Last Big Hurrah!

As I typed the title of this blog post I was hit with an enormous wave of gloom as it finally begins to sink in that my stay here in Christchurch and at Ilam Apartments with all my amazing friends is coming to an end. I am going to do everything that I can to not cry as I recall my last epic trip but my heart already begins to ache knowing that I will never be surrounded by all these people ever again at the same time, in the same place. I love them all so much and whether they realize it or not they have had such a huge impact on my life that I will never, ever, ever forget. I am so thankful for all these memories :)

So. Five of us, me, Jenn, Zak, Daniel and Brandon packed up our bags and jam packed our car with a lot of shoving and utilizing some tetris skills in the process and set out for Queenstown. We left late on a Friday night due to the Uni's Tea Party celebration during the day. Tea Party is a school sponsored let's all get really drunk, and dressed up like maniacs and listen to crazy music and lay around in the grass all day. It still blows my mind that the school sponsors this kind of stuff but I love it. However, Hayley, Jenn, Sander, Zak and I were some of the few who did not buy tickets and felt a little left out as we were not dressed up like maniacs. But we still had a hell of a good time hanging out with everyone who was participating during the day.

Lisa the smurf :)

The mimes, pre creepy white face paint. 

So once the crazy day began winding down we jumped in our car and drove as far into the night as we could before getting tired and setting up camp right next to Lake Pukaki at a random i-site. We're too good for actual campgrounds. 

The usual, breath taking views in the morning. 

After waking up we proceeded on our drive to Queenstown with a stop in Wanaka and a three hour detour to check out the Rob Roy Glacier that other friends had suggested to us. The weather was somewhat cloudy but we set out on the short track anyway, which was in Mt. Aspiring National Park. The views, and the mountains were beautiful as per usual and I finally got a photo with a random cow!!! :) Dreams do come true, haha. 

Rob Roy Glacier (unfortunately the sky was over cast but still beautiful to look at)

Cute cow!!

Wanaka

 Next stop after Wanaka was Queenstown, and we were all super excited to get there as we had heard such good reviews of the city from friends who had already been there. When we got there, the weather was absolutely perfect, the sky was a perfect blue. We met up with Drew, Phil and Andrew there and all checked into a hostel-- my first in New Zealand! And we prepared for a night on the town. Queenstown, unlike Christchurch, actually has an amazing night life. The city is right on the water, surrounded by the amazing Remarkable mountain range and walking through the town at night gives off a cozy, home-like feeling at the same time as it is buzzing with young life and energy. Basically, it was a great place to spend an amazing night with good friends. We met a lot of new people and heard a lot of great stories and travelling tales.

Our tea pots at the world bar :)

The next day everyone went sky diving or bungee jumping except Zak and I but we still had a great time, hanging out in the city, relaxing by the water, and enjoying the amazing views all around. 

Queenstown

After another great day hanging out in Queenstown we decided to drive to Te Anau the only major town before hitting the desolate-ness that is the Fjordlands to watch the semi-final world cub rugby game between New Zealand and Australia. "The Moose", the bar that we chose to watch the game at that night was absolutely packed with about an equal amount of All Blacks and Australian fans and I had never been as nervous about a game as I was for this one. I wanted the All Blacks to win SOOOOOOOOO badly. And of course they pulled through and destroyed Australia :) Also, in proving how tiny of a country New Zealand is, at this said bar we ran into the hut warden Gaylen who we met at the Copland Track about three weeks earlier. Small world eh?... Afterwards we set out to camp at the trail head to the Kepler Track in preparation for our attempt to do the entire track regardless of avalanche dangers....

Unfortunately the next day had pretty ugly looking skies but we set out anyway, only hoping for the best. The hike was not the most exciting on the way up but once we reached the ridge, about 45 minutes away from our hut the views were beautiful. 

There were lots of clouds unfortunately blocking great views of the mountains but it still looked amazing. 

