Greetings all!
I am so sorry I have not been able to check in for quite some time, New Zealand was super busy and I could never get to an internet cafe for long enough to update my blog. Today, I have an afternoon set aside to put up pictures and get my blog caught up, here we go!
After our awesome week WWOOFing at Tom & Pj's farm(feels so long ago), we embarked west to the small town of National Park, located in Tongariro National Park. Interesting name for a town, I know. We had one free day in National Park before we started our work with Blue Mountain Adventure Center. Beans, Lucy, Brooke, Tara, and I decided to go for a hike to Taranaki Falls in located in Tongariro Nat'l Park. The hike was splendid and these falls were a film site location for the Lord of The Rings, The waterfall where Ferramir initially brings Frodo and Sam after there capture. It was really cool to see something like that in person. The next day, we started our stay with BMAC! BMAC was jam packed full of adventure acvitivites designed to make you push yourself. WE started the first day on some high ropes courses where some of our group members, me included, were forced to face our fear of heights, which was quite scary. The second day we the traveled underground to do some caving! We put on our headlamps and crawled through some spaces that I had no idea I was able to fit through, it was an experience. A ceiling full of glow worms made it all worth it though, and by the end I was having fun puzzling my body through small crevices. The third day, We did some more ropes courses, followed by some repelling in the afternoon. Every single one of us repelled off of a 60 foot sheer cliff, which definitely got the blood flowing. We climaxed in our last two days with some intensive white water rafting. We had the chance to go with an instructor on a level 3 rapids, and I actually by ourselves on a level 2 rapids. Jamo and i navigated the rapids like pro's, I only fell out once or twice... BMAC was a super cool experience, it was nice to push my bodies limits and try new things in the outdoors that I had never done before!
After BMAC we overlayed in Hastings, a small city, for a day. Jamo and I attempted to summit Te Mata peak, a small mountain 10 minutes away from Hastings. We ultimately failed but it was nice to get out explore a bit. We then headed back to the east coast of the north island to spend a week in a cultural exchange with the indigenous Maori people. During these 5 days we were completely immersed in Maori culture, while at the same time teaching them about American culture, completing the exchange. While we were there we weaved baskets from Flax plant, climbed the longest place name in New Zealand, and performed a welcoming "haka." A haka is there ritual dance/chant that the Maori are known for, look up the New Zealand rugby team doing one, its pretty cool. We also sang the star spangled banner for them numerous time, and threw a Halloween party for all of the kids, reciprocating the exchange. It was so cool to learn about another culture, it makes you think about how we treat the indigenous people of America, not the best... Overall it was a awesome eye opening experience, a huge thanks to the Maori people who hosted us, we were treated with amazing hospitality.
From the Maori, we overlayed in Wellington for one day. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand, it is smaller than Auckland, but just as cool. I spent the day exploring the city with the guys, witnessing numerous interesting things. Including a small squabble/fight outside of one of the malls, very interesting. We dined at Sweet Mothers Kitchen on delicious Southwestern food. We then saw the movie "Argo" which was INTENSE, Ben Affleck does really well, I highly recommend it.
Saturday November 3rd, a long awaited day for me, we boarded the Ferry from Wellington, pointed towards the South Island. The ferry arrived through a series of small islands that reminded me of the San Juan Islands outside of Seattle. We then arrived in Picton, quickly busing to the northern hub of the South Island, the hip town of Nelson. Our hostel was awesome, we had a whole house to ourselves! The next day, our free travel week began! It began with a free day in Nelson, where I spent half the day getting stuff ready for the trek, then the next half taking a hike up a hill outside of Nelson getting a nice view of the city and the bay. Some of the guys of the group went to play croquet, which is super cool, they had a great time. The next morning, we embarked up the northwest coast to Golden Bay to do are overnight sea kayak! Well most of us anyway, three of the group members stayed behind, Brooke, Bailly, and Rebecca. The rest of us rented our sea kayaks, and skimmed along the coastline of Abel Tasman National Park for an afternoon before making camp at Taupo Point, a small peninsula. We then spent the night under tarps set up by Jamo, Alex, and I. Eating a dinner of veggie and hummus wraps. It was so nice and refreshing to sleep outside. The next day we kayaked back to our rental place, dropped them off, and headed back down a bus destined for St. Arnaud, the gateway to Nelson Lakes National Park. The subsequent day we embarked on our three day, two night, beautiful trek around Lake Rotoiti. The first day we hiked along the east side of the lake all the way to the base, staying at Lakehead hut the first night. We had beautiful views of the lake with the beautiful snow capped ridges bursting up from either bank, it was truly spectacular. On day 2, we started the morning with a frigid river crossing, really woke everyone up! and saved 4 hours of hiking. We then backtracked up the west bank of the lake, passing Whisky Falls, a 120 foot stunning waterfall. Soon after Whisky Falls, we started to climb up the Roberts Ridge, pulling steeply up from the lakeside. After ascending a grueling 800-900 meters, we emerged from the treeline to Bushline hut, where we spent our second night. There was no water at the hut so Jamo and I hiked back down to the closest water source to replenish our supply. The last day was spent hiking onto the top of Roberts Ridge and exploring. Some of us even made it all the way to the 1690 meter tall Flagtop Summit, with stunning views of snow covered Angelus Ridge and the St.Arnaud range. The view truly took your breath away. We then hiked out and got shuttled back to St.Arnaud for the night. The next day we then spent the whole day getting down into Christchurch just in time to spend 8 hours in the airport before departing New Zealand at 4:45am the next morning.
Word cannot describe how much I love New Zealand, it is such a beautiful and friendly country. (Next family vacation mom?? I think yes)
I am now currently in Brisbane Australia, but more on that later. I hope everyone is doing well. Get better soon Rico!
Stay Tuned!
-Arthur
P.S. I added some new photos to my Flickr and will continue to add photos over the next day or so, it just takes along time. but go check it out anyway! www.Flickr.com/amosshawkins
