Week 4 at Uni

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Monday – Friday, March 22-26, 2010

Wednesday the fire alarm went off, we were probably due for one since it happens a little over once a week. We are now learning about earthquakes in geography. The next big earthquake that’s due, along the Wellington Fault, will probably destroy the central business district. Most of this week has been working on homework. Friday we booked some of our mid-trimester break activities, including the rental car, Milford Sound overnight trip (we got the last three spots on the boat), and our tramping permits.

Break Planning

Saturday - Sunday, March 27-28, 2010

On Saturday, Raizel and I made french toast for breakfast, then I went with Nicole to get tramping gear for our trip. Spent the rest of the day working on homework.
Sunday was the Geography field trip. The first stop was Harcourt Park where we measured the Hutt River stream flow and terrace offsets along the Wellington Fault. Next we stopped at Pukerua Bay lookout. After that was Paraparaumu Beach, right across from Kapiti Island. Here we measured the dunes and calculated how fast the beach is growing. The final stop was Queen Elizabeth II park. The beach is shorter and the dunes are taller here because Kapiti was blocking the wind on the other beach. There was a shell bed here from Maori cooking 600-800 years ago, just one species of shell mixed with charcoal layered in the dunes.

Walking on the Wellington Fault

Measuring Hutt River stream flow

Calculating the growth rate of Paraparaumu Beach (Kapiti Island in the background)

Charcoal and shell bed

What Raizel and I think will happen to the central business district of Wellington in the next big earthquake:

Week 3 at Uni

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Monday – Sunday, March 15-21, 2010

A lot of this week has been planning the Easter Break trip to the South Island. So far the plan is rent a car with Nicole, Heather, and Lauren, and go from Christchurch to Queenstown and back. We will be stopping at the Milford Sound and Fox Glacier, and might do some tramping around Queenstown.
Josni found a place and moved out on Wednesday.
St. Patrick’s day was the Nexus harbor cruise that circled the harbor for an hour just after sunset. It was a bit of a party boat, but still pretty fun and I got some good photos.
On Friday, Heather had a “movie and wine” night at her flat. Only one out of the eight of us had any wine, so it turned into more of a “movie and snack” night since we were baking a lot of treats there. The weekend was all relaxing and homework.

After a light mid-week storm

St. Patrick's Day harbor cruise: the Nexus Americans (plus a few others and a German)

Making guac

Movie night

Friday's Storm

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I just found something really interesting about last Friday's surprise storm:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3443374/Southerly-buster-hits-Wellington

Week 2 at Uni

Monday – Friday, March 8 – 12, 2010

A week of scrabble, cooking (feta cheese stuffed tomatoes and such), and classes. Tuesday morning the fire alarm went off for the third time since we’ve moved in, this time from a hair straightener. I joined the tramping (backpacking) club, and the geology society. On Wednesday we finally got internet in Nexus, and it’s been working pretty well. I get two bars in my room, but it may get stronger as they try to get it into the rooms of everyone in the half-floor above us. Friday I finally went to see Avatar. I figured since it was made to be seen in the theatres I should see it before it left, but there are a lot of rumors that they may release an extended edition in the summer and again in 2012. So I guess theres no hurry to see it on the big screen if you haven’t yet.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Heather, Josni, Raizel, Lauren, and I went to Zealandia, the Karori wildlife sanctuary, only 15 minutes away. Saw a bunch of ducks on the pond, and several birds in the bush (a little grey robin, saddleback, tui, shag, and kaka). Went to a kaka parrot feeding talk, then to the top of the dam and over to the suspension bridge. On the way back to the visitor center we went up to the Morning Star Gold Mine, where they gave you hard hats and torches to go inside. It was a very short passage to a skylight, but there were lots of cave weta bugs.

