New Zealand 2006

tramping the milford track

2006-11-28T01:20:00.000+13:00

Clinton Valley, Milford Track

We (me, Mum, Dad, and Uncle Peter) survived all 53.5km/33mi of the Milford Track, one of New Zealand's 8 "Great Walks". The track is in Fiordland National Park in the south western part of the South Island. The track is 3 nights/4 days and with the annual rainfall in the area approaching 6-9 meters per year, we were expecting at least a day or two of rain. We were lucky though and out of the 4 days had about 2 hours of rain, 3 hours of snow at the top of the MacKinnon Pass (with amazing views!) and sun and blue sky for the rest of the trip.

There are two ways to walk the Milford Track. We did it as "independent walkers" through DOC (Department of Conservation). A maximum of 40 people can start the track each day and our group was full. A pretty diverse group that ranged in age from 10 years to about 60 and included both local Kiwis and others from all over the world. We booked into the DOC huts for the 3 nights which were complete with bunkrooms (10-20 beds per room), a cook house with stoves and picnic tables and a toilet block with sinks and FLUSH toilets! So much for roughing it in the bush!

The alternate way to walk the track is on a guided walk with a private company. These folks stay in somewhat plusher lodges and have their meals cooked for them and linens on proper beds. As a result their packs only contain their own clothes and lunch. Overall not a bad deal if you're willing to pay $1500NZD per person... I was happy with my bunkbed and flush toilet...

Here's a brief rundown of each day.

Day 1- We left my car at Te Anau Downs and took a 1hr boat ride across Lake Te Anau to Glade Wharf, where the track starts. The walk this day was short- about 5km through forest with little change in elevation through the beginning of the Clinton Valley. We spent the night at Clinton Hut. Each hut has a DOC ranger in charge of the hut and the walkers. Peter was at this hut; he led a guided walk that afternoon and pointed out some of the local and native flora so that we would have a better idea of what we were looking at for the following 3 days!

Waterfall in Clinton Valley

Day 2- We got off to a somewhat early start (around 9am) but late compared to some of the others who left at 7am! The weather was beautiful all day as we walked through the Clinton Valley towards MacKinnon Pass (which we climbed the next day). The mountains on either side of the valley were breathtaking with countless waterfalls cascading down their sides. The river ran through the valley and was crystal clear with lots of fish! We spent the night at Mintaro Hut at the very end of the valley. Since the weather was so fabulous, some of the group decided to hike the MacKinnon Pass to get a good view, just in case the weather turned rainy the next day and the pass was all clouded in. None of us decided that we need anymore physical abuse that day- so we hung out at the hut and crossed our fingers for good weather the following day. Total distace was about 16km.

Just to show you how clear the water really is!

Day 3- Woke up to pouring rain. I was beginning to think that our luck had run out. We started off that day knowing that it would be the toughest, with the most change in elevation- over MacKinnon Pass and down into Arthur Valley which leads out to Milford Sound. We suited up- rain pants, rain coat, hat, mitts, etc (Dad and Peter in their ponchos) and set off. The track starting climbing immediately and we walked up for a solid two hours. Somewhere along the way the rain changed to snow and the path became less muddy and more slushy and even icy in some places.

The green and yellow monsters (aka Dad and Uncle Peter) climbing MacKinnon Pass

View of the Arthur Valley (under the clouds) from the top of MacKinnon Pass- awesome!

However, at the top of the pass we were met with incredible views of both the Clinton and Arthur Valleys, as well as the surrounding mountains. We asked one of the guides (from the expensive guided walk) if this weather was typical. He told us that he hikes the track 32 times a year and that he rated the weather that day as a 13 out of 10! Apparently

it's fairly rare to get snow at the top of the pass and even more uncommon to have such a clear view of both valleys. Again...lucky with the weather! We reached a small warming hut at the top of the pass and enjoyed some hot soup. At this point I thought that the tough part was over, after all how hard can walking downhill be?!

Is it nap time yet?!

About 4 hours later I realized that going downhill was indeed harded than going uphill and my knees and ankles were not very happy. We reached Dumpling Hut around 5pm that night and were very very glad to take our boots off! The total distance for the day was "only" about 14km but it was by far our longest day on the trail!

Day 4- We hiked out this day, 18km from Dumpling Hut to Sandfly Point where we caught a boat to Milford Sound. The trail was pretty flat and overall not a problem...that was until I lost my footing on a set of metal stairs coming off a swing bridge and bounced my way down to the bottom...on my bottom. At first I was sure I had broken my tail bone, but it seemed to be intact. Instead I was left with a massive bruise that was about the colour of beets. We even took a picture, but I'll spare you the visual image.
Again, the weather was stunning and we had a good view of Milford Sound as we arrived by boat.

Sandfly Point, the end of the trail!

Milford Sound

All in all a great trip! The photos don't really do it justice though!

cheers-

an unofficial undergradute

2006-11-03T16:17:00.000+13:00

So, it's unofficially offical, I'm done with university! I had my last exam this morning and now I'm done! Pretty good feeling. Overall, exams went well and now they make us wait a month for the results.

I finally got around to taking some photos around campus today- they're posted below.
I also had the chance to watch Hayden play cricket this afternoon at school- he's captain of the Harewood school cricket team. Unforunately they lost 52-19 runs... I'm slowly but surely getting the hang of the game!

Mum and Dad and Uncle Peter arrive tomorrow afternoon from Malaysia and we're heading south- likely to Wanaka tomorrow and then onto Milford on Sunday so that we can start the famous Milford Track on Monday morning. We'll spend most of next week hiking (tramping as they say here) and then drive up to the North Island.

Anyway- I'll definitely post some photos of our track. Cross your fingers for good weather and not too much rain! Keep in mind that the Milford area gets 6+ meters of rain per year...

cheers-

s.

University of Canterbury Library...classic concrete!

Harewood School Cricket Team

the beginning of the end...but not quite!

2006-10-21T00:20:00.000+13:00

By now you're likely tired of me saying how fast this year has gone by and how I can't believe that it's already May....July...September....and now October! I feel like I'm in some kind of bizzare time machine- but maybe that's more because it's October (which I associate with pumpkins and fall harvest) and yet the tuilips are blooming and my allergies are out of control. Nevermind, you'd think by now I'd be used to the opposite seasons.

Right, so it's spring in New Zealand which unfortunately brings along the end of the semester (not such a bad thing) and exams (which unfortunately equal stress). Study week is now over and my first two exams are next week (breathe...) and are Biochemistry and Industrial & Organisational Psychology. Cognitive Psyc is the following week and then I'm free! Exams here are quite different than what I'm used to back at Auburn where the exam period lasts five days and most exams are re-testing information that was tested throughout the semester. Here there are no tests during the semester (except possibly a midterm in some courses) and so final exams are worth a lot- anywhere from 50-75% of the final mark. Hence the stress.

The light at the end of the tunnel is becoming visible- after exams my parents and uncle are coming to NZ for two weeks and we have what should be a great trip planned. First week includes Queenstown, Wanaka and hiking the famous Milford Track in Fijordland (wayyyy down South) one of New Zealand's 8 "Great Walks". The second week we're heading North- from Christchurch to the top of the South Island, across on the Interislander ferry and then up to Auckland.

From there I'll head back to the tropics (Malaysia) for a few weeks of sun and then back to the US. I heard yesterday on the radio that Christmas is only 13 weeks away!

Enjoy the fall weather on your side of the world, and get extra candy for me at Halloween- New Zealand kids haven't quite picked up on that trick yet!

cheers-

s.

Sorry- no new pictures to add...my textbooks aren't that exciting! I'll try to take a few pictures of campus soon though, the Spring flowers are impressive!

weekend at Lake Brunner

2006-09-30T13:51:00.000+12:00

Last weekend I spent at Lake Brunner, on the west coast of the South Island. My Rotary host counselor Valda, and her husband Rex own a bach (cottage) in Moana, the small community on the shore of Lake Brunner. We had a really relaxing weekend- on Saturday we went out of their boat and I water skiied a bit but it was freezing! I was wearing a 3mm wet suit but it the water was a mere 52F (11C) and my hands were numb after about 20min. We did a bit of fishing and caught 3 brown trout!

