water you doing?

whats shaken world?

just doing your thing?

niceee

so it seems to be a fairly routine process for me to describe some kind of weekend full of adventure and glorious nature.

I will now deviate from the plan.

I will now outline in vague detail my feelings about a number of random things.

I will be as alphabetical as reasonably possible.

Chapstick: I find it strange that chapstick is both a brand and the generic name for a cosmetic product. It would be like naming your bottled water company water. Other than that chapstick and I are thick as thieves.

My digital camera: Im not sure when it decided to revolt against me but it made its feelings very clear this weekend. It began to perform the "dance of death" which involves the lens popping out and then going back in and repeating for up to ten seconds. This resulted in me taking a deep breath and then cursing the demons that had come to inhabit my little mechanical friend.

Dunedin's weather: So I was just starting to get excited, it seemed like spring was inevitable and the sun might finally make a guest appearance. Hold the phone. The grey city has been blanketed by steady and sometimes furious sideways rain for the better part of a week. Luckily a strange phenomenon exists on the southern island. For what ever the reason every saturday the rain takes a break possibly to play golf and the people of Dunedin are rewarded with a fleeting sun kissed holiday.

The economy: Personally I blame the internet.

Rat tails: If you care to remember I sported a mullet for a solid two weeks. Breathtaking, mind-numbing, sexual, disgusting, natty, kiwi and delightful. Once the novelty wore off Nick and I deemed that we should probably complete the prophecy and get rat tails. Luckily we were both master barbers at this point so we gracefully transitioned into easily the sleaziest follicle arrangement since the male pony tail. I guess the only good thing about the ratty is that its very easy to forget about and it can be braided. I have since cut the damned thing off and finally feel like a real boy again.

slightly out of alphabetical order but probably the most interesting

Fiords: Derived from the latin word for awesome a fiord is a steep narrow chasm carved by glaciers with some form of water resting in the bottom. I believe they are only found in Norway, New Zealand and other sea faring countries that start with N. Either way these bad boys have made quiet a name for themselves in NZ and they even have their own land the Fiordland. It makes up about 10% of NZ yet something like 200 people live there, those that do make their homes here are clearly legends or sheep.

I was privileged enough to spend a night on boat in the Doubtful Sound which one of the most majestic passages in Fiordland. This was part of the IFSA-Butler program so to all you prospective study abroaders IFSA keeps it real, Im taking like sleeping on a boat real. No really though IFSA is full of happy helpful Kiwis and Americans who want to make your abroad experience the best it can be. At this point it seems logical to thank Peggy Imai at the study abroad office at SMC. Capable of getting even a slouch like me out of the country Peggy is clearly a wonder woman who deserves a larger office and budget. you hear me saint michael?

So back to the boat business.

After some substantial bus riding myself and about 30 other Americans in varying states of friendship arrived at our first boat. This boat would carry us across a lake where we would then board another bus which would take us the actual boat we would be navigating the fiords on as well as spending the night. Which makes me wonder how they even got that second mammoth boat in the fiord? A mystery for the ages

The other mystery for the ages is why did Nick and I drink so much coffee? It started innocently enough; a cup with breakfast and then a second one because we needed to finish reading cosmo. After that it went downhill as we decided to will a Nalgene with a liter of coffee for the road. To really complicate the situation there was free coffee on all the boats. I dont think I could have become sea sick because I was actually hovering about the deck for about 4 hours on Saturday.

The Fiordland Navigator was probably the nicest boat I have ever been on. It had a gigantic dining cabin outfitted with numerous plush booths. The food was second to none and was easily the best food I have ever eaten aboard a boat or possibly in the last month (although I have gotten very creative with tuna). Half the group kayaked while I was motored around the sound like the sea captain Ive always imagined I am.

I really wish my camera had been in better health because this place was truly a photographic nirvana. Anywhere you turned on the boat you were greeted by a towering peak or cliff that was outfitted with a lush moss coat tailored with a sliver of white water cascading down into the sound. Im told that a rainy day is possibly the best time to visit the fiords as every surface is transformed into a waterfall of epic proportions.

At the same time I was actually not compelled to see if my camera was working.

There is some deep dark primitive feeling inside me that made me walk to the other side of the boat as soon as every gore tex clad fool whipped out there camera and tilted it in various odd angles trying unsuccessfully to make a hundred foot cliff fit on screen.

