Rangitikei River Expedition

1/18/2007 - 1/20/2007

Our expedition on the Rangitikei River began when we drove from the raft shop to the boat drop-in point in the morning. The drive was beautiful, with tons of green rolling hills replete with sheep. We had three guides for the trip, including kiwis Paul and Tim and Cam the Australian. Basically we were going down the river with one huge gear raft, 3 sit-on kayaks, 3 hard-shell kayaks, and the guides' 2 playboat kayaks. Here is a picture of the drop-in point. It was nice an hot, but the water was still freezing.

Since I've never been that fond of kayaking, I wasn't sure what to expect of this trip. Fortunately, it turned out to be great. The kayaks we used were much more maneurverable thatn others that I have used in the past, and there were some good rapids that we went through. The scenery was also gorgeous with massive dirt rocks surrounding the river. Here are some pictures. There was even one place that we floated by that had been a backdrop for one of the Lord of the Rings movies. I was asking Cam if that had caused an increase in their number of clients, and he joked that they now get a lot more LOTR freaks (he said some of them actually brough GPS devices to make sure that they were seeing the real thing from the movie).

Overall the trip was very relaxing and fun. Basically we just had to ride down the river and hang out at the camp sites, and the guides did all the rest. They did all the cooking (great food) and setting up the camp while we played games and relaxed. I felt kind of bad that they were doing all the work, but I guess that's their job. When we finished rafting on the last day, we packed all the stuff up and went back to the camping spot we were at 3 nights ago and got situated for the night. Pacific Challenge group 1 was actually at the same spot since they are doing a river trip tomorrow morning for a few hours, so we got to meet them. My PCUE group and the PC1 (group 1) group went out to a bar to hand out and have dinner, so I was able to meet some of their group members, which was nice.

Tongiriro National Park

1/15/2007 - 1/17/2007

Today is the beginning of our 3 day backpacking expedition in Tongiriro National Park, which has reached international acclaim because one of its mountain peaks had a major role in the LOTR films as the infamous Mount Doom upon which the eye of Sauron peers across the world. Here's a pic of it I took from the car.

On the drive we had a short delay caused by a bunch of sheep crossing the road.

Tongiriro National Park has several multi-day hikes that you can do, and we were planning on doing the Round the Mountain Track, which goes around a large volcano called Mt. Raupehu. Adam had been told that we could do it in 3 days if we hiked about 8 hours on day 1, 11 hours on day 2, and 11 hours on day 3. I was a little skeptical of our ability to do this since my Lonely Planet NZ book said it was a 4 to 6 day tramp with 4 days for the really fit but 6 for most. Nevertheless, we set off.

The first day was quite rigorous. For the first couple hours the terrain was up and down but not very steep, so I didn't think it would be too tough. However, after a few hours we got into the more serious terrain. It was still up and down, but now the hills were much larger and the climbs got pretty steep and rocky. However, the thing that made the hiking most difficult was the fact that we all had to carry backbacks to carry all the stuff we needed for three days. Even by packing light, I still had to bring warm clothes, sleeping stuff, food, and water. My pack must have weighed about 50 pounds, so it was pretty heavy. The packs are designed very well to make it easier to carry such weights, but it's still over a third of my body weight and thus requires a lot more energy to go up those hills with it on. In addition, it was really hot out. While some people don't like the heat, I love it. Plus it allowed me to snap a bunch of great photos. Here are a bunch. The first is me with my silly floppy hat (function over form).

The first day was pretty tough. I hiked for about 9 hours or so. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed all of the great views. There was some unrest in our group concerning whether we would all be able to make it to the day's destination, but we all made it. I felt pretty strong and was the second person in our group to get to the hut where we would sleep around 8:30 pm. However, the last few members just made it around 9:30 pm, which was just after the sun set. Fortunately they made it without having to hike in the dark with headlamps.

Because the hike was much more rigorous than anticapated, we decided that it would be unrealistic to hike 11 hours on day 2 and 11 hours on day 3, so we decided to go back the way we came because it was not possible to give ourselves another day since we had a scheduled trip to do on that fourth day. I would have loved to have gone all around the mountain, but it just was not feasible with our given timeframe. I guess that is why this is a pilot program.