The west coast is well known for its mining and fishing- a lot of coal and gold mining went on there in the mid-late 1800s. The Brunner coal mine (pic below) is an old mine that is not a heritage site- a lot of the old machinery is still there. We also went to Nelson Lakes gold area- they used huge water cannon to cut out deep trenches in the hillside and then washed the gold out with water and filtered it. There are countless of these deep crevases in the hillside, some of which were also dug by hand using rock picks.

On Sunday (in the rain) we drove north to the Punakaiki blow holes and even though the weather wasn't great, we were there just at high tide so it was pretty impressive!

Enjoy the pictures...

cheers-
s.

Punakaiki Blowholes

Water Cannon for gold mining- Nelson Lakes area

Brunner coal mine

me and my somewhat slimey brown trout!

Water skiing on Lake Brunner--there was actually snow on the mountains around the lake and I could see my breath...insane.

Rugby!

2006-09-10T16:46:00.001+12:00

Spring did start on September 1 and even though there are still from frigid nights and frosty mornings, it’s definitely getting warmer! I spoke at the Bishopdale-Burnside Rotary club last week and was invited to the rugby game on Sunday at Jade Stadium- Canterbury v. Counties Manakau. Their club has a contract with the stadium to sell programs before each game. Daisy and I went along on Sunday afternoon and after donning some very attractive gear we were off to shout “programs for sale!” for the next two hours outside the stadium. It was actually pretty fun and we met some interesting rugby fans. A lot of people thought that a) the programs were free, or b) that I worked at the stadium…so it made my job interesting! The best part was that we got into the game for free and I sat beside an avid rugby fan so I picked up some tips on how the game works.

cheers-
s.

Sydney and Melbourne

2006-09-10T16:46:00.000+12:00

During the second week of our two week midterm break (I love this school schedule), I met mum in Aussie! We had a great week of sight-seeing, eating, and of course, shopping! I flew direct from Christchurch to Sydney (at 7am) and then had the joy of getting held up at immigration in Sydney, apparently because of some problem with my Canadian passport. After getting told by a man in an official uniform that he was “sending me home” (although I’m not even sure where he would send me) I was able to leave his little office, collect my bags and walk out into the sunshine of Sydney. The first thing I noticed is that Australia is, overall, much warmer than New Zealand. In Sydney we took in all the sights, the famous Opera House, the Rocks (cool market area), Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, the SkyTower…the list goes on. We took the ferry to Many, a cute little beach town about 30min from downtown. One night we saw the Sydney Symphony perform in the Opera House which was impressive to say the least.
After our whirlwind tour of Sydney we flew to Melbourne (on the southeast coast) for a few days. I really enjoyed Melbourne, although I think I preferred Sydney! We checked out the downtown area which includes Bourke Street mall, an outdoor pedestrian mall, and the Immigration Museum a really cool interactive museum that tells the story of people who settled Australia…the convicts and all. We also spent a day down at the beach in St. Kilda- complete with a great boardwalk and cute cafes!
We had 6 great days in the land of Oz which definitely wasn’t enough time to see even half of what there was to see…and that’s just in two cities! I’ll be going back for sure…

cheers-

s.

Downtown Sydney, Circular Quay

Sydney Opera House + rainbow

Harbour Bridge, Sydney

Mum checking out the view from the SkyTower, Sydney

St. Kilda's beach, just south of Melbourne

blenheim and nelson Rotary week

2006-09-10T16:45:00.001+12:00

We had a midterm break for two weeks (August 18-September 4) and for the first week, I headed up to the "Top of the South", the area of beautiful vineyards, stunning coastline, and really really friendly people. I spent the week with the other five ambassadorial scholars who are studying in Christchurch spent the week together in Blenheim, Picton, and Nelson- the area at the tip of the South Island. We were hosted by various Rotarians and between the six of us, spoke to all 10 Rotary clubs in the area. While we weren't wining and dining with Rotarians, we were touring wineries (and tasting!), boating on the Marlborough Sounds, and hiking in Abel Tasman National Park. Overall it was a great week!!

Glen, Jesse and me in Kaikoura at the seal colony on the way to Blenheim

On the boat in the Marlborough Sounds- Glen, Andrea and Henrik checking out the catch. We caught some really tasty scallops!

The group on the boat 'Eliza' in the Marlborough Sounds- Andrea, Henrik, Daisy, me, Glen, Miriam (daughter of a Rotarian), and Jesse

Daisy and Henrik hiking down to Anchorage- the first part of the Abel Tasman walk (one of NZ's 8 Great Walks)

Abel Tasman National Park

The incredible view from our host's house in Nelson- looking towards Abel Tasman National Park

Henrik, me and Daisy getting ready for a Rotary meeting in Nelson.

cheers-

Lambs!

2006-08-12T15:45:00.000+12:00

Although Spring doesn't officially start in New Zealand until September 1, it's apparent that Spring is on its way...lambs are starting to be born! We drove to Rangiora yesterday for Hayden's soccer game, about 45min north of Christchurch and lots of the fields were full of baby lambs- white, black, and everything in between!
The Sopers have a small herd of sheep and this year are expecting about seven lambs. Two of them were born in the past week! The one I'm holding below is just a day old- probably weighs only a few kilograms and was very squirmy! They're both black and really cute...not to mention really fast runners when you try to catch them! They hang around their mums but suprisingly the mummy isn't agressive or overprotective when you catch her lamb.

cheers-
s.

around the farm

2006-07-23T12:11:00.000+12:00

Jamie after a bath...aka Batman. I love this picture!

Until yesterday, I hadn't actually explored the farm that I'm living on...the Sopers have about 16 acres behind their house, where you will find olive trees, lavender bushes, a veggie garden, some old berry patches as well as several sheep.

We took a walk around the farm yesterday with Jamie- mostly to check on the sheep, about 7 of them are expecting lambs soon! Unfortunately one of the ewes, who we think was expecting twins, fell ill with sleeping sickness (apparently common for pregnant sheep expecting more than one lamb) and passed away this afternoon. She's burried in the very back of the farm in the pet/animal graveyard. According to Noeline the sheep used to all have names, but it got too confusing, so now they are just Sheep 1 through Sheep 11 (well, Sheep 10 now).

Jamie and Inca...the impatient sheep dog!

Sheep 1-10.

Jamie and Benny the cat after a bath (Jamie, not Benny had a bath.)

Jamie and I with Sheep 11. Rest in Peace.

cheers-

Queenstown

2006-07-23T10:24:00.000+12:00

Lake Tekapo

Skiing at Coronet Peak!

Sunset over The Remarkables and Lake Wakatipu

Paragliding into the sunset

The (awesome) luge track!

I think I might have found it---one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. Queenstown is touristy, which is a good reason why most Kiwis don't care for Queenstown...but you have to agree that it's still beautiful. Kathryn and I spent four days there with her sister (who lives and works in Queenstown) over our semester break. On Thursday we went up the Skyline Gondola to the lookout over the city and The Remarkables mountain range. That's where we went down the luge track (picture above) which was awesome! You sit in a little cart and race down a concrete track...while overlooking the incredible mountains. Pretty cool! We were there around sunset which made it even more spectacular. Note the paragliders in the pictures above!

On Friday we skiied at Coronet Peak which was also amazing. I really think that skiing above the tree-line is much better than having the chance of getting stuck in trees. We had great weather and the snow was pretty good- a little icy near the top though!

Saturday was a day of recovery for our poor muscles- we slept in and then took a walk around the other side of the lake from the actual town of Queenstown, in an area called Kelvin Heights. This is the rich area, not only because it's right on the water, but also because they get the most sun. Claire, Kathryn's sister lives in a condo that doesn't see the sun for 3 months out of the year! Needless to say their heating bill in the winter is pretty steep.

