Fall break: Anthony in Aotearoa!!!!

Hello!!! I'm now up to the events which took place from April 9th-may 2nd: my fall break.

SIDE NOTE: I had my bottom two wisdom teeth extracted. I received no laughing gas or knock out treatment. I only got that shot you get when you have cavities. I SAW EVERYTHING. and I got to keep my teeth! really weird!

ok! so On April 9th, Anthony arrived in NZ with some complications with airport flight times. soooo i started our day out with some meat pies and giraffes! We went to the wildlife park of Christchurch, which basically is a safari. HUUUGE habitats for the animals, and we both saw our first kiwis!

kiws are actually noctoral so they have to assimulate night condition during the day so tourist can see them active.

The next day, we headed off to Dunedin. It was a beautiful drive, except we got stuck in traffic for about 2 hours right out Chch. There was an accident on a bridge. Several of the bridges here only have room for one lane, so each side must coordinate. LOST of accidents occur.

I took Anthony to the same look out cliff with the Albatross and seal colonies. It takes about 30 minutes of mind numbing driving to head out to the tip of the peninsula. But we had a splendid time searching for big birds.

Our first week was a bit intense. We had two 3-day tramps that were about 36 km each to accomplish in 7 days. After Dunedin, we rushed down to Bluff to catch a ferry over to Stewart Island. I was becoming a bit panic-y on the way down and accidentally locked the keys in the car. BUT! since everyone in NZ is lovely, we had no problem finding help to prop the door open. We were off to the island around 5 PM. We arrived about an hour later to find absolutely no vacant accommodations available. Apparently the island is a hot spot during Easter weekend...whoops. We finally looked so pathetic that the hostel allowed us to stay in a tiny room for hostel workers. Hey, whatever works.

We started the Rakiura track early the next morning. It started with gorgeous coastal tramping, followed by a two hour hike within native bush. Stewart is known for two things: bird (especially kiwi) and rain. Luckily it didn't rain at all during our tramp. There are a ton of birds since many of the invasive species haven't populated on the island. There are quite of few tom cats and some possums, but not nearly as devastating in numbers as the north and south island. Actually, if you're going to see a kiwi in the wild, it would be here. I only saw kiwi poop though..i think :-(

The entire track is pretty much on a board walk or cable bridge, which became annoying at times. LOTS of mud.
We saw some kea birds in the forest, which is New Zealand's most expensive conservation project for threatened species. Kathleen told me from her wildlife class that they spend a million dollars on habitat restoration/research per year. sounds like alot right? but it also takes one million dollars to fix a metre of road. ONE METRE. So I'm not sure what to think of that. After the 3 days, Anthony and I enjoyed a beautiful morning sunrise over the Stewart island harbour, and headed back to the main land for another 3 day hike! what was I thinking!??!?!

last week of March: MAAAAAAAAAAAA

The last weekend of March, my parents came to visit! We spent the first two days in Kaikora, which is my favorite area in New Zealand. There's heaps of birds and one of the only places where there's mammalian wildlife....aka SEALS AND WHALES.

The weather was gorgeous! My dad and I went on a cliff track which went along a seal colony. BUT! the first part was up the cliff into a cow pasture. mud pies, no fun.

We then decided to climb down the cliff and make our way to the car along the coastline.

problem number: tide was coming in

problem number two: seals were everywhere. and they get mean.

We had to hop along a couple places to avoid the tide. I ALMOST stepped on a seal. There was this one blind spot and a seal was peacefully sleeping right where my foot was about to land. Luckily, my screen didn't alarm him too much....

The next day we went whale watching, which I never thought I would ever do. We took this rocky boat out 3 km off shore and waited for about 20 minutes or so. I'd like to think that I saw the blow hole first, but who knows. Apparently male Sperm whales congregate in Kaikora that time of year. Currently, I think it's hump back whale season. This is due to the drop off of the continental shelf.

Anywayss!! Here he is!

The tour ended a tad early. So in order to kill some time, the tour company drove us by a huge school of dolphins. hundreds and hundreds of dolphins flipping, flopping, and mopping! It was nuts.

We ended the days with a brisk walk in a native forest and a big meal and cable TV. yum :)

The last day, I took them around my campus and to Christchurch, which was very nice too.

And this one is for Jessica. Cheers.

recap one: dunedin

Holy crap. Ok sorry for the lack of blogging. I had midterms at the end of March. Anyway, I've done a metric tonne of traveling in the past month, so bare with me.

DUNEDIN

Our closest kiwi friend, Hamish, lives in the beautiful city of Dunedin, which is about four hours south of Christchurch. So Me, him, Kathleen and Alex took a weekend trip to stay stay with him mum and search for some coastal wildlife.

side note: Hamish is a VERY popular name here. Scottish origin. It's pronounced hAmish, not Hamish like a ham. Kathleen and I didn't figure this one out til after a month of hanging out with him. He thought it was just our accent....

anyways, Here's us on the way down!

Our first stop was to the steepest street in the world, which was quite steep. We found a ton of super balls in the bushes on the way, which was fun. There was no way in hell our beautiful corona was going to make it to the top, but people actually live up and down the street. Hamish's mum told us that a few years back, two drunks boys took their wheel barrels to the top so they can race...which ended up fatal....but our superball race was a success!!!!

Here's me searching hard for super balls in the brush.
Ok! so next stop was Cad bury world!!!!! Since we went on a weekend, the factory was closed so nothing was in action. I was choking on my chewy banana bar for the half the tour...all and all it wasn't the chocolate lovers dream, but they did have one ton of chocolate pour down this tunnel in three seconds...neat.

ONWARDS!! We then twisted and turned our way around the Dunedin peninsula to the ALBATROSS AREA!!! THEY'RE HUGE!!! The view from the peninsula was gorgeous, and was infested with seals.

Side note: kiwis pronounce peninsula like penichula.

Hamish's dad is a well known entomologist/ecologist of New Zealand, so Hamish picked up a few field techniques which came in handy. He found a blue penguin nest that was in a ditch covered by brush. So one at a time, we all poked our head down into the brush to come 2 feet away from blue penguins. very cool. We then we're greeted by mister beautiful!!!!

We then made our way to sand fly dune on the peninsula in search of yellow penguins. We attempted to arrive at the dune at dusk to watch the yellow penguins come in from feeding. We ended up doing army crawls in order to spy on them!

Here's us in action. ooohhh do we look like scientist or what!

look at them heads!

We ended the day with a wonderful home cooked meal from Hamish's mum. It was soooooo nice to have good food for once.

The next day, we went to the Speight's, the largest brewery in New Zealand.

After this trip, I can honestly say Dunedin is my favorite place yet. It has alot more character than Christchurch with more Scottish heritage than English. AND! here's our Corona in front of the famous apartment from the kiwi movie, Scarfies.

Same house: http://www.nzfilm.co.nz/FilmCatalogue/Films/Scarfies.aspx