So five days later I had sufficiently recovered from the epic challenge that was my first NZ tramping experience and was ready for another. Unfortunately there was a huge rush for all the trips going to Fiordland that weekend and all the vans had been filled up to the max. I stuck around the pre-meet for a bit and found myself in a group of ten that were in the same situation and after a brief 30 minute meeting we had outlined a full trip for our rag-tag group.

We weren't the most organized so it was surprising that all the bits of paperwork and gear rentals settled together smoothly. Our trip leader, Blake, had the silly habit of being late and forgetting things for which we heckled him accordingly. The group ended up comprising of three Americans, two Alaskans (the two girls), two Kiwis, one German, one Norwegian and one Swede.

The group posing in front of the sign for our route... which also had a warning that "alpine experience" was required.

We were able to take off relatively early after grabbing a supply of food and enduring a few too many "sausage" jokes after my suggestion that they would be good to have with our pasta. We stopped in Gore on our way to the beginning of the route for fish and chips takeaway. I think this was a bad move as I could feel the grease globbing onto my artery walls for the rest of the weekend; this is not a good feeling to have while trudging up a rocky pass.

A rather unflattering candid shot of the group

We started the route at a leisurely pace and continued this throughout the day. The Kiwis had to deal with the foreigners' constant Kodak moments, but seemed to be enjoying themselves just as much as we were. It was such a contrast to the quiet struggle of my last trip. I found it a relatively easy and much more enjoyable tramp, especially with such a diverse and well-meshing group of people.

Joe the Kiwi and Megan the other Alaskan after I told them that they didn't look happy enough.

We made our way toward U-Pass, the pass we would be hiking up and over to get to our campsite on the other side. It looked so tame from the bottom, a mere hop compared to the peaks on either side of it, but the further up we went the more it would stretch out above us.

Havard enjoying his first peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Norwegian approved.

Me part way up U-Pass

Up and up the rocks just kept stretching on and on. Everyone went at their own pace so our group stretched out with the rocks. I found it to be fun hopping from one good foothold to the next, but I was definitely only had energy for trudging by the time I reached the top of the pass, pulled onward by John's solo harmonica performance ahead. Gorgeous views were on either side of us up there and we had plenty of time to enjoy them while waiting for the rest of the group to catch up. It must have been high because the sun wasn't enough to keep us warm. Joe and I climbed up to a rock ledge on one of the sides of the pass then chatted about the urge to be higher up then everyone else.

Blake, our leader, who earned the nick-name "Glitter" for some reason that I do not recall

On our way down the other side we met up with another Otago Uni group that was doing the our same route, but backwards. It was already starting to get dark at this point so we were pretty happy to be done with the pass then have it waiting for us in the morning. Waving them off we continued down the valley with a sense of urgency growing with the sinking sun. I was starting to get a bit down, mostly because we had descended to bush level so my bare legs were now subjected to the number of beastly, prickly plants of New Zealand. We were all tired but knew we couldn't set up any sort of camp on these rocks, so we continued down, down, down.

Map check!!

The guys were forever crowding around that map!

Flat land!! We had finally made it to the bottom of the valley right as it settled into dusk. Our bizarre, undeserv'd luck continued as we stumbled into a flattened clearing previously used as a hunter's camp, complete with a rock firecircle and clothesline. Great success! Having a real fire was an absolute pleasure in these days of harshly enforced, leave-no-trace camping.

Our fire!

Roasting our sausages after a big pasta dinner, a happy scene brightly lit with our many headlamps

Moods were improved drastically with food and ginger wine and I crawled into our tent fly, the aptly named "cuddle-bus", feeling sore but content.

Me and Jens (the Swede) in the cuddle-bus

The next morning we discovered that we were only a few hours away from our cars and the end of our tramp. We didn't rush away from our convient camp and we certainly did not keep a very quick pace, yet we still found ourselves in familiar territory in the early afternoon. As we finished up our lunch in the car park, another Otago group came in with stories of their trip. Apparently they took a wrong turn and found themselve on a track far more difficult than they were prepared for. They had used their rescue beacon and had a helicopter come to get them off the ledge they had gotten stuck on. Just goes to show that you can plan as much (or in our case, as little) as you want and unexpected things can still turn your trip pear-shaped.

But that was not the case for our super-awesome-Fiordland-adventure. We packed up our cars and headed out towards Dunedin. The fish and chips felt much more deserved on the trip back and I hardly even noticed the grease.