Zealandia

Friendly Duck

Kaka feeding talk

On the dam

Suspension Bridge

Cave Weta

Josni, Lauren, Me, Heather, and Raizel in front of the Gold Mine

We got Pizza Hut for lunch, then on the bus back to town. At the New World on Willis we were ready to get off at the next block, but the bus turned, so we figured it would go back around because of the one way streets. But it kept going. Past the Zoo and on to Island Bay, about an hour from Karori. We thought eventually it would loop back around, but the bus emptied out and the driver said he was done for the day, so he turned down a street to drop us off by the beach, and gave us directions back to town. At least it was a very scenic drive! I recognized the area from when I was there ’08, the people we were staying with drove us around there at sunset to see the South Island the day before we left.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Alex and I left at 6:30 am to catch the train to Paraparaumu, then a bus to the beach. There we found the ferry, a speedboat driven into the water by a tractor. The water was very rough going out. We landed on Kapiti Island, and were given a short talk about the island and the birds we would see. There are no predators on the island, only rare native birds and plants. We headed up the Wilkinson Track to the lookout point, about 2 hours uphill. Saw a Tui, a Kaka (bush parrot that landed on our backpacks and shoulders), a Hihi (I call it the Michael Jackson bird), Korimako, Toutouwai (Robbin, a little grey bird), and Weka at the top trying to steal everyone’s lunches.

Boat and launching tractor

Beach on Kapiti Island

A very curious Kaka (Parrot)

Toutouwai (Robbin)

We were the last of the lucky few who got to the top soon enough to see the Takahe, a large blue bird. The view from the top was spectacular; you could see Paraparaumu across the water on one side, and straight down into the ocean on the other side, with a small picnic bench clearing on the edge.

Lookout

Rata, native NZ plant at the lookout

The rare Takahe

Headed back and saw more Hihi, Korimako, Toutouwai, Tui, and also several Kereru (large white green and blue pigeon) near the end. Had another Kaka come pretty close to us, but he stayed on the branches.

Trail

Kaka (Parrot) and Kereru (large fancy Pigeon)

At the base of the Kapiti Island mountain we conquered

Took the speedboat back to Paraparaumu, where it landed in the trailer bed and was driven out by the tractor to the parking lot. For dinner, Josni and I decided to make an epic meal of mashed potatoes, chocolate mousse, and pizza with mozzarella, chicken, pineapple, cilantro, garlic, and onion.


Thursdays lecture on Pastafarianism in science class
http://www.venganza.org/

Classes Begin

Monday, March 1, 2010

First day of school, but I have Mondays off. Went up to campus with Josni, then headed over to the Hunter building to get my Victoria school ID. Stood in one line for a half hour to confirm enrollment and paid fees, then back to another line for another half hour to get the actual ID card. Got online for a little while and ran into Heather while I was there. Campus exploded today with thousands of students, but it is amazing how often all the AustraLearn students are still running into each other. Went back to Nexus to get some dinner and rearrange my room.




Tuesday, March 2, 2010

First class! The Pacific Heritage at 9 am. Went out with Josni to hunt for a printer afterwards. On the way to the second store we were stopped by someone making chalk political polls on the ground who wanted our votes for each question. A News One guy with a great Sony camera was filming us, we’re not sure what ever happened to the footage. Continued up to the Warehouse Stationary. Spiral notebooks here are very hard to find and each one is between $5 and $15. They use other colored folded note books here labeled “B5” and other specific workbook numbers. The pens are also very expensive. Went to National Cinema class at 3 pm, Collin and Tessa are also film majors in that class. We’re starting the course with Korean Cinema, and watched “The Host,” Korea’s highest grossing movie of all time, and ¼ of the population has seen it.

News One guy with the awesome camera

No spiral notebooks?!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Went around the block a few times before I found the Te Aro campus, which consists of just one building for the school of Architecture and Design. Had to find the professors room and wait awhile for him after lecture, since I wasn’t sure why he kept referring to class yesterday and Friday when it was only a 1 hour class Wednesday mornings on my timetable. He was really nice and said I needed a studio time for Tuesday and Fridays, which added another 4 hours to my schedule. Went to Earth Sciences class and met up with Raizel there. The class has 350 people so it’s a little hard to find each other. Watched “Sopyonje” in Film class.

