Lake Tekapo and Aoraki/Mt. Cook

I just got back from my roadtrip with Jess around the north island and I'm already on another road trip! This time I'm touring part of the south island with my friend PJ. The first day we took a bus from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo, and the second day from Lake Tekapo to Aoraki/Mt. Cook. During the rest of our trip we'll stop in Twizel, Wanaka, Fox Glacier and Greymouth.

This is the lake at sunset. I was pretty sure when I first saw Lake Tekapo that it would be my absolute favorite place in New Zealand (that was before I saw Aoraki/Mt. Cook- how many more favorite places do you think I'll have by the end of this trip? :-D).

This is the Church of the Good Shepard on the edge of Lake Tekapo with the Southern Alps in the background (my camera was acting up and was doing a terrible job showing the amazing blues in the lake and the mountains and the sky, so PJ suggested I use sepia, which I've decided I kinda like- my camera is doing better now though :-D)

Me by the lake. Getting out onto that rock was half the fun :-D

Our first view of Aoraki/Mt. Cook!!! This was actually taken by Lake Tekapo. You can just barely see the tip of the mountain in the distance. Aoraki is the original Maori name and Mt. Cook is obviously the newer European name, after Captain James Cook. It is New Zealand's tallest mountain, and it is spectacular!!!

One of many gorgeous views of Mt. Cook across Lake Pukaki (I think that's how it's spelled?)

More Mt. Cook!

That's supposed to be my hands in the shape of a heart around Mt. Cook. Let's just say it was a very interesting group effort for PJ and I to take this picture... :-D

Sometime when I'm not paying by the hour for internet I will post a few more of my many, many pictures of Mt. Cook and the other mountains. I think I've mentioned before that I have a minor obsession with taking pictures of the gorgeous mountains here :)

The Storm

This is what I get for using a cheap metaphor in the last blog post: it actually did storm this afternoon. Fortunately, the weather cleared up by evening so that we could celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes Day is November 5th and celebrates the day that Guy Fawkes tried and failed to blow up Parliament in England. I'm not sure I really understand it, but as my flatmates have told me, it's basically just a good excuse for fireworks. Did you know fireworks are legal in NZ and you can just buy they and set them off in your backyard? It was pretty crazy, driving through the city and seeing fireworks going up randomly. I went to the public show on the beach, which was a huge event. There were rides and cotton candy stalls, it was very fair-like. The fireworks were also really impressive- they definitely put the 4th of July fireworks that I saw to shame!

On a completely different note, Obama won the elections. I know everyone already knows that, but I thought I'd state the obvious, because that has been the only reaction I've seen so far. One of my flatmates calmly announced to the living room that Obama had won. Everyone nodded and went back to their laptops. It was briefly mentioned on the radio. When I saw the news online, I pretty much just sat in front of the computer open-mouthed thinking: Oh wow, today might just make the history books.

The Eye of the Storm

I feel a bit like I'm in the eye of a hurricane right now. Everything is very relaxed for just a little longer. I'm back from my AMAZING trip around the north island (seriously, littlekiwioe.blogspot.com the pictures from the trip are hilarious and it might take me a while to post them here). I won't leave until tomorrow for my next trip, a bus tour around the south island with my friend PJ from Thailand. My final exam is still a week away. It's too soon for any news on the presidential elections. J term registration is not until the lovely hour of 1AM tonight (tomorrow morning? seriously, I will never again complain about 7AM fights with online registration) and spring term registration is still quite a ways away. I think I'm going to enjoy this brief calm very much :)

At the same time, though, I think I'll be obsessively following the US elections online all day. It'll be interesting to see how everything turns out, and to hear people's reactions here. The NZ elections for Parliament and Prime Minister are on Nov 8, just a few days away, but people seem to be at least as interested in the US elections and often had very strong opinions. One guy actually got rather upset with me because I wouldn't tell him who I voted for in the presidential elections. He was the exception to the rule, though; although many people have very strong opinions on the US elections, they are usually very open to discussion and won't throw third grade insults at someone with differing opinions (NB- the differing opinions are usually between New Zealanders, Obama is usually the favorite but I've also met very vocal supporters of McCain). I've been quite impressed, actually, and have even enjoyed talking about politics on occasion, which is rather unusual for me. So anyway, it'll be interesting to hear the NZ opinions on the US elections. It'll also be very interesting to hear how the NZ elections turn out. Remind me to throw up a post on what little I know about NZ politics sometime.

New Blog!

I'm on the north island with Jess and we've decided to keep a blog for kicks. If you want to see the pictures (and there are heaps!) the blog is littlekiwioe.blogspot.com

Road Trip!

I'm headed up to the north island today to meet up with Jess (an amazing camp friend) and we're going on a road trip around the north island. At least, I think it's something like that, I don't actually know because everything is supposed to be a surprise. Anyway, in my (failed) attempt to back lightly, I've decided not to bring my computer, so I probably won't be able to put any pictures up until I get back. I'll try to find internet to at least write some posts, but really, I'd recommend you check back sometime after November 3rd, because that's when all the crazy pictures will start appearing :) Hope everyone is doing well!!!

A Minor Obsession

In case you haven't noticed, I love the NZ mountains! They're beautiful even when it's so foggy you can barely see them. I have a minor obsession with taking mountain pictures here, pretty much anytime that I'm outside of Christchurch. These are the promised excessive mountain pictures from my hike in Lewis Pass. I'm really sorry that my camera doesn't even come close to doing the mountains justice, but if you imagine the Misty Mountains from Lord of the Rings, you'll start to get the right idea :) (On a side note, the Misty Mountains were filmed in various locations around the Southern Alps and I don't actually know if Lewis Pass was one of them.) Be forewarned, there are possibly more photos to come if I manage to get copies from anyone else that as on the trip :)

Tramping

Tramping means hiking or backpacking in New Zealand. I finally went on my first trip in New Zealand this weekend (the reason I only now got to go on my first tramping trip is a story for another day). We went to Lewis Pass, which is one of only two passes through the Southern Alps (the other is Arthur Pass, just south of Lewis Pass).

We spent the night at Sylvia Flats, which is just east of the pass. Since we left Christchurch late in the afternoon after classes ended, we just set up tents on the grassiest bits of the parking lot, which felt a lot like cheating, but since we were cheating in the near vacinity of some natural hot pools, it was definitely acceptable cheating. It was great to get out of the city and out of the Canterbury Plains. Our campsite was not only near hot springs but surrounded by mountains, right next to a river, and under the most and brightest stars I have ever seen. It was beautiful.

In the morning, we drove up into the pass a little to the Lewis Tops trail. We hiked pretty much straight up for an hour and a half or so to reach the treeline (except that it's called the bush line here). It was a little intense, but it was really pretty, as we were hiking through what they call a "haunted" beech forest. It certainly exotic and very pretty.

No white blazes here. These were the trail markers we saw.

Once we got to the bushline, my infamous bad luck with weather while hiking kicked in. It wasn't too bad at first, just too foggy for any views. However, halfway through a conversation about whether or not to wear bug spray, it started to snow (at least it made our decision an easy one- no bug is going to be out in the snow...) Then, once we reached the ridge, we got a lovely mix of snow and sleet, mostly going in the horizontal direction. It was about that point that we decided it was maybe a little too cold to eat lunch on top, so we turned around before we'd made it all the way and went back down to have lunch somewhere a little more sheltered. It was a bit of a bummer, but we still had a ton of fun.

The sun came out as soon as we got back to the van. Go figure. It gave us some pretty fabulous views of the mountains on our drive back, though, so I'm really not allowed to complain. Excessive moutnain pictures to follow.