Nathan's New Zealand and Australia Blog

Back to the USA

2007-03-16T17:56:00.000+13:00

3/12/2007 - 3/13/2007

Today was the last day of the trip and a huge travel day. We drove about an hour to the Brisbane airport to catch our 11:30 am flight back to Auckland. This flight was 2 hours and 45 minutes. Our next flight was about 13 or 14 hours to Los Angeles. While it was a long flight, everyone had personal video players, so we were able to have our choice from about 50 movies. Then I had a short layover in LA to say goodbye to everyone and catch my next flight to Dallas, which was followed my a final flight to Orlando that got in at 12:20 am March 13. It was a long, long day.

Well, my trip to New Zealand and Australia is done. I had a great time, and I thank you for reading my blog and hope you enjoyed it. Now I have to find a job for a couple months before my next adventure (if you have any ideas for a job, PLEASE let me know). This summer I'll be riding my bike across the country from Providence, RI, to Seattle, WA, with a non-profit organization called Bike & Build (http://www.bikeandbuild.org). Bike & Build runs 6 cycling trips across the country to raise awareness and funds for the affordable housing cause. Each trip has 30 riders between 18 and 24 years in age. Basically we bike across the country, help to spread awareness about affordable housing in the places we stay at night, and also take a day off every one or two weeks to build houses at local affordable housing projects. I think it is a great opportunity. Check out the website if you're interested. I will keep another blog for that trip, and I'll post the address here when I set it up.

Again, thank you for reading my NZ and Australia blog!

Nathan

Mooloolaba

2007-03-16T17:41:00.000+13:00

3/10/2007 - 3/11/2007

This morning we took the ferry from Great Keppel Island to Yeppoon and then had a really long drive to a beach town called Mooloolaba, which is located near Brisbane. We didn't get to Mooloolaba until about 7 pm. We set up our tents and the holiday park and then grabbed some dinner.

After breakfast the following morning, I went to the Australia Zoo with Philip, Kim, and Jen. This is the zoo that Steve Irwin worked at before he recently passed away. It was brutally hot outside, but the zoo was great. We saw tons of animals. Just take a look at the pictures.

Alligators

Venomous snakes

Wombats

Parrots

Kangaroos in an open field

Koalas

The Steve Irwin shrine

Saltwater crocodile in the Crocoseum

Tigers

This crocodile is a model of what one of the largest saltwater crocodiles they've seen looks like. I think it was about 26 feet. Pretty big.

Maybe the dingo ate your baby?

Tortoises. Until a few years ago the zoo actually had a tortoise named Harriet that Darwin observed down in the Galapagos Islands.

After the zoo we drove by the Glass House Mountains and then back to the campsite. We went out to a Tibetan restaurant for dinner, which was great. I've never seen goat on a menu before this, so I figured I had to try it. It was amazing. After dinner we walked by the beach for a bit and then went back to the campsite. I played some Backgammon and Hearts and then went to sleep.

Keppel Island

2007-03-16T17:21:00.000+13:00

3/5/2007 - 3/9/2007

This morning we took the ferry from Yeppoon to Great Keppel Island, which would be our home for the next 5 days. Unfortunately, it was raining, which made us worry about how the weather would be for our 2 days of sea kayaking and then 3 days of scuba diving. There is a cyclone out in the ocean that has looked potentially threatening. While it has turned aways from us, there is still the possibility of disrupted weather due to the cyclone. Nevertheless, we were headed to Keppel Island on the south end of the Great Barrier Reef, so we had to make the most of it regardless of the weather.

After the 30 minute ferry, we walked to our accommodation called the Roundhouse, which was a great place as you can see in the following picture. The house had 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, and a living room. We had it all to ourselves. There were birds and lizards all over the place (see second picture).

After a swim and some lunch, we walked down to the dive shop with our gear to get started on our sea kayaking mini-expedition. Basically we were kayaking to another island called Hump Island where we would stay for 2 nights and then kayak back to Keppel Island on the following morning. At the dive shop, we met our guide named Scott. We had a quick paddle and then headed out toward Humpy Island in our double kayaks. The weather ended up being great with the sun shining. We made it to Humpy Island in an hour and a half or so. It was a nice easy paddle with some fun bumpy spots. We saw some big sea turtles and a ton of jellyfish.

When we landed on the beach, we moved the boats and set up camp. We were unbelievably fortunate to have the entire island to ourselves since it had been shut down due to the impending cyclone (that didn't come, heh). Thus, we had a 60 person campsite to ourselves with bathrooms, footwashes, and showers. Pretty sweet.

The next day we took a walk around Humpy Island. It was really beautiful. Take a look at the pictures.

This rock tower is called a cairn.

I really enjoyed the walk, and I actually did it a second time since I didn't have a camera the first time around. After lunch we kayaked for about 2 hours. We paddled to another part of Great Keppel Island and checked out a couple caves. We had to surf our kayaks on some decent sized waves to get to the beach where the caves were. Most people tipped, but it was fun. I found out later that the caves had been used a long time ago to lock Aborigines causing them to die when the tide came in, which is pretty disturbing. After the caves we paddled back to Humpy Island and just relaxed or played cards for the rest of the evening.

We kayaked back to the dive shop at Great Keppel Island early the next morning. After cleaning up the boats, we went back to the house for breakfast. Then Andy, Philip, and I went back to the dive shop to get started on our open water dives for our scuba certification with Adam. It's awesome that we are getting our certification on the Great Barrier Reef. Today we did 2 dives. The first was at the Big Peninsula, and the second was at the Underwater Observatory, which was closed preventing us from seeing people looking at us underwater. Both were great dives. There were a ton of pretty fish and coral; unfortunately I don't really know many names. We were also able to see a sunken ship on the Underwater Observatory dive. I spent the rest of the day taking my exams for the scuba book work and then just hanging out.

The next day was similar. In the morning we did another certification dive. We went back to the Big Peninsula. It was the same site as yesterday, but fortunately we did a different segment making it feel like a completely different dive. The visibility was awesome, and I saw 2 bull rays, which were definitely the coolest things I've seen so far. They were huge rays that were blue in color and almost circular. They seemed otherworldly and reminded me of something out of The Matrix as they hovered in the water and moved from location to location.

