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.