New Blog

So I'm home now and therefore no longer in the land of the long white cloud. Also since I don't have too much exciting stuff to blog about I'm just switching my attention to maintaining my photo blog which can be found here: http://cuzpatsaysso.blogspot.com/

Home

It's been a while since I was able to post last. I would have liked to make a seperate post for when I did the Otago Central Rail Trail, but sadly I couldn't get to the library in time to write one before it closed for the holidays. I did the rail trail on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of December. I drove to the little town of Middlemarch and rented a bike there and then got taken with the bike to the railhead at Clyde by a van. Then I spent the next 3 days biking the 150km back to Middlemarch. I stayed at an amazing bead and breakfast type place the first night and had a glorious home cooked organic lamb dinner with the guy that owns the place and a couple other guests. The second night I spent in a pretty standard backpackers in the little town of Ranfurly. The trail is totally flat because it follows the old rail lines. It was a real cool time and actually turned out to be one of the top trips of the semester. It was also interesting doing that trip totally by myself- lots of good time to clear my mind and prepare to leave my New Zealand world and come back to reality.

So then I just had a few days until my family came to NZ on December 22. So for the next two weeks or so we traveled around the country and tried to fit in as much NZ stuff as possible for the short time that they could be there. It was really cool. We spent the first day in Dunedin- did the Cadburry factory tour and the Speights Brewery tour as well as some other sites. Then the next day we spent a little more time in Dunedin before we left for Christchurch. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Akaroa, a little town on the Banks Peninsula, which is about an hour outside Christchurch. That was really nice- there we did a harbour cruise and got to swim with dolphins (Hector's Dolphins, the smallest and rarest dolphins). After another night in Dunedin we headed to Queenstown for a couple days. From there we did a Milford Sound tour, which was really sweet. After Queenstown we flew to Wellington from Christchurch and spent New Years there. The next few days we traveled from Wellington to Napier, then to Hamilton, then to Auckland. We did lots of different things and stopped at tons of different scenic and cultural attractions: Mt. Cook area day hike, Otago Peninsula wildlife tour (saw seals, sea lions, yellow eyed penguins, etc.), Mt. Bruce wildlife center (saw Kiwis), Waitomo caves, saw the oldest winery in NZ, One Tree Hill in Auckland... plenty of other stuff. Anyway, the specifics don't really matter I guess. It was really nice to be able to spend all that time with my family and to be able to show them at least some of the country. So we flew out on January 4th... and because of the time difference got into LA earlier in the day on January 4th.

We stayed the night of the 4th in Chicago and on the 5th I got back to Rock Island. I've seen lots of my friends and family and still have plenty more people to see. It's only about a week now until I go back to Chambana for my last semester. This last 6 months flew by. It was an amazing experience- trying to describe it's full effect would probably take much more time and space than this blog post will cover, and I guess I don't really even know to what extent my time abroad has affected me yet. Maybe I'll notice something- some way it changed me, maybe not. I don't know... it's kind of self reflection overload right now. All I know is that it was an excellent decision to study abroad, whether is was New Zealand or just the being away from home experience in general, I definitely recommend it to anyone/everyone. I'm definitely glad to be home now though and I'm truely looking forward to my last semester at Illinois. And after that, who knows... (Insert touching, uplifting, and inspirational life reflection ending here).

-Wandering vagabond Pat out.

Rees/Dart Track and The End of All Things

So I haven't posted in a while. Also there are no pictures for this post because I'm at the library and don't have the image files readily available. But anyway.

The weekend of the 7th-9th I did the Rees/Dart track with Xander and our friend Neil. It was a real intense few days of hiking. The first day wasn't bad but we didn't get into the first hut (Shelter Rock Hut) until around 7:30pm, doing 6-8 book hours in 4 hours after a 4 hour drive from Dunedin to Glenorchy. We walked through the Rees valley, through a bit of forest, and into some sub alpine scrub. We met Neil at the first hut since he'd come from I think Queenstown that day. Then the second day we walked about 4 hours (4-6 book hours) to Dart Hut, crossing over the Rees saddle. We had lunch at the hut and then embarked on a 7-8 hour side trip up to Cascade Saddle. It was definitely nice not to have packs for this, but it was still subtly grueling. I think the Cascade Saddle gets up to about 1800 or 1900 meters, which is the highest I've been in New Zealand. We had a sweet view of Mt. Aspiring and the valley below. We eventually got back to the hut, ate and passed out. Then since Xander was flying out of the country in like 2 days we parted ways with Neil and backtracked the previous two days trails on our third day back out to the carpark. So I think we did 10-14 book hours in about 8 that last day to get out- and this ain't no flat ground neither. So then we drove the 4 hours back to Dunedin and needless to say passed out shortly thereafter.