After the dive I finished my Secret Kiwi gift and did my scuba final exam. Later I went snorkeling with Philip out at the beach. It was low tide and thus really shallow with poor visibility. There were tons of sea cucumbers on the ground, and it was extremely eerie since you could only see a few feet away. Once Philip saw a wobegon shark on the floor between us, we were spooked and got out of there.

That night we exchanged our Secret Kiwi gifts. Everyone had nice gifts, but I especially liked what Andy gave to Philip. It was a coconut that had a face carved out of it. It was really good, especially since he did it this afternoon.

On our last full day in Keppel, we did two more dives. The first was at a site called Man and Wife Rock, which was a nice dive. We only actually had to complete 4 open water dives to get or PADI scuba certification, but we decided to do another dive for fun. This Half Rocks site was supposed to have a good amount of sea snakes, which have an incredibly lethal bite but apparently are nothing to worry about since they pretty much never do bite. We only saw one, which is fine with me since I'm a little scared of snakes.

After lunch I went for a walk around the island. It was about a 2 hour walk up to Mt. Wyndam and back, and there were many great views. Check out the photos.

Yes, camels (probably not indigenous).

For our last night on Keppel, the entire group went out to the beach at sunset for some champagne. The sunset was spectacular.

Emu Park/Yeppoon

2007-03-16T17:19:00.000+13:00

3/4/2007

Today was fairly uneventful. After breakfast and packing up our gear, we had a long drive to a town called Yeppoon, which is where we would catch the ferry tomorrow to go to Great Keppel Island for the next 5 days on the Great Barrier Reef. There wasn't a whole lot to do in Yeppoon. We checked out the town and did some grocery shopping for the next 5 days. Then we went to our accommodation for the night nearby in a place called Emu Park. Here's a picture of the house we stayed at.

Fraser Island

2007-03-16T17:09:00.000+13:00

3/2/2007 - 3/3/2007

Today we took a ferry to Fraser Island, which is the "largest sand island in the world." I'm still not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds cool. Since the island is all sand, we had to rent a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Adam got up early and picked up our Toyota Land Cruiser for the next two days, and then we loaded up all our gear and hopped in. It was a cozy ride. We then caught the 45 minute ferry to Fraser Island. It was insanely hot outside. Here are a couple pictures from the ferry.

When we started driving on the island, it was immediately apparent why 4 wheel drive vehicles are required. The roads were pretty good, but it was a bit bumpy.

We drove to a freshwater lake called Lake McKenzie. While walking to the lake, I saw this goanna (I think) on a tree. These lizards are pretty common in Australia.

Lake McKenzie was incredibly beautiful with it white sandy beach and clear blue water. There were a lot of people there, and I suspect many of them were Americans based on their voices, youth, drinking, and frivolous conversation (sorry, but it's true). A group of us swam to the opposite beach and back, which was good exercise. My swimming skills have definitely deteriorated from my prime in elementary school P.E.

After lunch at Lake McKenzie, we drove to the beach and checked out the Maheno shipwreck, which was pretty cool. Fraser Island is fairly large, so it takes a while to drive from place to place. We could only stay at the Maheno for a few minutes before we had to find a campsite on the beach. The rental company does not allow the vehicles to be driven in salt water, so we were not allowed to be on the beach at high tide, which today was at 4:30 pm. We found a campsite and got everything set up. There were these large, green march flies all over the place, and their bites actually hurt. I may have had limited immunity to the sandflies in NZ, but not these guys. I quickly lathered up with some DEET. I may get cancer eventually, but it feels good now. However, I still got a few bites through my shirt!

The next morning we hung out for a while until the tide went out at 10:30 am. You could swim in the ocean, but only if you want to get bit by a shark. That's one of the drawbacks at Fraser Island. I didn't have any desire to take that risk. When we finally were able to drive on the beach, we went to another freshwater lake called Lake Wobby. We had to walk about 15 minutes to get to the lake, and there were some great views on the walk. Check it out.

I enjoyed Lake McKenzie more than Lake Wobby, but Wobby was still nice. After a good swim we had to drive back to the main dock to catch the ferry. We were running a little late, so Adam put the pedal to the floor and drove like a madman to get us there on time. It was extremely bumpy. Adam seemed a bit crazy, but he knew what he was doing. I thought we definitely wouldn't make it once we got caught behind some slow drivers for a few minutes, but we barely made it as the last car on. It was a huge relief. We took the ferry back to Hervey Bay where we camped for another night.

Hervey Bay

2007-03-16T17:07:00.000+13:00

3/1/2007

After a relaxing morning, we departed from Byron Bay and had about 6 hours of travel time in the van to get to Hervey Bay. There really isn't anything to do in Hervey Bay. It's basically just a place we stay to catch the ferry to Fraser Island tomorrow. We set up our tents at a nice campsite, and then we ate some pizza during the beautiful sunset.

After dinner we had to do some grocery shopping for our trip to Fraser Island. Then we came back to the campsite. I played some cards (Hearts has been the game of choice for a while) and then got some sleep. There were tons of fruit bats around our campsite. They were massive.

Byron Bay

2007-03-16T17:01:00.000+13:00

2/26/2007 - 2/28/2007

This morning we got up early to start our epic drive to Byron Bay. It's a good thing we have an FM transmitter for the iPods. Otherwise these drives would be extremely painful rather than just painful (actually, they're not so bad--Adam has to drive the entire time). We finally made it to Byron Bay around 5 pm. Byron Bay is basically a beach town. We stayed at the house of a guy named Troy, who was a friend of one of the other PC group leaders. Troy's a 37 year old guy who has been a surfer all his life. His house is definitely a beach house, and it was great to have access to a kitchen and bathroom while I slept in a tent in his backyard. That night we all went out to dinner at a place called The Rails, which had live music. Then we walked by the beach, hung out, and went to bed. Here's a picture of Troy's house.

