Sandflies: my arch nemesis

Well, I have survived yet another tramping expedition, this time to Fiordland national park. I signed up for this tramp with my flat mate katie and neighbor Tristan to go up "Cascade Creek". We had no idea what it was, but we wanted to get on any trip we could and we were excited to go to Fiordland to do some tramping. We drove out there Friday night and camped out. Now, we didn't sleep in a tent, we slept in a "tent fly", which is basically a tarp over our heads. And it's COLD here at night (I'm such a spoiled San Diegan). But I have a ridiculously warm sleeping bag so I was OK. I woke up on Saturday morning to the wonderful feeling of sandflies biting my face and neck. What a lovely alarm clock. Sandflies are these stupid tiny flies that bite you and then you get a bump kind of like a mosquito bite, but it itches way worse and for WEEKS.........I have 2 huge ones on my neck, some on my head, some on my feet (the worst spot), legs, arms...Sandflies are probably the one thing that is not cool about tramping in New Zealand.

So the ten of us in our group started out Saturday morning at about 10:30 and started hiking up this river bed into the mountains. There wasn't really a trail, we just followed our leader, Paul. Now if you want to see a mountain man, Paul is it. I think he's part Chuck Norris, part mountain goat. He can do anything. So we followed the creek, crossed it a few times and got wet boots, and then headed up into the bush up this mountain. We finally found this "trail" and followed that out of the tree line. I was wearing shorts that day, and it is unbelievable how scratched up my legs got from all the brush. I think every inch of skin that was exposed has a scratch on it. I don't think I'll be shaving my legs for a while on account of how bad they sting. So the trail ended where the trees ended and then we were on our own (well Paul was I guess, he made all the judgement calls). We hiked up to this little saddle and camped out for the night. As soon as the sun went down it got soooooo freakin cold. I had like 2 pairs of socks, 3 pairs of pants, 2 shirts, 2 fleeces, a rain jacket, gloves, and a hat on and I was still cold (still a pussy San Diegan). We made dinner and got in our warm sleeping bags under the tent fly (!) again. So basically I was sleeping outside in below freezing temperatures. 

When I woke up there was frost outside and ice on my sleeping bag. And my boots were frozen solid because they were wet from Saturday. Well thank god, Sunday was a beautiful day, which is super rare because it pretty much rains all the time there. There were no clouds in sight and as soon as the sun came up we were nice and warm. My feet thawed out eventually, after about an hour of hiking uphill. Nobody got frostbite so we were in good shape. On Sunday we hiked up this mountain about 200 meters, then back down the other side, which was EXTREMELY steep, into this saddle, then back up another mountain about 250 meters. Overall, we were about 1500 meters above sea level. We hiked along this crazy ridge with some amazing views and then had to head back down again into the bush. It's crazy thinking about how easily I could have died on this trip. At any given moment I could have just fallen down the mountain if my pack shifted my weight the wrong way. So we hiked down another steep slope, then came to a scree slope. If you don't know what scree is, it's all these rocks forming a steep slope, and when you step on them you basically cause a rock avalanche. So all of us got into a close group and pretty much surfed down this scree slope down into the trees. Let me tell you, that is a quick way to get down a mountain. It was pretty fun too. So we made it back into the rain forest and tramped back down toward the road. At times it was pretty steep, and by that time I had lost most of the function of my limbs so I did a lot of butt sliding. My pants are now covered in mud. 

We finally made it to the road, and then Paul took off running up the road about 3 km to go get the van (after all that hiking! Told you he was invincible). The rest of us just sat on the road, pretty much unable to move. We drove home pretty uneventfully and made it back about 1 AM this morning. Now I'm sitting in my oh-so-comfortable bed, nice and warm, but sore and scratched up, and I'm really thankful I don't have class today. I definitely have a new understanding about the meaning of "tramping" here. Kiwis are crazy. Overall it was a great weekend though. I had a lot of fun. 

Not much else has been going on over here. I had a fun St. Patrick's day because I was allowed to go to an Irish pub for the first time and I hung out with some real Irish kids (my neighbors). Last weekend I had my first field trip for my marine science class, which was really cool. We went to a beautiful beach and collected mollusks. It's awesome that we're allowed to go on field trips here, because I would never be able to do that at home. I think next weekend I'm going to go to Queenstown and do the bungee jump and stuff, so I'll tell you about that later. I'll put up my amazing Fiordland pictures up as soon as I can. The pictures can't even begin to do it justice, but at least you'll get an idea of how beautiful it is here.

