Chapter 5 - Words Can't Describe

Alright, so I have way too much to tell.. I'm going to limit this blog to a small paragraph of no more than 5 sentences for each significant event. Here goes!

First of all, I think I should mention that I finally feel 'adjusted' to this place. New Zealand is amazing. The people, the scenery, the small town of Dunedin - it's all great. You really learn a lot about yourself when you travel, probably because you have to know who you are, and where you came from, before you can establish yourself in a new place. You also do a lot of growing when you're confronted with a whole new world.

I went on a hike all by myself to Mt. Cargill which is about an hour and half away from where I live. I forgot my iPod and a jacket - I just went for it. It was really good weather for it and I saw some amazing things. The trip took about 6 hours to go there and back. It made me realize that after 4 hours of walking, it's really nice to have someone else or some music to silence your mind if you've been thinking too much.

The View from Mt. Cargill:

Not too long after my hike to Mt. Cargill, my buddy Nathan Hubbell convinced me to go mountain biking. Despite being reluctant to try it, for fear of being terrible at it, I quickly realized that I loved it. Mountain biking is probably the most dangerous thing you can do. Rocks, trees, and thorn bushes scatter the area and one fall at a high speed means a nasty gash on your leg. I definitely got my own battle scars, as did my companions, but overall it was an exhilarating experience and something I totally plan on doing again.

'Red cards' are very interesting, here, in New Zealand. You flatmates can basically call a 'red card' for the day and it means that you have to stay indoors and drink all day - real productive, I know, but everyone accepts it and if you don't, you're still not allowed to leave the house. They can also incorporate other rules like you have to play card games, or watch Lord of the Rings all day, or even rules like 'no touching the floor.' I know, sounds ridiculous, and it is. Here's an example:

They have a butterfly exhibit, here, and it's quite easily the hottest place in Dunedin. I went with a girl named Emma and we had a good time trying to get the butterflies to land on us. I never quite got one to land on my nose but I was still a happy camper.

After classes were finally over, I decided it was past time I did some traveling! My flatmate, Jason, and I planned a 4/5-day trip filled with festivities and we saw some amazing things, watched a lot of Scrubs, and had some adventures we did not necessarily plan to have!

We hired a rental car and, as you all know, they drive on the LEFT side of the road here. I was a little anxious to get in the driver seat, but once I had driven an hour or two, I actually felt pretty comfortable with it. Still, parallel parking on the left side of the road in the front right seat of your car is kind of annoying.

The first day in Queenstown we went on a tour to the Milford Sound (one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand, and apparently the world!). The tour was half bus-ride, half cruise. We had decent weather for most of the day but it was a little cloudy for the cruise. Either way, there were some pretty gorgeous things to see.

The next day me and Jason went bungy-jumping! Before bungee jumping though, we took some pics of the scene out in front of our hostel. Queenstown is easily one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Alright, and as for bungee-jumping, I don't want to come across as one of those guys that isn't scared of anything - but I was more scared of mountain biking than I was of bungee jumping. Haha. In fact, I thought the whole thing was far too short and I'll definitely be giving sky-diving a try, as soon as financially possible. Nevertheless though, the view from the bungee site was awesome and the jump itself forces every bit of adrenaline out of your pores. It's awesome.

can't get this one to rotate so it's vertical...

Jason and I

Now, as I said before, Queenstown is probably the most beautiful place on Earth. After bungee jumping, we still had most of the day left, so we figured we'd go and drive to this hill that we spotted on the way to bungee jumping and see if we could climb it. So, that's exactly what we did, we drove to it, found a trail, went off the trail (probably onto some private property), and even down to the beach! It was probably my favorite experience out of the whole trip. I even dunked under the water for $5 from Jason - I think he thought I'd pass because it was too cold, but you know me. ;)

I'm throwing in some extra pics for this one because no amount of words could describe it.

After that amazing day, we had a Lord of the Rings tour that we thought would be equally exciting. The website for the tour said that we would see 20 sites from the movies. We're pretty sure we only saw 5. Buttt, what are you gonna do - we still got to play with the weapons! And, in the end, we actually learned a lot of LOTR trivia that was kinda cool to know.