On our second day in Byron Bay, I had to do some things for my SCUBA certification. First I had to go to a local doctor's office to get a physical. Later in the afternoon Philip and I had a pool session with Adam at the local dive shop. It's nice that our group leader is also a scuba instructor. Basically Adam just showed us how all the gear worked and how to set it up, and then we got into the pool and did some skills.

The following day we had a "learn to surf" class with the surf school that Troy works for. Basically we got picked up in a van and taken to the beach, and a few guys gave us a surfing lesson. First they instructed us using the boards on the beach, and then we went out in the water and practiced. It was really basic. We were riding these massive soft longboards that were basically boats, and the instructors did all the work catching waves for us. I was a little bit annoyed that I couldn't just go off on my own since I already kind of knew how to do it, but I got over it quick and had a good time. Here are some pictures that Troy took.

After the surfing I walked around the town for a while. We have this thing at the end of the trip called "Secret Kiwi," which is basically the same as Secret Santa. I was looking for ideas for my gift. I also saw this license plate. Apparently Florida isn't the only Sunshine State.

Warrumbungle National Park

2007-02-28T00:07:00.000+13:00

2/25/2007

Today was a big travel day from the Blue Mountains to Warrumbungle National Park. Australia is nice, but it's so big that it takes a lot of driving to get from one place to the next. Many people don't realize that Australia is about the size of the United States. That's part of the reason I like NZ so much. It's basically Australia compressed into the size of a state. Anyways, we eventually made it to Warrumbungle and set up our tents. There were kangaroos everywhere, which was awesome. We had enough time to do a good 2 hour hike. Basically we went uphill and then downhill as we walked around a small mountain. There were some great views.

Our path was blocked by this spider, so we had to take a detour.

And those kangaroos...

After the hike we made dinner, played cards, and went to sleep. It was really windy during the night. We probably shouldn't have put our tent in a wide open area, heh.

Blue Mountains

2007-02-27T23:57:00.000+13:00

2/23/2007 - 2/24/2007

This morning we had a 2.5 hour drive in our new rental van to a place called the Blue Mountains. We stopped in a town for lunch, and then some of us rented mountain bikes to check out a trail. First we had to ride from the town to the trail entrance. There were some really steep sections that I got serious speed on, but for every steep downhill there is a steep uphill, which is a bit more work. I've got a lot of training to do before my bike trip this summer. More on that later. Unfortunately, after the 45 minutes it took us to get to the trail entrance, some dark, ominous clouds rolled in. I've lived in Florida long enough to know that riding a metal bike on top of a mountain ridge with a thunderstorm approaching is pretty stupid, so we turned back. Philip and I biked pretty hard to get back to town, and fortunately we found a good shelter before it started pissing down rain. Lindsay took a nice spill and scraped up her knee and elbow, however. Here is a photo of the view from the beginning of the trail that we didn't get to go on, and the second photo is of a cool flower.

After the storm passed, we rode to a place called Echo Point to check out the Three Sisters, which are 3 big rocks of significance to the Aborigines. Here are a few photos of the great views.

After the returning the bikes, we went to the local IMAX theater to see a movie called The Edge, which was about the Blue Mountains. The IMAX cinematography was spectacular, and the movie discussed this ancient tree species called The Wollemi Pine, which dates back to the age of the dinosaurs and was recently discovered to still be living in the area. Exactly where the small number of these trees are located is a secret, and the camera crew had to be blindfolded while they were taken to the location in a helicopter.

After the movie we drove to a town called Black Heath where we stayed the night at the Scout Den. The Scout Den had a cricket field, basketball courts, and tennis courts. We didn't get a chance to play any sports, but I did get to see some cricket being played the following morning.

The next morning we drove an hour and a half to a place called Sheep Dip to do some canyoning, which basically involves traversing down a canyon. Sometimes we were walking on land, and other times we were going through water (cold water, that is). It was a ton of fun, especially the parts where we had to jump a few meters down into the mysterious black water. Pictures might do a better job explaining what we actually did (I got the pictures from Lindsay's camera since mine isn't waterproof).

After the canyoning we set up camp at a site nearby. There were massive termite as well as kangaroos all over the place. Here are some photos.

Goodbye NZ, G'day Australia!

2007-02-27T23:46:00.000+13:00

2/20/2007 - 2/22/2007

After doing a few last minute things in Christchurch this morning, we flew out of New Zealand at 3:45 pm on a 3 hour flight to Sydney, Australia. I was sad to leave NZ, but I guess there might be worse places to go than Australia, eh? I got to see The Prestige for a second time on the airplane, and if you haven't seen that movie I would highly recommend it.

After picking up our bags and going through customs, we sat around a bit until we heard a loud roar coming around the corner. It was our airport shuttle service, a group of guys driving Harley-Davidsons. Each of us got to ride on our own personal Harley with a driver. We rode all around Sydney on our way to our accommodation at Manly Beach. It was awesome. Those bikes are incredibly powerful. I'm not a huge fan of motorcycles because of all the stories I hear from my dad in the ER, but it was fun to do once in my life. There were a light of great sights along the way. We even saw the world's largest ocean liner The Queen Mary II along with another massive ship The Queen Elizabeth in the Sydney harbor, which apparently is a very historic event. People were everywhere to witness it. Here are some pictures.

Helicopters filled the sky above the harbor.

Our accommodations we were 2 giant apartments across from the beach. Each had 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room, etc. It was a nice break from camping all the time. Below is a picture of the place. After we got situated, we just walked around the town and got some dinner.

The next morning I got up really early (there was a 2 hour time change), and I went out for a run by the beach with a couple other guys. It was 6:30 am, and the town was already bustling. It seemed like everyone in Manly Beach was out either exercising near the beach or going to work. A little later I had to start working on the class material for my SCUBA diving certification. Philip was also doing the certification, and basically all we had to do was work on the chapter reviews in the textbook. It's pretty basic. After lunch I went with Andy, Philip, and Garner to rent surf boards. I haven't done a lot of surfing, bu I was able to catch some waves and get up a few times, which I was excited about. It was a lot of fun.

Manly Beach is very beautiful, and the town is quite pleasant. Here are some pictures.

I actually went into the city with Andy and Garner on our third day in Sydney. To get there we had to take a 30 minute ferry from Manly Beach to Sydney, which was pretty scenic. Here are some pictures I took from the boat.