Sorry to Keep You Waiting

Well as you probably guessed, the last couple weeks have been pretty busy. I'm trying to remember what I've been doing and it's much harder than I thought. I definitely need to consult my pictures.

So I updated you like the second day I got here I think. After that I ended up going camping on Thursday with some people I met here. We went to Queenstown for dinner, which was really beautiful, then camped on the lake out there. Unfortunately, it rained that night so we got pretty wet, and it was still raining the next day so we couldn't really do any hiking because hiking in the rain is kind of miserable. So we drove out to Wanaka and went to this place called "Puzzling World" and did a giant maze and then camped again on Lake Hawea out there. It kept raining and the next day we went back to Queenstown and Glenorchy and just decided to come home a day early because the rain was so miserable. It was really too bad that we couldn't do any hiking or anything but i got to see how beautiful it is out there and I'll definitely go back.

The next day we still had our rental car and since we paid for it we decided to take it out to the Otago Peninsula to see these cool World War II bunkers on the cliffs. I guess during WWII the Kiwis were afraid of getting attacked for some reason, but I don't know why anyone would want to attack them. The bunkers were kind of creepy, but it was really pretty there. I guess a bunch of soldiers committed suicide there or something...

After this I was just kind of hanging out in Dunedin, meeting people and exploring and stuff. I had to do course approval which is the stupidest thing ever. You have to get advisors from each department to sign off on the classes you're taking. I don't see why we can't just do it online. It was a huge hassle for me but i got all my classes signed off eventually. The O-Week stuff was pretty crazy too, I know Mom heard about the Toga parade on the news, but it's where the freshmen dress up in togas and run around the streets and everyone throws stuff at them. We filled up a trash can with water balloons and got some freshmen really good. People were trying to portray it on the news as riots, but it was nowhere near that, just a good hazing. There was also a thing where people went to this bar in town and dressed up and drank all day, but I didn't do that. It was pretty funny to see all the drunk people in costumes though. There were concerts and stuff too, but I didn't really want to pay to go, so I mostly just hung out at our flats and met people here and went to this international student party. It was really fun being able to just hang out with people and sleep in and stuff for a week. I also signed up for some clubs and stuff, but don't worry I didn't do any crazy O-Week shenanigans. 

Most of the last couple weeks I was hanging out with these girls that live at other university flats and this one guy that lived next door to me and we got to see a lot of cool stuff around the area. I kind of think my pictures will do it better justice than my description here. We went to the beach to collect cockles to make dinner, went to another beach just to hang out, went to tunnel beach, where a tunnel was carved into the rock and there's also really cool rock formations, went surfing at this other beach called Aramoana. Yes, I DID get in the water here! Good thing we took that surfing lesson, Tricia :). And yesterday I went to the beach again and hung out. Basically whenever it's nice here we go to a random beach. I always took the beach for granted at home, but I don't anymore!

Last night we went to a rugby game here in Dunedin. It was the Otago Highlanders vs. the Canterbury Crusaders. It is a huge rivalry and the Crusaders are probably the best in the league, so it was kind of a big deal. All kinds of students went and dressed up in blue and gold and painted their faces and stuff. It was so much fun to see a real rugby game, and we were really close to the field in the student section. The Highlanders won, too 6-0! It was actually kind of a crappy game but at least we won! Afterward there was a concert with one of New Zealand's biggest bands and that was really fun too. It was definitely an awesome night. 

Today I went and learned how to cross rivers properly with the tramping club. This means I can go on this trip to Fiordland in the next couple weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to sign up for that. I heard it's really hard to get on trips, but I'm going to at least try. I might as well do what I can to travel as much as possible. 

Oh, I have started school, I guess that's part of the reason I'm here. I'm taking 2 Maori studies classes, sport and exercise nutrition, and marine ecology. They all sound really interesting, and I've heard that my Maori language class is the easiest class in the southern hemisphere. I even get to go on field trips for the marine ecology class, something we would never be able to do at home, so I'm excited about that. I mostly have class on Tuesday and Thursday, with only one class on Friday and Wednesday and none on Monday, which is really nice. That means I can go places on the weekends! 

I think that's pretty much all I've been up to. I have yet to see the penguins here or climb to the top of Mt. Cargill to see the view of the city, but I'll have to wait for a sunny day where I don't go to the beach to do that. This has been a little rambly, but I promise from now on I'll update you more, I was just doing a lot before school started. Pictures should be up on Picasa too, so that'll show you better what I'm doing.