Some random LOTR trivia:

• Sean Connery was originally going to be cast as Gandalf and Peter Jackson was like "uhh.. No."
• Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), who apparently is the nicest actor on the planet, got a little too into his acting and told a Warg rider to actually strangle him so he could get into it. Viggo ended up headbutting  the Warg rider. The picture you see, below, is Viggo laughing at himself for headbutting an actor.
• Every time you see an orc with a bandage on it's arm in the Fellowship of the Ring, that is actually there because the neoprene 'orc-suits' were cutting off the circulation to the extras wearing the suits and so they had to cut the suits to stop the actors from passing out or getting dehydrated.
• Sean Bean (Boromir) was afraid of water (or kayak/canoe-ing) and flying (mostly in helicopters).
• There were 44 different 'one Ring's. The biggest one is at the Council of Elrond when they are arguing and the ring has fire in it and shows their reflections.
• The Dead Marshes scene took place, mainly, in a parking lot. In the scene where Frodo falls face first into the water, his face came extremely close to hitting the cement under the water. That's dedication!
• In the scene where the Fellowship is canoeing under those large statutes who are holding their hands out, Legolas got a little too confident with his canoeing skills and, while messing around, nearly sank his and Boromir's boat and they had to get a rescue boat to save them because they were wearing chain mail under their suits and it stopped the lifesuits from inflating.
• And more...

The next day, we were headed home, but decided to try to do a little more exploring.. We ended up going up some private road that lead to a dirt road, that led to a dead end at a little cabin. I tried to turn around, didn't see the mud, and got stuck. After an hour of trying to get the car out of the mud, Jason and I were only getting it even more into the mud. Eventually, we walked down the road to a very nice looking house and asked the tenants for some help. Luckily, even though the wife was very suspicious of us and thought we were young little robbers looking to steal things from rich houses (???), the husband was nice enough to grab his 4WD vehicle and lent us a rope, both literally and figuratively. We didn't take any pictures because we weren't exactly in the mood to, hopefully you'll forgive us. (I know, I know, I went over the limit on the sentence count on this one but, I had to tell the story right!)

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this post and see you next chapter!

- Jacobus Maximus

Chapter 4 - The Stewart Island Trip!

Weeeell, now.. I've gotta a lot of ground to cover, so I won't waste any time! I'm just going to tell you the whole story, from beginning to end, about me and Christine's trip to and through Stewart Island!

We left on a Saturday (the 27th to be exact) on a bus that we barely caught in time because we were busy buying gas canisters and anti-bacterial shampoo that we would never end up using for one reason or another.. BUT! I'll get to that later.. The bus took us from Dunedin to Invercargill and was a really pleasant ride. It stopped twice, once in Peggydale (?) and once in some other place with a forgettable name and we were allowed to get off and take a coffee break.

After we got to the i-SITE at Invercargill, we started walking in the direction of Mark's house (a local CouchSurfer). As we were walking, some New Zealander's noticed our packs, and probably how ridiculous we looked, and gave us a ride to Mark's, no charge! Gotta love the Kiwi hospitality.. but it doesn't end there!

Upon getting to Mark's, I was surprised to see how nice his place was! He asked us all the typical questions traveler's usually have for each other and then took us out to get some Fish n Chips and beer! What a guy. We then watched some Fly-fishing movie called Eastern Rises: A Fish Story, that my dad would probably have loved. It had an awesome soundtrack, including this awesome song: 

The next morning, I took some pics of his place at sunrise. This is basically my dream house for my bachelor years. Mark was even kind enough to drive us to our Ferry Bus Shuttle at 8 AM!

SUNDAY (Day One)

So we caught the shuttle to the ferry in Bluff, got some coffee, and took the ferry over to the quiet small town of Oban.

Upon arriving in Oban, we went to the DOC, left a notice, I picked up some polyester gloves for $4, and we took the water taxi to our first hut!



This one kinda looks like the Clock Tower if you look at it sideways!


He dropped us off at a little dock and we crossed a bridge to get to the first hut either of us had seen (which also became our favorite hut), named Freshwater Hut.

We left some of our food at Freshwater Hut with a notice for any would-be stealers that might pass through.

After that, we started on our way to Mason's Bay Hut which took us about 4 and a half hours of dodging and tramping through mud and looking at all the gorgeous scenery around us. We also stopped nearly every second to listen for wild kiwis which were much harder to spot than I thought. Here's some pics of the trail from Freshwater to Mason's Bay Hut:

Once we got the Mason's Bay Hut, we met two hardened kiwis that we referred to as The Silent One, who looked about 21, and Crazy Old Man, who was probably about 65 but fit as a whistle. Their names speak for themselves. The Silent One actually hunted and shot a white-tailed deer and offered us some of his venison. It was quite tasty! Crazy Old Man just taught us how to build fires and pretty much resembled a Viking - he was awesome.