We walked around the city for a little while and then went to the Sydney Opera House, which is beautiful as you can see from the pictures above. I thought about going to see a show, but there weren't any playing tonight in the main theater. I'm not really interested in theater, so seeing a show in the main theater would have been the only reason for me to go. I was really tired after going to the opera house for some reason, so I took the ferry back to Manly. I did some email and uploaded a few pictures, and then I just relaxed for the evening. Here is a photo of Sydney from the opera house.

Christchurch

2007-02-27T23:40:00.000+13:00

2/18/2007 - 2/19/2007

Today we had about a 6 hour drive to the city of Christchurch. The drive was pretty uneventful, but we did pass by some incredibly blue lakes. Take a look at the pictures. We first saw the color in some man-made ponds on several farms. I figured it was some type of chemical creating the color, but when we saw the huge lakes with the same color I realized that it truly was the natural color.

When we got into Christchurch, we checked in at the YMCA, which was different from the American YMCAs. This YMCA was an accommodation but also had a weight area, climbing wall, and squash courts. It was already pretty late when we got in, so we just had dinner and walked around a bit before going to bed.

In the morning on the following day, we rented some rock climbing shoes at a local outdoor store and then drove 20 minutes out of town to get to a real rock wall to do some climbing. It was a sweet spot. It seemed to be on somebody's farm land, so nobody was there. Apparently one of the Polytech schools (kind of like a trade school) had set up several routes, so Adam just set up the ropes for those lines. We started at the top of the wall and then rappelled down, which was fun. Then we did some climbing. It was a lot of fun. One of the routes was really tough. It took me a while before I could get it. I had to stray from the standard route to get up, which created a large angle between my rope and the belay rope. When I fell off the rock with this angle, I ended up swinging really hard into another part of the rock. Fortunately, I was able to keep control my body during the swing and hit the rock with my feet. A couple other people in my group weren't as fortunate and will probably have some nice bruises. Heh... Here are a few pictures.

After climbing Eli and I played some squash at the YMCA. Neither of us had played squash before, so we really didn't understand the rules. I've seen it on TV before, but I basically just applied racquetball rules while considering the tin to come up with my own rules. It was fun. That ball is really weird, however. And if the YMCA happens to read this, those racquets were asymmetrical before we played with them (or were they?).

Sadly, it was our last night in New Zealand. We had a picnic dinner with Dimitry's kebabs in a garden. Kebabs are my favorite things to eat for lunch. I don't understand why I've never seen kebab stands in the US. It's just chicken (or whatever), lettuce, onions, tomato, hummus, tabbouleh, and sauce inside a Turkish bread wrap. Very tasty. Here is a nice group picture.

Here are a couple random shots of Christchurch. We didn't have a lot of time to explore the city, so I can't really say much about it.

Queenstown Part 2

2007-02-17T14:50:00.000+13:00

2/15/2007 - 2/17/2007

Today we returned to Queenstown for 3 more days. We got into town around lunchtime after driving from Te Anau, and I didn't do a whole lot today besides relaxing around town and our accommodation. For dinner we went to this gourmet pizza place called Winnie's Pizza, which served some of the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Basically today was a rest day after yesterday's big hiking day. Here are a few pictures I took around the town.

Our second day in Queenstown part 2 was certainly one of the best days of the trip so far. Today was bungy jumping day, and I was scheduled to do the "Thrillogy," which was a series of 3 bungy jumps. The first jump was the Bridge jump, which was the first commercial bungy jump ever in the world. It was incredible. Basically they strapped the bungy cord to my ankles and asked me if I wanted to get wet. I did, so I just leaned forward off the bridge. Before the jump I looked down and definitely felt a bit of nerves, but then I leaned into a dive off the bridge. I wasn't able to breathe as I began free fall, but it was a great feeling. It was just like jumping out of the airplane but without the extended ride. I got dunked in the water to just above my knees! Here are a few pics (that's me with the orange shorts).

After the bridge jump, we were taken to the 134 meter Nevis bungy jump, which is the 2nd highest bungy jump in the world. The Nevis was out in the middle of nowhere. Basically we jumped from a pod hanging above a small river carving out 2 mountains. We had to take a tram to get to the pod. The view of the apparatus was a bit daunting, but I knew it was safe enough (at least that's what I told myself).

Eventually it was my turn. I got set up with a full body harness, and then I jumped out as far as I could. It was a major rush with several seconds of free fall. Such an incredible feeling.

After the Nevis we went back into town for lunch. Then we rode the gondola up to the third jump in the Thrillogy called "The Ledge," which had absolutely spectacular views of Queenstown. The third jump wasn't nearly as big as the Nevis, but you are allowed to run and jump and do all sorts of flips. I did a big gainer off the Ledge, which was cool but in my opinion took away from the free fall feeling the other 2 jumps had. Even though I liked the first 2 jumps the most, the Ledge jump was still amazing. Here are a few pictures.

Here I am flipping over Queenstown.

After the bungy jumping, we went luging down a luge course. It was so much fun. Basically it was set up like a ski slope. We took a ski lift up and then luged down the track. It looked like it was something made for little kids, but it was surely one of the most fun things I've done on this trip. We were able to pick up a ton of speed and make tight turns. I felt like I was going to tip several times, and I did my best to ram the other people in my group off the track.

After luging we savored the Queenstown cityscape a bit and then took the gondola down the mountain before driving back to the accommodation.

Before dinner I was able to play some tennis with Philip and Eli at the tennis court at our lodge. The court was pretty beat up, one of the racquets was badly broken, and the balls were some of the worst I've ever seen. Nevertheless, it was tennis, so I had a good time. It was quite a day.

Our final day in Queenstown was pretty quiet. I spent the morning helping Andy upload pictures at an Internet cafe. Then I checked out the weekend market and did some picture uploading of my own. I was happy to get a little bit of tennis in with Eli before the group went to meet up with 3 other Pacific Challenge groups that happened to be in Queenstown at the same time. We met up with PC1, PC3, and PC4 and played some ultimate frisbee before going out to Winnie's Pizza for dinner. Frisbee was a lot of fun, and it was good to meet some people in the other PC groups.

