adventures

The foray to the south island started well when my van, B(a)BY, decided to kidnap our communal dog, Scamper (whose fickle emotions correspond with the amount of food you give him). Needless to say, our ploy failed.

Sally, one of our field leaders, told us maori stories along the way.

When we arrived in Wellington after 10 hours in the car, we made disastrously slow-cooking pizza, then fled into the game room. Leo clearly enjoyed the shoot-em-up games.

The next morning we hopped on a three hour ferry to the south island.

Once we got to the south island, we drove more, but took a break at a beach where there were bundles of kelp wrapped up by the waves like ropes.

We arrived in Kaikoura apprehensive about the marae (Maori tribal land/settlement) because there is very strict protocol regarding being welcomed. It went well, and when we woke up the next morning we watched the sunrise pinkening the Southern Alps in the distance.

We visited a garbage dump to learn about Kaikoura's plan for zero waste. Ever wonder what compressed soda bottles look like?

We helped an endangered bird called a Hutton's Shearwater by digging burrow holes and building nest boxes at the Kaikoura DOC workshop.

It must be a law that any workshop has random signs hanging up.

And of course, we went dolphin watching! These pigeons hoped we were going to feed them.

Craigieburn--click for large view.

We hiked up the Otira Valley in Arthur's Pass National Park to look at alpine vegetation. It was a foggy, then a rainy, day.

We frolicked through the tussock fields until it really got cold

You don't need to filter most of the water in New Zealand because there's no giardia here.

We went and talked to a biologist who runs a 4 star nature tourism hotel in Craigieburn, and he let us hold his sheep.

There was a bit of unrest in the ranks because we stayed a five minute drive from some of the world's best bouldering but didn't have time to go.

On our way to the mining town of Reefton, we stopped briefly in Graymouth, where we watched the waves crashing through the river channel.

In Reefton, we had a four hour lecture about the horrors of gold mining, during which I attempted to conceal my gold ring, then we drove up a mountain to be further horrified by the realities of mining.

At last we escaped the depressing atmosphere of Reefton and journeyed to Nelson Lakes National Park, where it was raining.

So we sat inside for a while and played euchre and music.

The next day was sunny, so we got to take three hour walks by ourselves; I walked along the shore of Rotoiti, maori for little lake.

We were thrown out of our van at the Asbestos Trailhead in the Cobb Valley of Kahurangi National Park at 3 in the afternoon and quickly split up the food.
(From left to right, the Kahurangi Trekking Co: Jen K, Mike A, Dhyana, Bryan, Jan, yours truly.)

Jan used her hand as a funnel and got covered in jam.

We hiked up past an abandoned asbestos mine and arrived at dusk at Asbestos Cottage, which Bryan termed "so fuckin' quaint."

The next day we planned to hike 10 miles and scale a mountain though Mike was fasting and Jan's knee was injured. We opted for Plan B when Jan fell and hurt her knee again--hiking up and over a large hill with a peat flat on it. Bryan (another Western student) especially enjoyed the tussock fields growing there.

Kahurangi is the fourth largest NZ nat'l park.

Karst, a special type of limestone, is scattered throughout the park.

We stayed at a cabin beside Cobb Valley for 3 nights. For one day hike, four of us trekked up the Peel Trail.

The Peel Valley lay below us.

We wandered along the ridge looking for a nice lunching spot.

We had wraps for lunch, but some of the pitas were so tough we played frisbee with them.