These last couple weeks have been pretty busy! I’ve been learning a lot in my classes, and have also been exploring the area. In this blog post I’ll focus on some of the smaller trips I’ve taken in the past couple weeks.
An hour bus ride away is Sumner Beach. When I first got here, it was late summer, and one afternoon we took a trip down to the beach. It’s was busy but not too busy, and it made for a nice afternoon away from campus. Recently, though, I’ve come to realize that I don’t like swimming, and I don’t really like the beach that much either – sand gets everywhere, you’re at risk of being sunburned, and to avoid that you have to apply sunscreen (which I despise). I would much rather spend time in the mountains or even hiking in the desert. This has been an important revelation, since at some point in the near future I will need to pick somewhere to live. I don’t want or need to live very near the ocean, and this is actually quite good for me, because living near the ocean is often exorbitantly expensive.
Here are a couple pictures from the University of Canterbury campus! To get from my apartment to the main campus, I have to cross Ilam Fields, which is a huge expanse of grass used for rugby and soccer, among other things. Next to the fields runs a stream with some forest around it, and I often walk through the forest instead of across the field. In this patch of forest I’ve seen mushrooms, interesting plants, and birds, including the endemic New Zealand Fantail in the slideshow above.
Anja and I met up once more before she left Christchurch. It was raining, so we went to the Christchurch Art Gallery and saw some interesting artwork. Afterwards, we got to catch up over some delicious chai lattes. After spending many consecutive days with her, it was really nice to have some different adventures to share with each other.
Christchurch has an impressive botanic garden, which deserves to be visited many times over. I’ve been there twice, but will hopefully see it many more times. As a plant fanatic, this place is incredibly interesting. I went with my flatmates and another friend, and while Kate (my wildlife biology major flatmate) and I scrutinized many of the plants we saw, the other two simply wandered through the garden, and were ready to go home much sooner than Kate and I.
We also took a trip to Willowbank Wildlife Park, which has a combination of animals native to New Zealand, exotic animals, and farm animals. Although I don’t have any pictures, I saw kiwi birds here! They had an ingenious system in which they keep a couple kiwis in a building that is dark during the day, except for some red lights (which the kiwis cannot see). At night, they turn on the lights, and the kiwis go to sleep. Because these kiwis have a flipped day and night rhythm, they are active during the day in the darkness of the kiwi enclosure, and visitors can walk through the building and see kiwi actively hunting for food in the leaf litter.
Probably the most exciting thing I’ve done lately is go on the Freshers Trip with the Tramping Club here. This is the first big trip of the year, and around 90 people went on this trip. Originally, we were going to hike up a mountain, but the weather predicted rain and possibly snow for Saturday night, and so the location of the trip was changed last minute to the west coast of the South Island. This meant that instead of a 1.5 hour drive it was now a 4.5 hour drive, but it was worth it. On the way there, we stopped at pancake rocks, which is a really interesting geological phenomenon that geologists have not been able to fully explain.
We hiked to a place called Ballroom Overhang. It was only about a 3 hour hike, but we had to cross the river many times. In New Zealand, river crossings are done with your boots, pants, and pack on. While it feels really wrong to just walk into the water, ultimately, its a lot safer to cross with boots on, and takes a lot less time as well. One of the tramping club leaders had predicted that the water would be chest deep, and so we were all required to have a pack liner (a trash bag inside the backpack with all of the gear inside it). Thank goodness he was wrong, and the water only came to mid thigh level at the deepest parts.
Ballroom Overhang is an area where the river once upon a time eroded the bottom of the cliff away while the top retained it’s structural integrity. It’s a huge area, and almost everyone camped under the overhang. If it rained that night, I was not affected. At night, there were a couple glowworms on the rock. These are larvae of fungus gnats that are bioluminescent.
After the hike, some people went swimming. I don’t like swimming, but I went down to the river to hang out. At one point, several of the people in the water noticed that a very large eel – around 5 feet (1.5 meters) – was checking them out! They got out of the water quickly at that point, because although eels aren’t aggressive, if they do bite, they do not let go, and this would be very painful. A couple other people and I then decided to see if we could catch the eel and eat it for dinner. I remembered that I had a fish hook in my little survival kit, so we tied that to a tent guy rope and baited it with steakfat. The big eel came along, grabbed the bait, and took the hook right with it! We decided to try again without the hook, and just see if we could lure the eel close enough to get it on land. Several more eels materialized, and after about 30 minutes, a smaller one finally took the bait. We were able to throw it on land! From there we killed it, gutted it, and skinned it, which was more difficult than expected. In the end, we had an eel fillet which we cooked on the fire with oil and bullion that night. It was quite chewy, but delicious!
The hike out was a little wetter, it rained on us a little bit, but we were well equipped for the rain. On the way back I switched cars, and we stopped for fish and chips on the way back. Overall, it was such a fun trip, and I made a couple friends who I’m excited to do more tramping with!
The university hosted a Holi celebration, which is the Indian Festival of colors. They distributed color packets, and once everyone had one, there was a big countdown, and then everyone began throwing the colors on each other! The colors are harmless – I’m guessing they’re probably colored chalk. It was fun, but also such a mess! Within 10 minutes, everyone was covered in colorful powder. I had blue in my eye and mouth, red in my ear, more blue in my hair… the rest of that evening was mostly devoted to attempting to wash away the colors, although when I blew my nose the next day, it was still blue.
That’s it for now! Hopefully I have time to post again soon, although it might be a little while. Over our three week break I am flying to the North Island for a week, then doing a 5 day backpacking trip, and then a 7 day road trip in the car my flatmate and I just bought together…