That was the last big trip- my last real hiking trip of my stay here. Single tear... But since then Xander flew out (Thus starting the chapter of the story entitled "The Breaking of the Fellowship") and Rob and Rebbecca did the Rees/Dart this last weekend. I've been hanging around Dunedin for the past several days running errands, hanging out, and sort of trying to get myself packed and organized to come back. So I'll take Rob to the airport in a few minutes and then come back to the flat to do some final cleaning/organizing for my room inspection and the final flat inspection- I guess they have to make sure we didn't drunkenly punch any holes in the walls. So yeah, then tomorrow I start the Otago Central Rail trail- a 3 day trip on a mountain bike following the old rail lines. It should be real nice and relaxing- since it follows old rail lines there are basically no hills, and each of the days I'm doing is under 30 miles a day. So that'll be nice. Then I get back, have one more day in Dunedin by myself- probably play golf one last time here- and then the family comes to visit and we start our traveling. Crazy. Then... I fly home!?!?!

-Peace-

Muse Concert, Mt. Sommers, and Pam Problems

I’m back now from our latest trip. On Saturday our friend Andrew came back in town after traveling around and so we all BBQed and watched a few movies. Then on Sunday Xander and I drove up to Christchurch. We checked into a hostel and walked around the city a while, and then went to the Muse concert at the Westpac Arena (apparently the big concert venue in Christchurch). It was an amazing show- they were epically good live. They had a pretty good kiwi band open for them too, which was cool. After the walk back to the hostel we got to bed, ears still ringing. Then on Monday we checked out and on our way out of town saw a Denny’s and stopped there for breakfast. We’d always talk about how we wanted to eat at a classic American dinner type place and at this juncture, Denny’s satisfied our craving perfectly. After our glorious meal, we headed into central Canterbury.

We drove out on this sketchy dirt road to the Lord of the Rings filming site of Edoras (the main city of Rohan in LOTR). In real world language the area is called Mt. Potts. But yeah, we walked out to Edoras and took some pictures but didn’t get all the way up to climb it since there was a rather dubious looking river crossing and cows looking at us like we were invading their land. After our LOTR fun, we headed back down the road a little way and came to the carpark for the Mt. Sommers trail. We hiked for 3 days around the Mt. Sommers area. The first day was pretty short and we stayed at a brand new hut called Woolshed Creek Hut. We talked to a Canadian couple for a while that evening. Then the next day Xander and I headed to Pinnacle Hut, which was another short walk. We had planned to drop our packs there and try and summit Mt. Sommers that day, but for most of our hike into the Hut, we were inside a cloud. We got to Pinnacle Hut around 10:30 am and it almost immediately started snowing. It snowed until dark, which is around 9pm. So we basically sat in the hut for 22 hours, most of the time in sleeping bags sleeping, talking, or reading. Wednesday morning was clear, however, and most of the snow was melted except on the high peaks. That day we walked about 10-11 book hours on the south face trail, leading back to the carpark. It took us about 7 hours to walk the trail, which had two huge ascents and two equal descents. By the end our backs and knees were in questionable shape. Also we ran out of water about an hour or so before the end of the hike. We drove thirstily towards Timaru (on the east coast about half way between Christchurch and Dunedin) stopping once in some tiny town to get water and fill up our left rear tire, which had been deflating on and off throughout the semester. This is foreshadowing for a later part in the tale. We got into Timaru a little before 5pm and stopped by the visitors center there to check on conditions of another possible hike we were planning on doing. Then we ate at Burger King (the 3 restaurants we dinned at this trip were Subway, Denny’s, and Burger King- yay America). Say what you will about Burger King, but it was the perfect meal after 3 long days of hiking. Anyway, we decided not to head to Mt. Cook to do another hike and started the drive back to Dunedin.

It was a smooth ride back and everything seemed to be going well, until we heard the sound. At first we thought the left rear window was falling down. This seemed probable since the motor had broken over the weekend and we had to take of the door panel, remove the system holding it up, and jam some stuff in the door frame to keep the window up. Unfortunately the noise we heard was not coming from the window, but rather from the aforementioned left rear tire. We pulled over off the road and inspected the tire; luckily at this time we were within the Dunedin city limit about 10-15 minutes drive from our flat. As we expected from the sounds it was making, the tire had shredded and was indeed flat. We tried to put on the spare, but to our dismay the spare we’d been carrying was actually the wrong size. It did not fit on the car. Blast. So we packed up most of our stuff into our packs and tried to hail down cars. After only about 4 cars had gone by, a guy stopped (who happened to be a mechanic) and we told him the situation. We hitched a ride with him into Dunedin, taking the messed up tire with us, and leaving Pam on the side of the road. So the plan for today is to find a second-hand tire of equal size for as cheap as possible and get back out to Pam to put the new tire on and drive back. Always something exciting with the car.

