Christmas 2009

Now that it's getting back around to the holidays, I can't help but reminisce a bit, and I now realize that the last two Christmases I had were during the summer... Awesome.
Last Christmas, we stayed in a little house by Waihi Beach. Having lived in Colorado for most of the rest of my life, spending Christmas in shorts and a bikini was kind of confusing... But wonderful. On Christmas Day, we did your typical American Christmas morning, and then wandered on down to the beach. See, my mom has this addiction... To collecting shells. Once she starts, you have to DRAG HER OFF THE BEACH to get her to stop. So, we spent a couple hours collecting shells. My mom had woven a rectangle out of flax, and we were going to mount shells on it to remember this Christmas. It took us a couple hours to argue it out, but we finally got everything mounted, and that display is now proudly mounted in our house in the USA.
Not the most interesting story, granted. Meh.

Top 10 Milford Trek Tips

Alright. I'm really digging into the back of my mind to find any interesting stories about New Zealand now. Not that New Zealand isn't interesting, just that I'm losing my mind... Hmm. Ok.
How about my top 10 tips to an actually pleasurable Milford Trek? Here we go.
1. DON'T OVER PACK.
2. Don't under pack.
3. Bring a camera, you'll want to remember this.
4. If anything, bring extra socks. (By the last day you'll be able to feel every single stone on the soles of your feet.)
5. Don't worry about personal hygiene (except, you know, the basics, like brushing your teeth, etc...). What I mean is, you're not going to have an opportunity to shower. Nobody cares when you're in the middle of nowhere, and you all smell about the same level of disgusting. If your hair gets weird, wear a hat.
6. Stop every once in a while to look around and admire the scenery. You're in New Zealand, for the cryin' out loud.
7. Drink lots of water. (duh)
8. Pack your rain gear. If you live in New Zealand and didn't know that... Well... Wow.
9. If you're a light sleeper, it may be wise to bring ear plugs. Some people may snore. Like a train.
10. It's cliché, but have fun. It's a 4 day challenge that you'll remember for the rest of your life. It is grueling (well, for me it was), it is exhausting, but it's the most gorgeous hike I've ever done and the feeling of accomplishment you have when you finish is enormous. Make new friends, hike with them, stop to take pictures, make stupid jokes, skip up the 5th zig zag, and enjoy the journey.

Oops....

See, it's really funny how quickly I gave up on this. Either due to lack of interest from other people because, shockingly, nobody else CARES about this stuff (no offense, it's human), or due to my lack of motivation. Or the fact that school is DEFINITELY trying to kill me. Meh. Maybe I'll actually try to start adding to this blog again.

I LOVE NEW ZEALAND!!!

(Courtesy of OddlySpecific.com)

This is somewhere on the South Island...

Correction, I do believe it is on the South Island near Nelson, and not too far from Christchurch.

Kaikoura Whale Watching!

(FYI- This picture is actually from Kaikoura, NZ! :D)

For any of you that know me well and had to put up with me through Independent Study in 7th Grade or JEEP in Yr 9, you will know that I am mildly obsessed with sperm whales (yeah... I know.). When we went to the the South Island for a trip, we landed in Queenstown and then drove up the coast, and across the South Island. One of our stops on the way was Kaikoura, which is famous for its whale watching. Apparently, my mom and brother were not too keen on throwing up for however long we were on the water, so they got this seasickness pill called the Kaikoura Kracker, which everyone said worked brilliantly, but just ended up making them sick and dizzy... However, they managed to recover, and we found our tour. We lucked out, because previous tours had been canceled. First, because the whales were out of their range, and second, because it was really rough. Lucky for us, it calmed down just enough for them to allow our tour to go out. When we finally got out to the whales, my brother was already feeling a little... Erm... Under the weather... And so, while my dad were out on the upper deck watching the whales, my brother was making... Chum. A lot of chum. I felt bad, because he was so sick and I wasn't sick at all and enjoying the whales. And wow, it was amazing! If your favorite animal is a sperm whale, you don't get to see your favorite animal too often, and I had never seen a whale in the wild before. It was an incredible experience! The guides would get a signal from the other boat telling us that they had found a whale, and we would speed over there, and everyone would gather on the railing, and... There it was. Magnificent, majestic. A lump of gray in the water, with a slight darkness where the rest of its body was under the water. The guides told us the whales' names, according to patterns on their flukes. And of course, the whales had Maori warrior names. I don't remember them, but they were COOL! The coolest part was probably when the whales decided they'd had enough of all this staring, and dived. It's EXACTLY like in all the movies, and I was just totally awestruck. This massive, blubbery creature doesn't seem like it would be possible for it to perform something so beautiful, but when it dives, it's like everything just suddenly synchronizes and everything about the dive just WORKS. The flukes gracefull breach the surface, and gently arc toward the water, and then, just like that, they've slipped into the deep, cool blue, and you're left open-mouthed, silently screaming for this beautiful, graceful, gentle behemoth to come back.

And then you go back into the cabin. And every single person in the cabin is puking in a paper bag. It really ruins the moment a bit.

