I went to the woods

Two weeks worth of updates can be summed up in two sentences with: I went to the woods and it was incredible. And, I have to cook entirely for and by myself so sometimes meals are a bit sketchy. 

Made it to the top! 

Last weekend the Arcadia group hosted a weekend trip to the South Island to hike and sea kayak the Queen Charlotte Sound track. We took the ferry over Friday morning and hiked until mid-afternoon. The hike was breathtakingly gorgeous and crossed through a variety of scenery. Our bags were taken in to camp ahead of us by car and so it was wonderful to walk up hills without the added weight of all our belongings. On Saturday we woke up relatively early and went over kayaking basics before setting across the sound.The water was beautiful and glass still in many areas. We could not have asked for more pleasant weather. We returned to camp where there were freshly baked cheesy biscuits and hot soup waiting for us (have I mentioned how impressed I am by Arcadia recently?). A group of us decided to hike up the hill/mountain behind camp to watch the sun set. About 30 minutes or so into the hike it was decided that we had all severely underestimated the climb (or overestimated our post-kayak trip hiking abilities). We were rewarded however, with a spectacular 360 degree panoramic view of the sound and surrounding area. I didn’t believe it could be much more beautiful until the next day when we climbed a portion of the same hill to discover we were above the cloud line. We hiked through the afternoon meandering above and below the clouds and were provided with a stunning show as we watched the mist and clouds pour through the valley into the sound. 

Hiking above the clouds

Sea Kayaking in the Sound! 

  

The hiking and Kayaking alone would have been enough to make the weekend incredibly memorable. What really pushed it over the edge however, was a discovery we made the first night. After hiking up the hill a ways in the dark to see the glow worms that live on the side of the hill (I am still yet to see a firefly but I can now at least say I have seen a bug that creates its own light source!), we headed down to the dock to watch the stars. The night sky on the sound was unlike anything I have ever seen before. The arm of the milky way stretches from one mountain top to the next with stars so bright and vivid it feels as though if you don’t tether yourself to the earth you may fall into the depths of the universes.  The entire group was laying out on the dock staring into this vast expanse of glittering light when someone leaned over to touch the ocean water. The resulting yells made us all think he had either fallen into the midwinter temperature water or was being consumed by Jaws. The water was bioluminescent! If you don’t know what that means google it or look up a video on youtube because my description cannot do it justice. Basically, there are algae or bacteria or something, that drift en-masse throughout the ocean in certain parts of the world, that light up when disturbed. Our entire group immediately launched ourselves to the side of the deck and hung over the edge tracing universes in the water through only the touch of a fingertip. It was possibly the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Bioluminescent water is something I have read about and seen in movies and documentaries but it never occurred to me that I may one day experience it in person. The second night, we discovered that spitting into the water also activated the lights and suddenly, this magnificent, scientific anomaly became one of the most hilariously entertaining things I have ever experienced.  I am not ashamed to admit that we spent a solid hour spitting into the water and giggling like children as ripples of light flowed from where our projectiles landed. Magical water. It doesn't get much better than that. 

So much rain. It's winter here. Have I mentioned that? 

Then I went to school for a week. I swam a bit. I went to parliament. I went to a museum (and saw the world’s only fully preserved giant squid!). I went to a few meetings and did some grocery shopping. And then this weekend I went back into the woods (or bush as its called here). 

The Victoria University Tramping Club is a highly active group on campus that goes tramping pretty much every weekend. Before any jokes are made at my expense, Tramping is the New Zealand equivalent of backpacking and not an adjective used to describe a female of questionable morals. I signed up for a trip scheduled to head out this past weekend and was sad to learn around Thursday evening that the weather was supposed to be horrid. The trip was cancelled but a group of students still wanted to go. I figured I could be cold in my flat or cold in the woods and so I joined them.  We left Friday evening and reached to trailhead around ten pm. I have never hiked at night before and I had a lot of fun. We arrived at the hut around one in the morning, changed from our soaked clothing into miraculously somewhat dry clothes in our packs, ate some trail mix and promptly fell asleep. Saturday we hiked for a couple hours before stopping for lunch at a hut along the trail. After food and a half hour sheltered from the constant rain, it was decided that none of us had any great desire to head back into the wind and rain and cold and we lounged around the hut for the rest of the day. It was really nice to just hang out, laugh, talk and warm by a fire in the middle of nowhere. Sunday morning, after about an hour of hiking we split into two groups. The first hiked out the way we had come in order to get the cars and the second hiked out a different way for a change in terrain and scenery. An inability to 1. drive stick-shift and 2. drive on the left side of the road from the right side of a car, meant that I got to join the second group. New Zealand hiking paths (or at least this one) resemble less of a path and more of a stretch of land that may or may not have less scrub, trees and river than the rest of the surrounding forest, marked ever so many meters by reflective orange triangles. Somewhere between the third hour of rainy hiking and the fourth river crossing, a person realizes that there exists a limit to the amount of water a raincoat and boots can absorb. It is also about this time that you stop trying to avoid puddles and mud holes. It is a great realization. I like to believe I am now professional at tripping, sliding and falling down. It was a fabulous weekend. 

Finally, the top 10 things (in no particular order) I have learned about myself and this world since leaving home:  

1. The “study” part of study-abroad may not be as optional as I had been pretending to believe. But! I actually really like my classes so this new reality isn’t too painful to accept. 
2. If you watch at a toaster, your bread will remain perpetually un-toasted. If you turn away for one millisecond, that same piece of bread will blacken to a color darker than the eyes of a cookie-less cookie monster and produce more smoke than an active volcano or Mordor under attack.
3. If you fear re-enacting several above mentioned Mordor-esque movie scenes but really want toast, putting butter on a piece of cold bread and folding it in half does not qualify as toast. It is essentially a butter sandwich. I am working hard to ensure this remains the low point of my culinary endeavors.  
4. I am not above instant coffee. I am so very far from being above instant coffee. 
5. New Zealand does not have bears, mountain lions, snakes, poison oak or ivy,  poisonous spiders (okay there is one somewhat dangerous spider but I hear it is not common), or basically any other creature that can maul, poison or harm you. It does have slightly pathetic but rather adorable flightless birds and giant grasshopper like bugs called wetas. This is exciting for several reasons, the least of which not being that I got to bring toothpaste and deodorant backpacking this weekend without securing them in a bear box obnoxiously far away from where I slept. 
6. You can walk into a place of business (grocery store, convenient store, etc) without shoes on and not be refused service and nor really even be looked at funny. The moment I learned this is also the moment I began researching requirements for dual citizenship applicants. 
7. In my experience, New Zealanders are a very articulate group of people whom seem to have a firm grasp of the English language and rhetorical devices. Despite this fact, they insist on using the phrase “sweet as” to describe something pleasing (its use is also extended to other adjectives and it is acceptable to say things such as “big as” or “cool as”). I find myself constantly repressing the urge to say “sweet as what?” and the other day, I went through a moment of self loathing when it was the only descriptor I could come up with the describe some event. 
8. If you go tramping two weekends in a row you will miss the farmers market two weekends in a row and come Monday morning will be forced to either pay full price for produce at the grocery store or eat only rice and hot chocolate for the rest of the week... 
9. A relatively good cure for homesickness is books. Preferably books from your childhood. This is also the perfect excuse to apply for a library card at the local public library... word to the wise: there is a chance your favorite childhood books will be re-written in New Zealand English spelling. This will not help with homesickness. 
10. Even Leviticus is smothered in the finger prints of God’s love. If a book filled with covenant laws and regulations can manage to reflect the love of a passionate God, this is a God I will follow across the ends of the earth and back.