Easter Break

We had a five day weekend for Easter and needless to say I took advantage of it. Last Thursday after everyone was done with classes Brit, Sarah, Monica, and I packed up our car and drove to Kaikoura, a small town about two hours north of Chch on the coast. We arrived pretty late and camped on the beach just north of town. Apparently it's an incredibly scenic place, but when we woke up it was foggy and there wasn't much to look at. That morning we drove further up the coast and had lunch in a garden in Nelson before continuing on to Takaka. Takaka is home to some of the best sport climbing in New Zealand at Payne's Ford and Pohara. There is a campground there called the Hangdog Camp that mainly caters to climbers (quite similar to Miguel's Pizza in Kentucky). The camp was packed with people from all over the place. The corner we set our tents up in had groups from the Czech Republic, Germany, France, and Australia. We arrived on Friday evening and met an English guy, a Scottish girl, and a Korean girl and climbed with them at Payne's Ford until it got dark. Payne's was about a 5 min walk from the campsite. The next day we met a bunch more folks from UCANT and climbed at Payne's for most of the morning and swam in the swimming hole until it got dark.



Adrian slacklined.


Monica backfilped.


Sunday we took the advice of my Canadian friend Hayes's flatmate's aunt and uncle and went to Wharariki (far-a-riki) Beach. It was one of the most amazing beach I've ever been to. The water was an incredible turquoise blue and was surrounded by dunes of super fine nearly white sand. There were grassy bluffs surrounding some of the beach that you could climb and jump from. The sea had carved caves out of the bluffs and some of the islands had huge arches in them. We ran into some seals when we were swimming and watched them surf.







Surfing seals.


Look close, were jumping in.


That evening we went to the Sea Cliffs at Pohara to climb. The crag is literally 100m from the beach. We stopped at an espresso cafe on a ship called the Physalie that apparently used to be owned by Jacques Cousteau.

If you look in the background you can see the cliffs we're climbing on.

This was a 24 (5.12a) that I only fell once on at the last bolt. It would have been my first climb at that high of a grade.



After we finshed climbing we walked down to the car and watched the sun set.


And heres some more photos from a different swimming hole with a rope swing and bouldering over water.



Nick

Wildfoods and More

The weekend before last Brit, Brian, Sasha, Tait, Lani, and I piled into Lani and Tait's Subaru and drove to the West Coast town of Hokitika for the Wildfoods festival. We met about 20 other kids that we knew there at our campsite. The festival is a collection of interesting foods and drinks from all over the world along with a number of concerts and performances. People come from all over the country and the elsewhere and many of them wear costumes. This was a group of people in aerobics outfits that wanted to take a picture with us.



There was also a fun band of drummers.



There were some strange foods at the festival: grasshoppers, maggots, ostrich, crocodile, lion, stag heart, "mountain oysters", etc. The strangest thing I ate was honeycomb. It was pretty good, but a bit waxy.

It rained for most of the actual festival, but the sun came out at the end and made a huge rainbow.



I slept in a hammock for both of the nights I was there and luckily someone had an extra rain fly, so I was drier than some of the people in tents.

This past week I went and walked around the city center with Brit and Brian. Brian and I took this picture in Cathedral Square sporting the new gear we bought from the street vendors. I have some sweet shades and Brian has a reversible wool headband with kiwis on it.



On Tuesday, Brit, Brian, and I went to the car auction and bought a car. It's a 1989 Mitsubishi Galant. We bid $750 on it and so after the auction fee it only cost $950. Hopefully it will last until July.



On Wednesday morning Brit, Brian, Jeremy, and I went to the beach and went surfing. We rented boards and wetsuits from a stand on the beach and surfed for about three hours. The waves weren't really that big but they were fun to learn on. I think I had the hang of it by the end, but it was exhausting.





After coming back to uni for classes on Wednesday afternoon we went up to the Port Hills to climb. Its only about a 20 min drive from my flat , and the climbing is pretty good. You can see how close the city is in the second picture.





On Thursday I don't have class so I went up to Castle Hill with Lindsey and her boyfriend who was visiting.

Then on Saturday morning I went with the UC Climbing Club back up to Castle Hill. We climbed all day Saturday and Sunday and stayed at a research station owned by the University on Saturday night. Heres a couple pictures, but I'll put more up later when I get them from my friends who were taking them. The second picture is of a problem called Ode to Joy that is about 10m high.





More later.
Nick