Nevertheless, the next 2 days of hiking were very nice. The second day was overcast and a bit rainy for some of it, which was both good and bad. I felt much stronger, and I finished the hike back to the hut we passed yesterday in about 5 hours with Philip and Andy. One interesting thing I learned was that just a little bit of rain can cause rivers to flow much faster. We had to cross a few rivers on the hike, which yesterday just involved wading across them. However, today I had to work together with Philip and Andy just to make it across one or two of them since the water was flowing much faster and certainly could knock us over if we weren't too careful. It was a good learning experience for me. Here are some more pictures from day 2.

Day 3 was pretty easy. We just had a 2 hour hike back to the parking lot, and our time at Tongiriro was over. Overall it was a good experience, but it could have definitely been planeed a little better. Again, that's why this is a pilot program. Here's a group pic at one of the huts.

After Tongiriro we drove to a town called Manueka and set up our tents for the night (see below). Tomorrow we would be heading out on a 3 day expedition kayaking and rafting down the Rangitikei River, so this evening we went to the raft shop to get set up with gear and also get dinner.

Tihoi

1/14/2007

We had planned to start the 3-day Round the Mountain tramp (Kiwi term for hike) today at the Tongiriro National Park today. However, with the excessive rain and low clouds over the past few days, we decided to go to our leader's friend's house in a town called Tihoi for the day and start the trekking tomorrow. Fortunately, the weather did clear up.

This morning we left the Maori house where we slept last night and drove to a town called Taupo to do some grocery shopping for the hike. Along the way we stopped at river to check out a beautiful waterfall (see below).


Since the hike will last 3 days and since there are no restaurants out in the "bush", we have to carry all of our food on our backs during the hike. I teamed up with Philip and Andy to share food for the trip. After the shopping, I grabbed some lunch from a bakery and ate while looking at the the immense Lake Taupo, which apparently is the largest body of water in NZ. Here is a picture.

Next we drove to a town called Tihoi, which is where one of Adam's friend Catherine (I think that's the right name) lives. She and her husband work at a school for 14 year old boys who go there for about 16 weeks to take classes while doing a lot of outdoor/adventure training. Since it costs about $20,000 to do the program, these kids are pretty well off. It sounds like an incredible program. The afternoon in Tihoi was wonderful. It was hot since the sun finally came out, and there were vast green lands with large volcanic rocks and sheep all over the place. Basically we just hung out and explored the area for a while before cooking dinner. Philip, an avid fisherman who brought his fly rod to NZ and bought a fishing license, actually caught a fish in the creek. Here are a few pictures of Tihoi.

Rafting and Hangi

1/13/2007

This morning we left the hobbit hotel to go to a town called Rotorua. Along the way, we stopped off at a park that had a bunch of hot springs, which were pretty cool (but quite hot). I guess they were caused by volcanic activity. Here is a picture of one of them. You may not be able to see it in this picture, but there was a basketball floating around in this hot spring.

After spending a brief amount of time in the town, we went white-water rafting on the Kaituna River. It was quite cold and rainy, but we got set up with wetsuits. The rafting was great. It was only about an hour long, but the rapids were almost constant. There was even one immense 7 meter rapid that we went down, which was spectacular. I'm embarrassed to admit that I my paddle fell out of my hand when the boat hit the water, but at least I didn't fall out. I have a picture of the waterfall, and I'll try to post it when I get a chance. Later there were some kayak races going on at that river, so we stayed around for a bit to watch. It would be pretty crazy to go down that waterfall in a kayak.

After the rafting we drove to a Maori house where we observed a traditional Maori dance (see below) followed by a really good meal that had actually been prepared in an oven dug into the ground and covered (called hangi). The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. After dinner we went to a big hot spring for a swim, which was wonderful. The water probably would have been too hot for comfort, but the cold air and rain made it quite pleasant.

