Hanmer Springs

I am currently in the midst of my second 2 week break since being in New Zealand. It is the end of the first semester though, which means I don't have to do any work or studying over this break. I'm staying with my friend Nicole over break which has been great. Her family has been so accommodating. We started off the break with a 2 night, 3 day trip to Hanmer Springs. It's a little mountain town 1.5 hours NW of us, known for its hot springs. 

We rented a house right in the heart of Hanmer. It was clean and cute and had a perfect location. It was fun to be able to cook our own meals and get a fire going.

On our last day we went on a couple hour bike ride. It was really fun. You don't realize how many trails are around Hanmer. It was a bit slippery since it had rained the day before, but not bad at all. There was a little bit of snow too. 

We went to the hot pools 2 days during our trip. They had tons of pools of different temperature. Most were thermal pools, some were sulfur. It was fun to try each of the pools. I had a great time!

Skiing and Dunedin

Between finals and last minute trips its been a busy past week. Last Wednesday my friends and I took a trip to Mt. Hutt to go skiing. We found a package deal with transport, lift ticket, and rentals. It was about an hour and a half drive. Once we got to the mountain the drive was beautiful/scary. The roads weren't paved and there were no guard rails. We probably gained at least 5,000 ft in the last 20 minutes alone. 

The mountain had only been open about a week so the snow wasn't the greatest and about half the mountain had not been opened yet. But we had a great day. It was fun to be on snow!

This past weekend I went to Dunedin to visit old friends and partake in a "farm day" trip. It took about 7 hours by bus to head Dunedin, which is south down the coast. I was able to bunk with friends and had a great time catching up with the Australearn group that I spent the first week in New Zealand with. It was surprising how much colder it is in Dunedin compared to Christchurch. Don't let these photos fool you, it was cold!

We were lucky to spend Saturday at our friend's father-in-law's farm. It was about an hour and a half from central Dunedin and very remote. The views were spectacular - so many rolling hills. 

We got a chance to experience a working sheep farm. Alf (the owner of the farm) showed us how he uses his herding dogs to bring the sheep in. Afterwards we tried drafting (in the picture below). It involves sorting the sheep based on the color of their ear tags. We had to move different panels to open different shoots to sort the sheep. Alf made it look really easy, but in reality it was surprisingly hard. The sheep moved really fast and it was difficult for me to react in time. 

Later that evening, Josh (Alf's son) showed us how to shear a sheep. He was really good and did it quickly and precisely. I had a couple of successful swipes with the razor. It's difficult. You are constantly moving the sheep to reach different areas of the body. Surprisingly they behave pretty well and lie there like a rag doll. 

The next day we had a chance to explore more of Dunedin. Below is Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. It was steep.. they have to put stairs on the side. 

After lunch we explored the botanical gardens. They were expansive and quite impressive. My favorite part was feeding the ducks. There were tons and they gave us a free bag of duck food. The ducks were swarming us. They were quite hungry!

Andrenalin Forest!

Yesterday, Saturday, we spent the afternoon at Adrenalin Forest. The park consists of a high ropes course. Instead of having a couple thrilling elements, there was a series of obstacles that you progress through. There were 6 levels, 6 being the hardest. I ended up doing courses 2, 4, and 6. It took about 3 hours. 

The safety protocol there was really interesting. I feel like in the states at ropes courses you generally have employees that make sure you are properly attached at each obstacle. Here, it was our job to be responsible for our own safety. We had two carabiners to hook us on and were responsible for moving them as we moved along in the course - we were required to have at least one hooked on at all times. But there was no one actually monitoring this, so if you were being stupid and negligent, you could technically fall. 

Level 6 was really, really scary. We were over 65 ft high in the trees and the wooden platforms you stand on between obstacles had gotten significantly smaller. Also, the trees swayed while we were in them. The obstacles had gotten harder as well. One of the most intimidating was called the adrenaline max jump. It required you to grab onto a rope and swing into a "spider web" net. We had done one of these on a lower level course, but this one was high in the air and had a free-fall before the rope caught you. I'm definitely glad I did it though.

This was a series of tunnels that you crawled through on your back. These were easy, but you often got things caught on the barrels. 

Here is an attempt at an overview image of Adrenalin Forest. It's hard to see but you can see some of the obstacles, including the lower level "spider web." I unfortunately don't have any pictures on level 6, we were too scared to do anything but focus at our tasks at hand. 

Overall, the place was really fun. And very tiring. I'd do it again. And all though I would have a better idea of what was coming, I think my heart would still be racing, and my legs still shaking on level 6. 

Snow in June!

We got snow in Christchurch! This doesn't happen all that often here, but it's no supernatural event, they probably get a couple days of snow each winter. But anyways, I woke up to snow Wednesday morning. It was very exciting! The snow was very wet and slushie. There was only a maximum of an inch, but we took full advantage of it by making snow angels, having a snow ball fight and building a snow man. It was loads of fun.

Christchurch is not used to dealing with snow and therefore the campus closed on Wednesday and Thursday, which cancelled the first day of final exams! Unfortunately, I didn't have any on that day.

According to the news, thousands of homes lost power and people were stocking up on supplies. Remember, this is from about an inch of snow! It was pretty ridiculous. I personally did not lose power, although our cable was out due to "atmospheric conditions." Overall, it was a great, fun-filled day in the snow!

Happy birthday to me!

My 21st birthday was this past thursday! It was very exciting, and lots of fun to get cards and gifts from my friends and family! 21 is not a big deal here, as the drinking age is 18, but we still had to celebrate to the like! That night, my friends had baked me a vanilla and coconut cake. It was delicious! Unfortunately with no refrigeration or plastic wrap, it got stale fairly quickly. 

That night we went out to the "Grouse," the local pub in Lincoln. It's about a 1km walk from campus, not bad at all. I had a single vodka lemonade. It didn't taste too bad, but I still wasn't keen on having another one. 

The next day, Maggie and Matt arranged a surprise birthday outing for Ericka and I, whose birthday is Sunday. They took us to the horse races! It was really fun to bet on the ponies. I ended up winning $2.40 haha! Not much of a profit but I had a great time!!