Last weekend, 5 of us drove down to Wanaka to do a bit of hiking and see the town. We took the car our friend Austin's car (he was with us) which his brother left for him to sell. We had to jumpstart it to get out of the parking lot at school, and then about 20 minutes out of Christchurch one of the back tires, which incidentally had just been replaced, literally blew up. Like I'm talking the entire sideway of the tire shredded and the hubcab ejected like 30 ft. off the road blown up. Luckily we had a full size spare and were good for the rest of the trip. We got to Wanaka and camped that night up the lake a ways. Our plan the next day was to hike the Rob Roy Glacier track, when we went to the visitors center in town the next morning we were informed that the track was "very closed" due to "active landslides" and "track repair". Clearly based on this information, and the fact that all the other day hikes in the area sounded pretty beat, we decided to see just how "very closed" the track actually was. Turns out there was only one section that was washed out, so after ducking some caution tape and taking pictures next to signs saying don't be here we were good to go. It was drizzling throughout the day Saturday so the valley we were in was covered in low lying clouds and mist which was super cool. There was also the small fact that I had forgotten to bring any good pants to hike in, so I ended up just wearing my bright day glow orange longjohns...When we got the the end of the track we could see the front faces of the glacier just below the clouds and happened to see a massive avalanche come down off of it! On our way back out from the track along the 30 km of dirt road and ford crossings we some how ended up with a massive yellow reflective exclamation point sign in our car...I'm denying all responsibility or knowledge of how it came into our possession. We went back to Wanaka to cook dinner by the lake but since it was cold and kind of windy, well to make a long story short we ended up dragging a picnic table and bench into the entrance way of a bar that was closed for refurbishing right along the main road through town on a Saturday night and cooking dinner there. Yes we got some VERY funny looks from people. After dinner we walked around town still with no real plan of where we were going to sleep that night. During our wandering we passed a bakery with cardboard boxes and sleeping bags in the window, turns out they were hosting a 40 hr famine for world hunger or something along those lines. We had the bright idea that maybe WE could also sleep in the boxes in a warm, dry place! Well when we came back later we found out that the people staying in the boxes were 14 yr old girls and the mother/bakery owner wasn't to keen on 5 strangers staying there too even in support of world hunger...We then did the only logical thing and immediately after talking to her went around the back of the bakery and raided the motherload of all dumpsters. Now when I say we hit the jackpot, this might as well have been the lottery for 5 hungry kids wandering around a town. We found probably about 50-100 assorted pastries and treats nicely wrapped up in paper and placed in the trash bins along with 3 MASSIVE (roughly 6 in. square) cookie/brownie things with a cream center that were individually sealed in plastic! We were pretty much in heaven. We ended finding a place to sleep outside of town, and woke up the next morning and cooked breakfast down by the lake. We then wandered around town some more and ended up spending over an hour on the playground there with all the parents and they're little kids. It was a pretty mean playground, literally everything spun around. It took us one more jumpstart at the gas station on the way out of town to make it back, but overall it was another awesome weekend.

On another note, yesterday I dreaded my hair and am planning on keeping it that way for quite a while hahahaha.

Cheers!

quick recap from 2 weekends ago before I get into the way more exciting trip this past weekend.

With nothing really planned for our first weekend back from break my mates and I made the spur of the moment decision to rent an incredibly small log cabin up the road to an old ski field for the weekend. The cabin was probably 25'x15' with a double bed and 2 twins upstairs in an attic, It was listed only as sleeping 5 so naturally we fit 15 people in. It was a crazy weekend full of all sorts of shenanigans of which I won't go into full detail. There was also a peacock that made its residence around the cabin and he came and visited us both mornings. Saturday we hiked up to the top of the ski field which was basically a large incredibly steep loose sandstone bowl...Sunday when we made it back to Christchurch we met up with Jane, our program leader, and went to Adrenaline Forest. It was a massive high ropes course in a huge stand of pine trees. They gave us a harness and some gloves and sent us on our merry way to go play on 6 different levels of Adrenaline fun full of lots of zip lines, giant rope spider webs to swing into, high wire bridges and heaps of other fun obstacles. the 6th level got up to 20m off the ground, which is almost 70 ft!

Now on to the awesome part. This past weekend, myself and 8 of my friends headed down to Mt. Cook National Park and hiked up to Mueller Hut. The trail covers 1000m vertical and is pretty much straight up. Since we were staying up there, and since I obviously was going to camp instead of staying in the hut, this feat was tackled with a very full pack. We had absolutely beautiful weather Saturday for our ascent, it was crystal clear blue skies and warm out. We had spectacular views of Mt. Cook and the surrounding glaciers for the entire hike which was truly breath taking. It had snowed the night before so once we made it up to the ridge there was fresh snow which was awesome! I hadn't realized how much I had missed seeing it! Due to the warm weather, there were numerous avalanches going on...on the other side of the valley nowhere near us. But we were able to look across and watch them which was pretty wicked. We arrived at the hut and myself and the few others in our group who were camping set up outside on the snow with direct views of the tallest mountain in NZ!!! The hut itself was pretty awesome and we were able to hang out and cook dinner in there which was soooo much nicer than hanging out oustide in the freezing cold. That night a front moved in from the west and brought thick clouds and snow with it. We woke up in the morning to zero visibility and light flurries. The hike back down was through snow and sleet down through the clouds along what was classified as an "unmaintained alpine route" which means we were following orange poles and cairns. It was an incredible experience and we finally burst out of the cloud when we were still about 100m above the valley floor which was a really cool and kind of eerie feeling. Overall it was an awesome awesome awesome time and it felt so good to have a pack on again and be tramping once more. The minivan adventure at the end of break was great in its own right, but it's no substitute for carrying your life on your back. As usual the pictures tell a much better tale than I do so they'll be up very shortly.

I'm looking forward to my next adventure whatever it may be and trying not to think about the fact that i have just over a month left!! It's going way to fast, and I wish I could just pause, rewind and do everything over again.