So I did end up making it to Queenstown this past weekend, and man was that a good idea. One of my flatmates, Steve, bought his own car and had made the decision that he was going... so I took advantage of that right away. We piled some more of our friends in the car with us, and headed out to Queenstown. Right before we left, I called and booked us all a pretty nice hostel, Pinewood, that was only a few minutes walk into town.
Steve, Kylie, Garrett, Alison and I all made it to Pinewood rather uneventfully. A second car full of more friends was on their way, so while we waited we went into the town to explore. Though I've never been to Colorado, everyone else I drove with goes to school there. They all consensually agreed that Queenstown seemed a lot like Vail, CO, but way cooler. Queenstown is nicknamed the adventure capital of the world, and rightly so. You can do anything extreme there, you name it: ATV-ing, skydiving, whitewater rafting, kayaking, paragliding, hang gliding, ballooning, heli-biking, heli-skiing, and the most famous... bungy jumping (to name a few). It's home to the 2nd highest bungy in the world, the Nevis.
Anyway, in town we happened upon one of the greatest burger joints I've ever eaten at, Fergburger. We all chowed down there, and the 2nd car of people met us there. After hanging out there for a while, we found a bar and causually hung out there for part of the night also. The bar, World Bar, had a pretty funny drink situation going on... they served teapots with many various mixed drinks inside. It was also common to drink straight out of the teapot, funny stuff. We played some pool and had a pretty low-key night that night, heading back to the hostel to jump on the trampoline (!) that they had there.
The next morning, we woke up early enough to make it down into town for our appointment to go bungy jumping! Five out of ten of us had signed up to do the Nevis bungy... a 440 foot drop, 2nd biggest in the world next to one in China. We had to take a bus to the actual bungy site, which was about a 45 minute drive. They harnessed us all up, and we had to take a gondola ride out to the actual platform. This bungy was not just off of a cliff, but off of a platform suspended by cables in the middle of the canyon. We each jumped one by one, and it was one of the craziest things I've ever done, hands down. So fun.
After we each jumped, we waited for the bus to bring us back into town. Once back there, we immediately went to go grab some lunch, before heading back to relax for a while at the hostel. Steve and Alison had to head back to Dunedin for a field trip the next day, so Garrett, Kylie and I had to switch rooms and find a bus that would take us back on Sunday. After switching rooms and getting settled, some of us ventured back into town to walk around for a while. There were tons of ski/skate shops around, and it was nice to be able to relax and take our time for a little while. We grabbed some beer to bring back to the hostel, and hung out playing card games with all 8 of us before getting ready to go out for the night. All of us went out to a few bars that night as well, and stayed out well into the night, passing out hard enough to miss our 10 o'clock checkout the next morning.
Once we actually got checked out and straightened up the room in the hostel on Sunday morning, we headed back into town for a real breakfast. We all had a pretty great time recounting the night before and getting some good food in our stomachs. Finishing up, there wasn't a whole lot of time to kill before we had to catch our bus back, so we headed down toward Lake Wakatipu to hang out before leaving Queenstown. We threw around a frisbee and hung around listening to our friend play his guitar... a nice way to end our trip. The ride back wasn't too bad, and a bunch of us ended up watching the first Lord of the Rings that night back in Dunedin... something we'd been meaning to do in New Zealand for a few weeks now.
Anyway, Queenstown was definitely one of my favorite trips that I've down since being here, and everyone I went with agreed that it would not be our last time visiting there. Garrett, my friend Chris, and I have been eyeing a car on TradeMe (NZ's version of eBay), and the auction ends Friday. Wish us luck...
And check the pics on Picasa! There's some bungy ones up there now too.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Wildfoods Festival
The craziness has yet to let up. It seems that all people do during the week here apart from going to class, is plan what to do for the next weekend. A large portion of my friends spent this past week figuring out all the details in attending the Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika, which is on the west coast of the south island, but much farther north. We had to work out tickets, campsites, hostels, carrides... it all turned out to be worth it though.
I woke up before my classes on Thursday morning to get the rental car and rent a tent from Unipol, the recreation center here at Otago. I made it to my class right on time, and after Maori and Hinduism/Buddhism I came straight home to pack all my stuff together for the weekend. We eventually rounded up the kids for our car (myself, Alison, Garrett, Caroline, and Steve) and hit the road. We were actually one of the first cars to head out, so we had to figure out the path on our own. The plan was to drive to Wanaka to camp for the night, since it was about halfway to Hokitika. The only problem was that the day was looking pretty gloomy, and we didn't really know of anywhere to go once we were in Wanaka. We ended up calling about every hostel on our list and none of them had any openings. Luckily about 20 minutes before we ended up in Wanaka our friends in the car not too far behind us had found a place, and booked it for theirs and our car. We drove around trying to find it for a while, but eventually made it to the Albert Town Lodge.