Flatmates dressing up for a party

Thursday, March 4, 2010

When I got up a few people were searching for their drunk friend that disappeared. We searched the building for him and Te Puni said he wasn’t there but would call the police to look for him. Shortly after that they found him in someone’s room. Went to uni to drop the Pacific Heritage class and buy books. Now I’m only taking 3 classes, which is still 18 hours of being in class a week, and back home 5 classes with 15 credit hours was 12 - 13 hours of being in class per week. On the way back from class there was a passed out drunk guy at the first landing of Hell’s Stairs behind Nexus, with a small crowd around him. I saw an ambulance pull up under my window and a few people go up the stairs. A while later another ambulance and a police car showed up. 7 people piled into my room to look out the window when they finally came back with him in handcuffs and put him in the ambulance, he was yelling quite a bit. Finally, we got internet. Very slow internet. For two hours. Then it was gone. Went to get ice cream with a few people, and when we got back 10 minutes later everyone was out front and there were 3 fire trucks on the street. Another kitchen set off the fire alarm. Everyone stayed up late to play Scrabble and other board games.

Everyone watching out my window

Internet!

Fire truck

Friday, March 5, 2010

Slept in until 9 then went to Design Studio. Met someone in there also from Nexus, and walked back with her to get lunch. Went to the Warehouse with Raizel for more hangers and a few other things after class. Had budget noodles for dinner, and a Mr. Whippy ice cream truck stopped outside of Nexus for free ice cream (tasted like cheap whipped cream) while a christen group talked to us. We went out later to see Avatar in 3D, but it was sold out (even though it has been out 2.5 months), so we saw Alice in Wonderland (which wasn’t 3D, but has only been out 1 day).

View of the city from Raizel's room

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Got internet in the building again, but it wouldn’t work on my comp. Called Eric on Skype using Josni’s computer and her webcam to work on mine. Gave up after 4 hours, and the net died again shortly after anyway. We should have it up again sometime next week. Heather came over and the three of us went to walk around the waterfront. Stopped at Subway, then to Heather’s place for a bit. Played Scrabble and Cluedo back at Nexus. Cluedo is just a confusing version of clue, but it has cooler weapons like the poison, trophy, axe, and dumbbell.


Sunday, March 7, 2010

Left just after 10 with Josni, Heather, and Nicole to go to the farmer’s market. We went to the smaller one up Willis, then to the larger (and slightly cheaper) one by the waterfront, and a stop at New World. For dinner we made pizza with a base from the bread stand at the farmers market, garlic and onion pasta sauce, feta, cheddar, a packaged cheese blend, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, and onion.

Heather and Nicole at the smaller farmers market

Walk to the waterfront farmers market

Race at the lagoon

That's all for now!

Enjoy some subtitle translation errors from Asian cinema class:

Bay of Islands

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Slept in and Josni came in my room to store her bags and hang out. She still doesn’t have a place to live and has to leave Nexus today since everyone else is moving in, so she’s staying in my room while I’m gone. Went to get a comforter at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (might as well since Nexus will be paying us back for lenins), then we went up to campus for internet. We were heading back down for dinner, but ran into a few people at the top of Hell’s Staircase who said there was free pizza for Nexus residents. There are only about 70 people staying in Nexus. We had been tricked into cheesy ice breaker games. After we finally got the pizza, all the international students snuck out, but two accidentally stayed and later reported the horrors of the freshman orientation week intro.


Monday, February 22, 2010

Got up early and caught the 9 am inter-city bus to Auckland. Had a lunch break at Flat Hills, and a dinner break at another town later on. Got in to Auckland at 8 pm and checked in to Nomads Backpackers.


Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Had breakfast at the French deli again, and got on the very crowded 8 am Stray bus. It’s a bus-van that holds 24 people and has a trailer for luggage. Went over the Auckland harbor bridge and had a tree-hugging rest stop. If you hug and kiss this 2,000 year old Kauri tree, it will rain in the evening.

The Hugging Tree

Also stopped at Goat Island, NZs first national marine reserve, for a glass bottom boat tour that was included in our Stray bus passes. We circled the island and backed up into a little cave, and saw lots of snapper fish.




Went to Whangarei, Northlands largest city, for lunch. The final rest stop was at the Kawakawa toilets, Freidrich Hundertwasser’s last creation, and the only toilets in the world that has a brochure for it.

Hundertwasser's KawakawaToilets

Checked in to the Pipi Patch Base Backpackers, and ran into several AustraLearn students also going to Victoria Uni. A lot of people took this week to travel the North Island. Called Stray to change our bus passes so we will leave Bay of Islands a day earlier and spend the extra time in Whangarei. We wondered along the beach for a few hours, and headed back to the backpackers for the BBQ dinner.

Bay of Islands, Kiwi Island. See the Kiwi head?

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Got up very early for the Dune Rider trip up to Cape Reinga. It was raining and cloudy but the driver said the weather is always different at the top of the island. Tea break at Tiapa Bay, then down to 90 Mile Beach, which is officially considered a national highway, but no insurance companies will cover you if something happens on it. 90 Mile Beach is actually only 64 miles long, and we drove 71 km (44 miles) of it. The waves were supposedly a lot smaller than usual. They have wild horses near the beach but we only saw some tracks from the morning.

90 Mile Beach

Then to the sand dunes for some dune surfing! Since it was raining very slightly off and on, the sand wasn’t too difficult to hike on, but it was still quite a struggle to get to the top of the 70 meter dunes (230 feet). And down we went on boogie boards.

The Dunes

Hiking up the dunes

Boogie boarding down

From there we continued up the rest of highway 1 to Cape Reinga. The water was an amazing blue and the fog was very thick at first, but burned off a little when we hiked down to the lighthouse where the Tasman Sea and Pacific ocean collide.

Cape Reinga

Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean

Heather and I at Cape Reinga

Next was a tour of Gumdiggers Park, an ancient buried Kauri tree forest. The park has some of the oldest wood and rarest orchids in the world. The theory is 45,000 years ago a tidal wave buried the Kauri forest in peat, which has preserved the wood, not petrifying it or letting it rot. The gum rush of Northland was much larger than the gold rush of the South Island, not many people know about the gumdiggers. Gum is the state of the tree sap before it becomes amber.

45,000 year old log

Huge tree trunk in Gumdiggers Park

After that we stopped at Ancient Kauri Kingdom, a large Kauri wood art gallery and store. Kauri is the oldest workable wood. In the center was a famous 30 ton log that had been carved into a staircase. Browsed the store while the driver washed the beach sand off the bus.

30 Ton Staircase

Wood Carvings

Stopped at the Mangonui Fish Shop for dinner, one of the best fish and chip places in the country. Bluenose was the fish of the day. The last stop was a photo opportunity in Kerikeri of the Old Stone Store, the oldest and first stone structure in NZ. After we got back I did some quick online research to see if we could make it up to Aroha Island to see wild Kiwi birds, but decided we didn’t have time.

Best Fish and Chips in NZ

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Hole in the rock tour day with Dolphin Discoveries. There was a triple rainbow over Paihia as we went to Russell to pick up more passengers. Not far into the journey we found a group of bottlenose dolphins. The crew kept commenting how surprisingly clear the water was in the bay today.

Tripple Rainbow

Bottlenose Dolphins

From there we went to drop off passengers at the Otehei Bay Resort, then an island with a lighthouse, and then to hole in the rock. Went through the hole and circled the island, then found a large group of common dolphin. They said it’s pretty rare to find both species in one trip, and the water was perfectly clear to watch them darting around the boat. Stopped at Otehei Bay Resort for a quick lunch break, then back to Paihia.

