"Spring Break" in Australia

The semester is more than half way over!! I can't believe how fast the time has gone in New Zealand, but finals start in 5 weeks! For our "spring break", Graham and I traveled to Australia, going to Sydney and Cairns. Our trip went something like this:

Friday: A 6 hour never ending bus ride from Dunedin to Christchurch, surrounded by very odd people and a man wearing pink socks who kept burping. We (barely) survived the bus ride, then spent the day in Christchurch. We found that not much is happening there, and the most popular color is orange (because so many construction workers are wearing orange vests and trying to repair the damage from the devastating earthquake a few years ago). We went kayaking on a river through the Botanical Gardens, then went to a mall made out of containers...pretty neat! We ate a very classy dinner in the food court of a local mall, then slept in the 5 star hotel known as the Christchurch International Airport! It was quite an interesting visit, and I'm certain I've seen everything exciting about Christchurch.

Saturday: Our flight was supposed to be at 6 am, but we were delayed A LOT and spent much more time in the Christchurch airport than anyone in the world would ever want to. We finally arrived in Sydney around noon and met up with Conor O'Brian and went to the zoo!! It was great to see a Gilford friend on the other side of the world! The zoo was awesome, tons of animals and a beautiful view of Sydney harbor the whole time! It was great! Then we took the ferry back to Sydney and walked around a bit, then went to Darling Harbor for some take out Indian food and fireworks on the harbor! It happened to be the same day as Gilford Old Home Day, so it was just as if Conor and I were at home in Gilford, fireworks and everything!

                    

                             

Sunday: In the morning Graham and I (and it seemed like every other citizen of Australia) went on a cliff walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. The path went along the ocean around many beaches and beautiful cliffs! Then we joined up with Conor and his roommate to see a show in the main theater of the Sydney Opera House!! It was a National Geographic photographer talking about all of his adventures throughout his career...so cool! And we got to go in the main theater! It was a great day!

Monday: Graham and I spent the day at Manly Beach, a 45 min ferry ride from Sydney Harbor. It was a great relaxing day! In the afternoon we went to the Sydney Olympic Park which was basically a ghost town, totally abandoned and just empty...very strange. I'm sure it was quite busy in the summer of 2000, but not any more!

Tuesday: We flew 3 hours north to Cairns, a small city right in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef! We got lunch then went to the town "lagoon", a public saltwater pool right in the middle of town. If you swam in the ocean in Cairns, you'd probably be eaten my a crocodile, so the lagoon was much safer. It was another relaxing afternoon in the warmth of Cairns!

Wednesday: Snorkeling on the reef! Two hour boat ride to the outer reef, everyone was sea sick, and I'm sure that 50% of the boat puked. But we didn't ! And snorkeling was amazing! Every single color in the world can be seen just a few feet under the water. We saw turtles, barracudas, every single type of fish possible, and lots of coral! It was great!

Thursday: We took a much shorter (thank goodness) boat ride to Fitzroy Island, an island in the reef! We went for a walk to Nudey Beach (not for nudists, although the name is quite confusing in that regard) and then went on a glass bottom boat tour of part of the reef, then did some snorkeling and some relaxing! It was a really awesome island that I would have loved to spend more time on, but our time in Australia was over :(

Friday: Flying home. Stopped in Brisbane on the way home...got some really yummy nachos in the airport! 

And now it's back to school. It was a really great vacation, so relaxing, and I even got a tan! Very exciting stuff! 

August

August has been a busy month for us Otago students! A couple of weekends ago, a few of us international students headed to Queenstown for the weekend! It is a beautiful small (very touristy) town surrounded the Southern Alps with a lake in the middle! Very beautiful. We went up the gondola to a lookout over the whole town, then did the cement luge! Lots of fun! After that, we went to the driving range for a bit, then an ice bar at night! Everything was made out of ice, even the glasses they served us drinks in! And there was a mini hockey table made out of ice! On Sunday we went to Arrowtown, an old gold-mining village which reminded me a lot of a small New England town. We also went ice skating in Queenstown, and managed to buy the most delicious and most expensive ice cream I have ever had! It was a great weekend!

Sunset on the way to Queenstown...looked like a water colored sky

The view of Queenstown from the gondola

Doing some luging

Ice bar!

One day last week, Graham and I went to Baldwin Street, just about 1 km from our flats. It is world's steepest street, and I believe it!! There were so many tourists all over the street, but I really can't imagine driving your car up it, it is way too steep for that!! 

Worlds steepest street!

They had steps instead of sidewalks because it was so steep!!

As we are getting closer and closer to the mid-semester break, lots of papers and assignments are piling up. Last weekend I stayed in Dunedin and focused on writing an education and an environmental science paper. Very exciting stuff. Saturday, we managed to squeeze in some fun, and Graham, Michael and I headed to a waterfall just a couple of miles away. We also did some exploring of glow-worm caves, but couldn't see them because it was daytime. After the waterfall, we found a trail across the river and decided to follow it to see where it went. It turned into a very well maintained mountain biking trail that went up to the top of a hill. It was a great adventure and really beautiful! Definitely a much needed studying break!