Throwing all of our stuff down, the five of us ventured into the town in search of some food. We found a pretty classy outdoor pizza place called The Cow and chowed down. It was relaxing to sit down and have a meal after the drive, and was great the next morning to have leftovers also. Each of us grabbed a bottle of wine next door before heading back to the hostel. When we got back there we were greeted by our friends who had made our hostel reservation, and we all hung out for a little while before getting some sleep.
We woke up early the next morning to try to call to make a reservation to do a half-day hike of Franz Josef Glacier, which was on the way, but everything had already been booked. There was still a lot of driving to do anyway, and we were able to do it at our own pace instead of trying to make it to the hike on time. We ended up stopping at a bunch of different lookout points to take pictures, and we also stopped at both Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers to hike around ourselves for a while. We couldn't cross a river (that had been caused by the melting glacier) to actually hike up to the glacier itself, but we had a great time walking around there.
Heading back to the car, we finished up the rest of the scenic drive and finally made it to Hokitika, where the festival was being held. Some of our friends were already there, as a bunch of us had all reserved the same campsite. Our campsite, "Beach Street," was literally right next to the beach... felt a little similar to the weekend before at Long Beach. By night there were tons of bonfires all up and down the beach, and everyone was just hanging around meeting new people and having a good time. Some of us tried to not make it so late of a night, and passed out in our tents to get some rest before eating some crazy stuff the next morning.
I woke up relatively early on Saturday morning and got all my stuff together, and got ready to head out to the festival. A group of us went and found where to get our pre-ordered tickets, and made it into the festival pretty early around 10:30. We'd been told that a lot of the really crazy stuff gets eaten early, so we had to get there in time for that. Going around to each of the venders, one of us would buy a small amount of something, and we'd all try it. It went like that for most of the day, just walking around and eating weird stuff! Throughout the day I tried: ostrich pie, eel, kangaroo, "rocky mountain oysters" (buffalo testicle), shark, grasshopper, cow udder, venison burgers, kava juice, a huge chunk of honeycomb, buffalo jerky, the quintessential Wildfoods huhu grub, and much more. That night was similar to the one before it, hanging out by the campfires on the beach.
The next day we headed out to get an early start on all the driving that we had. Before leaving, though, we stopped in town to get some authentic jade, from a shop run by a Maori couple who cut all the jade themselves. I got a pretty cool fish-hook design, which is supposed to represent "determination, strength, peace, prosperity and safe journey especially over water." We set out on the road which was another beautiful drive... this time we took a different route and went through Arthur's Pass. It's crazy how stunning New Zealand is, every drive that we took seemed amazing.
We got back to the flats around 7pm, ate food and relaxed. For the next couple of nights we took it easy and stuck to watching movies at night rather than going out, which was probably a good bet due to St. Patrick's Day last night. The complex at 480 Leith had another big party, which somehow had food paid for by the university. It was great having everyone decked out in green and having a good time, and add some good barbeque to the mix and it was another awesome night.
On my list of to-do's now are planning what to do this weekend (maybe a trip to Queenstown?), get fall break figured out (Fiji? Cook Islands?), and work on the possibility of buying a cheap car with some friends so we don't have to keep renting. We'll see what happens. And check the "My Pictures" link, there should be tons more photos up there.
I woke up before my classes on Thursday morning to get the rental car and rent a tent from Unipol, the recreation center here at Otago. I made it to my class right on time, and after Maori and Hinduism/Buddhism I came straight home to pack all my stuff together for the weekend. We eventually rounded up the kids for our car (myself, Alison, Garrett, Caroline, and Steve) and hit the road. We were actually one of the first cars to head out, so we had to figure out the path on our own. The plan was to drive to Wanaka to camp for the night, since it was about halfway to Hokitika. The only problem was that the day was looking pretty gloomy, and we didn't really know of anywhere to go once we were in Wanaka. We ended up calling about every hostel on our list and none of them had any openings. Luckily about 20 minutes before we ended up in Wanaka our friends in the car not too far behind us had found a place, and booked it for theirs and our car. We drove around trying to find it for a while, but eventually made it to the Albert Town Lodge.
Throwing all of our stuff down, the five of us ventured into the town in search of some food. We found a pretty classy outdoor pizza place called The Cow and chowed down. It was relaxing to sit down and have a meal after the drive, and was great the next morning to have leftovers also. Each of us grabbed a bottle of wine next door before heading back to the hostel. When we got back there we were greeted by our friends who had made our hostel reservation, and we all hung out for a little while before getting some sleep.
