So first off here are the long awaited photos from my trip to abel tasman from a few weeks back




Second off I played in Ultimate Frisbee Nationals this weekend and had a mean time, we came in seeded last and ended up finishing 4th (should have had 3rd)! It was a really cool time and we got to play the Auckland team that is headed to Worlds in Prague this year. They were incredibly good and it was really cool to see a team like them play. After this week I head off on my 3 week spring, or i guess fall break. You probably won't hear from me for a while but i should have some killer tales to tell if and when i make it back.

Cheers from the Southern Hemisphere!

Sorry for the long absence, I actually had to do some schooling this past week. :-( Anywho 2 weekends ago I went to the Hokatika Wild Foods Festival on the west coast. To say it was crazy would be an understatement. I rode over Saturday morning with ENSOC (engineering society; and incidentally the single largest social organization on campus). They rented out a bunch of party buses and we began the trek through Arthur's Pass. Oh and did I mentioned they're sponsored by Tui, a NZ beer company? Regardless, we had a great time and I ate lots of crazy foods including some Southern Alp oysters, grasshoppers, grubs and a few other oddities. It was more or less a giant party with the theme of "bring your own theme" so everyone was dressed up in hilarious costumes.

On the rebound from the weekend we celebrated St. Patty's day in full splendor. I cooked up some mean corn-beef and Irish Soda bread that went along with cabbage and onions, green mashed potatoes, and of course guiness.

This past weekend is up there in the running for coolest weekend ever. 8 of us planned a trip up to Abel Tasman National Park, which is the northern most part of the south island. 5 people headed up Thursday night, and myself and two of my friends returned a rental car from Christchurh to Nelson on Friday. From Nelson we hitchhiked over to Abel Tasman. This took a little longer than we anticipated and once we were on our way out to the park we realized that we had missed our window of low tide to make it across the flats to the campsite we were supposed to stay at that night. We made an impromptu decision at the intersection where we had to head towards the campsite or the trailhead, and at 8:45 pm we hit the trail and hiked out to Separation point under a cloudless sky with glow worms lining parts of the trail. The three of us spent the night under the stars next to the lighthouse on Separation point and woke up to an amazing sunrise over the water and the islands in Queen Charlotte Sound. I then lead the charge for a sunrise swim off the rocks on the point and dove in and swam with the local seals who were out and about. We then continued on down the coast track with our full packs stopping about every 20-30 minutes when we came to yet another amazing pristine tropical beach. At one of the first ones we stopped at for a swim we were graced with the company of a short tailed stingray who was about 2 1/2 ft. wide and was swimming right in next to the shore! The track took us from one beach to another through amazing jungle, made up of giant palm ferns and other amazing plant life. As with most things here, words can't come close to capturing the awesomeness so there will be pictures to come shortly.

This coming weekend, I'm hanging around Chch and playing in the NZ Ultimate Frisbee Nationals! Should be sweet as

Cheers!