At the hut that night Daniel brought Jenn a little brownie cake to celebrate her birthday :)

We had a great time that night hanging out in the warmth of the hut. Since the hut was so high up on the ridge the weather was really cold outside and we assumed the clouds might clear up by the next morning but in fact things only got worse... By six pm it was snowing outside our windows but we just blocked it out of our minds and prayed that things would be clear the next morning so that we could push higher on the ridge for better views. We played some games that night with Jack-from Malaysia-who we had befriended in the hut and before we fell asleep to the warmth of the fire we played a "story game" in lieu of taking Drew's advice and five of us ended up staying up for almost two hours, laughing our hearts out about a story of a dog and a cat with Katy Perry and the thriller dance making appearances at some point....

And the next morning, with great sadness we woke up to howling winds and snow accumulation on the ground. Continuing along the kepler track was out of the question now so all we could was head back to our car. But even that made me nervous as this was the view outside the hut:

Although reluctant, we all bundled up and eventually headed out in the blizzarding weather. The wind was so strong that I was walking at an extreme angle towards the wind to keep myself from constantly getting blown over. I'll admit I was completely freaked out at first and thought that I was going to blow off the ridge but it actually ended up being a lot of fun. 

The wind was so strong that Phil's orange back pack cover that you can still see in this photo was just blown off down the mountain only seconds later. 

After 30 minutes of blizzard we were finally out of it and began the about 2 hour down hill that awaited us... A  lot of the boys ran ahead of us and then we started running down the hill as well as our knees were crying out in pain. And then of course, it had to be my lucky day and even though the path was not covered in many rocks I tripped over the only one that was in my path and twisted my ankle and went flying. I literally flew and due to my momentum my huge backpack flew over my head and caused me to completely flip over and I landed on my back screaming in pain. I was sure at the time that I had broken my ankle because the pain was unlike anything I had ever felt before. Miraculously though, maybe due to adrenaline I was up about five minutes later and walking down the rest of the mountain. My ankle however continued causing me pain and extreme discomfort for the rest of the week but I refused to let it keep me from seeing the Fjordlands. 

After all that excitement, we made it back to the car, drove to Te Anau to load up on some food and headed to the Routeburn trail head. It was raining again that day and we just prayed that the next morning we would have at least some sun so we could enjoy the Routeburn. And miraculously our prayers were answered and although it was windy there was not a cloud in sight. We had also stayed in these really nice cabins that Drew and Andrew suggested from their kayak trip and we all got to sleep in nice (creaky) beds that night. On the trail though we were all pleasantly surprised that all the rave about the Routeburn being absolutely beautiful was spot on. The views were breath taking. 

View from key summit. 

The views for the entire next four hours never failed us. Being surrounded by amazing snow capped mountains was so serene and so breath taking. I tried to pause when I could, tried to forget about the pain in my ankle and how stiff and sore my neck and back were and remember what it felt and looked like looking out at the mountains and at nature at its finest.... 

Once we did eventually make it to Mackenzie Hut we were so surprised by how beautiful Mackenzie Lake was, surrounded on all sides but one with mountains and as we laid out on the rocks to soak in the sun and read our books approximately every 5-10 minutes we would hear and see enormous avalanches rolling down the mountains all around. It was astounding how much noise the mountains could make. It really makes you think and realize how strong, menacing and dangerous mountains are. 

Me and Jenn!

Drew braving the freezing water. 

Life is so amazing... 

Tallest Peak in NZ, what's up

Surprisingly enough the past weekend was once again filled with awesome adventures that will probably continue making people at home jealous :) yes, I know my life is awesome right now, that's why I choose to blog about it. So after getting completely rained out the previous weekend on the Copland track we actually decided to take weather into account when planning this trip. Once again however our research showed that there was going to be rain basically all of Saturday and Sunday. So being the resourceful people that we are-and pathetic Uni students that we are-we decided to set out on an early Thursday morning to Mt. Cook National Park to catch the nice weather before the rain storms hit. And our decision to leave early proved sooooo worth while. On the drive down we stopped at Lake Tekapo to have lunch and soak in the simply breath taking scenery:

Lake Tekapo -- be jealous... :)

As we continued our drive the views only became even better and when Mt. Cook came into sight we all just freaked out. 