Not to sound hypocritical here as I have often been a goober jockeying for the best angle but it was extremely refreshing to just enjoy my surroundings. Man there are some uber goobers in that group though.

Life lesson kids; there will be goobers where ever you go so just be yourself and try to scare them off with your hyper-caffeinated musings.

Oh almost forgot we were sitting down to dinner when the captain came over the loud speaker and pointed out the bottle nose dolphins frolicking all around our boat. They were jumping and flipping as if they knew they boat was packed with tourists eager to immortalize them on facebook.

Endings: It is impossible to satisfy everyone with an ending.

Weekend of Kings

It started with a simple proposition, go to the Catlin region and see what kind of adventures awaited us.

But before I even left Dunedin the weekend

fun had started.

I had heard about the Emberly rail jam for about 2 weeks but I dont have a snowboard here in NZ so I was content to just go and watch it. That is until I found out that my buddy Christian was going away for the weekend which freed up his shred stick. I flicked him a quick text to see if I had the go ahead to

barrow it and get down. Needless to say once youve spent a week in the woods with a kid you can use his wetsuit or snowboard or even tooth brush.

I hustled over to Gardies to see if I could still

enter the fabled rail jam, luckily for me everyone in NZ is heaps nice and they were more than happy to take my 30 dollars and let me shred

. They had a really nice set up in terms of drop in and ample room for a landing but other than that they could have used a better announcer, sound system, heat system and maybe better weather. But hey who's complaining it was sick.

I didnt really do uber good but I did manage to stick a really clean backside 180 on the down rail which I was really pumped on and the announcer referred to as "a 10 out of 10".

Moving on.

So I was a little worried that we might not get an early start to the adventure as Doctor Lee was less than sober the night before and Gimley was MIA since about 10 that night.

I should have known better than to question any member of Caldina Hoss Squad and we were all in the car ready to send it at about 9.

Truth be told we had no idea where we were going, where we were staying, what we would see, do, eat or

how to speak native Catlin.

Just the way I like it.

First sigh

t of note was a casual loung

ing seal crew on a beach that I will reference as angry farmer point due to the presence of one angry farmer. Apparently during lambing season (spring) you cant go too close too lambs or it will scare them and they will lose their flavor? Im not sure we never found out anything except farmers do not want you near them.

We cruised over to Nugget point from there and saw the light house and a really cool out cropping of rocks off the point. We were about to get back in the car and mosey on to the next stop when we heard a casual baaaaaing from the car next to us. A close

r examination revealed a baby lamb hiding in the back of a cab pick up truck. Damn that little guy looked snuggly. We contemplated freeing him or kidnapping him but then determined both were baaaad ideas.

The information center had given us an idea of where we were camping that night but it wasnt until we pulled up at the beach that we really understood how cool of a spot it was. Tents dotted a large field that lead right up to a sandy beach which

was flanked by massive white banded cliffs. It was a great spot to watch the sun rise and set.

I coined a new term for camping out of a car: Carmping. Needless to say wikipedia has already contacted me about proper use of the term.

The next morning we decided to quest to the foot of the cliffs. This adventure proved to be typically awesome and involved heaps of scampering and bouldering.

As we headed back to the Carmp site I spotted a notorious Yellow Eyed Penguin. Yup Pierre was sitting right up amongst the rocks almost waiting for us. Pierre is a stay at home dad who is eagerly waiting for his

chick to hatch so he can go back to playing penguin rugby and making his own sushi.

We left the carmp site and headed to Owaka to get dinner supplier for Sunday night because we knew we had to stay there again.

From there we cruised all over the Catlins exploring every water fall and beach that we came across. I think we saw 3 different water falls each more spectacular than the last finally ending with the "Random Maori name" falls. We stopped at the bottom section of the falls and were captivated until we decided to continue the trail up and were rewarded with what we thought was almost a 100 foot section of cascading water.

It was my personal favorite section of the trip and Catlins region.

I just realized that I forgot to mention Jacks Blowhole whic

h we saw on Saturday. It looks like the opening to a large cave but at the bottom instead of darkness and rock their is a constant churning of ocean water. What makes Jacks Blowhole so cool the fact that it is about 200 meters from the actually ocean meaning their is a tunnel that waves rush through and eventually crash into the 35 meter pit. Unfo

rtunately I dont have a good picture of Jack's Hole but Im not really too worried about it.