On Sunday we drove back to Christchurch through Lake Tekapo which was beautiful. The lakes in this region are an incredible turquoise colour. According to my trusty Lonely Planet guide, this colour is due to the "rock flour" sediment in the water. This is from when the lake's basin was dug out by the glacier. The sediment gives the water a milky appearance and refracts the sunlight! Another great day weather-wise with some stunning views. Then on Monday it was back to school!

Cheers-

s.

new semester, new home!

2006-07-13T13:33:00.000+12:00

Time seriously does fly...I can't believe that July is half over! I'm sure most of you are sweating and complaining about the heat while I'm snuggled under a wool blanket and scraping ice off my car in the mornings!

I had a great break last week, Kathryn and I took a trip down to Queenstown to ski and relax! I'll post more about that later...

Two weeks ago I moved from the student apartments at Ilam to a home-stay with the Soper family. Rebecca, a friend from Auburn who was here last semester doing her student teaching lived with the Sopers and they invited me to live with them this semester. I have my own (huge!) room and bathroom! I also now have two younger brothers, Hayden is 10 and Jamie is just 3.

Jamie's latest obession is anything with holes. He had a hole in his sock the other day and insisted that he couldn't wear it. Now he checks everyone's socks, shirts, pants, whatever to make sure they don't have any holes either. He found out that his pyjama shirt has button holes...it took a lot of convincing to assure him that they were ok!

Hayden and Jamie

cheers-

s.

skiing...in june!

2006-07-02T21:27:00.000+12:00

It's been quite a busy week...I had two exams on Monday and Tuesday, moved to my new house (pictures coming!) and volunteered at the hospital on Wednesady, went skiing at Mt Hutt on Thursday, and said goodbye to one of my flatmates on Friday (going home to the US).

My new house, and family (the Sopers) are wonderful! I have my own room with a huge bed and tv, own bathroom complete with a heater towel rack and heat lamp...a necessity for cold New Zealand mornings! My new family consists of a mum and dad (Noeline and Nigel), two brothers (Hayden age 10 and Jamie age 3) and a random assortment of dogs, cats, and sheep! The house is on 16 acres on the outskirts of Christchurch, about a 10min drive to campus. The family is in Picton this weekend at their bach (lake house) because it's the beginning of school holidays.

On Thursday Katie and I went skiing at Mt Hutt! It's one of the biggest and closest hills to Christchurch, about a 90min drive. So far this season they have had more snow (130cm base) than they had all of last year! It's quite different skiing here, everything is above the treeline so there is no need to cut out runs between the trees! That also means that there are no trail maps at the top of the lifts...you kinda just get off and go! I found the snow here to be quite wet and sticky, not exactly the powder that North America is spoiled with! The views are incredible though and it was overall a great day! Katie leaves tomorrow for home and although she is so excited about getting home (even in time for July 4th) I'm going to miss her being next door to me next semester!

This week I'm heading south of here about 5 hours to Queenstown, apparently the "adventure capital of the world!" with my friend Kathryn to go skiing at The Remarkables and Coronet Peak. Her sister just moved there to work so we even have a free place to stay!

In the meantime, I'm trying to stay warm (I think maybe Kiwis can learn a thing or two from Canadians about how to stay warm in the winter!) by hanging out in the living room by the fire. I was very proud of myself for being able to light the fire today!

cheers-

s.

stress (exam time)

2006-06-18T00:25:00.000+12:00

Study week is almost over and I feel as if I've only done about 20% of what I need to do before exams...fantastic. Fortunately I only have 3 of them, but they're all worth between 40-60% so it adds just a tad bit of pressure. Not to mention that mcat scores get released next week (talk about perfect timing). I'm debating whether or not to check them when they come out or to wait until after exams. I'm not sure I have enough will-power to wait.

On a somewhat happier note- I went to the observatory last night with Kathryn and her friend Sarah (who knows a lot more about astronomy than I do!). Unfortunately when we got there it was too cloudy to actually see anything, but the view of the city from the top of the observatory was impressive in itself. The observatory is on the old UC campus (downtown, now known as the Arts Centre) which dates back to the mid 1800s. It's a really beautiful campus with all stone buildings...it's really too bad that they moved out to the suburbs and now have 1960s concrete buildings. The telescope dates back to 1891 (perhaps the oldest in NZ?) I'll have to go back on a real starry night to check out the Southern sky.

Nothing else too exciting at the moment- I'm planning on going to ski in Queenstown during our semester break (first week of July) and am also moving to my new home then! I'm living with a family next semester who has two boys- Hayden who is 10 and adorable Jamie who just turned 3! I'm really looking forward to having a Kiwi family and my own bathroom!

'night

s.

PS- they are forcasting snow again for the South Island tomorrow...maybe not all the way down to sea level but I wouldn't be surprised!

snow!

2006-06-12T10:59:00.000+12:00

June 12....not even officially winter here yet and it's snowing. Apparently it ususally only snows here every second year or so and rarely this early in the year. Yesterday the weather forecast for Christchurch was "fine" with a high of 10C. The weather website did say that Queenstown (south of here) would have "bone chilling southerlies". All weather here is based on the wind direction which I am slowly but surely figuring out. Southlies means cold wind, although it's weird to think that the further north you go the warmer it gets.
Anyway, so I woke up this morning to white stuff. The ground isn't frozen so it likely won't stay for too long. But it's 11am and it's still snowing. It's a shame that classes are over for the semester otherwise they probably would have been canceled today. I did go to the gym this morning in shorts...probably not the smartest idea! Oh well. It's a good day to study and look outside at the snow. I'm going to a Rotary meeting for lunch today so I need to shower and get ready.

Have a great day!

cheers

s.

Shrek the sheep

2006-06-04T14:40:00.000+12:00

One of the guys who went tramping yesterday was telling us about "Shrek" the sheep who somehow escaped his herd and ran wild for 6 years was found in 2004 with a massive wooly coat. Below is an article about Shrek and a few funny pictures.

that's a lot of wool!

Shrek, the sheep from Central Otago

Shrek's golden fleece finally comes off
29.04.2004
In the end he was just another spindly, skittery sheep. Once shorn on national television - a broadcast that went to Japan, Australia, Britain and the US - the enigma that was Shrek, the Central Otago superstar, disappeared. He no longer looked like his namesake. He just looked confused and cold. It all began two weeks ago when the wether was discovered high on Bendigo Station near Tarras, woolly and wild and sporting a merino fleece of six years' growth, having eluded many an annual muster. He was captured and brought down to the homestead, where a visiting Hawkes Bay pony club team dubbed him Shrek. The wool and the meat on the 9-year-old were not worth much to station owner John Perriam. But the fleece "is worth a goldmine and more" to the Cure Kids charity, says chief executive Kaye Parker. She has organised for the shorn wool to be auctioned online to raise money for sick children. Interest from media in New Zealand and across the world about the hermit sheep finally being caught prompted Mr Perriam to select Cure Kids as the recipient of proceeds from the shearing. The Shrek hype spread across the globe, from Alaskan newspapers and Chinese news websites to the BBC and CNN. The news was out - a very woolly sheep had been found in NZ and it was going to be shorn. The media frenzy did not let up last night as the cameras and reporters descended on Cromwell.Peter Casserly, a former world blade-shearing champion, peeled Shrek's coat off with ease and nicked the skin only twice. Soon it was all over.

i feel like jello

2006-06-03T22:23:00.000+12:00

wow!- what a day. A friend of mine, Darragh, who's working on his PhD here (originally from South Africa) called me on Thursday and asked me to come along on this tramp (hike) in Lewis Pass this weekend. The conversation started with him asking if I was actually a member of the Tramping Club and commented that he hadn't seen me at the past few meetings. I am indeed a paying member of the club, but after a few long drawn out meetings of people doing a show-and-tell of their tramping pictures in detail (total overkill), and since I wasn't going on any of the trips anyway, I stopped attending meetings.