After settling down, we tried to cook up some dinner for our first night. Unfortunately, our cooking stove BROKE on the FIRST night! Not only that, but because neither Christine or I had used a stove like this one before it burst into flames when we tried to light it! Needless to say, it was quite disheartening, not to mention embarrassing to fail so terribly in front of the Silent One and Crazy Old Man. Nevertheless, we survived the rest of the trip by cooking on top of the fireplaces provided by the huts and I became a pro at building fires!


Though we looked for kiwis every night of the trip, we ended up only seeing ONE of them on the first night.. We searched for them with a flashlight late at night and I took a pic without any flash. Here it is!

MONDAY (Day Two)
So, the next morning we had breakfast with the Silent One - the conversation was very stimulating, albeit non-existent.


We decided to stay a day and hike down south on the beach. It was a really good time, mixed with a little bit of adventure which included things like: trying not to get wet by jumping puddles, climbing over a mass of logs (which Christine did not like one bit), fighting through pointy bushes with sharp edges, and getting attacked by a swarm of flies! Christine managed to actually take a nap once we had our lunch - I was too busy swatting flies - they seemed to like me more for some reason..

We went back to the hut and attempted to make a fire.. it FAILED and Crazy Old Man saved the day once again.. I will never forget to buy some fire starters for the next time I go camping. Those things are a life saver! The Crazy Old Man also told us how to make a draft in a stove fireplace, as well as using candles to get a fire going..



TUESDAY (Day Three)
So, the next morning we had breakfast (cold porridge with extreme amounts of honey), hiked/SPRINTED back toward Freshwater Hut, had lunch on a nice bridge (with some extremely cute black and white birds that followed us everywhere we went), and finished the trip in an insanely short time of 4 hours! 

Then we rested. I'm pretty sure both of us felt like we had just run a marathon. After that, I gathered some firewood but there wasn't enough so I had to chop some more (which I had a real fun time doing).


Then we decided, since we had run the last trail in record time, why not reward ourselves with ANOTHER hike?  Well, that's exactly what we did.


The hike was called Rocky Mt. trail. That should've been all the warning we needed, but we decided to do it anyway. The hike was pretty challenging; very steep, muddy, and NEVER-ending. We seriously must have thought we were about to summit the thing 10 times before we actually reached the top.. But when we DID, man, oh man! What a VIEW! Nothing even came close to comparing to this view - pictures don't do it justice - you just had to be there. I'm not sure I've ever seen a better view with my own two eyes..

 Once we came down from our high (state of excitement!) elevation, we made a fire (using the candle method to speed things up), and I came to the realization that stacking was, simply, the way to go with stove fireplaces. We even cooked a can of Chunky Soup in the fire! We just took the lid off, rested it on top so the ash wouldn't get in, and eventually the soup was burning hot - but that was fine by us!

After we had a warm meal, we tossed back a couple Diesel's (or, I did, to be specific), told each other stories, went out for a couple minutes of star-gazing (or "star-grazing," as Christine likes to call it. haha) which, by the way, was INCREDIBLE - I've never seen stars so bright or so MANY of them! - and slept next to the fire. It was an amazing day! And, probably, my favorite.



WEDNESDAY (Day Four)
At the early hour of 7:15 AM, we got up to begin our longgg journey on the trail to North Arm Hut (known affectionately as the 'Big Long') which supposedly took 7 - 9 hours! We had breakfast and left at 8:15 for the North Arm Hut.

The trail from Freshwater to North Arm.

About an hour into it, Christine decided to try to do some climbing on this dangerous looking vertical wall of plants, mud, and all sorts of excitement. I had expertly observed an alternative route which consisted of a large gnarled tree that had fallen over to the top of where Christine was trying to climb and I started carrying out my

own plan.

More roots, mud, and water to navigate.

Once I was halfway across the fallen tree, I stopped to watch Christine's attempts to climb the vertical wall. She kept pushing her pack above her head but it kept on slipping down toward her. After the fifth try, she finally got it to stay up there and started climbing. It was pretty obvious that she was tired from hoisting her pack up there (our packs probably weighed about 30 - 40 pounds), so climbing wasn't too easy. Once she got to the top, she rested for a bit, and turned around, thinking, "Heh. Now it's your turn, Jake!" Instead, I sat there waiting for her to turn around. When she did, I just laughed my head off - it was quite possibly the most hilarious part of the whole trip - and crossed the rest of the fallen tree without breaking a sweat. :) Christine said she hoped I would fall in the mud because, apparently, it was MY fault for not telling her about the 'easy' route even though she told me she didn't like crossing trees before! Whoops... hahaha.. Luckily for her, at the end, I voluntarily waded through mud knee deep!