So I had another awesome couple days this past weekend down in Queenstown (the adventure capital of NZ). We (myself and the other kids in the program I came over with) took a 7 hr bus ride down on Friday morning and arrived around 2:30-3:00 pm. More or less immediately after we arrived, we met up with the other Arcadia group who was there and we all headed out to Shotover Jetboats. If you don’t know what a jetboat is, or even if you do, watch some youtube videos because it was soooo cool. They piled 15 of us along with the driver into the boat, and we headed off racing down a river canyon enclosed by cliffs on either side. The driver was flawless and was whipping the boat within less than a foot of the canyon walls while we were going at least 60 mph. Jetboats can travel in as little as 4 in. of water, so we would drift turns over sandbars where my ankles wouldn’t even have gotten wet. The drivers are also quite good at spinning the boat in a full 360 while going full speed…makes for quite the adrenaline rush when you spin a boat that is roughly 16 ft. long in a 20-25 ft. wide river! After jetboating we went back to the backpacker lodge we were staying at and then headed down to a place we were all told by various Kiwis that we absolutely MUST go to. This place was Fergburger. As an American when a Kiwi tells you that a place in New Zealand has the best burgers of all time you’re not to apt to believe them. WELL let me tell you that Fergburger has the BEST burger I have ever eaten. If you check out their menu online I ordered the Big Al…It was by far the most food I have ever seen fit inside of a bun and every single bite was an amazing new flavor blast.(In case you can’t tell it was prettyyyy tasty) Saturday morning we headed out early and kicked off our hike on the Routeburn track around 9:30. Let me also mention that we had beautiful weather all weekend, blue skies and 75 deg the whole time.
The Routeburn was an amazing hike, winding you through moss covered old growth forests, over numerous suspension bridges, up through an alpine river valley and then along the river up to a hut by a waterfall where we had lunch, and of course where a few of us cooled off with a dip in the pool beneath the waterfall. After lunch we continued on up to the lake in the hanging glacier valley that was feeding the river, and from there up to the summit of conical hill. I really can’t get to descriptive while typing about this because I cannot think of words that would come close to doing justice to the amazing sights we saw. The only way to put it is we hiked through a National Geographic magazine….check out the pictures which will be up within a few hours. ALSO for all you Lord of the Rings buffs, we unknowingly walked right past a real Ent (tree person). I without knowing it at the time just so happened to take a picture of him and didn’t realize it until I got back to Christchurch, when you see this picture there will be no doubt that this tree is alive. In total the tramp was a little over 20 miles up and back, and took us about 9 hrs to tackle. Afterwards we were treated to an amazing gourmet pizza meal which we all attacked after a day of eating trailmix and PB&J.
Sunday did a pretty good job of rounding off the weekend with more adrenaline. In the morning we headed up the gondola on the mountainside overlooking the town and had a stunning view of the surrounding mountains and the lake that Queenstown sits beside. At the top of the Gondola we went Luging, although not the type on ice. We were in little carts on a cement track that winded down and around through tunnels and over bridges to give you a pretty thrilling time. The best comparison we came up with is to a real life version of Mario Kart racing for N64, which makes it pretty freaking sweet…After lunch we headed out to Kawarau Bridge to BUNGEE JUMPPPP. It was pretty damn fun if I do say so myself. You basically dive off of an incredibly high diving board over a river. I was hoping to get dunked but I only got my fingers wet, for some reason the guys running it seemed real keen to dunk the girls so their shirts got wet but not so keen for the guys...weird right? However after doing the 150 ft. jump, I wish that I had done the 450 ft. one out of the cable car…guess I’ll just have to go back. Anyways, the pics should be up in a little bit once I get them onto my computer and sorted out

Sorry for the delayed update. Classes started last monday and are all going well. I have all my classes in the mornings and then labs a few times a week in the afternoons. Last weekend was fun filled, albeit not quite as amazing as the previous one. Friday night I went to a Christchurch Crusaders rugby game with a bunch of people, face paint worked its way into the mix and we all had a great time. Saturday there was a reggae concert on campus from noon-7 featuring the top NZ reggae bands including the Black Seeds, and Six Sixty. It was pretty hilarious people watching, and from what I can tell kiwis haven't gotten the memo that it is no longer the 1970s...By this I mean that there are ridiculous amounts of mullets, short shorts, cut off jean shorts, and bright neon colors everywhere. Like I said, its pretty damn funny. Sunday I went to a farmers market/flea market in the morning, surfed the Tsunami warning in the afternoon and then went to a cricket game that night. For the record rugby and cricket are incredibly confusing, but Cricket is possibly the stupidest game I have ever watched. Any sport that can go into overtime with a tie score of 214-214 should not exist. Right now I'm trying to make it through a week with no swell and then myself and all the other kids I came over with are heading down to Queenstown for the weekend! We're going tramping one day and then luge(ing)?,not on ice but the cement tracks that they have at ski areas, and BUNGEE JUMPING! WOOOOO should be sweet, i'm sure there will be another entire photo album by the end of the weekend to make everyone just a little bit more jealous. hahahaha

cheers!