But, after some convincing and a little arm twisting, I ended up going to Lewis Pass today with 5 others to hike/tramp to Lake Daniels. This weekend is "hut bagging" in Lewis Pass for the tramping club, meaning that several groups were going out to try and "bag" (aka visit) all of the DOC (dept. of conservation) huts in the area. Right, so we had two huts on our mission. We started off from ChCh at 7am and found out that the sunrise was well worth getting up for. Unfortunately I don't have a picture (driving and photography aren't really compatible) but trust me, it was stunning. We arrived at the trail head around 9:45am and set off just around 10am. We knew that we had a long day ahead and that our daylight was limited, sunrise is around 7:45am and sunset is just after 5pm (damn winter) so the pace was set pretty fast from the get-go. The trail was well-maintained and not too taxing, although there was a fair bit of mud to navigate through and some slippery roots. The path went up a valley next to a beautiful river (it looked like someone had put blue food colouring in it!) to Lake Daniels. The lake was pretty, very tranquil and calm and extremely shallow. We ate lunch at the hut there and then set off to find the second hut on our list, somewhere in the next valley on the other side of the lake.

This is where things got a little interesting...we didn't really have a path and our map (c. 1987) said that there was a 4-wheel drive track that led to the next hut. Not so much! After some 90min of pseudo bush-bashing we find out that there's a reason the hut isn't marked on the new maps...it's private and is located in a field of cows surrounded by an electric fence. I think great, we see the hut, we'll take a picture, mark it down. Oh no. We hop the fence and start trekking through the cow field/bog/marsh. We make it to the hut and take a group photo to prove that we accomplished our mission.

Approaching the second hut (and cow field). Note the (electric) fence.

Tramping through the cow field.

Cows!

On the way back, we were all commenting on how despite all the mud, we had all kept our feet dry. Ha, well at least most of us had. Somehow in the last hour of the walk I ended up misjudging two mud holes and soaked not one, but both feet in about a foot of mud. Cold, wet, dirty, mud. I think my legs were screaming at me by then. They're not used to such abuse.

Leaves, and my poor foot around km25. This was right before I got it stuck in the mud.

So..some 7.5hrs, 36km (22miles) later we arrived back at the car park. We made it just before dusk and overall had a great day. We stopped in Hamner Springs for a quick dinner- my juicy cheeseburger and chips were certainly satisfying.

I'm off to bed for what promises to be a long deep sleep. Monday is the Queen's Birthday holiday here so yay for no lectures! This upcoming week is the last week of the term (yikes) and I have my first exam, in Abnormal Psychology, on Thursday. Then it's a week for study week, which I definitely need and I have 3 more exams before June 27.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world...I bet it's warmer there than it is here!

just to prove I was there!

cheers-

s.

the past few weeks

2006-05-16T21:38:00.000+12:00

well...since I last posted a few weeks ago quite a bit has happened! I turned 21 on April 29 and spent my birthday and the few days before on the beautiful island of Perhentian off the coast of Malaysia, close to Thailand. Dad and I did lots of scuba diving and we all enjoyed the water, sand, and lots of sun!

It was back to Christchurch on April 30 and my flight from Singapore was supposed to land at 10:30am on Monday morning, leaving me lots of time to make my three lectures of the day. As we were about to land in Christchurch we suddenly took off again and found out about 10 minutes later that it was too foggy to land and that we had to head to Auckland to refuel and wait for the fog to lift. Several hours later we were back in Christchurch...I missed all my lectures!

I spent most of the week studying for my midterm in physiology, trying to get as much done before my boyfriend Lou arrived from Birmingham on Friday May 5! We spent part of the first weekend he was here in Hamner Springs relaxing in the hot springs. We also took a day trip to Akaroa and got to see the Canterbury Crusaders rugby game with Rebecca, her parents and her host family! Neither of us fully understood the game, but it was fun to watch...rugby is a tough sport!

On the weekend we headed west, through Arthur's Pass and then south to glacier country. We arrived at Fox Glacier around noon on Saturday and decided that since the weather was good (it can change so quickly there) that we would take a helicopter ride up to the top of the glacier. I have to say that it was probably one of the best things I've ever done. I had never been on a helicopter before- it was like being in a little glass bubble that got soo close to the mountains beofre quickly dipping down to the massive glacier below. We landed at the top of the glacier and had some incredible views- including Mt. Cook the highest mountain in New Zealand!

Looking up massive Fox Glacier

The glacier area in New Zealand is quite unique; it's relatively close to the Tasman sea, and there is temperate rainforest that reaches to the bottom of the glaciers. They are some of the most dynamic glaciers in the world, they can change up to 1m per day! Over 50m of snow falls near the top of the glaciers each year which then gets compressed down and made into the ice that creates the glacier.

Anyway...in the afternoon we took a guided glacier hike on the bottom part of Fox Glacier. Our guide, Tony was great- he was really laid back but still very informed and had a great sense of humour!

We spent the night up the road in the village of Franz Josef and tried to walk to the terminal face of the Franz Josef glacier on Sunday morning but the weather wasn't great and the pathway was closed. We did however see a spectacular rainbow!

From there we headed north and ate lunch in Greymouth before driving (through the pouring rain and even hail at one point) to the Punakaiki blowholes. Also known as the pancake rocks, these huge limestone rocks have been scuplted by the sea and are continuously changing. Although we weren't there at high tide when the blowhole are really impressive, we still got some great pictures!

I'm back in Christchurch now, Lou flew home this afternoon so now I have no excuse not to study!

cheers-

Apologies

2006-05-09T16:07:00.000+12:00

Apologies for the lack of posts recently- it's been a busy past few weeks and now I'm back in Christchurch and in the middle of midterms!

I promise to write soon and post pictures as well.

cheers-
s.

Melaka and Singapore

2006-04-26T13:13:00.000+12:00

Friday we left Kuantan around 4pm for what we thought was about a 3.5 hour drive to Melaka on the west coast (between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore). We didn't exactly follow the directions we were given and ended up taking a much longer route, which included a detour through a palm plantation. This was no ordinary detour- the signs were small arrows on wood hammered into the ground and the narrow dirt road twisted right through the middle of the plantation...crazy. Anyway, once we surfaced from the woods and found the paved road again we ended up in Melaka around 9pm. We stayed at an old Chinese hotel called Hotel Puri in the downtown-Chinatown part of the city. Saturday morning we walked around the city in the blazing heat. The temperature in the car said 38C...yikes. Anyway, we saw some of the old Churches, Melaka was settled by both the Dutch and Portugese, and was in British control at some point as well. So the history and architecture is pretty interesting, a lot more culture than in Kuantan!

A trishaw in Melaka- notice the Mercedes logo on the front!

Chinese temple in Melaka

Chinese parade in Melaka, nobody really knew what for exactly

Saturday afternoon we drove from Melaka to Singapore, checked in at the Hilton and then I relaxed for the evening while Mum and Dad went for dinner. Sunday I wrote the MCAT all day and then we went for dinner at a steakhouse at the famous Raffles Hotel, home of the Singapore sling!

Raffles Hotel, Singapore

Today is Wednesday and we're heading up the coast to Pulau (Island) of Perhentian to go scuba diving for a few days!

cheers-

hot weather, batik, and Singapore!

2006-04-21T12:11:00.000+12:00

The past week in Kuantan has been great, I've been making good use of the gym at the Hyatt (after my one step class, I opted to work out in air con!) and also the pool!

pool at the hyatt

Today we leave for Malacca, originally a Portugese settlement south of Kuala Lumpur on the west coast of Malaysia. Apparently it's well known for making furniture so mum and dad want to check that out. Saturday we head further south to Singapore so I can write the MCAT on Sunday! Afterwards we're going to the famous Raffles Hotel for dinner and maybe a Singapore sling?! Monday's agenda includes sight-seeing and shopping in Singapore and then Tuesday we drive home to Kuantan.

