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So my camera appears to be dead.

Unless I get a new one, I'll probably be stealing a lot of pictures from people that I go on trips with.

Just so you're all aware.

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

An update:

So classes started a few weeks ago, and as such I haven't been able to update as frequently as I'd like.

As such, here's a quick rundown on what I've been up to...

I went on a train trip to the Taeiri Gorge with some other Uni students.

You may recognize Lena the Flatmate on the left; the person on the right is another German exchange student named Chrissi.

I also attended a rugby game for the first time in my life. I didn't really understand what was happening, but I still screamed at the players and had a good time. The Dunedin team is called the Highlanders, and they're in blue. They lost the game, which was kind of disappointing, but what can you do.

Those guys in pink are the referees. Apparently they passed a rule a few years ago that requires the refs to wear bright pink so people can always identify them.

Also, New Zealand cheerleaders look like this:

Yeeeeeaahh.

Anyway, I went on my first trip with the Otago University Tramping Club. "Tramping" in New Zealand basically means "intense hiking/camping." The club organized a trip to a place called Paradise, about a five-hour drive from Dunedin, and we all camped together. This was the view from the campsite:

From there, we all split up into groups for hikes of different difficulty levels. I ended up on a trip called Glacier Burn, which turned out to be a lot more intense than I had anticipated. We hiked through a river for about an hour and a half, and then bush-bashed (hiking through the bush without a specific path to follow) for maybe another half hour.

We continued up the river for another hour or so before we cleared the tree line, which in New Zealand is at about 1100 meters above sea level. We had lunch there and refilled our water bottles straight from a glacial stream. Most of the streams in New Zealand are safe to drink from directly, no filtration needed, and it's the tastiest water you've ever had in your life.

On the left is our trip leader, Marshall, and the other guy is a French exchange student who tagged along with our trip. In total, there were 10 people on our hike.

There was fun and frivolity when everyone got back to camp, but I didn't manage to get any pictures of that. A merry time was had by all.

The next day we hiked through a forest that looks like it was taken straight out of Lord of the Rings...

...to get to a lake that looks like it was taken straight from a tourism brochure.

People were able to swim in the lake, which they did. I waded in but decided not to swim, as I had no bathing suit with me and didn't feel like enduring a five-hour bus ride back to school with wet underwear.

So there you have it; a rundown of the past few weeks of my life.

PS. I guess I went to school and stuff too.

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A quick photo-spam of some pictures of a sunset over Lake Wakatipu, from the last night of my weekend in Queenstown.

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If you think that all of New Zealand looks like Lord of the Rings then you are 100% correct because it does.

In other news, this is the mountain that I climbed with Lena the Flatmate a couple weekends ago. It's called Ben Lomond and it's in Queenstown, which is about a four hour bus ride west/northwest of Dunedin. For prospective, the last picture was taken when we were completely on the ground; Ben Lomond (or what I'm fairly confident is Ben Lomond) is the tiny peak in the middle that's partially covered by clouds. And when I say "climbed the mountain" I don't mean "climbed on the mountain" or "climbed across the mountain" or "climbed part of the way up the mountain." No siree; we climbed the ENTIRE MOUNTAIN, base to summit and back down.

Was it long? Yes (about 8 hours). Did we ache? You bet your sweet bippy we did.

Was it worth it?

I'll let the pictures answer that.

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A few days ago, I went to the Otago Museum with Lena the Flatmate, to visit the butterfly exhibit. Getting in cost $10 but the rest of the museum is free, so I'll definitely be going back.

The butterflies were amazing. They had them all in this really hot and humid room, and they were just flying around and landing on EVERYTHING.

These blue ones were also not afraid of anything. Seriously, one of them slapped me in the face with it's wing. Watch out for those guys.

And this is Lena covered in butterflies:

And these are my shoulders covered in butterflies:

Point being, there were a lot of butterflies.

The rest of the museum was pretty awesome. For instance, they had an entire hall full of taxidermy-d animals, not all of which were done very well. Like the monkey that just got goosed.

Or the Mongoose of Satan.

There was also a Maori wing that had a huge assortment of really interesting artifacts. This boat, for instance, was so big, that it was impossible for me to get a horizontal picture of it.

There were also objects carved out of bone, wood, and greenstone (aka jade).

All the signs in this particular section were also written in both English and Maori. A lot of signs in Dunedin (and New Zealand as a whole) are written in both languages.

(Also LOOK ARCHAEOLOGY!)

There was also a wharenui (pronounced "fa-ray-nu-ee", I think), or meeting place entrance, that was commissioned but never put on a building. The eyes on the carvings are all mother-of-pearl.

All in all, it was a pretty cool way to spend a morning.

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

First full day in Dunedin

After having been in Dunedin for almost a complete day, I've learned a few important things...

Food prices are REALLY high (or at least higher than what I'm used to). It makes sense on some level, considering we're on an island and most things probably have to get shipped over, but so far the only reasonably-priced items I've come across are lamb meat and beer. Dairy is especially expensive, and the cheese prices are highway robbery.

Window screens are not a thing here. Neither, apparently, is ventilation fans for bathrooms.

Spotify figures out what country you're in very quickly, and changes the accents of its ads accordingly.

Today I went on a walk with my German flatmate around Dunedin. We walked about half an hour before we found Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. We managed to climb up the whole thing, and Lena got pictures of us "crawling" up the street. On the way back down we both got certificates stating that we made it up the whole way, and I got some authentic Baldwin St. postcards to send home. Later tonight, we're going to go to a local Irish pub for an open mike night where some of Rochelle's (our Kiwihost) friends will be performing. According to Lena, who went last week, they'll probably try to convince everyone to get up and perform at least once.

Lena and I are also already making plans to go to Queenstown this weekend and see Hobbit stuff, because apparently you can get a bus ticket there for not too much money. Later this week we've got final registration stuff to do for school, and then Orientation Week (or O-Week) which is supposed to be crazy-fun.

[wanderingandquitepossiblylost]

Got through from LA to Auckland okay, and I got to watch the sunrise over the North Island from 30,000 feet in the air. I've been in this country for about 2 hours and I already love it.

I also don't have to make and Tolkien jokes because they do it themselves constantly. Seriously, the airplane safety videos that I've had to watch thus far went something like this...

United: Watch this video, don't care if you've seen it already.

Air New Zealand: This needs more hobbits. And Dean O'Gorman giving you duck-and-cover instructions. Also a creepy Peter Jackson cameo.

Me: You are beautiful and I love you.