Back to School

So a Monday in March came and I went back to University, with lots of hours of class and labs. Fortunately
it's not all work and no play - the five flatties (amongst others) have managed to escape a fair bit at the weekends for less boring activities. I also have started rock-climbing through Uni every Wednesday night. Bouldering in the south island inspired me to take up the sport in earnest.
     The first weekend brought us to the Te Atatu peninsula where we took part in a mud run (more of a swim for most) that I did surprisingly well in despite my lack of penchant for balance on normal flat ground. Lots of muddy fun and then blasted with by a fire engine to wash it off. A week later Ella, Danni and I headed out the Matakana Animal Sanctuary with the Auckland University Animal Rights Group and I got to climb trees! Oh and we survived Cyclone Pam.

Muddy people and animal people

In my last few weeks I've injured my arm climbing, sneaked into a surprisingly beautiful hydroelectric dam and gotten very muddy in some glow worm caves close to Ella's awesome grandmother's house. Actually this brings us to the story of Dr Seuss. Driving back from a lovely meal at the local pizzeria with Ella's Aunt and Nana, Danni spotted a pair of eyes on the road, which turned out to belong to the cutest little black kitten. Ella was adamant that he shouldn't be left there and so we (I stood around helplessly for most of this) rooted for him through the bushes and managed to snag the abandoned animal. The search for his buddy was unfortunately unsuccessful, but we got the cat in a hat (hence the name) back to Auckland on the bus.  Unable to take a sixth member of our family in our tiny flat with two allergic humans we have had to adopt him out. I'm sure he's doing better though.

A Cat in a Hat and a Muddy Scott

My five week study period is now over. Time for two weeks of adventures!

Akaroa and beyond!

We left our family in Arthur's pass to go to the "French" town of Akaroa. Everything is "French" there - except the people. The people are Kiwis. We had a gorgeous, civilised meal at the Braserie Kitchen, a nice change from our usual fare. The rest of the day was spent on the beach, taking walks and chatting with Fionnahula, a friend I'd made in Karewau months before. Fi was nice enough to lend us her van to sleep in that night before we headed to Christchurch - our last day of hitchhiking. Marion was to catch her flight to Australia and I was to find a place to stay and, eventually a job in the earthquake-defaced city. At around 4 pm, I began to realise that the first task might be hopeless, with all hostels fully booked for the Cricket World Cup! In a desperate attempt to escape a night in the rain, I consulted the google machine - "free places to stay in christchurch" and guess what? A phone number came up accompanying a very friendly message from a man named Martin. I tried the phone number, and within 20 minutes we were on the way to Martin's via the airport for Marion.

Glimpses of Akaroa

Martin was a generous, gracious, unassuming host. I stayed with him for a week, all in all and began the hunt for employment in Christchurch's rebuild. The various agencies that I signed up to were not particularly helpful. In fact, work came via my Aunt Kristi 12 500 km away in Fairbanks, Alaska. Having discovered I was in Christchurch, Kristi sent an email to Murray - the leader of a church close by - and in less than 24 hours I had a casual job! I also met up with Chris and Ginger from Wales in my time there.

Work and friends in Christchurch

I worked for about a week and a half and then started on my merry way back to Auckland, which involved hitchhiking up to Picton, sleeping on beaches and a 9 hour almost non-stop night drive from Wellington to Auckland with Matej (one of the Gypsy Family). We arrived at 3 am to a new flat and comfy beds. Back to school for the last semester in Auckland and the end of adventures for a while.

A view from a place I slept (Picton)... and back to Auckland

Adventures of the International Gypsy Family

Moeraki, Clay Cliffs, and the family at Rohan

Our family had nine members from four countries in three cars. On the first day we discovered Oamaru's 
steam punk victorian architecture and some very distant penguins as well as the boulders at Moeraki. The next day brought us inland to the Elephant Rocks (for climbing) and Mount Cook - New Zealand's highest mountain at 3754 m. We visited the bizarre Clay Cliffs on our way, which look like a  Lord of the Rings backdrop but aren't. The mountain was beautiful and looked sunny and inviting but turned out to be a terrifying storm center that damaged our tent, which contained four people that night to conserve warmth. Driving out towards the stunning Lake Tekapo allowed us to escape the rain, but not the cold and wind which we fully experienced the following day on a hike up to the Tekapo observatory.