On Wednesday mum and I went to see Jam, the local batik lady to see how batik is made. She even let me make my own handpainted piece! It's a pretty cool art, you either draw or stamp hot wax onto the fabric and then paint or dye different colours onto the fabric. After the dye is set, it's put into boiling water to remove the wax. Check out the wood fire and the cauldron below!

my masterpiece!

batik artist...all freehand drawing!

outside of the batik shop...very typically Malay!

Last night we had an early Birthday celebration at the Italian Bistro overlooking the ocean at the Hyatt...the food was great but the mosquitos started attacking about halfway through dinner and by the time I finished eating I think I had about 15 welts on my legs! So...we came home for cake! I opened my birthday presents last night too---new scuba gear for diving next week! I can't wait!

Rotary Conference and the Hokitika Police

2006-04-14T22:18:00.000+12:00

Last weekend was Rotary District 9970s conference in Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island. I drove over there with Alan and his wife Vivian, absolutely wonderful people who were so keen to act a tour guides for the foreigner! Although it was a beautiful day in Christchurch, as we drove through Arthur's Pass it became more foggy and rainy and by the time we got to Hokitika we were in the midst of an absolute downpour

one of the many beautiful waterfalls in Arthur's Pass

I was staying at a bach (lakehouse) on Lake Kaniere about 20km from Hokitika with the other 4 scholars, and the Group Study Exchange (GSE) teams from Missouri and New Zealand. They were a group of 5 young professionals who has just spent the past 5 weeks travelling around the South Island and learning about their vocation in New Zealand, compared to Missouri. Definitely an awesome group of people who were so relieved to hang out with younger people (they had been staying with and travelling with older Rotarians for the past month!)

Anyway, the conference was quite inspiring and definitely informative. We spoke on Saturday morning to the group (about 420 people) about who we are, why we're here, etc. After that lots of people came up to us and invited us to their club- the group from Blenheim wants all 5 of us to come up for a weekend to hang out at the lake and speak to their clubs!

Saturday night was dinner and dancing at Shantytown, an old replicated gold-mining town just north of Hokitika. There was a gold rush on the west coast in the mid-1800s, thus the location and also the theme for the conference, "Go for Gold, Get Involved" AND the crazy costumes. There were pirates (to steal gold), leprechauns (for good luck), athletes trying to win gold, crazy people dressed in plastic sheets and balloons(?!?), men in black with gold wigs...you name it, and someone had it on. It was funny that these were the same people sitting in seminars all day acting quite serious and mature!

The 5 of us had been given a van for the weekend to drive ourselves back and forth from the lake. Very considerate of them, not so considerate to give us the van with virtually no petrol! On Saturday afternoon we put about $20 in the tank, thinking that it would be plenty to drive to dinner and then back to the lake. Boy were we wrong. First of all, Shantytown was about an hour drive from the lake. Secondly, the van guzzled gas at an alarming rate. So, we get to dinner with the gas gauge on E but thought that we would have no trouble getting petrol either up the road in Greymouth or back in Hokitika. Ironically, the GSE team also had almost no petrol in their van and actually went to fill up in Greymouth during dinner (we weren't so smart). After dinner we leave at about 11:30pm, thinking that we'll be able to get some petrol back in Hokitika. We arrive about 30min later, after driving with the gas light on for the past 50km, only to find that the petrol station is closed. We drive downtown (which was almost totally dead at midnight on a Saturday) and a guy tells us that the Mobil station just out of town would be closed, but that we could use a credit card. Great! So we head out to the Mobil station, only to find that they accepted Diners Club and American Express only. No Visa, no mastercard, no Eftpos (debit), and no cash. The two cards that we didn't have, were the only ones the station accepted. So...heading back to town we end up behind one of the busses dropping Rotary people off from dinner. Great! So we follow it and jump out to ask a group of Rotarians if any of them had an Amex or Diners Club card that we could use. No luck. (one guy did offer us $20 cash though) Our next brilliant idea was to go to the police station. Genius. Upon hearing our dilemma, Russell, the officer on duty first seems to be unconcerned...why would he care that we had no petrol and it was 12:30am!? After a small amount of sweet-talking Russell kindly offered to drive us back to Lake Kaniere in his patrol car. The 5 of us (plus the 3 partially full bottles of wine left over from dinner) squeeze into his car and away we went. Thanks Russell!

Conference ended on Sunday afternoon and Alan drove me back to Christchurch. On the way we stopped at Death's Corner in Arthur's Pass to get a good view of the viaduct. The old road used to be on the right hand side of the pass but was getting completely washed away due to erosion. The viaduct is quite the engineering accomplishment and makes the drive through the pass much easier.

Whew...busy weekend! I'm in Malaysia now, at "home" in Kuantan studying for the MCAT and soaking up the sun! It's definitely hot here...a few nights ago I did a step class with mum in an UNairconditioned room on the 2nd floor of a building. I seriously thought I was going to pass out. Afterwards the instructor says oh, it's only 32C in here!

Hope you have a happy and blessed Easter!

cheers-

steph

busy week!

2006-04-05T22:36:00.000+12:00

Term 1 ends Friday....which means that my time here in New Zealand is about 1/4 over, hard to believe. I have a physiology lab final exam on Friday morning which may prove to be difficult but hopefully not impossible.

But after 10am Friday I'm free! Well, kind of. Friday afternoon I'm going to Rotary District Conference on the west coast in a town called Hokitika. Should be a blast minus the inevitable rain- I saw on the weather today that it's going to rain there (but nowhere else in the country) all weekend. Sunday afternoon conference ends and I'll do laundry and repack for home! Maybe I'll just pack dirty clothes and let mum wash them...isn't that what parents are supposed to do when their kids are away at university? Maybe not when it's trans-oceanic...

I fly direct from CHC to Singapore on Monday afternoon on Singapore Airlines...I'm excited, well as excited as one can be about a 10 hour flight. Everyone keeps telling me how awesome an airline it is- personal TVs, lots of movies and music, good food- what more could I ask for?
Unfortunately I have to spend the night in Singapore before flying to Kuala Lumpur and then onto Kuantan on Tuesday morning.

Through awesome Rotary contacts (it pays to know people in high places) I managed to land a volunteer position at Christchurch Hospital in the pediatric department with the play therapist. I think it'll be a good mix of medicine and psychology and working with the wee ones! I have a meeting tomorrow to fill out paperwork and get a police check. Since I've only been in the country for 2 months I doubt they'll find any criminal activity.

I'm off to read and sleep...I'll catch up once I'm back in Kuantan

cheers-

s.

autumn

2006-03-30T16:11:00.000+12:00

I think autumn is officially here- today (Thursday) is the first day all week I’ve seen the sun! The leaves are starting to change though and my view from the 10th floor of the library is stunning. I’ll take pictures soon, I promise!

Yesterday Rebecca and Katie skipped school and we headed north of Christchurch about an hour an a half to Hamner Springs, a little mountain town famous for their hot springs! We ate lunch at a really good café and then soaked in the hot springs (and the rain) for the afternoon. It was soo relaxing!

Last night I was invited to the Christchurch South Rotary meeting for dinner. I was connected to one of their members through someone in my host club, and he invited me to come along to dinner and meet his club members. The speaker last night was really interesting- he worked as an engineer for Air New Zealand for several years and then decided to do some private work. His talk last night was the story of how he was involved in the secret repossession of 7 airbus aircrafts from a budget Italian airline in 2004. It sounded like something straight out of Hollywood! Anyway, a few of their members are on the board of directors at Christchurch Hospital and said that they would help me find a volunteer position within the hospital…hopefully something will work out!

Next week is the last week of term 1…where have the past 7 weeks gone?! I have a physiology lab exam next week and then we have a 3 week break! Next weekend is the Rotary District Conference on the west coast in a town called Hokitika which is close to where a lot of the gold mines used to be! Then on April 10th I fly from Christchurch to Singapore, spend the night there and then head “home” to Kuantan. I’ll study there for about a week and a half and then head back to Singapore to take the MCAT. The week after will be a good holiday! We’re planning on doing some scuba diving on Redang Island north of Kuantan on the east coast of Malaysia.

cheers-

s.