Epic! Tallest mountain in New Zealand, at 3,754meters. I'd love to say we climbed it but that would take about a week and about $5,000... One of these days though..

Upon arrival at Mt. Cook village we immediately set out on the Kea Point track followed by the Sealy Tarns track. In the summer the Sealy Tarns leads up to an 1800m summit along with a hut, but unfortunately for us the snow made it impossible to make it that high. The views from the highest point that we got to were still amazing though. 

On the way up! The glacial lakes are a crazy color due to the glacial silt. (Mt. Cook is in the left)

What a ladies man :)

After some more exploring of the area, and the sad realization that due to one of the suspension bridges being under construction that we would not be able to do another track the next day, we set up camp, had some good food, admired the huge night sky and went to sleep. Or more accurately we froze in our sleeping bags. That night was as cold if not colder than my freezing night of sleep at the trail head of Mt. Somers. Of course, as soon as the sun peeked over the mountains we began to sweat again. We followed two short tracks that morning and one lead us to the Tasman Glacier, the largest glacier in New Zealand. The views here once again took all of us by surprise and left us in awe. We hung out at the look out for quite a while taking everything in. The Tasman Lake created by the glacier was ginormous, for lack of a better word. And huge icebergs floating in the lake seemed small from our viewpoint but after noticing some kayakers in the lake in the distance we understood that these icebergs were like 30x as big as the kayaks. 

Props to Lena and photoshop for creating this amazing panorama :)

We were all on quite a high from the amazing views that we had just experienced during our drive back home. And we were also excited to still have the majority of the weekend to spend in Christchurch. Saturday during the day we headed to Castle Hill to attempt some bouldering and to show Lena the great playground that is Castle Hill :) 

Don't let me fool you, I really have no idea what I'm doing...

Jumping photo fail! haha

And that night we celebrated my birthday with some amazing friends!! Such a great night, we didn't end up going out at all since Christchurch and night life are two words that are rarely heard in the same sentence, but no matter, I had an amazing time. 

Friends are awesome :)

Welcome Flats- Best Hot Pools in New Zealand!

It was a late Thursday night when I drove with Zak to pick Lena up from the Christchurch airport and only one day later she was in the car with us on the way to another tramping adventure. As per usual, our rental car was packed with five as it set off from Christchurch later on Friday due to Bernard actually being a real grown up and having a job. Unfortunately however, we managed to get a flat tire only about an hour into the trip. We were all a little torn with what we should do because of the strong desire to continue with the trip but still with the worry in our minds that the car may not be able to get us all the way there. Perhaps it was a stupid decision at the time but we decided to continue on the journey regardless of the doughnut tire on our car. The drive ended up being reeeeeeeeeally long and we arrived at the trail head very late at night. We met up with the second car of boys that was also planning on doing the same trek the next day, chatted for a bit, and then we all passed out quite early, keen to get some good sleep before the next day's 17km hike.

We awoke the next morning with rain drops daunting us from the outside of our tent. I said a little prayer before I crawled out of my bag that the rain was only in my head, but alas it was not..... Soon after we all arose the sky just began to pour....

Awesome tramping weather....

But regardless of the weather we knew that we were going to do the track, so as soon as the rain subsided in the tiniest bit we packed up our tents and were on our way. The trail was very much rain forest interspersed with random views of the rushing beautiful river, surrounded by amazing mountains. However, we were not about to be as lucky as we had desired, the rain returned about 45 minutes after we set out and it did not let up for the entirety of the hike.... It was probably the most miserable hike I have ever had to do yet simply because I was soaked completely to the bone, and on top of that I was having the weirdest allergy attack and my runny nose only got worse with the rain. I felt so bad that this was the first trip that we took Lena on and it got completely rained out. I hoped that she wasn't suffering and hating me too much!