Kepler Track

2007-02-17T14:40:00.000+13:00

2/12/2007 - 2/14/2007

Today was the beginning of our 3 (or 4) day backpacking trip at the Kepler Track in Fiordland National Park. Since the track was a loop that began and ended in Te Anau, we just had a quick drive to get to the entrance. Here is a brief overview of the Kepler Track.

First we had to walk from Te Anau to the Control Gates, which is the daunting name of the beginning and end of the hike. That was an easy walk that took less than an hour. Next we had another fairly flat walk through a nice, green tree canopy to Brod Bay where we stopped for lunch. I'm guessing it took a little over an our. After lunch we hiked from Brod Bay to Luxmore Hut. It was all uphill, but the grade was nowhere near as steep as the hike to Mueller Hut on the Mt. Cook trip. It wasn't easy, but I felt pretty fit and didn't have any trouble. The scenery on the climb was pretty much all forest, which was nice but a bit monotonous. Here are a couple pictures on that segment.
This is a nice view of Te Anau.

Here is Philip next to a big uprooted tree (for reference, he's 6'5" or something like that).

There were also some nice limestone bluffs.

When we made it up the climb, it was an easy walk to Luxmore Hut out of the bush with spectacular views of Te Anau and the lake. We made it to the hut in a little under 3 hours from Brod Bay. Here are a couple of the magnificent views.

Luxmore Hut was really nice. It slept 55 people and had a nice kitchen area and great views. After unpacking our gear, we took a short walk to check out Luxmore Cave.

This is a great view of the sunset from Luxmore Hut.

On the morning of day 2, we decided to just hang out at the hut until we finished lunch and then set off for Iris Burn Hut, where we would camp for the night. We witnessed some really cool views this morning. We were at an elevation of around 1000 meters, but we were able to look down on the clouds above the lake. It was an awesome sight.

While I was on the deck, a Kea (alpine parrot) landed near me, and I was able to snap some photos of the bird with the clouds in the background. I thought this made for some really spectacular pictures. Have a look.

In this next one, a wind has pushed some of the clouds toward the hut. This actually happened several times. First you would be able to look across the sky and down on the clouds. Then a wind would disrupt the clouds so that you could not see across the sky at all. It was interesting.

After lunch we left Luxmore Hut and hiked to the campsite at Iris Burn Hut. The hike was incredible. Basically we went uphill from the 1000 meter Luxmore Hut along mountain ridges or sidling mountains. We essentially went uphill, then downhill, then uphill to about 1500 meter elevation, then downhill to Iris Burn. The views were just amazing. We could see for miles in all directions since we were walking along a mountain ridge much of the time. There were beautiful mountains and the wonderful Lake Te Anau. Here are a few photos.

The hike took us about 4 hours, which was quite a bit faster than the 5-6 hour estimate from the Kepler Track information. I guess we could be considered decent hikers now. We set up camp at Iris Burn, and we quickly realized that the sand flies were going to be really annoying. We initially had planned to camp on the trail tomorrow and then walk out on day 4, but we decided to just finish the whole thing tomorrow and camp back at the holiday park in Te Anau to evade the sand flies. We had to spend a little extra money, but I think it was worth it.

Day 3 was an epic day of hiking. We got up early, had breakfast, packed up, and left just before 9 am. We didn't get back to town until about 5:30 pm. We hiked pretty much the entire time except stopping for a 30 minute lunch and some short breaks. It was pretty much all flat or very mild uphill or downhill, but we covered a very impressive distance. Overall we hike around 35.7 kilometers, which is about 23 miles (I think). While it was mostly flat, hiking 23 miles with a heavy pack in one day is pretty good in my opinion. Here are some of the pictures of the scenery.

Everybody was pretty tired once we finally finished.

Then we went into town for some ice cream and set up camp. Overall the Kepler Track was a great hike.

Te Anau

2007-02-17T14:35:00.000+13:00

2/11/2007

This morning we departed from our campsite and drove to a place from which we had a short hike to check out a massive 250 meter waterfall. There were 3 falls to it. The bottom of the waterfall was concealed and could only be seen by jumping across rocks for 45 minutes. I would have loved to see it, but we didn't have enough time. Too bad. I guess you'll have to settle for this picture.

After checking out the waterfall, we drove back toward Te Anau. Along the way, we stopped at one of the entrances to the Routeburn Track (a backpacking track done by the classic Pacific Challenge trip). We had lunch there and then went on a 2 hour round trip hike up to Key Summit, which had some magnificent views. Here are those views.

After the hike we drove back to Te Anau, where we would camp for the night. We camped at a "holiday park," which has hotel rooms as well as areas to camp (for a price, of course). I saw a neat little hedgehog there.

Milford Sound

2007-02-17T14:23:00.000+13:00

2/10/2007

Today had originally been planned to be the first day of our backpacking trip at the Kepler Track in Fiordland National Park, but we decided to push it back a day or two because a couple people in the group were feeling sick and because we decided to do the Kepler in 3 or 4 days even though 5 days had been allocated for the trip. We spent today driving from Queenstown to Te Anau (where we would start the Kepler Track) and then to Milford Sound, which is one of major attractions of the South Island. The drive to Milford Sound was incredibly beautiful. There were massive rocks and mountains surrounding the road along with all sorts of waterfalls. Here are some pictures I took on the drive.

Milford Sound was quite stunning. A sound refers to a channel that carves out two bodies of land. Since Milford Sound was actually carved out by a glacier, technically it is actually a fiord (or so I am told). Regardless, it is quite stunning. Just look at the pictures. The mighty peak is called Mitre Peak, and there is a humongous waterfall. Unfortunately, we arrived at Milford Sound too late to take a cruise, but the walks still provided some great views.

After visiting Milford we found a campsite to stay at for the night. A swarm of sandflies had blown in that evening, so we fortunately were able to stay in little cabins instead of our tents. Those NZ sandflies are brutal, so it worked out really well.