As I had no major plans for the weekend, I decided to drop by the Tramping Club meeting on Friday just to see if anything was going on besides the huge group trip of 100+ members to Paradise. Right at the end a girl called out that there was one spot open on a side trip... so I decided I might as well find out more about it. A few hours later I was packed up in a car with three Kiwis on my way to Eldrig Peak ready to break in my new tramping boots bought shortly after the meeting.

We spent the night at a hut that had a fireplace and smelled strongly of woodsmoke. I enjoyed this very much as smoke and camping have always been together in my memories, but Cleo seemed not to enjoy it as much. Breakfast was oatmeal and raisins then we packed up the car and took off to our starting location. George drove around and got lost several times but he seemed to not want any help so we all left him to it. By the time we got to the gravel road that started our track up the sun was already high in the sky. I will not go into details about the hike up because I seemed to have blocked out a lot of it. I was sadly out of shape after my two months or more of traveling and eating delicious food, my only exercise being the short sprints to catch buses or trains. I'm sure I slowed the group down some but luckily Cleo was on my side and didn't mind the extra opportunity for photos and rest while waiting for me to catch up. I had huge blisters on my feet by the time we got to our campsite and it was all I could do not to throw myself down on the ground and thank God I had made it that far.

This was the view I was rewarded with for my efforts and gosh darn, it was totally worth all the pain. This area was well above tree line and above cloud line as well. Later on in the evening the clouds rolled into this valley and seemed to muffle all noise even further, leaving us to gaze across the sea of clouds to the other peaks that broke through... feeling as if we were on the top of the world. It was very unreal and hard to describe, but with stars above and clouds below I felt like I was in... well... another world? Space? Something like that...


These giant boulders were amazing. They looked like they had just fallen out of the sky onto these mountains, or were placed there by some giant. Some of them had holes in the tops that had caught rainwater, which was helpful as the nearest water source was a decent half hour walk away from our campsite.


We decided to make our camp right among the giant boulders with the absolutely stunning views of the mountains and valleys around us. The land dropped off dramatically right behind those boulders in the photo so you couldn't get away from those beautiful views.

George and his homemade bread loaf. It was pretty good bread and the curry he made for dinner on Saturday was delicious! There's nothing like eating warm, spicy food when you're bundled up on the top of a cold mountain.



On Sunday morning, though my muscles were telling me to stay in my sleeping bag and recover for the hike up to Eldrig and back down to the car, I followed Cleo outside in the morning to see the sunrise. The photo above shows our campsite and the mountains behind it bathed in the eerie first light.


Instead of trying to summit the intimidating peak of Mt. Eldrig, Cleo and I soaked up this view from our sufficiently lofty position. It seems like you can never enjoy a beautiful view enough. No matter how long you look at these mountains and valleys, it always feels like you missed something or didn't appreciate it. This is true here because though I think that this photo is nice and captures some brilliant mountain-scape, I know that the actual view from there would not allow itself to be crammed into a 4 by 6 inch rectangle.


There were some very inviting lakes in the leveled off area directly beneath the peak of Mt. Eldrig. The water was absolutely freezing but after gasping for breath after submerging myself, it was pleasant to feel my strained muscles cooling down.



One last shot of Billy at the top of the peak next to Eldrig. The clouds were coming in here and would soon obscure that entire valley beneath us. All in all, this was an intense but entirely satisfying first tramp in New Zealand. It certainly challenged me and I'm happy that I was able to hang on and persevere. I feel ready to tackle *nearly* anything now.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to the University of Otago is that it had some really interesting Marine Science courses. Surprisingly I was able to convince the department to let me into both MARI 201 and MARI 302 despite having absolutely no academic background in Biology, Ecology or any sort of subject that would be appropriate. I was delighted to hear that this very first weekend the MARI 302 class had a scheduled field trip on the university research boat to test out some fishing methods. My first week of classes and I'm already on the water!

The weather was really great for our trip out there with only a bit of wind kicking up as we headed back into the Otago Harbour. The sun was out in full force though and it was really pleasant to be on the water again. The university boat, the Polaris II, is much larger and nicer than the Irish, the boat I worked on last summer. It even had a big screen TV in the bunks downstairs and a huge back deck for doing research. I could definitely see myself working on a boat like this and I'll be checking out what sort of opportunities there might be for research down here. I know that the Polaris II often goes down to Campbell Island and Antarctica... which would be such a neat voyage!


Here's the captain and his deckhand unloading our catch from the brief bottom trawl we did. It didn't seem like a lot of catch, but there were some interesting fish in the mix like the two Globefish which were all puffed up with water and perfectly round. We also caught a Torpedo Ray which can stun its prey with a jolt of electricity. Our professor noticed this ray a bit after some people had been sorting through the fish without gloves on, but luckily no one got a nasty shock.