We pitched camp one last time Sunday night and everything was going pretty smoothly. That was until Dave began speaking like a Mid evil Lord at the sight of fire. He roasted bread on a stick and declared that he was in fact "the smartest man in the land" and we were all peasants. Joke was on him though because he had to share a tent with Nick "gut rot" Lee.

I made it back to Dunedin in time for my Maori tutorial which is always good.

You know what else is good?

Nutella

until next time

Matt

Here we see his Lordship David the Palelegged fording a mighty stream

Chaos

So even before I even left the safe waters of SMC I had already heard tell of the "undie 500". For those of you who are not acquainted with this little number I will now enlighten you.

So I guess a couple of years ago some wise kiwi came up with the idea that teams should find a car for under 500 dollars and fix them up so that they could drive from Christchurch (north end of the south island) to Dunedin (south end of south island). In theory this sounds like a wholesome educational experience. Experience tells us other wise.

Somewhere in this process the cars became painted with various lewd schemes (Kentucky fried Dog, Mountain Jew were some of the highlight from the weekend) and filled with costumed kiwis.

All still pretty reasonably and rational.

So at this point the cars arrive in Dunedin where they are greeted by the now excited Scarfies (uni students) and they naturally want to celebrate.

This is where everything really starts to tailspin.

fast forward to about ten on friday night the legendary Castle Street is now teeming with tipsy Scarfies who are getting all antsy in their pantsies. All this excitement somehow gets channeled into the need to burn couches and every piece of random debris in the area. So the next logical player in curious little scenario is police officer Pete. Now Pete and about 50 of his co workers hope of out of a van in full riot gear co

mplete with shields and billy clubs. They quickly busy themselves setting up shop at the north end of Castle St., this consists of a human line waving shields and clubs shouting unrealistic orders at the frenzied crowd.

This goes on for a while until the police start to get fed up with the bottles being hurled at them. At this point the line starts charging the chanting masses of Scarfies on the piss. The Scarfies concede ten feet at a time and this dance goes on until the crowd has been pushed all the way down the quarter mile long street. I personally got bored of this tango after about half an hour once I was fairly sure there would be n

othing more exciting happening.

The term riot is not an accurate description for the mood in the air. There was no general goal. No one had been wronged. They simply wanted to rage in the most destructive manor possible, a tell tale sign of intoxication. I stood for a while pondering the motivations for this event for awhile as I walked thru the crowds of chanting drunks I was struck by the sen

se of lack of individual identity. Everyone wanted a break from being Tom or Polly and wanted to be a part of something bigger than them, a collective group identity. Its interesting to think about what role alcohol played in this equation, people seemed to need the social lubricant to help them join the debauchery.

Im still musing over what might be a proper term for the event perhaps "scarfiesonthepissliketoburnrubbishanddefyauthoritycollectiveitis" Ill have to check with the American Psychological Association when I get home.

Here is a clip from the Otago Daily Times

I defiantly remember seeing the police storm the one house in the video.

I talked with several police officers and found them all to be in good spirits. Most were just waiting for the shift to end. The all seem to understand the event to be inevitable and stupid. I fairly agree. It has become a tradition all the kiwis know about it and I suspect would still find an excuse to burn couches even with out the Undie 500.

More interesting news.

Nick Lee and I now have kiwi mullet hair cuts.

We have received zero strange looks which really explains how strange the hair cuts here are.

Small picture yes but what can you do?

Probably reformat but if you

r interested skype me or creep facebook. If you dont know me then I am beginning to get creeped out by the internet again.

Hopefully my internet insecurities wont cripple my computer usage because I have heaps of work to do this week.

Awesome.

I also surfed the last 3 days which has been uber.

This is a picture of horses and the ocean but you already knew that. Far right is Simmsberg who turned out to be a true bully.

Alright

Big gulps huh? Nice

Well see you later

Abel Tasman, three words; I like it!

Success!

I have survived the 12 hour drive, braved the elements,

wacked the bushes of fatigue and forded the waters of many foul smelling tidal

flats.

Armed with little more than a layer of gore tex, a brick of cheese, a fishing pole, sleeping bag, head lamp and a handful of other costly outdoor accessories 7 mates and I spent the past week in the bush.

Alright so we werent really roughing it that hard, we were all well prepared and we did spend each night in a hut. But so what? Most people didnt even do the inland track like team Unstoppable Hauce Force Delta 9.

Let me start from the beginning which I sup

pose is a fairly logical starting point.