Queenstown Part 1

2007-02-17T14:18:00.000+13:00

2/9/2007

Today we drove a few hours from Mt. Cook to Queenstown. Just before we got into the town, we stopped to check out one of the places at which we would bungy jump in a few days. It is called "The Bridge" and actually was the first commercial bungy jump in the world. Pretty cool. Check out a couple pictures.

I was surprised to find out that Queenstown only has a population of about 8500. I had expected it to be larger since I had actually heard of the city, but I can understand that population now that I've been there. It's the adventure capital of NZ since it offers all sorts of adrenaline pumping activities like bungy jumping, sky diving, rafting, hang gliding, paragliding, etc. It's understandably quite touristy, and the town is dominated by restaurants, outdoor stores, accommodations, etc. Nevertheless, it is a very pleasant and beautiful town. Here's a picture. I didn't do a whole lot today. I basically just wandered around the town and got up to date on my emails and blog. Since we are coming back to Queenstown in about 5 days after our backpacking trip, I'll wait to post a bunch of pictures of the town. One more thing. I don't see a lot of policemen in NZ, but I'm always happy when I do. Just look at the colors of their cars and you'll see why. Go Gators!

Mt. Cook

2007-02-09T18:32:00.000+13:00

2/5/2007 - 2/8/2007

Well, this post has an absurd number of pictures, but I think you'll see why. Today was a big travel day with our destination being Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. We departed from Kaikura pretty early in the morning and drove to Christchurch to do some grocery shopping for the next few days as well as to watch the Super Bowl, which was fun. Although it wasn't important to me, I kind of wanted the Colts to win so that I wouldn't have to listen to ESPN saying that Peyton Manning can't win the big game over and over again. After the game we continued our drive to Mt. Cook. Below is a view of Mt. Cook from our drive. Tonight we were staying in a hut called Unwin Hut, which had a spectacular view of the mountain.

We went on a glacier cruise in the Tasman Lake on the morning of the next day. It was amazing. Basically we rode in a little boat as our guide showed us multitudes of glacier and ice formations. I don't really understand the science behind the glaciers, but I did appreciate their beauty. Check out the pictures.

This one is of a hole through a mass of blue glacier ice.

While not exactly allowed, our cool guide allowed a few of us to get in that hole for some pictures. Here I am.

I found the next formation particularly interesting. It is clearly the left pelvic bone. Just look at the acetabulum and the crest of the ilium. Yeah, I guess should be going to medical school.

This next picture is pretty interesting as well. The arch will likely collapse within the next day. It is amazing how dynamic these glaciers are, even on a daily basis. Apparently the formations will break apart overnight and look completely different the next day. I had no idea how quickly these things could change.

At the end of the glacier cruise, Philip and I backflipped off the boat into the glacier lake, which happened to be 2 degrees Celsius (about 36 degrees Fahrenheit). As Adam would say, it was quite "refreshing." I don't think I was in that water for more than 15 seconds.

After the glacier cruise, we prepared for our next expedition beginning that afternoon. Basically we were going to climb up to Mueller Hut, stay there for 2 nights, and then climb down the next day. The hike was supposed to be pretty grueling since we would be going up 1000 meters to an elevation of 1800 meters.

The hike up to Mueller Hut was incredible. It was a lot of hard work since it was entirely steep uphill, but the spectacular views made it so enjoyable (even with a 40 pound backpack on). It took around 3 and a half hours for me to hike up. I could have gone faster, but I wanted to savor the sights. Just take a look at these pictures and you'll understand.

This next picture is of Sealy Tarn. A tarn is an alpine lake. It was actually really hot outside, and I went for a quick swim in this tarn. Quite refreshing.

Mt. Cook is the peak in the center of the next picture.

Here are a few pictures of the brilliant sunset over Mt. Cook viewed from Mueller Hut.

Since we're in the Pacific Challenge "Extreme" group, a few of us decided to walk back down to the village and then climb back up to Mueller Hut the next day. Maybe we're a little crazy, but at least we didn't have as much weight in our packs.

This next picture is of a kea, an alpine parrot.

I like taking pictures of reflections.

On the last day when we departed from Mueller Hut, we decided to get an early start because rain was in the forecast. Below you can see some of the clouds rolling in. Going down is really not as easy as many people think. While it is much less cardiovascularly taxing than going up, going down just destroys your knees. If I get more into backpacking, I think all invest in some walking poles to save my knees.

Here is a picture with Mueller Hut in the background. Yes, there was snow as we got up to the hut. However, it was only cold at night (thankfully)

When we got back to the village, we basically just rested for the rest of the day. My legs were a little sore.

I'm pretty sure that Mt. Cook has been my favorite part of the trip so far. It's just so beautiful.

Kaikura

2007-02-09T15:08:00.000+13:00

2/3/2007 - 2/4/2007

This morning we had a short drive from our campsite at the end of the Clarence River to Kaikura, a small town that mainly caters to tourists desiring to see whales and dolphins. I really didn't do much on the first day, which was actually quite nice since we've been very busy lately. I did get a much needed shower, however. I also got my laundry done. These are very important things, especially when living in close proximity to my other group members. This evening Pacific Challenge group 3 (PC3) arrived at the hostel we were staying in, so I got to meet some of them. There are actually a couple fellow Florida Gators, which was pretty cool.

We went swimming with dolphins on the morning of the second day, which was an amazing experience. A company called "Encounter" organized the adventure. We got suited up with some really thick wet suits, masks, snorkels, and flippers. Then we watched a video and took a van out to the boat dock. Here are a couple pictures of the great views from the boat.

After maybe 15 minutes of driving out to sea, there was a huge group of dolphins (probably hundreds) just swimming along, and we got into the water right next to them. We had been told to attempt to mimic dolphin behavior by keeping our arms at our sides and making noises, which must have been pretty amusing to those people on board just watching. It was amazing how the dolphins would interact with us. Whenever I got one to notice me, the dolphin would swim in circles around me, and I would try to circle with it while maintaining eye contact. It worked pretty well, as I circled for what seemed like 30 seconds at a time with some dolphins. It was also fun to dive down toward the dolphins. If they ignored or left me, I would just go find another one. It was actually quite exhausting. I was definitely breathing hard, and several times I had to come to the surface, remove my snorkel, and catch my breath. It was a great experience, especially since we were swimming with wild dolphins. They were choosing to play with us, not being forced to do so. Here are a few dolphin swimming pics.