Wellington Pictures

2006-03-26T22:52:00.000+12:00

Here are a few pictures from last weekend...sorry it's taken awhile!

The Christchurch crew- Valda our counsellor and the 5 scholars- Daisy, me, Glen, Andrea and Jesse

view of wellington and the harbour from our conference room...kinda reminded me of san francisco!

Te Papa National museum- everything you could ever want to know about New Zealand, for free!!

scary Maori caving in Te Papa- I think he has paua shells as eyes. Paua is a very common shell here, the meat is commonly known as abalone. We met some guys up the coast who fished for them- when they caught one they held it to their wetsuit and after a few seconds the paua would just stick to their suit. cool.

Sometime this week I plan to take some pictures from the top of the library- the 11th floor has great views of downtown (not exactly a Manhatten skyline) and the surrounding hills. It's especially neat since the leaves are starting to change colour. Yep- that means that fall (autumn) is here, which means cool (ok, downright cold) nights are getting more frequent. We have heat in our bedrooms in our flat. Heat, yes! Heating units on the ceiling---what?! Yep, we have ceiling heat. I don't really understand it either. Apparently it's more efficient (maybe the fact that heat rises doesn't apply in the southern hemisphere or something). Who knows...I'm not convinced yet. I'll let you know in July when I'm freezing in my little concrete iceblock and you're playing at the beach!

have a great week!

cheers-

Wellington Adventure!

2006-03-21T20:38:00.000+12:00

This past weekend I left the mainland (South Island…although this is subject of much debate from North Islanders!) and headed to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, on the southern part of the North Island. I went with the other 4 scholars from Christchurch (Jesse from Kelowna, BC, Andrea from Germany, Daisy from upstate New York and Glen from Michigan) and our counselor Valda. We left Christchurch at 5am (my earliest start yet in New Zealand) and flew to Wellington.

There, we met with the other 9 scholars who are studying in New Zealand, from Dunedin, Wellington, and Auckland. All of the others were post-graduate students of some sort (Masters or PhD)…I was the only undergrad! It was awesome though- a really intelligent and well traveled group. From working in the Peacecorps in South Africa to teaching in Tanzania and mountaineering in Alaska, the experiences that the group had had made for some interesting conversation!

The conference was held in a lawyers’ office on the 13th floor of a downtown Wellington office building with an amazing view of the harbour and surrounding mountains. We had sessions on Rotary and its role in New Zealand, tertiary education in the Pacific, our roles and responsibilities as scholars, as well as breakout sessions on ideas for community service projects, adjusting to life here, etc. We also ate…a lot! Morning tea complete with biscuits, muffins, fruit and cookies, then lunch two hours later, then afternoon tea, then dinner, and finally tea before bed! Kiwis eat non-stop! The food was awesome though, it was completely catered and very yummy!

Saturday afternoon we had a tour of the New Zealand Parliament building, nicknamed the “beehive” for its obvious beehive structure. The government recently spent $4M adding hundreds of base isolators to the foundation that will supposedly absorb the movement of an earthquake up to 7.5 on the Richter scale. As a result, the building essentially floats on these metal and rubber disks and is no longer attached to the foundation…pretty cool! Although I think someone should have told them not to build the Parliament in the dead centre of a fault line!

We had most of Sunday afternoon free to explore the city. A group of us walked around downtown and then headed over to the National Museum, Te Papa (Our Place in Maori). It was an awesome museum completely dedicated to all aspects of New Zealand history, the wool industry, etc. Outside of the museum were photos from the “Earth from Above” exhibit that travels around the world. I saw it in Montreal a few years ago but there were new pictures I hadn’t seen before. One of East New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina showing just the rooftops was a pretty neat perspective.

We stayed in a youth hostel downtown which was great- I shared a room with Daisy and Andrea from Christchurch. Unfortunately Andrea was the only one smart enough to bring a towel with her! Daisy and I had to be resourceful and use extra sheets to dry off! We were well prepared for a toga party…

Anyway, enough for now- too much reading and studying to do!

Cheers-

s.

PS- I tried to post pictures here but something isn't working, I'll try to get them up in the next few days!

weekend in Christchurch, take 2

2006-03-13T23:55:00.000+13:00

Well, I did just have a nice post written and as I pressed the "submit" button....bam! It was all gone. Let's try this again...

This past weekend was pretty laid back for me, I stayed here in Christchurch and at least attempted to get some work done. Friday night I went to see the movie "Firewall" which was actually better than I expected. It was a mindless 2 hours but overall a decent movie.

Saturday was fun- I went downtown with some friends to check out some outdoors/outfitter stores. The general opinion was that no matter where in the world you're from (Europe, Africa, or North America) hiking and camping gear is more expensive in New Zealand. Considering this country is well known for it's adventure sports and has so much to offer, it doesn't really make sense to me. But, I guess it I had to import my goods from the otherside of the world I would jack up the prices too. Oh well.

Also on Saturday we checked out the market on Cathedral Square. There was a festival going on with people dressed in period costumes, children playing with antique toys, and dancing. It wasn't until I went to church on Sunday morning that I realized it was in celebration of the past 150 years that Christ Cathedral and the Anglican Church has been part of Christchurch. Pretty cool.

Classes continue to go well. I'm beginning to learn that there's a good chance at least one of my classes will have a different lecturer on any given day. Today the new guy was a Brit yelling at us about the digestive system in physiology (he clearly didn't learn about indoor voices in kindergarten). The crazy Russian is still lecturing in I/O Psychology and the old boring Kiwi is back again in Biochemistry. Never a dull moment.

I hope all is well on your side of the world where it should be warming up for spring. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that April means autumn and July means winter here. What happens to "April showers brings May flowers"?

have a great week.

cheers-

s.

caving update

2006-03-06T23:04:00.000+13:00

I have a few more photos from Saturday's adventures (see below). Out of the group of 9, 5 of us were brave enough to jump into the ~12C water to explore the cave. It's really quite unique- the cave itself is 362m long and has about 4-5m clearance throughout. At the deepest, the water is waist deep on an adult (more like chest deep for me!). Inside the walls are limestone and the river bed is lined with rocks. The water is crystal clear and since there is no natural light, there is no algae or anything growing on the rocks (otherwise it would have been really slick!) There are three separate waterfalls that you climb up in the cave, two that are about 1m high and the third and last one leading out of the cave that's about 3m high. It took us about 45min to walk through, we kept a fairly fast pace mostly to keep warm! Although it was about 24C that day you could see your breath in the cave and my toes were numb after the first few minutes! The waterfall at the end has metal ladder rungs drilled into the rock to climb out- we ended up on the other side of the hill from where we entered the cave! Overall an awsome experience unlike anything I had done before...and best of all it was free!

Classes continue to go well- I'm still getting used to having several lecturers come in and out of classes; most profs lecture on certain subjects which means there are anywhere from 3-6 lecturers for the class. Today I walked into what I thought was the wrong class but it turned out to be our new psychology prof- a very enthusiastic Russian...it made for an interesting class.

I attended my first Rotary club meeting today over lunchtime. My host counsellor Valda brought me and introduced me to lots of the members...the lunch was awesome! The speaker today was Jesse, another scholar here for the year from Kelowna, British Columbia. He definitely gave me some good ideas for my presentations! It's a rather elderly club (with lots of retired members) and mostly men but overall they were very welcoming and friendly. In two weeks time the 5 scholars who are in Christchurch are going to Wellington for the weekend for a conference and then in April there is the district conference on the west coast of the South Island.

me, Daniel, Darragh and Anja in the middle of the cave!

Matthias with the remains of previous trampers...maybe just a cattle bone

me on a rock ledge overlooking the valley where the Great Battle of "Narnia" was filmed...or so I'm told, I have yet to see the movie. Awesome rock though- the picture doesn't really do it justice!

all for now- please feel free to post comments on here...I'm beginning to think that nobody ever reads this! You shouldn't have to sign up or make any sort of commitments!

cheers-

pictures!