We woke up early the next morning to try to call to make a reservation to do a half-day hike of Franz Josef Glacier, which was on the way, but everything had already been booked. There was still a lot of driving to do anyway, and we were able to do it at our own pace instead of trying to make it to the hike on time. We ended up stopping at a bunch of different lookout points to take pictures, and we also stopped at both Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers to hike around ourselves for a while. We couldn't cross a river (that had been caused by the melting glacier) to actually hike up to the glacier itself, but we had a great time walking around there.
Heading back to the car, we finished up the rest of the scenic drive and finally made it to Hokitika, where the festival was being held. Some of our friends were already there, as a bunch of us had all reserved the same campsite. Our campsite, "Beach Street," was literally right next to the beach... felt a little similar to the weekend before at Long Beach. By night there were tons of bonfires all up and down the beach, and everyone was just hanging around meeting new people and having a good time. Some of us tried to not make it so late of a night, and passed out in our tents to get some rest before eating some crazy stuff the next morning.
I woke up relatively early on Saturday morning and got all my stuff together, and got ready to head out to the festival. A group of us went and found where to get our pre-ordered tickets, and made it into the festival pretty early around 10:30. We'd been told that a lot of the really crazy stuff gets eaten early, so we had to get there in time for that. Going around to each of the venders, one of us would buy a small amount of something, and we'd all try it. It went like that for most of the day, just walking around and eating weird stuff! Throughout the day I tried: ostrich pie, eel, kangaroo, "rocky mountain oysters" (buffalo testicle), shark, grasshopper, cow udder, venison burgers, kava juice, a huge chunk of honeycomb, buffalo jerky, the quintessential Wildfoods huhu grub, and much more. That night was similar to the one before it, hanging out by the campfires on the beach.
The next day we headed out to get an early start on all the driving that we had. Before leaving, though, we stopped in town to get some authentic jade, from a shop run by a Maori couple who cut all the jade themselves. I got a pretty cool fish-hook design, which is supposed to represent "determination, strength, peace, prosperity and safe journey especially over water." We set out on the road which was another beautiful drive... this time we took a different route and went through Arthur's Pass. It's crazy how stunning New Zealand is, every drive that we took seemed amazing.
We got back to the flats around 7pm, ate food and relaxed. For the next couple of nights we took it easy and stuck to watching movies at night rather than going out, which was probably a good bet due to St. Patrick's Day last night. The complex at 480 Leith had another big party, which somehow had food paid for by the university. It was great having everyone decked out in green and having a good time, and add some good barbeque to the mix and it was another awesome night.
On my list of to-do's now are planning what to do this weekend (maybe a trip to Queenstown?), get fall break figured out (Fiji? Cook Islands?), and work on the possibility of buying a cheap car with some friends so we don't have to keep renting. We'll see what happens. And check the "My Pictures" link, there should be tons more photos up there.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Beaches and Stuff
Since I last wrote in here I've been doing a lot of crazy stuff, and need to get it down while I still remember! I finally figured out the whole internet thing at my flat, and it is now all up and running... which my flatmates loved me for. The night of the last time I posted, a group of friends and I decided to go on a bar crawl around Dunedin. There had been some coupon booklet sold with a free tee-shirt on campus that was all sponsored by a local beer here, Speight's, and each coupon was good for a free jug (pitcher) or two at various bars. I didn't have one of these, but I went along for the ride anyway. That turned out to be a really fun night of mostly drinking and playing pool, as we stopped at The Baaa, Starter's, Refuel, The Bog, Gardies, etc. One of my flatmates, Caroline, and I both started pooping out at one point, and decided to head back to our flat around 2:30.
Thursday I only had a couple of classes, so I headed to a different beach with a few friends by bus. Tomahawk Beach was one of the most beautiful beaches I've been to, and my friend Chris and I walked very far down the beach taking pictures in caves and of strange birds and rock formations that we hadn't seen before. After realizing how far down we'd walked, we attempted walking back on the road to find a different bus stop, which ended up working out just fine. It was a good route to take though, as we were able to also see many of the awesomely-placed houses overlooking the ocean.
That night was the night of my flat complex's big kegger, which actually started getting going around 8 o'clock. A few of us did a power hour of 'Ice Breaker,' which was a keg filled with a vodka/lemonade mix about equal to beer. By the time we were done, things started picking up around the place. Almost everyone we knew from AustraLearn was there at some point during the night, and it was fun to be able to walk around different people's flats and get to know a lot of different people. There ended up being another couch/chair burning, which the police actually responded to this time. They didn't do very much to ease the situation, but seemed to just be there because it was appropriate. I passed out shortly after that.