Right so we woke up at 530ish Saturday morning knowing we had to charge a 12 hour drive. Awesome. It wasnt so bad, we made many stops including the famous Moeraki Boulders at sunrise. Pretty Standard. Anything worth seeing is worth seeing

at sunrise seems to be my new mantra.

Im going to take the liberty to glaze over the less interesting parts of the drive by using the summary statement "we made it to the campsite safely".

So we pitched a tent for the first night before heading out on the inland track. W

e broke camp at a leisurely pace and hit the trail at say 10ish?

Sounds great? Yeah things were moving smoothly minus the fact that by about 11 we realized it wasnt going to stop raining. In fact it was going to turn into a casual monsoon, this was con

firmed by the wind howling in the tree tops above our now hooded heads.

I learned some important lessons that day; nothing is really water proof, especially paper and go buy a pack cover when you get back to Dun

edin you idiot.

We stopped for lunch in the jah hut, a former overnight hut turned into a random shack it was a welcome relief from the stinging rain. We built a fire in the fireplace and huddled like penguins while trying to keep out spirits up. I snapped this picture of bee just to confirm the ol camera was still ok.

We endured the hardest day on t

he first day which was alright once we made it to our final hut destination for the evening. The name of the hut eludes me but we shall call it "Jabba the Hut". Jabba was mad

e for exactly 8 people and ca

me equipped with a wood burning stove, table, sleeping pads and fresh drinking water. We all threw up a quick thanks to the forces that be and busied our selves cooking and warming up.

The bunks proved to be cozier than any mattress I could imagine and we were all soundly asleep by 9. Correction we were all asleep except Christian who was running a power saw in his sleeping bag. His snoring problem would haunt us all through out the trip but thats a different story altogether.

We awoke to blue skies and warm oats. Sweet as.

Day 2 promised to be another challenge for Team Sparkle Motion. Captain/Doctor/Non-Human Nick promised us a 7 hour day.

Not a big deal after you have survived a monsoon. It also proved to us that everything could dry out overnight so we were ready to step in every puddle and ford every steam like the adventure-naughts we were.

Nothing to out of the ordinary for day two, just a lot of putting one foot in front of the other. Good weather, good conversations covering everything from star wars to people Dave had bullied online. We were still jubilant to discover our second hut just as the day light was fading into the dark purples of night. Literally 2 minutes after arriving Dave was shirtless and clutching an axe ready to gather fire wood. Good hustle Dave.

Im actually not sure what day it was but this hut marked Zack's 21 birthday. A little unconventional but who ne

eds to puke in a bar? We all had a nip of whiskey stashed away

which we now indulged in. I think I can also safely say that I am the only one who documented this colossal event in young Zack's life.

Happy birthday to you --------->

So moving right along.

Day three promised us finding ourselves on the coast. Which I half didnt believe and half wanted to dunk my nappy head

into the ocean. However maps dont lie and neither does Nick Lee. After crossing an open field in sideways rain Christian and I were rewarded with our first ocean views.

We hustled to get to the

hut as this was the only way we knew to travel. After snaking down numerous switch backs we stumbled upon an 1800s farm house turned hut. I will reference this hut as "Pizza Hut" for no apparent reason.

This hut was arguably the coolest as it had 4 bunk rooms of varying sizes and our room even had a second story balcony/porch. This made night time bathroom breaks exponentially easier. Awesome.

We also met our favorite personality of the trip in the hut, Sing. A 56 year old Aussie who had retired 10 years earlier after conquering the real estate market. He was on a 6 week vacation in NZ, skiing and hiking arou

nd at his leisure. Truly Sing was living the dream. Dave poured him a class of whiskey and the rest is history. We would be graced with his presence again at our next hut.

The beach was a 5 minute walk from the Pizza Hut so we took advantage of this and basked on sun soaked rocks like the cold blooded lizard people we

are. I also found this awesome beach comber shanty which was remarkably well made.

Nice. Sequence of

events; Cards, dinner, tea, reading or more cards, sleepin

g bag talk (which is alot more candid than pillow tal

k), sleep, wake, grumble, breakfast, pack up, brush teeth, fill water, use the lou, walk. Repeat.

This of course brings us the our next hut. But this would be completely glazing over one of the coolest parts of the week; Separation Point. A natural home to a seal colony, this rocky bluff played host to several saucey seals who were more than happy to hang out while we sunbathed and enjoyed their presences. The one pictured is named Gerome, he is 14 and has two daughters Joan and Cynthia, he enjoys swimming, itching himself and Peter Frampton.