2006-03-05T00:17:00.000+13:00

a few pictures from the past few weeks (it's after midnight here and internet is half price so it doesn't break the bank to upload pics!)

s.

rebecca, me and katie at birdlings flat on the way to akaroa (the waves were huge!)

beautiful akaroa (french town close to chch)

view from the other side of Banks Peninsula

March 4, 2006 Hiking at Flock Hill (caving pictues to come later, they're not on my camera!)

the group- (L to R) Chris, Daniel, Matthais, me, Darragh, Anja, Herdis, and Rob

picnic at the top of lunch hill, accompanied with some not so welcome bees and flies...

entrance to the cave...more pics to come, but basically it was awesome! we estimated that the water was about 12C and waist deep at times, but it was an incredible experience.

weird weather

2006-03-03T12:10:00.000+13:00

I had class at 9am today (probably the most boring lecture yet- about the osomoregulation of new zealand freshwater crayfish...not exactly high on my interest list). Anyway, as I left for class today it was sunny, a little breezy, and about 15C. Leaving physiology it was a few degrees cooler, slightly windy, and getting to be overcast. Less than an hour later it was frigid, and starting to drizzle with near hurricane force winds, appropriately called a squall. Ok, so that may be a bit of an overstatement but not by much.
People say that the east coast of NZ (where Christchurch is located) is one of the driest places on the island. That may be true but I'm not quite convinced. I guess it's not so much the rain that bothers me but the cold wind that comes with it. I think I inherited the "I hate wind" gene from mum...

Anyway, classes this week went well, the reading list is piling up and the assignments are beginning to be assigned. Tomorrow the plan is to head west of here back towards Arthur's Pass for some caving/hiking. I'm not so keen on going if the weather continues as it is right now but we'll wait and see. The group that's going consists of Germans, a guy from Sweden and one from South Africa. The Germans are always cold here and the Swede thinks it's tropical...go figure.

cheers-

s.

noticed differences

2006-02-27T17:20:00.000+13:00

Lingo-
elevator = lift
bathing suit = togs
candy = lolly
friend = mate
banger = sausage
take-aways = take out/fast food
bloke = man
knackered (pronounced naked) = exhausted
capsicum = red or green pepper
wee = little (said all the time!!)
flat = apartment
greasies = fish & chips
heaps = “lots of”
judder bars = speed bumps
jandal = flip flop
ring = to call/phone someone
sunnies = sunglasses
sweet-as = awesome, cool
tramping = hiking/backpacking
sealed road = paved road
rubber = eraser
full stop = period (end of sentence)
checkmark = tick

School-
-students all call their professors by first name, no Dr. or Prof.
-professors dress very casually
-most students support themselves through university, either by student allowances (financial aid) or by working, parents rarely pay for their education
-most classes have a midterm (maybe) and a final exam, plus an essay or lab component…a lot more weight for each assignment/exam!
-labs are very laid back (no lab reports, no quizzes, no reading before lab…it’s great!)

Randoms-

-all bbqs consist of sausages (either beef or lamb) on a piece of sliced bread with grilled onions. I’m getting quite sick of sausages…
-driving in new zealand is a bit different- they drive on the left-hand side of the road, and give different priority to people turning at an intersection. If someone is crossing the intersection, they get to go before the person making a short left turn.
-roundabouts make a lot of sense when everyone follows the rules
-almost all new zealanders eat marmite or vegemite on toast/bread- it’s a yeast-based spread that looks like tar and smells about as lovely…I have yet to try it!
-all school children wear hats during recess and lunch time
-the sun here is more intense than anywhere in the northern hemisphere (people say there’s very little ozone here)
-new zealanders tend to do lots of activities as a whole family- most events are geared towards families with children
-overall, people here are very laid back- their lifestyle seems to be less hectic and stressful than in north America

I’ll continue to add more to this throughout the year!

cheers-

s.

akaroa day trip

2006-02-25T20:45:00.000+13:00

Today really tested my knowledge of driving on the left hand side of the road, on small two-lane highways, up and down narrow windy and sometimes unpaved roads. Wow! Rebecca (from Auburn), Katie (my flatmate) and I took a day trip and headed south of Christchurch to the sleepy French settlement of Akaroa. It was settled by the French in the mid 1800s before the British took control and by the time the French explorer came back to claim New Zealand, the British were already there! Nevertheless, the street names are still in French and there are several little French cafes and restaurants. The drive from Christchurch is about an hour and a half, part of which is across the dry, flat Canterbury plains and then the rest is up the remains of three different volcanoes that erupted to create what is now known as Banks Peninsula.

We arrived in Akaroa, parked and walked around town, checking out all of the restaurants and finding the best place for lunch. We ate at a little café called “by the green” (the green was not a golf course, just a field across the street by the water)- the food was delicious! After lunch we did some window shopping (mostly out of our students price-range), got ice cream, walked down to the water and along the wharf where the boats leave for tours, dolphin watching, and swimming with the dolphins. Akaroa is home to the Hector Dolphin, the smallest dolphins in the world and the only place they are found! We didn’t actually see any- I think it requires taking a (rather expensive) tour around the harbour.

After leaving town we decided to try and take another route back to Christchurch. Our first attempt at this was quite unsuccessful- we ended up at the top of a gravel road amongst sheep. The view was well worth the mistake though! We headed back through town and found out that there is a scenic drive around the summit of the volcanoes (the main road goes along the water). What a cool drive!! At one point we turned off the main (paved) road and ended up on an even smaller (unpaved) track. At first we thought it was a short little road but it ended up going all the way to the other side of the peninsula by the cliffs overlooking the ocean! It was stunning. There were a few houses visible in the distance but apart from those and several sheep, we didn’t see a single person. Despite being quite isolated it would be a magnificent place to have a home.

After our little off-roading adventure we made it back to the main road, and back to Christchurch in time for dinner. All in all, a beautiful day!

s.

class, week 1

2006-02-22T21:14:00.000+13:00

two days of class down, so far so good. schedule this semester is looking good, no class on wednesdays and i’m done at noon on friday! i’m taking animal physiology, biochemistry, abnormal psychology, and industrial & organizational psychology. all of my profs so far are really laid back, students here tend to call them by their first name and overall they seem very approachable.

last weekend was a weekend of true exploration. saturday i participated in what is called “the not so great race”, a sort of scavenger hunt around christchurch for new international students. i was in a team with another canadian, a german, and a girl from iceland! we spent a good part of the day walking around downtown, picking up things on our list, getting lost, getting lost some more….we found our way back though and had a great bbq. kiwis are crazy about bbqs here but so far the only thing they seem to cook on a grill are sausages. I have yet to see someone eat a sausage on any sort of bun, they always serve them with plain white bread. interesting. saturday night a group of us took the bus towards town to hagley park, a huge park near downtown complete with a golf course, running trails, cricket pitches, rugby fields, tennis courts…etc. the city council was holding a musical concert called “starry nights”, a whole show of broadway songs complete with dancers and the symphony. it was awesome. They estimated that over 100,000 people were there, which works out to be about one third of the city’s population.

sunday was equally exciting and exhausting…my roommate katie found a place on the web that pointed out some of the filming sites for the movie “narnia”. off we went in my little white corona (car, not beer…similar to a toyota corolla) up towards arthur’s pass, about an hour west of christchurch. we didn’t really expect to find the place we were looking for, all we had was a name and that it was an hour from Christchurch. amazingly we found it, a place called flock hill in cave springs scenic reserve. we ended up doing a fairly strenuous hike, up and around flock hill, down to broken river, around another hill…at one point we got stuck on the wrong side of the river and had to hike all the way back to the road to cross at the bridge! thorbjorg, my icelandic friend was clearly in better shape and myself and katie, we were quite content walking along the river bed but she kept “suggesting” that we climb just a little higher. it was well worth it though, the scenery was amazing and the weather was beautiful. also in cave springs is a huge cave that you can go “caving” through. we didn’t bring the right gear but i think i’ll try to get back there sometime soon to check it out.

that’s about all…please feel free to leave comments, notes, jokes, etc…

cheers-

s.