Waitomo

1/12/2007

Our accommodation in Waitomo is pretty sweet as. "Sweet as" is a phrase that the Kiwis (New Zealanders) say a lot to describe things as "cool." It took me a while to actually figure out the phrase, since the way some people say it makes it sound like an odd thing to say for certain situations (if you haven't gotten it by now, add the letter 's' to the end of one of the words). The place we stayed has extremely unique rooms, including a train, a plane, 2 hobbit houses, and one boat (under construction) converted into hotel rooms. The girls stayed in the train, and the guys got to live it up in one of the hobbit houses. Fortunately for Adam and Philip, who are 6'5" plus, the houses were built for humans rather than Bagginses. It was pretty sweet as.


After breakfast we went to a place to go blackwater rafting, which basically involves rafting on a river through a cave (hence the 'black' water). After getting us set up with wet suits and helmets, our guides named Troy and Snappy (she certainly had a pretty snappy attitude) took us to get inner tubes at the caves. See below for a goofy picture of us. The caves were really cool. We walked through some parts, but we were able to sit on the inner tubes for a lot of it as well. We used headlamps to see; however, when we turned all the lamps (called "torches" over here) off, the caves looked like the night sky with little bright lights. These were the glowworms on the cave walls, at least that is the marketable and selling name applied to them. They were actually fly larvae, not worms at all. Snappy poetically described them as "maggots with shiny sh*$" because it is actually their waste materials that is actually emitting light (the light is supposed to attract food sources).

After the blackwater rafting, we went back to our accommodation to see a farm show that basically demonstrated how farming was done back in the old days in NZ. It was a very cool one-man show. With participants from the crowd, the guy showed how to saw a tree trunk with an old cross-saw, how to cut down a tree after climbing it using boards jammed into the tree, and a bunch of animal demonstrations, including a black pig doing tricks, a small white horse, a dog herding some sheep, a massive stear, and a sheep shearing. He apparently has a world record in the number of sheep sheared in one day. He just manhandled that sheep. The show was very well done and quite funny. Here are some pictures.

After the show we drove over to the caves where we were earlier. Instead of going in the caves again, we explored the area around them above ground. We were going to go abseiling (kiwi term for rappelling), but Adam's gear had been locked away in an office, which was unfortunate. Nevertheless, the caves were still fun to explore. Here are a few pics.

Welcome to New Zealand

1/11/2007

This morning the airplane landed around 6:30 am in Auckland, NZ. The views from my window seat on the descent were pretty spectacular with beautiful oceans, endlessly rolling hills, and little white specks that I would later learn are the innumerable sheep that permeate the entire country. Adam, the group leader, rented a van and a trailer, which we would use for transportation and storage throughout our entire time in NZ. We spend about 40 days in NZ and about 20 days in Australia.

The first thing we did was go to a Home Depot type of store and a grocery store to stock up on supplies and food. I guess it is not that surprising when I think about it, but I find NZ to be very similar to the US in many respects. It is very modern and clean, and I don't have to worry about the water. There just isn't that shock that I felt once I arrived in Bangkok last September. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just different.

After shopping we went to a public park called One Tree Hill, which is a hill with a big tower on the top that used to have a tree to commemorate some event that I don't remember. As you can see in the following picture, it is quite beautiful.From the hill you could see some brilliant views of Auckland and the ocean. At the bottom of the hill there were a bunch of rocks that people have used to leave messages readable from the will. Since there are 4 other Pacific Challenge groups following our trails in the next couple weeks, we wrote the message "No tree hill. PCUE" (PCUE means Pacific Challenge Ultimate Expedition). After One Tree Hill, we drove to a beach and had made some lunch. This trip is a bit different from the last trip in that the group cooks all breakfasts and almost all dinners rather than going to restaurants all the time. Thus, I'm finally going to have to learn how to do some real cooking. Probably a good thing.


Auckland is an incredibly beautiful city. I think it might be the largest city in NZ and has a population of 1 million (NZ only has a population of 4 million overall). Not only is it very green, there are tons of brilliantly colored flowers all over the place. It is also very hilly and reminded my of where my Uncle Ron lives in Monterey, CA. After the beach, we drove a couple of hours to a town called Waitomo. I just listened to podcasts on my iPod while I stared at the beautiful NZ scenery.