Amazing shot I got standing on a rock in the middle of the river. This is currently my desktop photo.

We had lunch on the summit of Thompson Ridge which was nice, then descended through a series of sections which could be described like this: Mud, river, mud, river, bridge, mud, river ... mud, river, mud river, FREAK STORM, mud, river, SIDEWAYS RAIN, mud, river, OCEANS of MUD, more mud, and a river. It was relentless! Eventually, I stopped avoiding the mud and river (I had gaiters on after all!) and trudged through it all. At the end, we were COVERED in mud. We took a picture, but it wasn't on our camera when we left the next day! Very disappointed about that actually..  When I saw the North Arm Hut for the first time, I was sooo incredibly happy.. Words can't express my joy.. 

Once we got in the hut, we met Michael and Joe (the only normal kiwis on the trail!) and attempted to make a fire. Unfortunately, there wasn't ANY tender or dry firewood. We, eventually, used a mixture of paper, splinters, sawdust, and everything we could toss in to get something going. My leatherman FAILED to unlock, so we couldn't cut any extra splinters from the firewood, and no one could fix it! I had 10 cuts on my hands from trying to fix it. Haha.


Joe ended up saving the day by getting the axe out of the stump in the back. I didn't actually see him do it but I think he used another huge piece of firewood to pull it out or something... Anyway, we chopped some bigger firewood, used Michael's stove to cook dinner, had some cookies, and started playing card games!


We played this game they called "Crazy Uka's" but I think in the States we call it Devil's Bridge and I know some people call it Up and Down the River. We had a great time, and even had some straight whiskey! Kept us realll warm.


I ended up getting only 2 hours of sleep total because I was so congested and had used all the toilet paper I brought for blowing my nose every five seconds. It was a miserable night but I got through it.



THURSDAY (Day Five)
For our last day on the trail, we woke up at the leisurely hour of 10 or so (I was up all night so it made no difference to me). Our clothes were still wet from the day before but we had a working stove so we at least got some warm food. The sunrise, added to a beautiful view of the water, from our hut was a perfect sight for our last day. The weather was surprisingly nice, considering it had been storming all night!

After having breakfast, I negotiated a ride with Michael and Joe to get back to Dunedin (they were students at Otago too) and we began hiking to Oban!

Luckily, it was sunny and, although, there was mud for the first hour, after that it was the cleanest trails we had seen the whole time! We also had some great views of the bays.



Not quite as easy with a pack on, I found out.



GO DUCKS!

On our way to Oban, it started hailing! After another 50 minutes, though, we made it into town just in time to take shelter before huge gusts of wind came through.

To celebrate surviving the trip, we got coffee, and some Tim Tams which were incredibly delicious. After that, we had to find the manager of the Backpackers we decided to stay at which turned into a goose chase because no one knew where she was! Everyone knows everyone in Oban because there's only about 300 people who live on the island and they're all in one small town. We got rooms at the Backpackers which were about $17 and chilled in the Lounge for most of the day.



After getting our keys, it was finally time to take a shower. Although, there was nothing special about this particular shower, it was by FAR the BEST SHOWER of my entire life!!! Felt sooo good to be warm and clean again.

For dinner, we went to the Hotel which was the only dining area that stayed open past 4 PM. They surprised us with a delicious meal. We both ended up getting their Seafood Chowder which was much bigger than I expected, although a little expensive.



Then, we went back to the Backpackers and watched TV for the rest of the night. We watched some Biggest Loser-type show and then some show called "something something Gypsy Wedding." Although it was mainly for women, it was pretty hilarious to see how vain some of those women were and how gaudy and ridiculous some of the things they had in their wedding were.

When we went to sleep, we both agreed the rooms were even colder than our stay in the huts. We didn't care, though.. At least there weren't any rats!

The next day was pretty boring.. I chilled out in the Lounge for most the day, writing, listening to music, and drawing. Then I hopped on the ferry to Bluff with Michael and Joe, who I met at the hotel, and had the craziest ferry ride of my life!

I didn't have my camera with me (and I totally regret it) but they almost canceled the ferry ride because the wind was blowing at 50 knots which was something like 100 mph, if I remember correctly! The waves would come up and completely block out the windows, and the cabin would temporarily get darker - it was insane!

But.. we survived that, too. And once we got to Bluff, we drove to Dunedin, got Subway, and that was the end of my crazy trip to Stewart Island. Hope you enjoyed it!