Our German member left us about four days into the trip at Geraldine, where we had the final family meal of crepes (bloody French) and a rather heated game of football. Marion and I were meant to splinter off with Lukas but instead decided to carry on with the crew to Castle Hill - one of the best bouldering sites in the southern hemisphere. On the way we visited Mt Summer - Rohan in LOTR - and picked up a temporary member of the family, an American named Henry. We explored the Cave Stream near Castle Hill the following morning and learned the meaning of cold, then did some more climbing at Castle Hill. Now we came to our final evening which we spent watching Kea at Arthurs's pass. The family became truly fractured at this point, with the French couple also separating from the main group. After one week together, it was truly sad to leave. Our thumbs were getting restless.

Dunedin and the hitchhiking hiatus

We made it into Dunedin in the morning and found the market which held within it a pearl of gastronomic vegan excellence, that is "The joyful vegan" which makes you second guess any preconceptions you may have had about an animal free diet being healthy. Dunedin, I must say is one of the more historically interesting cities in New Zealand, with much more old-european style architecture than the rest of the country. We met up with another old friend in the form of Sammy the funny french man as well as relatively new friends Came, Estel, Nikolaus and Manuel. Marion and I, along with our four new friends were graciously hosted by Caroline who showed us the world's steepest street! The following morning we toured the Otago peninsula in Caroline's car and saw seals and sealions and beautiful beaches.

Seal; McVegan; Sinclare beach

After filling our bellies with fast food, Marion and I hitchhiked to a campsite that was full of familiar faces. You can only really tour the South Island in one direction or the other I suppose. We spent some time on the beach with the French couple Came and Estelle, had some drinks with the various campers (probably about 20) and went to bed. The morning came, and we decided to start making our way north. The aforementioned Czechs Matej and Ondra (see a previous post) decided to take us that direction in convoy with the French and their German chauffeurs and a further German by the name of Lucas who had given Marion a crepe earlier that morning. Thus was formed the International Gypsey Family and the longest time out from thumbing began.

Fjords and sea and waterfalls

We lost Lars again that afternoon as we headed toward the Milford Sound (which is actually a fjord) from Bannockburn. We made it almost the whole 335 km. Our last lift, a German-Italian camped with us in a sand fly infested campsite. He took us to the entrance of the Homer tunnel so he could do a tramp in the area. The Kea kept us company and we only waited another couple of minutes for another German to pick us up and take us the rest of the way. The three of us did the Milford Sound cruise together - possibly my largest expense of the whole trip at $100 for the 2.5 hours. Definitely worth it for the views, meal and underwater museum. Our chauffeur took us back to the town of Te Anau where found a camp site nearby and had a family meal with our newly recovered Uri, Simon and Lars as well as a few more German girls.

Milford Sound

The following evening brought us (minus Lars, Uri and Simon) to the Clifden caves which we explored the following morning, totally at Marion's mercy as she was the only one who had a torch. Later we headed south and stopped in Riverton on the way to Lignite Pit - which is essentially a mine come garden that lets you camp on their land for $5. We only got to enjoy the sun for about half an hour before a foreboding cloud blocked out the whole sky - this was a bit of pathetic fallacy for things to come in the Catlins region.

Lignite Pit

The morning brought about lots of walking... until... we got picked up by a very familiar German called Jonasz who we'd met about seven months before in Auckland! And then more walking. There aren't a lot of people in the Catlins. So there's not a lot of cars. And not a lot of rides. To be perfectly honest, we only walked for another 8 km before we got a ride - not really so bad. After meeting some French, Germans and Czechs - who will become very important in about two posts - at a beach with Hector's Dolphins, we got very very stuck. Over an hour had passed and we hadn't seen any cars. We ended up knocking at the door of the first house we could find, which an elderly couple opened and graciously let us camp on their land for the night.