Robbed

1/10/2007

The international date line has stolen a day from my life, and I want it back!

I shall have my vengeance in about two months.

Adios, USA!

1/9/2007

Today begins my adventure to New Zealand and Australia with Pacific Challenge (http://www.pacificchallenge.org). If you happened to read my other blog, you might recognize that this is the same organization that I used for my trip to Southeast Asia, which was a wonderful experience. This trip will likely be much more physical and not quite as much of a cultural experience as the trip to SE Asia, which is good and bad. Pacific Challenge has been offering this trip for many years, but this year they decided to create a pilot program called the "Pacific Challenge Ultimate Expedition," which is similar to the traditional trip to NZ and Aus but incorporates more physically demanding activities with more camping and less time in the cities. All of the participants were informed about the pilot program, and only the first 10 who expressed an interest were allowed to do it. Everyone else would do the traditional trip, which has been successful in the past. While probably the last time I actually went camping was in elementary school with the Boy Scouts, I decided that I would like to do the more outdoorsy pilot program. Time will tell exactly how "ultimate" it is.

Back to my day...I had a flight out of Orlando that landed in Los Angeles at 3:00 pm. Since I had a few hours to kill before I had to meet up with the group, I walked around the LAX airport for over an hour with a ton of luggage searching for a TV to watch the beloved Florida Gators basketball team against I think Arkansas. As you all surely know, last night the UF football team won the national championship. Unfortunately, I was watching that game in my living room rather than in Arizona, but a win is a win. Eventually the time came for me to go meet the people in my group. I'll give a brief summary of the people on the trip:

Me- I don't think all of the terabytes of my Google Blogger account can fit all the fascinating information about me, so I'll leave that up to your imagination (basically I'm a 22 year old kid enjoying myself before going to medical school - at least that is the current plan)

Philip- 21 years old; from South Carolina; graduated from Presbyterian College last December; headed to dental school in the fall

Kim- 24 years old; from San Antonio, TX; applying to medical school

Andy- junior at Southern Oregon University; on college track team

Lindsay- from Chicago; junior at Winona State University in Minnesota

Jen- from Minnesota; graduated from Winona State University

Chris- from Oregon; junior at Oregon State University

Eli- not sure yet; we'll be meeting up with him later in the trip when he joins our group in New Zealand

Adam- the group leader; graduated from University of New Mexico; teaches at Southern Oregon University; has led multiple Pacific Challenge trips to NZ and Aus

Well, that basically sums up the group. Everybody seemed friendly (we'll see how long that lasts). Our plane left at 9 pm for a quick flight of about 13 hours. The airline was Air New Zealand, and one interesting thing was that all the flight attendants were male. I overheard somebody ask them if that was the standard for NZ airlines, and they said it was just a coincidence. I guess I'll find out in two months when I fly back to the US if it really was just a coincidence...Anyways, the flight went smoothly. I got some nice sleep and watched a movie called The Illusionist, which was pretty cool.

First Post

Hello everyone,

That's a lovely accent you have. New Jersey? Austria. Austria! Well, then. G'day mate! Let's put another shrimp on the barbie! Let's not.

If you don't recognize that line, then right now you should go watch Dumb and Dumber, one of my favorite movies of all time. Actually, I understand if you completely detest that movie (maybe you just weren't in the right mood at the time). Regardless, the quote introduces one of the destinations on my next adventure, Austria (or is it Australia?).

All right. At this moment I am in New Zealand in the city of Wellington, which is where the great Peter Jackson hails from and where the LOTR movies were first shown. It is January 22 today, but I left the US on January 9. Thus, I have some catching up to do. I'll try my best to get caught up with my blogging. In the meantime, feel free to check out my first blog detailing my trip to Southeast Asia at http://nmobrien.blogspot.com. (Disclaimer: the disclaimer I emphasized in the other blog about spelling and punctuation applies to this one as well)

Nathan