As we were heading back toward the boat dock, we were very fortunate to see several orcas (killer whales). I don't think that happens on every trip. Here's the best pic that I got.

Clarence River Expedition

2007-02-03T18:37:00.000+13:00

1/29/2007 - 2/2/2007

Today began our 5 day rafting and kayaking expedition down the Clarence River. Unfortunately, the morning had a rough start because somehow the refrigerator cooling all of our food for the expedition got unplugged. We through everything in a working freezer thus delaying our departure for an hour or so. After loading our chilly bin (kiwi for cooler) with ice, we threw in the food and were off. It's not always easy for me, but sometimes I just have to forget about all the things I learned in Microbiology class.

After driving about 4 hours to Hanmer Springs, we met up with our guides at the put-in point, which was pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. It also happened to be raining and freezing cold. Our guides, Nathan and Slea, certainly weren't optimistic about the weather today, as shown by the dry suits they had on. When the guy running the trip told Adam that the weather was supposed to be "unsettled" all week, I started to get quite worried about how enjoyable this trip would be. Nobody was really talking, so I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one thinking that. Fortunately, we got wet suits, spray jackets, and booties. However, we were all still freezing. After packing up all our stuff on the gear boat, we took off. We had 5 sit-on kayaks, 4 hard-shell kayaks, a raft, and a ton of gear.

Things improved once we started paddling on the water. After spending 5 days on sea kayaks in Abel Tasman last week, these river kayaks were a dream to paddle. Since we started in the late afternoon, we only spent about 2 hours on the river today. My hands and feet were definitely numb. The water, however, was surprisingly warm (at least relative to the cold air and rain). Despite the cold, overall there were a ton of rapids, and it was pretty fun. When we got to our campsite, we took our gear off the raft and set up our tents. Fortunately, it stopped raining, and the sun came out. Basically we then cooked dinner and went to sleep. Here are a few pictures from the first campsite. I wish I could have snapped more photos on this trip, but my camera will die if it gets wet unlike the Olympus cameras some other people on my trip have.

All right, I'm not going to waste your time detailing each of the 5 days. Basically, we were blessed with some superb weather for the rest of the trip thus making it so much more enjoyable than it could have been otherwise. We put in some long days paddling down the river. Overall we traveled 200 km (a little over 120 miles) down the river and dropped 700 meters in elevation. The scenery was incredible, and what made it great was how it changed as we floated down the river. Initially the terrain was pretty hilly and quite desolate with practically no trees. There were some really cool rock formations, and we saw tons of goats, cows, sheep, geese, and even a rabbit. As we progressed down the river, we gradually saw more and more trees until it became quite lush towards the end. The scenery was really different from that of the Rangitikei River.

In addition to the scenery, the kayaking and rafting were great. Sometimes it was a little tiring to be on the river for like 9 hours a day, but there were a ton of rapids that were really fun to go through. We all definitely took a few spills, but everybody came out pretty much intact. I was a little worried about this trip when it was freezing cold on the first day, but it worked out wonderfully! Here are a few more pics. They don't really do justice to the beautiful scenery, but you can get some idea.

Here are a few goats. Not really a good picture, however.

Here is a picture of the take-out point. This was just before the Clarence River met the ocean.

Left to right: Slea, Adam, Nathan, Nathan (I'm this one)

Abel Tasman National Park

2007-02-03T18:24:00.000+13:00

1/24/2007 - 1/28/2007

Today we had another early start as we had to get to the place from which we were renting sea kayaks for our 5 day expedition kayaking throughout Abel Tasman National Park. We ended up getting 1 single and 4 double kayaks. These sea kayaks are much less maneuverable than the river kayaks we had been using on the Rangitikei, but the sea kayaks are extremely stable and can be used to store all of our gear. These two pics are of us getting the kayaks set up and of the boat drop site, respectively.

The first day of kayaking was by far the most arduous. The wind was against us for pretty much the entire time. After the first couple hours of paddling, we stopped for lunch at a beach that had some stunning views. Here are some pictures from that beach.

After lunch we had another couple hours of hard paddling since we had to go through a segment called the "Mad Mile," called this because it has a tendency to get pretty rough there since it is not really blocked by any land masses. I would definitely say that the Mad Mile lived up to its name by being pretty "mad," but I also thought it was a ton of fun. I would much rather paddle through rough water and big waves than just cruise over flat water. Since all the sea kayaking I had done before this was in pretty flat water, I really wasn't that excited about doing it for 5 days on this expedition. However, today's paddling through rough water turned out to be great fun thus getting rid of that lack of excitement.

Basically how the expedition worked was that we would kayak to different parts of Abel Tasman National Park where we would camp at night. There were plenty of walking paths between the various campsites and places of interest in the national park, which I really enjoyed.

For the first night we set up camp at Te Pukathea Bay. After setting up the tents, we took a walk to a lookout point with some more wonderful views shown below.

The campsite was pretty nice, but there was a constant din produced by tons of cicadas. They were all over the place. Here's a nice picture of one.

On day 2 we packed up our gear and then kayaked to our next campsite at Bark Bay. It only took about an hour and a half to get there, so after we set up camp there we went out for some more paddling to check out a little island that had a bunch of seals on it as well as go to Onetehuti Beach to do some walking. Here are the pictures of the seal colony area. The second picture is of Philip.

Onetehuti Beach, shown in the next picture, was where we landed our boats so that we could hike to Awaroa Beach. It was a nice one hour hike, and at the end we found a cafe/lodge, which was like an oasis in a desert. All of us were pretty hungry and thirsty, but none of us really had any money. We kinda stood there salivating for a while before we turned around and went back to the Onetehuti Beach. Then we went back to Bark Bay for the night.