Zorb and Grade 5 Rafting

Sorry to just blast through my whole "chronological order" theory, but I just remembered this and want to get it down before I forget. How sad is that??

A month or so before we moved home, we had an epic vacation. Down to Whakatane, and then back through Rotorua, where we did the Zorb and a half a day of Grade 5 rafting. The Zorb is this awesome thing that's basically a human hamster ball. You can either be strapped in and roll with the ball, or have them put water in it and slide in the ball. Then they either push you down a straight or curving hill, and you get flipped around and slide all over the place and get soaked and dizzy. (This picture is not us, by the way, but it is courtesy of hakatours.com)
Seth and I chose to do the water one,
because I'm pretty sure we weren't allowed to do the strapped in one. They push you through a little opening in the side of the ball, and zip you in with a little bit of warm water (only when it's cold out). Then, they push you down this twisting course, and you see how long you can stand up without dying. :D When you get to the bottom, extraction is a little like being born, but feet-first. It's great fun, and really interesting to think that you're basically in a hamster ball, and only you can hurt yourself...

After we Zorbed, we drove to a place where we went rafting. It was insanely cool, because we did Grade 5 rafting, which is the highest commercially raftable river there is. Seth and I may or may not have gotten a little scared right before we left, when the guide was telling us about this one waterfall where there was a 50% chance we would flip, and what to do if we did. We got the "white knuckle" talk, about how to get in the raft and hang on for dear life when we were going over a waterfall, and how to tuck our chins so we wouldn't damage our spines. When we finally got on the river, we were all pretty excited. Imagine floating down a clear, cold river, surrounded by the most incredibly gorgeous bush you can imagine (except for the Milford Sound), and also having to pay CLOSE attention to what's happening so you don't get thrown out of the raft! There were some pretty intense rapids, and there was a lot of insane rowing to make sure we didn't go down at the wrong angle, where flipping would be dangerous. We got to a certain little waterfall that bucked like a bull, even though it didn't look like it. After we went down, the guide told us to turn the boat around, and then to get down. He paddled us up to the waterfall, and stuck the nose of the raft in the water! The raft bucked around, and they called it "surfing". Seth had to hang on really well, because he was at the front, and also on downside, and in danger of falling out backwards. After a couple shots at this, we moved on. There was a clear, calm spot in the river, and the guide invited us to get out and swim. I think I may have surprised him a little when I jumped in. Then I saw the upcoming rapids, and decided I had better mosey on back into the raft.... Don't worry, I made it! There was one main waterfall on the trip and it is seven metres high (that's 21 feet, all y'all Americans here)! When we finally came to it, I will be perfectly honest, I was a bit shaky. But then there was no going back, and we were all tucked in the raft, chins down, white-knuckled hands holding the ropes and our paddles . When we hit the water at the bottom, after what seemed like forever floating, I was so relieved that we didn't flip! The guide had given us all of the emergency procedures, how we would have to stay limp because we would be tossed around a lot if we let go. They also said that if it flipped, we would most likely end up under the raft. I don't know why, but all of this just... scared me a bit. But we made it out alive. And only mildly soaked. When it came time to go ashore, they told us that we would have to move quickly, or we would go down the Grade 6 rapids right after the point that we would get out. And they say that if you raft a Grade 6 and survive, it automatically becomes a Grade 5. *shudder* Luckily, we made it without any hiccups. It was a totally amazing day, full of awesome water activites and EXCITEMENT!! Hahahahaha. And you just read a totally long and probably boring and overdramatized account of it!! YAY!

The House on Cambridge Road

(People in my English class, hope this gives you FABULOUS memories...)
Anyhoo...
I was surprised when I saw the inside of our house in New Zealand. It wasn't quite like I expected it to be. All I had seen was a photo of the view from one of the windows, which I later found was my room. This is a picture of that view, except looking down the street instead, while it was raining. Did I mention that it rained a lot? Also, here is a picture of the view looking out over the Waikato River at sunrise, with all of the mist.
The house was strange. The person who owns it is an artist, and she has a lot of rather *strange* artwork up. Like, nude women. Odd. We didn't like that room too much. And there were some rather unpleasant surprises. Like a disgusting odor emanating from the laundry room, fuzzy Oreos under the bed in my room, a yogurt cup (and spoon) in the drawer in the bathroom, and bits of rotten orange in the drawer in my room. Yummy... There were other things, like TONS of little statues EVERYWHERE, staring us down. We spent a whole day cleaning because we couldn't stand to touch anything. But it ended up being a good house, even though the kitchen was WAY too small for our uses. We settled in pretty quickly, and after a while, I forgot what our house here is like. Poor Seth, though, there were only two real beds, and a cot. He got stuck with the cot, until we could get a real bed for him. But he ended up being lucky, with the room farthest from the street. Cambridge Road is really State Highway 1, meaning we got lots of trucks driving past in the middle of the night... And with the bus stop just metres away, buses with their screeching brakes...
I'm starting to forget what it was like to live there, when it seemed so natural. It's almost like living in New Zealand for a year and a half was just some crazy dream I had.