Hole in the Rock, you can see the boat before us just got through

Common Dolphin

Crystal clear water

Otehei Bay Resort

Caught the Stray Bus as soon as we landed and headed down to the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre. Here we met Woof Woof, the talking Tui bird, and only permanent resident at the recovery centre. The Tui has two voice boxes so they can mimic a wide range of sounds. It took awhile for everyone to realize the scratchy radio was actually the bird talking. To me he sounds just like a ghost box.

Tui Bird

Two videos I took of the bird talking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXeTUKiNw6I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf4MKBN6p1k

They dropped Heather and I off at the i-site, and someone from the Whangarei Falls Holiday Park and Backpackers came to pick us up. We walked back up the street to the Tikipunga Bake House, which had the best meat pies we’ve had so far. From there we walked all the way down into town, only to discover everything had just closed. Took the bus back up and walked around Whangarei Falls, then back to the Backpackers.

Whangarei Falls

Friday, February 26, 2010

Slept in a bit then went back to the pie place for breakfast. Then headed out to Zion Wildlife Gardens. The tour went through the park around the 60 or so animals they have. First past a small group of breed of lions that don’t exist in the wild anymore, the black leopard, a very old baboon, a smaller cat, cheetahs (that you can pay extra for an encounter to hand feed and pet), a huge pen of lions (never seen white lions so white before!), pair of tigers, trio of white tigers, more lions, more lions, and Zion, the star of the park. He’s been in several commercials and TV shows, and was Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The tour guide was one of the trainers and talked a lot about his personal experiences with the animals.

A very happy sleeping lion.
I would have tried for a better photo, but shortly after I took this another male lion came over and sat on top of him. Then they both rolled over and fell asleep.

Zion, star of the park

Went back to the i-site and caught the next Stray bus. Quick stop at Waipu Gorge Scenic Reserve for a few people to take a dip under the waterfall, then back to Auckland. Stopped at Nomads and had dinner at The White Lady, a nighttime hamburger trailer that has been here in Auckland since 1948. One night in 1998 when there was a power outage in Auckland was the only day it has ever been closed.

Waipu Gorge

Auckland

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Left early and stopped at a coffee shop for breakfast muffins, and went to the Sky Tower for the 7:45 am inter-city bus. This time we got a huge double decker bus. Lunch in Taupo, and dinner break in Flat Hills. Got back to Nexus just after 7 pm, and guess what we still don’t have? That’s right, internet. Surprise, surprise. The side of the building with Ethernet outlets in their rooms has net, but not our side. Eventually they’re going to get wireless, but they said only for the common area and not our individual rooms. We all got letters emphasizing how limited the bandwidth will be and saying we shouldn’t use the net for anything non-university related. I think everyone just laughed and threw them away. Josni still doesn’t have a place to live, so she’s still in my room and sleeping on the floor. The accommodation office put her at the bottom of the waiting list since they think she’s more capable of finding her own housing since she traveled halfway around the world. Interesting they would do that after promising housing for all international students, but they’re placing people who had a 1.5 hour commute to the Uni from home before her.

Huge intercity bus

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Rumor of an earthquake in Chile going around the flat, but how are we supposed to know anything with a sketchy TV and no internet? We found out when someone’s aunt called this morning and asked about it. Josni, Heather, and I went to the farmer’s market near Te Papa museum and the New World supermarket. It was ridiculously windy and cheap. The food was way less than anything in the grocery stores, so we’re all very happy the market is ever Sunday all year long. Stopped by the New World for the dairy before walking back to Nexus. Josni made guacamole from everything she got at the farmers market, then we went up to campus for internet. Back to Nexus and Heather left, then we went downstairs for free ice cream as an ending to orientation week.

Farmers Market

That's all for now! And remember, keep an eye on your David Hasselhoff Photos!