Hopeless Ridge Part II - a.k.a. the trip to Lake Monowai 2013

Whoa, nelly. I've finally started returning to normal - that tramping mission was killer!

Well, there isn't an official "Hopeless Ridge" sitting high above Lake Monowai, but there's good reason that Daniel, Chris, Johanna and I gave it such a name (in fact, we called this particular section of Fiordland a lot of things like, "Helpless Ridge," "Glimmer of Hope Ridge," and various other names that capture our feelings of defeat, hope, and In your face Mother Nature! You didn't get the best of us this time!)

So, I bet you're wondering what all this drama is about?

Basically, we dealt with minor nuisances from the start.  On January 1st, we drove for about four hours (with a hiking pack between my legs in the front passengers side of the car and a pack between Jo and Chris in the back) from Dunedin to the Lake Monowai carpark to camp at the head of the trail for the night.  We put up tents in a light rainfall, got our first taste of sandflies (literally - Daniel swallowed one accidentally!), and experienced the most stinky longdrops in New Zealand (thankfully, my friends from Broome County Office for Aging had given me a fantastic going away present - a turtleneck to wear while running.  I wore it on this trip and it was perfect for covering my nose to block the stench in the toilet!).

The sandflies at the campsite were out for blood, so we took refuge in the car until bedtime.  Much to our dismay there were about 30 little buggers flying around.  We got straight to work squashing them.  The trick was to attack them one by one with our pointer finger because pounding them against the window with a fist was less efficient and just caused our hands to hurt.

Once the pests were dead, we played Hangman on the condensation of the car window.  Everyone took a turn picking a tramping themed word.  You wouldn't believe how hard it was for two Americans and one kiwi to guess the Canadian chick's word "toque"!

Here's a clip of us guessing Chris' word:

After an exhilarating round of Hangman, we turned to asking each other the trivia question on the bottom of the the bottle caps off of our Tui beer bottles.  Oddly enough, two bottle caps had "ABBA" as the answer to completely different trivia questions.

And this concludes the first night.

The next day we set out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to make our way to Rodger Inlet to spend a night in the Rodger Inlet Hut.  Little did we know that the 6 mile (over 6 hours) hike in would be cheesy easy compared to the days that would follow!

Hopeless Ridge Part I - a.k.a. the trip to Lake Monowai 2013

Welp, the trip to Lake Monowai kicked my ass.  I'm still mentally and physically exhausted after two days of rest.  Our group of four battled wind, rain, snow, sandflies, blisters, scratches, scrapes, bumps, bruises, falls into rivers, slips in muck and even a night sleeping on the side of a mountain.  I had my own personal issues like hamstring tendonitis at the outset, hypothermia and a little issue with dehydration.

Anything I write beyond that description will only sound exaggerated (as if it doesn't already!).  So, until I can figure out how to sum up the experience, I'll leave you with a picture - this one is definitely worth a thousand words.

Mission to Victory Beach

How about I adjust the text to photo ratio for today's post?  Today's mini mission brought us to the Okia Reserve/Victory Beach.

For your viewing pleasure... my first pukeko!

Last month, I picked up some Christmas cards with cartoon pukekos swimming.  I had no idea that these are one of New Zealand's most recognized birds. I just liked that they were swimming and wanted to mail the cards to my old Salem State swim buddies.

The walk to Victory Beach took us past the Pyramids-a byproduct of an explosion that happened a long, long time ago.

Upon a closer look at Little Pyramid it's easy to see the similarity between these columnar stones and the ones which make up the Organ Pipes. There was a cave in Little Pyramid as well, but I assumed big hairy man-eating spiders were in there just waiting to pounce, so I skipped the exploration.

A Hooker's sea lion blocked this particular access point to Victory Beach.

No worries! We found a way.

So, it sounds weird that a bunch of dead crabs would be kind of cool, right?  I couldn't help getting a kick out of the little guys, though.  They had markings that looked like a smiley face!

For some reason, people that read my blog or look at my Facebook photos prefer my pictures of animals.  Well, penguins in particular.  Here's an Oyster Catcher... I guess most people would say it's not as cute as a penguin...probably because it doesn't waddle.

This last photo is kind of cool - these are the "footprints" of the sea lion in the photo above who was blocking the entry to the beach.

So, tomorrow I'm celebrating New Years Eve at a low-key party and then on New Years Day we (Chris, Daniel, Johanna and I) are off to Monowai!  We'll drive up the first day to camp at the start of the track. Then we'll hike for three solid days and head out on the fourth day.  Check back here in a week for the photos!