Oh the good old days when we were still dry....

And then the rain began...

Still raining....

Still raining...

The suspension bridges were SO COOL on this trip, except the fact that the rain made them super cold and when holding on to them while crossing over all of our fingers completely froze. 

The supposedly seven hour hike turned into about 4.5 hours because we were practically running the entire time in an attempt to make our misery come to an end as quickly as possible. And of course it was just our luck that as we were about twenty minutes away from the hut the sun finally decided to show itself and it  began to warm up. Lena and I were so elated to finally be in the hut but we were frozen solid to the point that we couldn't even unzip our own back packs to get out our dry clothes. And another pleasant surprise of mine was that ALL of the things in my bag had gotten completely soaked from the rain. Even my sleeping bag was damp. So I basically immediately changed into my swimsuit in the hut, hung up all my wet clothing and ran to the hot pools to de-thaw my frozen body. The hot pools could not have been any better and could not have been more appreciated than they were by everyone on that day. There were four of them, all of different temperatures, and they were big enough for all of us to comfortably sit in them totally submerged. With a sandwich in hand, relaxing in the hot pools, taking in the mountains around us, I could not have been happier at that one moment in time...We were even lucky enough to witness an avalanche on the nearby mountain while we became prunes in the sulfur pools. Epic day to say the least. 

Welcome Flatts Hut!

Drying everything....

Beautiful views, amazing hot pools, wonderful company... Couldn't ask for more. 

Surprisingly enough we did eventually end up over heating after an hour or two in the pools and we all headed back to the hut for dinner. We also made friends with the volunteer hut warden who was the epitome of the type of person you expect to live in New Zealand. He moved here several months ago and has been hopping around the two islands with random jobs/volunteer positions/rock climbing and hiking around the entire country. He had an entertaining sense of humor and was full of some crazy stories. "You guys want to kill a possum tonight", the lead in to one of our conversations... haha. 

During our dinner preparations we all attempted to dry our clothes over the fire and on the stove and of course I was the only idiot that left their poly pro pants right on the stove for way too long and they completely burnt away.... After laughing at myself and reprimanding myself for being a total retard I enjoyed my dinner and then ran back to the hot pools to take in the clear New Zealand night sky as much as I could. I swear, sometimes I have to remind myself that my life is real and that I'm not living in some sort of a movie. The company was great the rest of the night, as we all stayed up late sharing life stories, jokes, and at one point we all turned our torches off and Andrew finally showcased some of his opera skills for us. It was beautiful. We had some great sleep that night in the warmth of the hut....

The next morning the sun was actually out and we set out on our journey back as quickly as possible so that we wouldn't loose the warmth of the sun. And now that we could actually see and  enjoy the scenery around us the hike was 100000X more enjoyable. 

Lunch break!

Amazing mountains...

The water was such a range of beautiful, different colors, you never get tired of staring at it...

Though the weather was beautiful for almost the entire return trip we did hit some rain near the end of our trek, and Andrew unfortunately sprained his ankle only about thirty minutes away from the car park, but other than that we all made it back to the car safely. We set back for home again praying that our little doughnut wouldn't fail us and that it would get us back safely. After getting mooned by the boys' car as it passed us we stopped in Hokitika for some well deserved fish 'n chips!

OMM NOM NOM NOM

We continued to pray for our tire and experienced a terrifying blizzard of snow at the top of Arthur's Pass that we managed to get through by driving no faster than 10km/hour. We all exhaled an enormous sigh of relief once we were over the pass and knew that we were really going to be okay. The biggest relief was had however once we finally actually returned to Ilam and unloaded all of our bags out of the car. Our doughnut tire miraculously traveled about 700km. Don't ask me how but I am so happy that it did. Hopefully we don't have a trip with as many car adventures as that last one... Either way, good times were had as per usual in New Zealand :)