Since I don't have any classes on Friday, my friend Alison and I woke up early to be greeted by the rental car that I had requested the day before. We decided (and helped facilitate many more people) to go camping this weekend at Long Beach, which was not that far away, but only really accessible by car. By getting the car, we helped persuade about 4 other carsfull of people to come, and it ended up being an awesome decision. We rounded up all of our supplies, and set out to Long Beach. Our car arriving first, we scoped out the situation and found a perfect cave for all of us to camp in... already equipped with a firepit and everything.
Once more people started showing up, it really started turning into more of a party. We all situated ourselves in the cave, and spent the rest of the day in the ocean and on the beach. People threw around frisbees and kicked soccer balls, and we all jumped in the freezing cold ocean and had a great time. We drank all night around the fire and cooked sausages, and stayed up pretty late on the beach. Waking up to a beautiful sunny day the next day, everyone had a similar agenda as to the day before. Rather this day was more about napping on the beach. After a long day there, we all packed up and headed back to Dunedin for a relaxing night watching movies and hanging around.
Earlier today, Sunday, the kids from my car who'd pitched in and I all decided to get our money's worth for the car, since it wasn't due back to the rental place until 4pm. We woke up relatively early to head out to see the Moeraki Boulders which are famous to New Zealand. They are a bunch these huge spherical boulders on the beach... pretty cool to see. We hung out there for a while, before driving around to try to get lunch in town. We ended up stopping at a bar called the Moeraki Tavern for some fish and chips, and made it back to Dunedin with time to spare and go grocery shopping while we still had the car. After returning it, I came back and hung around my place for a while getting settled back in. I went over to my friend Garrett's flat to watch a few movies and hang out, and had a relatively relaxing night here.
This past week has possibly been even more fun than the week before it was, and I'm still so excited for everything else to come. I know I need to start planning what to do during my Fall Break here, but different people have been talking about different things. I think I might look into going to Fiji to just lay on the beach for a while... This coming weekend, though, I'm going to be attending the Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika, which is about an 8 hour drive away on the west coast pretty far north. It's supposed to be crazy, but more details to come.
Thursday I only had a couple of classes, so I headed to a different beach with a few friends by bus. Tomahawk Beach was one of the most beautiful beaches I've been to, and my friend Chris and I walked very far down the beach taking pictures in caves and of strange birds and rock formations that we hadn't seen before. After realizing how far down we'd walked, we attempted walking back on the road to find a different bus stop, which ended up working out just fine. It was a good route to take though, as we were able to also see many of the awesomely-placed houses overlooking the ocean.
That night was the night of my flat complex's big kegger, which actually started getting going around 8 o'clock. A few of us did a power hour of 'Ice Breaker,' which was a keg filled with a vodka/lemonade mix about equal to beer. By the time we were done, things started picking up around the place. Almost everyone we knew from AustraLearn was there at some point during the night, and it was fun to be able to walk around different people's flats and get to know a lot of different people. There ended up being another couch/chair burning, which the police actually responded to this time. They didn't do very much to ease the situation, but seemed to just be there because it was appropriate. I passed out shortly after that.
Since I don't have any classes on Friday, my friend Alison and I woke up early to be greeted by the rental car that I had requested the day before. We decided (and helped facilitate many more people) to go camping this weekend at Long Beach, which was not that far away, but only really accessible by car. By getting the car, we helped persuade about 4 other carsfull of people to come, and it ended up being an awesome decision. We rounded up all of our supplies, and set out to Long Beach. Our car arriving first, we scoped out the situation and found a perfect cave for all of us to camp in... already equipped with a firepit and everything.
Once more people started showing up, it really started turning into more of a party. We all situated ourselves in the cave, and spent the rest of the day in the ocean and on the beach. People threw around frisbees and kicked soccer balls, and we all jumped in the freezing cold ocean and had a great time. We drank all night around the fire and cooked sausages, and stayed up pretty late on the beach. Waking up to a beautiful sunny day the next day, everyone had a similar agenda as to the day before. Rather this day was more about napping on the beach. After a long day there, we all packed up and headed back to Dunedin for a relaxing night watching movies and hanging around.
Earlier today, Sunday, the kids from my car who'd pitched in and I all decided to get our money's worth for the car, since it wasn't due back to the rental place until 4pm. We woke up relatively early to head out to see the Moeraki Boulders which are famous to New Zealand. They are a bunch these huge spherical boulders on the beach... pretty cool to see. We hung out there for a while, before driving around to try to get lunch in town. We ended up stopping at a bar called the Moeraki Tavern for some fish and chips, and made it back to Dunedin with time to spare and go grocery shopping while we still had the car. After returning it, I came back and hung around my place for a while getting settled back in. I went over to my friend Garrett's flat to watch a few movies and hang out, and had a relatively relaxing night here.