 Last night, our complex had an ocean-side bon fire! Since Dunedin is on the ocean, we decided to take advantage of the warmest day yet (about 55 degrees!) and a beautifully clear night! It was a great complex event (6 6-person flats) and it wasn't even too cold!

One more week of classes, then off to Sydney and Cairns for some rest and relaxation in Australia for vacation!

Skiing in July!

This weekend Graham and I went on a little adventure to Wanaka, a small ski town three and a half hours northwest of Dunedin. We left early Friday morning and arrived just in time to get an afternoon pass at Treble Cone and do some skiing! The ride there was very interesting. The road takes you right through Central Otago, the region in NZ where most of the Lord of the Rings was filmed. I've never seen those movies, but the landscape here seems just perfect for their filming. There are a lot of rolling hills with hardly any trees, mostly just knee or waste-high bushes, followed by what looks like a waste land of dirt. Some of the mountains look like giant piles of sand held together by small clumps of grass that is hardly visible from the road. Here is a picture of the Clutha River (2nd largest river in NZ I believe) and some sand-like mountains:

The contrast in color is really quite beautiful, but without the river, it looks very much like a wasteland full of large/high mountains. 

When we finally arrived in Wanaka, we headed straight to the ski mountain. After the 4.4 km drive up the access road (so sketchy...no guard rails and muddy switch backs the whole way), we got on our skis and hit the slopes. The day was absolutely beautiful and the views from the ski area were of other mountains in the Southern Alps, and then centralized on Lake Wanaka, basically at the base of the mountain. 

Saturday the mountains were in the clouds, so we decided to do some day hikes instead of skiing in the rain. We first hiked Rocky Mountain, a mountain between the ski area and Lake Wanaka. It was a 7 km loop including Diamond Lake, a view point to Lake Wanaka, and finally the summit. It luckily didn't rain on us too much, and it was sunny enough to see about half of the beautiful views the summit has to offer. 

Diamond Lake

Graham at the summit of Rocky Mtn.

Since the weather wasn't the best, we spent the afternoon at an Illusion museum. It was really neat and had tons of cool illusions like where the water comes from in this floating faucet:

Or these:   Teach/Learn, hate/love, and a neat room that was totally tilted!       

 

On our way back from the museum, we passed by another mountain, Mt. Iron which looked nice, so we decided to hike up that one too! I'm so glad we did, the views were great! The town of Wanaka, Lake Wanaka, and the beautiful Southern Alps. It was a nice end to a great day of fun activities!

Panoramic at the summit!

Lake Wanaka and the Southern Alps

Sunday we spent the day on the slopes again. We had an absolutely beautiful morning with hardly a cloud in the sky! We had such a great weekend in Wanaka! Can't wait to go back to do more hiking and skiing! 

Sunrise on the way to the mountain

And a pit stop at a beach on Lake Wanaka on our way home!

Enjoying Dunedin

This weekend, we were fortunate to have really really nice weather every day! As it's the middle of the winter, the temps average around 45 every day, 30 at night, but the past few days it has been in the 50s and sunny! We couldn't have asked for better timing, as we saw this weather as a great opportunity to explore around Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula! On Friday after class, we took a drive along the peninsula to an Albatross actuary. We then went to Sandfly Bay, a BEAUTIFUL little inlet along the southern edge of the peninsula. We had to hike down sand dunes to get there, but the beach was amazing. There were sea lions lounging around the beach every 100 meters or so, and even Yellow-Eyed Penguins, one of the rarest type of penguin in the world! We saw three, but at nights, they come up out of the ocean and sleep on the beach/in the sand dunes.

Me at Sandfly Bay

Just some sea lions lounging on the beach

Graham & me with a sea lion

Sea lion at sunset

On Saturday, we hiked up Mount Cargill which overlooks the city of Dunedin, the Pacific Ocean, the Otago Peninsula, and the Southern Alps to the north and west. It was so beautiful. Such a great reminder of why we came to New Zealand to study abroad!

Otago Peninsula

Just me!

Michael, Rebecca, me, and Graham!

We loved Sandfly Bay so much on Friday, that we went back on Saturday to show some of our friends! Another great evening on the beach with more sea lions and a beautiful sun set!

Ash, me, Max, ZQ, Michael, Graham, Sarah, and Rebecca at Sandfly Bay

Today, Sunday, we went to Tunnel Beach and St. Clair Beach. Tunnel Beach was a long walk down to beautiful cliffs and the ocean below. We were even able to climb down a little tunnel through a rock to go down to the water...another beautiful spot in Dunedin.

Tunnel Beach!

Down on the water

Panoramic photo of Tunnel Beach from on top of the tunnel!

While making the steep and long walk back up, we decided to go to St. Clair Beach, which is just a couple miles down the road, and much more like an ocean beach where people could swim and surf. It was equally as beautiful. The land scape is so different here, so many hills, mountains, cliffs, and a lot of ocean.

St. Clair Beach

We had a great weekend of exploring and are hoping to do some skiing in Queenstown next weekend!! Hope you all on the east coast are staying out of the heat!