On day 3 I chose not to do any sea kayaking since we were staying at the same campsite at Bark Bay for the night. Instead, I set out with Adam, Philip, Jen, and Andy on a hike to that cafe we were at yesterday. The goal was kind of to get there, have a beer, and then come back. We actually did just that. I'm not much of a beer drinker, but I like being able to say that I hiked for 5 hours round trip to get a beer in a lodge at Abel Tasman National Park. Another nice thing was that we were basically walking away from rain the entire time, and we found out later that the rest of the group was stuck in their tents the entire day due to the rain. Unfortunate for them, but I had a fun day. Here are a couple pics I took on the walk.

Also, that evening there was wonderful sunset that had an incredible rainbow. Check out the picture below.

Now, that picture is cool. However, this next one looks a lot better. Granted, it doesn't exactly represent what the sunset truly looked like, but it definitely has an interesting effect. (No, I didn't use Photoshop. I just tinkered around with the focal point of the picture and got this shot. Pretty good, eh?)

On day 4 we kayaked to Anchorage Bay for the night. Group PC1 happened to be there today, so we were able to hang out with them a bit. We all walked to this place called Cleopatra's Pool shown in the picture below. It had a cool rock slide. After some time in the pool I went with a few others to climb up the rock canyon above the pool to check out a waterfall. It took about 20 minutes to get there, and we had to jump between rocks, go against rushing water, and walk on some really slippery areas. It was actually a little dangerous, but it was a lot of fun. The water wasn't very warm, however.

On day 5 we packed up our gear and kayaked for about two hours back to the place we started. There was a nice wind at our backs, which made it pretty easy. It got a little cold and rainy at the end, but we made it. It was a nice trip.

Sky Diving on the South Island

2007-02-03T18:21:00.000+13:00

1/23/2007

We had an early start this morning since we had to catch a fairy from the North Island to the South Island (those are the two main land masses of New Zealand). The trip took about 3 hours, and I enjoyed it greatly. The boat was massive with about 10 decks. I spent most of the time on the food court deck since it had plasma TVs showing the SKY Sports channel, which happened to be showing highlights of the Australian Open tennis tournament, which I am unfortunately missing. I definitely enjoyed watching a couple hours of tennis. I also spent some time on the open deck on the top of the boat, whch had some spectacular views and some incredibly strong wind that you had to lean into to keep from being knocked over. Here are a couple pics. The second is of me and Garner, who is probably the prime source of comic relief in our group.

After getting to the South Island, we drove to a town called Nelson, which is actually where my group leader of the SE Asia trip last fall lives. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to say hi to him since he was in Cambodia at the time and since we were only stopping in Nelson for lunch. Here is a nice picture I took from the van on the drive.

After lunch we drove to a town called Motueka to go skydiving, which was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I don't even know how to describe it. It was just unreal. After getting set up with a suit, I got into a very small airplane with my tandem partner Bob and a few other divers. We got all the way up to 13,000 feet before we jumped out. I wasn't scared at all because I knew it was (relatively) safe, but it was pretty intense to just fall out the door of an airplane over 2 miles above ground. I definitely couldn't breathe for the first few seconds, but then I was just screaming and loving the free fall. It is an unbelievable feeling. While the time after the parachute opened was not as adrenaline pumping, it was equally breathtaking. The views were spectacular as I just floated with a birds-eye view of the world. It was like I was in a glass elevator, simply spectacular. It cost 250 kiwi dollars or so, but it was well worth it for a once in a lifetime experience (or the first of many?) I was tempted to get pictures and a video for $180, but I in no way could justify spending almost the cost of another jump on pictures.

Me above

Not me below

After skydiving we checked in at our hostel for the night and then went grocery shopping for our next 5 day expedition sea kayaking through Abel Tasman National Park. Also, today another member was added to my group. Eli is from Wisconsin and goes to Winona State University in Minnesota. He actually did this trip 3 years ago, and he liked it so much that he decided to do it again. He began the trip in group PC1 but has joined my group (now called PCX with X being for "extreme") for the rest of our time in New Zealand before he returns to PC1 for the time in Australia.

Wellington

2007-02-03T18:16:00.000+13:00

1/21/2007 - 1/22/2007

This morning I had the opportunity to spend a few more hours rafting/kayaking on the Rangitikei River with the other group, but I was a bit tired of being on the water and chose to sit out. I did help the rafting company by driving one of their vans back to the raft shop, which was an interesting experience since it was my first time driving on the left side of the road. It took a minute or two to get adjusted to it and the blinker being on the opposite side, but it wasn't to hard and was actually fun. After everyone got back from the rafting, we drove a couple hours to Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. We were staying in a hostel. This was the first hostel that I've stayed in, and it was a lot nicer than I had predicted. It had a lot of nice colorful furniture to lounge in as well as two large kitchen areas, a TV and video room, computer area, and laundry facilities. Of course, anything will seem nice after camping for a while, but it was very nice. Laundry was my most immediate concern because I hadn't washed any clothes since I arrived, so you can probably imagine that I wasn't looking or smelling all that great, heh.

That evening and the following morning I spent a good amount of time just walking around the city. Wellington is a beautiful city set on the coast. It is also incredibly windy. Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings movies, has residence here. In addition, a theater called The Embassy in Wellington was where the movies first premiered (just around the corner from the hostel). Here are some of the pictures that I took while wandering the town. The first few are of the Beehive, which is the Parliament building. As you can see, it has some unusual architecture.

Here are a few more views of Wellington as well as of the ocean.

I went to an indoor rock climbing gym the second day to do some climbing, which was a lot of fun. On my way back to the hostel, I stopped by a really nice (and free) museum called the Te Papa museum (see below). It was certainly a nice museum, but I'm sorry to admit that I spent only about 10 minutes there since I get bored pretty easily in museums. I basically just relaxed and did some computer stuff the rest of the evening.

Rangitikei River Expedition

2007-01-22T22:21:00.000+13:00

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

2007-01-22T22:14:00.000+13:00

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

2007-01-22T22:12:00.000+13:00

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

2007-01-22T22:08:00.000+13:00

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

2007-01-22T22:00:00.000+13:00

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

2007-01-22T21:38:00.000+13:00

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

2007-01-22T21:36:00.000+13:00

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!

2007-01-22T21:09:00.000+13:00

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

2007-01-22T20:55:00.000+13:00

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