This hike was remarkable short compared to our

previous days, I think it was only suppose to take 4 hours but with our frequent stops and leisurely pace we timed it just right. Time it right for what? Oh the tidal crossing. In order to get to the next hut you had to cross a seriously large tidal flat that was only possible during low tide. Needless to say we arrived perfectly on time and marched effortlessly through the sulfuric mud. I will logically refer to this hut as "The Hut where we meet those other Americans who really sucked".

Once the tide came in the water came almost all the way to the porch. Really awesome. This was the first time where we really had to share our space in the hut which was alright except that some of the other inhabitants were complete goons. On the bright side Sing did spend the night in our bunk room which gave us all a boost of inspiration.

American fools who stayed up late into the night braiding each others hair and gossiping (only half kidding).

We played host to an almost full moon that night which aided our exploring of the

surrounding bay. This hut may have had the sweetest location however it was diluted by the presence of two other groups of roaming

Sam had an awesome spot for his hammock though.

We cruised out at our leisure and started off for the next hut (I

dont even know what day it is at this point, while narrating or while hiking).

So this day was probably the shortest yet. And arguably the least memorable except we walked on golden crusty beaches for the majority of the day, oh I also hiked i

n jandalls as well. Oh never mind this was the day we went swimming if my memory serves me correct. The water was cold but it was necessary as we all were starting to fester in our polypros.

Righhhhhht. So we arrived at the "almost out of food" hut at about 3ish right before a nasty bit of grey skies flanked the coast. That didnt stop Greg and I from exploring the inlet we were situated in. We got nothing more than a nice mud-foot and few more bug bites but I would do it again in heart beat.

Blah, blah, blah. We played some cards, ate peanut butter right out of the jar and went to bed early eagerly awaiting our last hut as we were that much closer to kebabs!

So the second to last day of hiking was rewarding as we cruised through even more beach views and took a detour to Cleopatra's Pool which is a pristine stretch of stream a little bit inland.

The high light of this detour was Dave taking a digger and falling right into the steam. He was alright and we all had a laugh at his expense and then headed back to the coast to bang out the final leg of the day.

We got to

the "Christian is deadly sick" hut and threw down our packs and went right to the beach to enjoy our final day. We chilled real hard and Pete even went swimming. Nice!

So yeah copy and paste that sequence of events from earlier and you can see

our routine. This hut was a little different simply because we woke up at 6 so we could beast out to the car and drive into town and get grub. From there we had a 4 ho

ur drive to the Hanmer Hot springs and our hostel for the night.

Our return to civilization was nothing sort of glorious.

I will elaborate further later I have to go to class.

rats

Ok 8 hours later or so.

We emerged from the woods looking burly and smelling nothing short of fierce. If I had one word to describe our collective odor I would use the word vulgar.

As I mentioned earlier we got on the trail even before the sun was up and didnt see a soul until we reached the parking lot where we had left the Caldina a week earlier.

We changed into our "civilized" clothes that we had left in the car and headed for the first town we had seen on our way to the park. The n

ame eludes me but lets call it "KebabKFCmeatpieheadquarters". We gorged ourselves. Case closed.

From there we cruised to the Hanmer Hotsprings which were still 4 hours away. 4 hours goes by real fast when you havent been in a car for a week and we arrived with the musk of the trail still clinging to our beards. To be honest the springs were a little bit of a let down as they werent hot enough and they were full of creepy old people and impish toddlers who were almost certainly peeing in every pool.

Luckily our hostel was a 2 minute walk from it and we retired to its warmth after only an hour or so.

So our return to society wasnt too painful except

when we crested the last hill and realized we were now back in the snug confines of Dunedin. This was really the first time that I have felt any dislike towards the city bu

t Im over it now.

I actually went to bed at about 6 on sunday night for a variety of reasons.

When I woke on Monday I discovered all the trees around my flat had bloomed over break and it was now officially spring in Dunedin.

Id like to summarize the week by listing my favorite

quotes from each individual.

Greg: Greg had too many gems to really pick just one

Nick: "Atleast it was warm in Nam"

Dave: "Rub my feet while I play the X box!"

Sam: "I dont imagine much goes on in Canada"

Christian: "It aint easy being cheesy"

Zack: "Hot damn"

Pete: "Here I am" (to be understood must have been heard in context)

Im done rambling about the week here are some random images

Drive home

suspension bridge