PS-more pictures coming soon, i promise. internet is expensive here and they charge me per MB, so posting pictures gets to be quite expensive!

orientation and enrolment

2006-02-17T10:33:00.000+13:00

As of today I am officially enrolled as a University of Canterbury student- and it only took about 8 hours of standing in queues and running around campus trying to get courses approved! (I can no longer complain about Auburn’s system; waiting an hour for the computer to register is nothing!!) I did manage to get the courses that I needed, so as long as nothing gets changed everything should work out!

I’m living in Ilam Village, an on campus apartment (or flat as they call them here) with 5 other people; 2 Kiwis, 2 Americans and a Malaysian! Everyone seems to get along well so far, we are going to cook together once a week and then fend for ourselves the rest of the time. Our flat is spacious but reminds me of a nice concrete cell…the one advantage is that you can’t hear anyone through the thick concrete walls! My room is comfortable- I have a huge built-in desk and wardrobe, a single bed and a huge window! I’m going to have to do something about the boring walls through…if anyone wants to send me posters that’d be great!!

Classes start on Monday so until then I’m pretty much free to explore and hang out. I’ve met some great people so far- I think tomorrow a group of us are going to the beach! I don’t think the water is very warm (about 14C or 50sF) but a guy from Sweden has been and says it’s not that bad. I’m not sure I believe him though- he probably swims in freezing water in Sweden!

Email me if you want my address or phone number…letters and phone calls are definitely welcome!

Cheers!

s.

beautiful new zealand

2006-02-17T10:19:00.000+13:00

Here I am (finally) in Christchurch. After arriving in NZ on February 3, mum, dad and I traveled around the northern part of the South Island. We left ChCh and headed to Hamner Springs, a mountain town with thermal hot springs! It had 9 different pools- anywhere from 41C to 28C…it was awesome! The next day we headed back to the coast and drove to Kaikoura, a coastal town known for whale watching, scuba diving, seals, and crayfish! The crayfish (or crawfish…) are also known as rock lobster- they are the same size as lobster but with no claws. They’re not too hard to find but the price of one in a restaurant is ridiculous (around $70-90NZD); we bought one at the side of the road, steamed and ready to eat for $30! The meat is really sweet and tender!

After Kaikoura, we headed further north to Picton, where the inter-island ferry goes to Wellington on the North Island. From Picton to Nelson we took the Queen Charlotte drive, it was absolutely stunning. The two lane road twisted and turned all through the Queen Charlotte Sound, up and down hills, in between little harbour towns. We made it to the Marlborough winery area for the night and spent the night in a little studio apartment amongst the vines!

Next up was Nelson, right at the top of the South Island. It was almost like a mini San Francisco, with a beautiful water front and houses perched up on the hillside, complete with small twisty roads! A hotel room was hard to find so we headed further north to Motueka, right near Abel Tasman National Park. We had big plans to go sea kayaking there the following day, but woke up to pouring rain….so we left. We drove across to the west coast and saw the famous Pancake Blowholes-wow! The power of the sea on that side of the country is unbelievable! There is a walkway around the blowholes and along the edge of the coast; it’s hard to believe how much watch get slammed against the rocks there!

We headed further south to Franz Josef Glacier, one of many along the west coast. This is a unique glacier because it’s only 12km from the ocean and sits at the edge of a tropical rain forest! Once you park your car it’s about a 45min walk to the edge of the glacier. The glacier itself is very different than the smooth and wide glaciers that I’ve seen in western Canada, this one is jagged and rough with lots of crevasses. It’s also really dirty near the bottom. Franz Josef is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world; it changes at a rate of over 1 meter per day. There’s a pretty good size river coming out of the bottom too that runs through a huge rock valley- during the 1960s it was actually a full lake at the bottom of the glacier. The next day we took a guided hike up the bottom of the glacier- it was awesome! The ice is really blue underneath. The glacier is very dynamic- there were countless man-made steps in the ice and even a few bridges across crevasses (I didn’t look down…!). It was definitely worthwhile, even through the boots and ice crampons I wore gave me huge blisters!

From Franz Josef we headed back to Christchurch, across the middle of the island through Arthur’s Pass. It’s about a 3 hour drive from one side of the island to the other but not many roads go straight through because of the Southern Alps running along the middle of the island.

Here are a few pictures from the trip…enjoy!

s.

mom and me hiking through the park that has the longest swing bridge in new zealand!

queen charlotte sound near Picton, where the ferry goes between the North and South islands

more pics later- it's taking too long!

tioman island scuba diving

2006-02-02T03:59:00.000+13:00

i love scuba diving! mum, dad and i just spent 5 days south of here on an island called Tioman in the South China Sea. We took a 90min ferry from the mainland there and stayed at the Berjaya resort.

I took the PADI Open Water Diver course with another family from Kuala Lumpur...6 teenagers and their dad.the water was overall really clear and warm, we had to do a few training dives in the pool because the waves were too big but most of the time we dove at Reggnis Island, about a 5min boat ride from the beach. Among other things we saw turtles, nemos, sting rays, and eels!

here are a few pictures...

getting ready...

me and my buddy Farin, 14 year old from Kuala Lumpur

all 9 of us on the boat to go diving...it's a good thing we weren't going too far!

Renggis Island...my first dive site!

ok, bed time!! tomorrow is laundry day and packing for New Zealand, I leave on Friday morning!

s.

kuantan, malaysia

2006-01-23T03:54:00.000+13:00

so far life in malaysia is pretty much stress-free...the weather's been great (it's the end of monsoon season but it hasn't in the past two weeks), the pool and sea are warm, and the food is awesome.

today was an interesting day- we went for a "drive" in the countryside, south of kuantan, along the beach...sometimes on the road, sometimes on the sand or sort of makeshift road. lots of malays having picnics, some fishing, a few swimming and tons of goats, sheep and cows. we stopped at a local market for a snack- there were incredible amounts of rice noodles, fried rice, chicken (ayam in malay...one of the few words i know!) and homemade sweets. i have to admit that the unrefridgerated uncooked chicken swarmming with flies did not look to fresh but aside from that everything else looked fairly safe.

driving in malaysia is a bit of an art, not only does one drive on the left hand side of the road, but you have to be aware of motorcycles (often with 3+ people on it), animals, appearing and disappearing lanes (often without notice), and overall wreakless drivers. never a dull moment on malaysian roads.

next weekend is Chinese New Year here- a huge deal for all the Chinese and non-Chinese. stores are full of decorations, red cards (you're supposed to put money in them and give them as gifts), mandarin oranges wrapped in little red bags, etc...
we're planning to head south for the long weekend to a small island off the east coast of malaysia, Tioman island so i can learn how to scuba dive!

enough for now...more about malaysian life later

s.

holiday pictures

2006-01-06T21:30:00.000+13:00

a few memorable pictures from the holidays...

new york city, dec. 21

christmas dinner in fort mcmurrary, alberta- cousin Erika, aunts Lori and Denise, and Jen

steph, dad, dylan and braden

skiing at big white, british columbia...

one of the few non-foggy days...what a view!

on the ferry from vancouver island to vancouver, british columbia

just the beginning

2006-01-06T21:18:00.000+13:00

2006- a year for exploration

The year 2005 ended just as quickly as it began and 2006 is already at full speed. As I said my temporary goodbyes to auburn in december, it was hard to believe that the past three years were over and done with. just like that.

Right now I am on my way, in transit if you will, to the other side of the world. really. The next few weeks will be spent on the coast of the south china sea in kuantan, malsysia before heading down under to new zealand. school starts february 20 but until then, i'm on vacation.

I hope to use this space to keep whoever is interested updated with my goings on for the next year- I promised lots of pictures and postcards and emails, so hopefully this will accomplish many things at once. Check back as you wish and don't hesitate to bug me if nothing has been updated for awhile...chances are i am just being lazy.

until next time...cheers and happy new year

s.