Beach where we saw Hector's dolphins... minus dolphins.

Unfortunately, the weather for the remainder of Marion's most highly anticipated region was a bit dissapointing, so we had a speedy tour with a couple of Swedes and an English girl in their swanky van,  through some rather pretty places (see below) before ending up just outside of Dunedin... sorely missing Lars.

Pretty places! Bad weather...

Back and forth

In Wanaka we found Lars again as well as the Israeli-German duo, Uri and Simon. We spent the next couple of days climbing mountains, eating ice cream and relaxing by the beautiful eponymous lake. On the advice of a Colombian runner, we transferred ourselves to the Luggate campsite situated on a cricket pitch with free hot showers!

Roy's Peak; Bannockburn festival; Mt Difficulty winery

 The first ride of the next day was from an Auckland lawyer by the name of Richard. After some lovely conversation and an historic tour of the town of Cromwell, Richard took us wine tasting in the Central Otago. Unable to go to his winery of choice, we ended up at Mt. Difficulty where I experienced the most expensive wine I'd ever tasted. My favourite was the 2013 Sauvignon Blanc. By the afternoon, we made it to Queenstown where we ended up spending $25 each to pitch our tents. Fortunately this gross expenditure was worth it as we met Immy - a welsh girl I'd met in Napier a few months before who invited us to a festival the next day in Bannockburn - back the direction we'd just come from. There were less than 1000 people there the whole day and our party of around ten were the only non kiwis. I stayed there all night and the awesome New Zealand policemen gave me a ride back to the campsite!

That seems like a good stopping point...

Wet wet wet... to Wanaka

The sun came with the morning in Westport and we made our way to the beach before thumbing our way south again. Our destination was Greymouth to get Lars's tent fixed. We hadn't gotten very far at around 7... our second lift did not take us to Greymouth, but instead to her friend's shack close to Fox River where we were to stay the night. My dear readership shall remember that about one month hence I was picked up south of Sydney and taken in by a young lady named Tamika. Who should it be that picked us up and took us in this time, one month later? Another Tamika. Coincidences are awesome. We got to know Ella (the 'owner' of the shack) and her two hitchhiking buddies. During the fire and a party on a private beach, Marion and I decided that Ella should come and flat with us in Auckland (spoiler alert: she's currently stroking a rescued cat in our flat - pretty well moved in) 

Adventures on the west coast

Tamika took us to the pancake rocks where we breakfasted in the morning before getting on course for Greymouth. The man who stopped for us was a pinnacle of kiwi hospitality and trust - he gave us the keys to his car to get ourselves 'settled' while he dashed to the loo. After about an hour of dramatic coastline we arrived in Greymouth, where Lars exchanged his tent and we gained Ricky, making us a quartet for the second time. To the famed glaciers we were destined! Despite my best efforts to keep us in pairs we managed to get a ride for all four of us in a lorry, with the two tag-alongs stowed in the back with the home-brewed detergents. Our campsite at the start of the glaciers greeted us with rain and new friends from Israel, Germany, France and the Netherlands. This region is particularly known for it's rain as we were to discover the following day. We got a glimpse of the smaller Fox Glacier but ran away by the afternoon - not before spotting our first Kea!

Adventures in the glaciers

With Ricky and Lars's departure and the addition of an American named Luke, we were again a trio. After a downpour, we (Marion) somehow managed to convince a Spanish woman by the name of Clara to take us to a campsite at Lake Paringa, where we got a mere glance at the lake before another downpour. The storm cleared by the morning and we drove and drove and drove, stopping in Port Jackson, at various gorgeous waterfalls and and finally, starved in Wanaka at 1630. We stuffed ourselves with (fish and) chips and parted ways. Clara needed to head on to Queenstown and Luke was staying at a friends. Marion and I found a cheap campsite by the river.

Waterfalls, mountains, Clara and Luke