This past week has possibly been even more fun than the week before it was, and I'm still so excited for everything else to come. I know I need to start planning what to do during my Fall Break here, but different people have been talking about different things. I think I might look into going to Fiji to just lay on the beach for a while... This coming weekend, though, I'm going to be attending the Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika, which is about an 8 hour drive away on the west coast pretty far north. It's supposed to be crazy, but more details to come.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Settling into Dunedin
So the last few days I've felt like I'm getting a little bit more accustomed to life here in Dunedin. It's really great to be able to walk down George Street into the Octagon... there's a lot to do down there. All the people I've met so far are all great people also. The area that I live seems to have a lot of Americans, though. There are some students from other countries around here though, and a few Kiwis sprinkled in.
O-Week started winding down over the weekend, and it's been cool just to be able to hang out and relax for a while. I started classes on Monday, and I think my schedule is going to be pretty good. My Music Technology class is pretty cool, it's going to be a lot of playing around in GarageBand and mixing music in different programs. Maori Society seems to be the typical 'fresher' (freshman) class, but also has tons of international students in it. At least half of our AustraLearn group is in the class. It's kind of cool, but kind of strange at the same time. Hinduism and Buddhism is my smallest class, with about 30 students. I weirdly know a few people in that class also, and I think it's going to be very interesting, but probably a lot of reading and work. My last class is TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages), which is definitely going to be interesting. I only have it once a week for the first couple weeks, so I don't know a whole lot about it yet.
Anyway, it's been annoying having to come to the student center (the Link) or the library to use the internet, but it's going to be installed in my flat most likely by the end of the week. It has seemed like I don't know what to do with myself during the week, but I've gone into town and to the beach a few times. At night, it seems that there is always some form of partying going on somewhere. A lot of the time a whole flat complex will have a party together in the middle courtyard. Ours (783 Great King) is having a big one this Thursday night, I think there are about 6 flats that are all getting kegs, mine included. Last night I went out with some friends to a bar called The Baaa, and then headed over to 480 Leith St. for a party for one of our friend's birthdays. We had fun throwing around a rugby ball and just hanging out there, but I came back to my flat at around 2 to get to bed for my 9am this morning.
I do miss everyone back home, but I'm having a great time here. Hopefully this weekend I'm going 'tramping' (hiking/camping) in the fjordlands, but we'll see what happens. I'll definitely get out there and do something. Internet in my flat is coming soon, and then I'll finally be able to upload pictures and use Skype to maybe actually talk to some of you guys. Hear from you soon...
O-Week started winding down over the weekend, and it's been cool just to be able to hang out and relax for a while. I started classes on Monday, and I think my schedule is going to be pretty good. My Music Technology class is pretty cool, it's going to be a lot of playing around in GarageBand and mixing music in different programs. Maori Society seems to be the typical 'fresher' (freshman) class, but also has tons of international students in it. At least half of our AustraLearn group is in the class. It's kind of cool, but kind of strange at the same time. Hinduism and Buddhism is my smallest class, with about 30 students. I weirdly know a few people in that class also, and I think it's going to be very interesting, but probably a lot of reading and work. My last class is TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages), which is definitely going to be interesting. I only have it once a week for the first couple weeks, so I don't know a whole lot about it yet.
Anyway, it's been annoying having to come to the student center (the Link) or the library to use the internet, but it's going to be installed in my flat most likely by the end of the week. It has seemed like I don't know what to do with myself during the week, but I've gone into town and to the beach a few times. At night, it seems that there is always some form of partying going on somewhere. A lot of the time a whole flat complex will have a party together in the middle courtyard. Ours (783 Great King) is having a big one this Thursday night, I think there are about 6 flats that are all getting kegs, mine included. Last night I went out with some friends to a bar called The Baaa, and then headed over to 480 Leith St. for a party for one of our friend's birthdays. We had fun throwing around a rugby ball and just hanging out there, but I came back to my flat at around 2 to get to bed for my 9am this morning.
I do miss everyone back home, but I'm having a great time here. Hopefully this weekend I'm going 'tramping' (hiking/camping) in the fjordlands, but we'll see what happens. I'll definitely get out there and do something. Internet in my flat is coming soon, and then I'll finally be able to upload pictures and use Skype to maybe actually talk to some of you guys. Hear from you soon...
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