So that’s the latest from what’s been happening. I’m not sure when we’re leaving for our next trip- need to get the car sorted out before such things can be contemplated. Good times.

Our Big Hiking Trip and Thanksgiving

So a lot has happened since my last post. The term is officially over here at Otago and most of my friends and people I know have left. My two flatmates and good friends Xander and Rob are here still, as well as a few other people who we see on and off. The Sunday before last (Nov. 11) we said goodbye to most of our friends that were leaving to come back to the states. Then Rob, Xander, Julie, and I started our epic tramping trip through fjordland on the 12th (my birthday!). We drove to Te Anu on Monday morning, which is about a 4 hour drive from Dunedin. We had lunch and then drove to the wharf where we took a boat across Lake Te Anu to the start of the Milford Track. At the wharf we met up with Ross and Neil, two other Americans we knew from Otago and had done at least one other hike with earlier in the term.

The Milford Track was really pretty- especially the alpine views on the third day and all the valleys we walked through. It rained a lot the first day, but other than that we had really great weather. Even with the rain, we could see lots of neat waterfalls, and speaking of which- we took a side trip to see the highest waterfall in New Zealand. That was really cool and the highest waterfall I’ve ever seen (not that there are too many of those in Illinois). Apparently on the last night we were being too loud in our room and some German dude yelled at us and told us we were acting like “school children.” Since we actually weren’t being that loud and the whole old German guy possie had woken us up loudly in the morning on the second day, and they annoyed everyone with their constant smoking at every hut, we didn’t really feel too bad. Also, the third day was Julie’s birthday so that was fun especially since Rob carried in a 12 pack of beer (on top of the 6 pack of bottles he carried in for my birthday- also we both got cakes). Anyway, we finished the Milford Track and got a boat across Milford Sound to the little town there. The view of the sound was blocked by clouds so I didn’t get too great a view, but it was nonetheless very pretty. I’m looking forward to going back there on the sound cruise with the family, which is only in like 4 weeks. Wacky. But yeah, so we said goodbye to Neil and Ross and from the drop off point we took a bus to back to Te Anu Downs where we had the car parked.

Then we drove to The Divide (the ending point of the Routeburn and the start and finish of the Greenstone/Caples track loop). We got back on the trail and walked a few hours to McKeller Hut at the end of the Greenstone track. The next day we met Julie’s friend Claudia where the Greenstone splits off onto the Caples track and then we climbed McKeller pass and finished out the Caples track, which constituted 2 of our hiking days. The night at Mid-Caples Hut we shared the space with an evangelical youth group type thing. They were cool until they pulled out the fire and brimstone talk on Rob and Xander, luckily I was in bed by that time. We took their pamphlet and had a good laugh reading it the next day.

Anyway, we hiked out of the Caples track and got a bus to take us a little way down the road to a wharf where they took us on a boat across Lake Wakatipu to Glenorchy (about an hours drive westish from Queenstown). We had lunch and took a nap in the sun (it was a beautiful and warm day). After our nap we got on our bus to the start of the Routeburn. We hiked about 3 hours up to Routeburn Falls Hut- great view of the valley we walked through to get there. The next morning we said our goodbyes to Julie and Claudia since they had booked another night at the next hut. Rob, Xander, and I skipped it since we didn’t want to spend the money to book the hut. It was a sad parting, but we burned trail the rest of the day until we got to the car. All in all, it was in the upper 70s for miles walked, including 3 alpine crossings in our 7-day adventure. It was a glorious time and a good way to cap off the term.

So since we’ve been back we’ve been dude-bro-chilling, renting movies, golfing, eating, and things of that nature. Yesterday was Thanksgiving here so we cooked up a glorious meal- Turkey is expensive so we had chilli instead as our main course. Our menu consisted of the following: chilli/chilli dogs, green jello salad, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, bread, and green bean casserole. Also later on we had an Apple pie. Our neighbor Alexis joined us for the meal and the following movie we watched. It was good to celebrate Thanksgiving and have at least some semblance of the traditional foods.

I’m definitely glad I chose to stay longer here- really looking forward to doing a bit more hiking, etc. and it’ll be great that the fam can come in December to see some of this sweet country. If I had to pick one day though Thanksgiving would be the one that I wish I was back for. I think that’s about it for now. This Sunday, Xander and I are driving to Christchurch to see a Muse concert and then do a little hiking around Canterbury. This trip will also include a visit to the LOTR filming site of Edoras. Good stuff.

Schedule

It's currently 4am here. I am up, because I registered for classes back at good ole' U of I a few minutes ago. So I'm posting my schedule now, because for some reason I can't get to bed. As shown, I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which will facilitate a good schedule to work at the Daily Illini. Good times.