Here's my professor Steve Dawson releasing the bottom trawl. He seems to be a demanding professor, one who makes you work for every single point, but a nice guy as well. I know I'm going to have my work cut out for me trying to do well in this course, but it's always worth it when the class is interesting!

Part of our International Student Welcome was a free trip on the Taieri Gorge Railway train during our first weekend on campus. We were all crowded onto the cute little wooden cars and traveled through lots of farmland and forests to arrive at the beautiful view above.

Once we arrived at this valley, in all respects it was the middle of nowhere, we disembarked the train and were treated to a barbecue, Kiwi-style. There was an enormous amount of meat to be had and with a semester of my own cooking ahead of me, I ate 'til I couldn't force another bite.

My flatmate Sarah, completely psyched for the train ride. We made some Korean friends out here on the viewing platform between cars. Their accents made words hard to distinguish at times but we all bonded over the terrifying moments when the train went into tunnels or over bridges.

Here I am enjoying the view of huge forests of introduced pine. I'm not terribly impressed with the forestry management here as of yet, but perhaps learning more in my Environmental History course will clarify my opinion. In any case, the pines are a bit disconcerting.

The iconic clock tower building in the center of campus, and conveniently a half a block from my house

First day of classes was a success despite frantically dashing up five flights of stairs to get to my first class, deciding it was too much effort and taking the elevator for the next two floors to arrive eight minutes late. No worries, Kiwis are laid back and it was no big deal.

It might have been the bright sunny day or the extra protein in my ham and egg omelet, but I absolutely loved my courses, all three of them, a lot. The lecturers were interesting and put some effort into their presentations to evoke reactions from us, their captive audience. I hope that this interest in school will continue, and in two of them we'll be rotating lecturers throughout the term so I shouldn't get too complacent or bored. I think it's the subject of my courses to be honest; after staring at a computer screen programming for so long it's nice to be thinking about trees and animals and nature again. So glad I declared that second major of Environmental Science before I left. It was worth all the trouble now that I'm here in the south island, soaking up the natural beauty of this place.

I was also in a good mood because one of my lecturers used a Lord of the Rings reference in his opening bit for the course. Woot!

We were dropped off as a big group at the airport on our last day in Rotarua and left to catch our flights down to Dunedin. I gave Joe, our Kiwi group leader, a hug goodbye because he was such a nice guy and we had some good conversations. Must check out the band he sings for... the missing peace.

The flights brought us from sunny, warm Rotorua to chillier Christchurch and then to very foggy, rainy Dunedin. That was somewhat of a disappointment. Still I was so excited to see my flat and find out who I was living with. The cabs dropped us off right at our doorsteps so I just had to lug my one backpack up a couple steps and fiddle with my keys.

My new home at 19 Montgomery Avenue

Oh my gosh, my flat is amazing. Wood floors throughout the whole place, a big kitchen that is open to the living room with TV and DVD player. And my room, oh wow. A double bed facing towards a wall dominated by three connected windows overlooking the road and a bit of the river beyond. I was so happy... so very happy to have my own space again after weeks of hostel life. It was so homey and felt so incredibly lived in, with books and other leftovers from previous occupants. This was overwhelming and I ran around looking in cupboards and drawers gleefully, finding everything from a heating pad for my bed to Christmas decorations and a Harry Potter predictions book.

My room, five minutes after I arrived. Also pictured is my constant companion on this adventure, my resilient backpack carrying all the things I never used. Must learn to pack lighter!

Had some problems registering for classes as I traveled to New Zealand on a visitors visa. Long story short, I had to apply for my visa which involved giving up my passport leaving me unable to register for classes, get my student ID card, sign on to the internet or go into bars (no ID) for the two week period while my visa application was being processed. Mucho lameness but I made the best of it. Since I couldn't register for classes with everyone else I was told to go directly to the professors in the departments to get classes approved, seemingly an inconvenience but since I love talking to my professors I didn't mind. In the end I ended up with two Marine Science classes: 201 The Marine Environment and 302: Biology and Behaviour of Marine Vertebrates. These will probably be pretty hard as I've never taken even a 100-level Marine Science course but I'm so excited for all the field trips on the boat! I'm also in an introductory Ecology course, helpful for the Marine Science classes as its a prerequisite for them, and an interdisciplinary course called The Environmental History of New Zealand. So not exactly the class schedule typical of a Computer Science major... but taking all these cool environmental/biology type courses is why I fought so hard to get my second major of Environmental Science approved and declared before I left on this year abroad.