Science + Hooker Valley = PhD Fun. Part 2

There are two kinds of PhD research topics.

The first kind involves doing really cool stuff to collect data, but the rest of the research is either very boring or, and this seems to be the case more often than not, others may feign interest in the topic yet only vaguely understand why the research is being done.

Take my friend Rob, for example.  He likes things that explode - volcanoes to be exact.  This guy has been all over the map to do volcano-y research that, I think, involves some fancy pants math stuff.  But, I don't care what makes these things go kaboom - I'm interested in the pictures of the places he's visited to study the kaboom.

The other kind of research is like my own; collecting the data is as exciting as watching paint dry, but most people will understand and have an opinion on the results.

I've been to a handful of parties where no one cares that I sent out a few thousand questionnaires and then sat around for 3 months waiting for them to be returned, but people do care to hear that our results suggest this, this and this about predictors of weight gain/weight stability and they have a related personal story to share.

Well, it just so happens that my friend Mandy is one of those lucky ducks who gets to travel for her research.  She takes samples of water from various ponds (and has even had people from overseas send her water samples!) and then looks for things in them.

Last week, we went on a little road trip and she pointed out some of her ponds.

Here's one:

Mandy has to walk around the water and scoop up samples with a net.  Here's an example of what she takes back to the lab at the end of the day:

Just an hour from the Kettleholes was our destination - Mt. Cook (the highest mountain in New Zealand and called Aoraki a.k.a. "Could Piercer" by the Maori).

We could see Mt. Cook really well from a lookout on Lake Pukaki.

We wanted to get a closer look at Mt. Cook and so we took a walk on the Hooker Valley track (roughly 4k to the Hooker glacier).  Mandy loved the bridges that we crossed.

Getting closer...

We made it to the glacier!  There were giant chunks of ice floating in the lake, but I am a lump head and didn't take a video of them bobbing and rolling around.

I really recommend this track.  It was soooo cheesy easy to walk because it was pretty flat and it was very accessible.  Just be warned that in the summer it gets very busy.  With that said, I'd definitely do the ~ 2 hour walk again.  *hint, hint to friends and family*

Science + Hooker Valley = PhD Fun. Part 1

Recently, a friend asked me to come for a road trip.  Along the way she pointed out sites of interest and the ponds where she collects samples of water for her research (something about parasites???).

We stopped to see the fossilized scapula of a whale at this site:

Three cows guarded the entrance to see this whale scapula (ooooh! ahhhh!):

Next up, Elephant Rocks! This area is located in the Waitaki Valley and has really neat features that I hadn't seen yet, like the limestone formations that resemble elephants. *Note: that is a real, live sheep; not a rock that resembles a sheep.

We carried on to Mt. Cook after a quick look around at the Elephant Rocks and a pit stop for the best lemon slice in the entire world.  On the way back from our adventures in the Hooker Valley, we stopped to see Maori rock art.  There was a wee bit of graffiti, so I can't say for certain that this is definitely Maori-made, but let's all just smile and nod and say it is, m'kay?

Next up... pictures from Mandy's data collection ponds and our Hooker Valley hike!

Kiwi Christmas 2012

Last night will go down as one of the most memorable Christmas Eve's.

My friend Max invited all the orphans over for a traditional Christmas BBQ.  The picture above was taken from Max's deck at about 10pm when the last bit of sunlight was disappearing behind the mountains.  I kept my eye out on the harbor to look for dolphins, but they must have been chasing salmon somewhere else.

We spent hours chatting, eating, playing with the cutest 3-year-old boy, and even watched Finding Nemo (guess who picked that movie?).

To thank Max for his hospitality, he asked for me to entertain him and I obliged.  Max is French and so I like to practice the vocabulary that I remember from five years of French classes with him.  He gets a particular kick out of me saying things like, "La vache aime nager" and "One egg is un oeuf!"  (I just learned that there's a joke to that... "Why do the French make their omelets with one egg? Because 'one egg' is un oeuf!).  I even sang him a song that I was taught to learn French vocabulary for the weather.

I think the night wrapped up beautifully... we indulged in Max's glorious chocolate cake and Alia's cheesecake (that took her about 6 hours to make, but nonetheless came out as a gloppy, but delectable, mess).  Then we bid our adieu's after taking in the moonlight with La Vie en Rose in the background.

Merry Christmas!

You should study abroad in New Zealand

I met Caroline on our Snowcraft trip and this is her video.  Check it out and then make plans to travel to New Zealand!