Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Fall Break

So I am a week and a half into my three week fall break. Last week Monica, Brian, Brit, Lindsey, Sara and I drove to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park.

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We did a bit of climbing around the area and then did an overnight tramp to the Muller Hut. It was a fun tramp and was also quite steep. We gained about 1000m in 5.2km of hiking. The hut is at about 1800m and provided amazing views.
Monica, Brian, and I camped next to the hut and the rest of the group stayed inside. Heres a photo of the hut and our tent with Mt. Cook in the background.

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There were kea hanging out around the hut. They are the only mountain parrot in the world and love to steal things to make their nests.

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Some photos of me from the hike.

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After the tramp we drove to Wanaka and climbed there for a couple days. Then we went down to Queenstown. Brian and Sara went bungy jumping. Brian jumped the Nevis Highwire bungy... the world's tallest, 134m. Sara jumped the Kawarau Bridge, the world's first commercial bungy.

We climbed at a place called Wye Creek near Queenstown. In order to get there we had to hike up next to a pipeline on one side of a valley and then cross the valley by walking on top of the pipe. It made for a fun decent because we finished our last climb in the dark. The climbing overlooked the town of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu. Heres some shots.

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Same climb different side.
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From Queenstown we drove to Te Anu to do the Kepler Track. This tramp takes 3-4 days and is in Fijordlands National Park. We did it in four days. There are three huts that are available along the tramp. We camped for two of the nights and stayed in the Luxmore Hut for one of them.

The Hut.
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The View.
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Sunrise over Lake Te Anu.
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Breakfast.
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Tramping.
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The Ridgeline.
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I'm back at my flat now for a couple days before I head out again. I think I may go to Dunedin and climb for a bit later this week, and then I may meet some people on the North end of the South Island for the last week of break.

Nick

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