Anyway, in other news,
I finally got to meet my mentor! Yes, a little late into the semester, but I
had forgotten to sign up for the program and then I heard that you could still
join, so I did! Her name is Emily and we
got coffee last Monday night! She is awesome and we have a lot in common! And
fun fact: she was wearing gum boots when I met her! The only Kiwi that day
wearing them. That night Werner, who is
an RA at unicol (a residence hall), invited me to eat dinner with him there
since RAs are allowed one guest per week.
The “dining hall” was much smaller than the ones in Chapel Hill and
there were only 2 options for dinner.
Much different, but probably much healthier!
Tuesday and Wednesday
were pretty normal I think. I’m having
trouble remembering everything though!
Thursday I went to a hats and wigs party at another international
flat. The only way you could enter was
if you were wearing a hat or wig, so Erin, Rachel, and I made paper hats for
the party. On the front of the hats we
wrote YONZO, which is a spinoff of YOLO (You only live once). YONZO stands for You’re Only in New Zealand
once! Which I hope is not true, because
I would love to return, but it justifies everything that we do! Friday was a little crazy trying to get some
work done and planning the last minute weekend trip. We decided to head to Silver Peaks, just 30
minutes outside of Dunedin, for a weekend of tramping and backpacking. 
So we woke up super
early Saturday and Erin baked French toast before we met up with the rest of
the crew! All together it was me, Laura, Jordan, Erin, Rachel, and Marvin. We hitched a ride with a couple of Kiwi hosts
and made it to the car park around 9am.
But we had decided to do the trail backwards so that the longer portion
would be completed Saturday rather than Sunday so we had to walk down the road
a couple miles. Well, we walked more
than a couple because we missed the trail that we were supposed to take because
it was marked with a different name at the end of it. So we overshot our starting point by about an
hour and realized once we were out in the middle of nowhere on a random dirt
road with no sign of civilization that maybe we were lost. So we stopped to regroup and plan right as a
truck comes around the corner. Good
timing right? We asked him for directions
and after a little orienting; he told us we were headed in the right
direction. So we kept walking until
about 10 minutes later when we see his truck headed back towards us. We knew then that we were way off. But it was nice of him to come back and tell
us to turn around after he realized he had told us wrong. So by noon, we made it to the trailhead, had
a snack, and officially started. But
within the first ten minutes there was a river crossing up to our knees without
any way of rock hopping. So we decided
to be brave the cold water and take off our shoes and socks to walk through
it. Now remember, it is the middle of
winter here! And my feet were so cold
after waking though the river! But it was better than hiking in soaked boots
for the next 5 hours!
After that it was
straight uphill for a while and there were tons of prickly plants growing over
the path. Even in my leggings, my legs
were pretty cut up. We complained about
it, but in the end it really didn’t bother me as we walked on the ridge with a
full 360 degree view of the mountains. Lunch was a quick stop as we were a little
worried about the sun setting before we made it to the hut since we lost so
much time at the beginning. But we did
take the time to check out the ABC cave along the trail. It actually had a platform you could sleep on,
but probably not the smartest thing to do in the winter. We finally made it to the hut a little past
5pm after a final river crossing (this time with rocks, but I still got a
little wet). But I was proud of myself
for not actually falling in this time!
Once at the hut, I started dinner for us because we were all
starving! So I cooked up heaps of pasta
and we ate in a couple shifts. Laura
even carried cooked mince for us to add to the meal that disappeared within
seconds of being made.
Afterwards we
hung out and played some cards. Then
another group of 5 arrived at the hut and since the hut only holds 10, it was
looking to be a cozy night. So we talked
with them for a while and one of the girls had just returned from a trip to UNC
for a week for some sort of workshop.
Yay small world! Later that
evening, Laura had gone out to the bathroom but got spooked as she heard noises
and saw a flashlight coming out from the woods in the opposite direction of the
trail. I was not concerned and we all gave
her a hard time for being scared until ten minutes later we hear somebody step
up onto the porch. None of us wanted to
go see who it was so we waited a few minutes and then in walked this guy
carrying a giant rifle. I think at that
moment all of us froze and didn’t really know what to say. After the initial shock, I realized he was
probably a hunter because we were only in a conservation area and not a
national park. But boy was that a way to
scare some people when you walk in.
Turns out he was a super nice guy and let some of us use his night
vision goggles and shared his cookies with us.
After hanging out for a while longer, we headed to bed with tons of
layers on thinking we would freeze, but woke up with a huge pile of all of our
clothes that we had pulled off throughout the night. I guess the cabin got a little cozy with 12
people.
The next morning we
slept in a little bit and then got up to eat breakfast and hit the trail. The hunter also headed out with us and since he
was just heading back to his car for the day, we actually ended up walking with
him the whole way. The first part of the
day was the hardest as it was straight up “Devil’s Staircase,” where at parts I
was literally on all fours climbing.
That lasted about an hour and a half, but after that, the last 6
kilometers were smooth sailing besides a little mud. Unfortunately the fog rolled in pretty
quickly which limited the views and made for a pretty windy walk on the
ridge. We also had an issue with the
ride back as Erin and Rachel’s ride couldn’t pick them up until 5pm and we were
done by 2pm. So the hunter volunteered
to take then back to Otago (and we sent Jordan with them just to be safe). But the hike was a lot of fun and I loved all
of the silly times on the trail that I had with some close friends! And our new friend J After we got back last night, we went to The
Cook for $2 burgers and I collapsed in my bed pretty early.
As for the upcoming
week, I have a busy schedule, but I am looking forward to Spring Break (guess I
get 2 of those this year) starting this Friday! You guys can hear about it in a
couple of weeks J Hope everybody
is great! Missing all of you at Chapel
Hill moving in right now, but I’m sure you are having a wonderful time and I
can’t wait to skype and see your rooms and everything! Have a great week!
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