DONE!

Fifteen weeks and one day since I began my journey, I'm officially one hundred percent done with my classes here in New Zealand. The only things that I have to worry about is two final exams on the 4th and 5th of November. I'm really excited for my last 4 weeks here, I'm finally going to be able to go do things without worrying about assignments and getting up early the next morning for 9 a.m. classes. I'm also going to have much more time to update this thing, which I'm sure everyone is thrilled about. 

This week was pretty great in relation to a regular school week. Being as it was my last week of lectures, I took it relatively easy in the attendance area, if you know what I mean. A little bit of sleeping in won't kill you. Class grades here basically consist of two papers and a final paper/essay. So if you've finished two of your papers and have already researched your third, there's not much incentive to drag yourself out of bed, especially when freedom is so close. 

I'm proud to say that went on epic laser tag marathons twice in the last week. This place downtown has a Thursday special: four hours of straight laser tag and any video games you want in the place for 15 dollars. Laser tag is more of a workout than I thought it would be. Also, I think it should be counted as an olympic sport. The intelligence and strategy that goes into laser tag is unparalleled. Sadly, I lost my watch the first night I played laser tag after taking it off to play. I think someone took it. Ah, human nature. It's funny how vulnerable my wrist feels after wearing that watch for four months; I was never a watch-wearing person before. It was a necessary sacrifice, though, for the amount of fun that I had. Me and my flatmates/neighbors did a lot of 3 on 3 games last night, and I slept really well afterwards. The intense physical exertion (including diving, climbing on places that should not be climbed on, and crouching/hiding in uncomfortably small places) combined with the mental strain and paranoia of someone trying to shoot you around every corner really takes its toll on a man. My knee's won't be back to their normal non-red state for a week. I'm convinced that my flatmate Lauren picked up an invincible vest. We executed coordinated velocirapter-inspired "distract and attack" movements on her, and our point-blank range shots would not deactivate her suit. Because of this technical anomaly, the females won the majority of the games.  I for one would rather have a loss than a tainted victory.

My plans for the next 4 weeks involve a lot of fun and a small amount of schoolwork. I think I'm going to join my flatmates and a few of our neighbors in another road trip. They're going around the North Island again, but they're going to a lot of places that I didn't go last time. Because of the fact that we're taking two cars (which don't have to be rented because people own them) and the fact that potential for good weather is exponentially greater (it's mid-spring now), I swayed myself into agreeing to another road trip. Sure, it was tiring, but I'll get to see even more of the country before I leave. Seeing New Zealand is what I wanted to do by coming here in the first place, and all the schoolwork made me lose sight of that. So anyways, we'll probably be leaving Tuesday and getting back on Sunday. This trip is also a bit shorter, so maybe I won't be as drained getting back as I was the last time. I'm planning on doing a couple bungy jumps at Lake Taupo and maybe some river kayaking. The jumps at Taupo involve falling just far enough that you're dipped into the river headfirst, before being plucked back out and flung back into the air. I can't wait. Again, it's a great feeling having school over, it's been a huge inhibitor in the amount of fun things I can go do. I feel like a lot of possibilities have opened up. After we get back, I have to write a quick paper, hang out for another week, and take two exams. I'm not to worried about them because they're for my english classes. After that, it's nine days to home. 

Oh, fun fact. Remember those scary monkey noises I heard in the bush at night when I volunteered on the island? The next day I found out what the noise was coming from. Matt needed our help moving speakers embedded in the woods and powered by the sun. He told us that these speakers turned on at night and emitted loud mating calls of endangered bird species, encouraging them to come to the island and mate there. I asked him if the birds sounded anything like homicidal monkeys, and he affirmed my suspicions. What we had heard the previous night was a prerecorded mating call. This made me feel much better about my personal well being. So the rest of that day was spent setting these speakers up on the side of a steep forest hill. The weather wasn't perfect, but that was alright. It made for a very exciting ride back on the ferry. Fabien and I stood on the top of the storm-swept vessel and got pelted with ridiculous amounts of wind, hail, and spraying salt water. My face was dry red from all the salt for the next few days. Again, though, completely worth it for the exhilarating experience of approaching Wellington harbor like a world-weary sailer, beaten along on the salt-crested waves.

Everyone who goes to England always has their stereotypical "Mind The Gap" picture, 

so I thought I'd take a New Zealand version.

My flatmates and I took a trip to the Rivendell filming locations a couple of weekends ago. Again, the weather was fairly lousy (this is really becoming a trend), but I still had a great time taking it all in. We're planning on going back and camping in Rivendell, maybe going rafting down the river. It's funny how you can almost sense the magic in these places, even though they're very much a part of the real world. It smells different as well, probably from all the plants I'm not used to. Still a plant-y smell, but different. Walking through the forest, we found a couple of swinging vines hanging from the trees and decided to pull some Tarzan moves. Here's the thing about vine swinging. You stand on an elevated ledge, grab onto the vine, and swing. It's a very fun experience going forward. However, the mind fails to acknowledge the fact that as you reach as high as gravity will allow, you're going to go backwards. So after all of our vine, swinging experiences, all of us had some respectable bruises on our legs and backs from slamming into the large trees on our accelerated journeys backwards. Again, completely worth it for the UPWARDS swing. Life lessons here, everyone.

I'm trying something new this week. My friend Allen and I are going to practice a couple of songs together on the guitar and go busking. Busking is a term for playing guitar on the street. I hadn't heard it before but apparently it's common. Playing on the street is big in Wellington, particularly on Cuba street where most of the culture is. I don't expect to make a great amount of money doing it, I'm just looking forward to trying it out. I just hope nobody discourages us by throwing tomatoes and other unsavory vegetables at us. We were going to go tonight, but it's raining, so maybe Sunday night will work. I've been trying to think of simple songs for two people to harmonize with, and I've come up with "Teach Your Children", "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley, "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, "Don't Look Back In Anger" by Oasis, "We Can Work it Out" by The Beatles, "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World" and "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young, and "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who. The playlist is growing. We're about to practice for a bit, so I'll talk to you very soon. Take Care

Bill

"We Have To Go Back!"

I'm rounding out into my last week of school here, which is very odd. I'm really looking forward to having more free time to see things around Wellington and the North Island before I leave next month. Last month I was able to squeeze another trip to Somes Island in, and though it left me with a rather heavy workload during this week, I think it was worth it. I got a lot of international students together who were interested in going, and my number ended up being about 10. The Department of Conversation rangers on the island are extremely cool, and I kept in contact with them in order to arrange timetables and accomodation. We were able to secure a house very similar to the one I stayed in last time, with a few minor structural differences. As it turned out, only four of us were able to stay overnight on the island. Everyone else had to get back to write essays, etc. I was happy to have successfully spaced my workload out in order to get another much-needed taste of New Zealand's natural beauty.

I really enjoyed the ferry ride over, as the sun was bright and the sky was clear. It's nice to take these weekend excursions, as sometimes school and my routine way of life here in Wellington sometimes gets mundane and stressful. Being on the ferry and out on the water allows me an opportunity to look back at the city from a new angle. Seeing it grow smaller and as only part of the grand harbor of New Zealand puts it in perspective both literally and mentally. Though it presented itself as a minor risk because of my decision not to buy a case, I decided to carry my guitar along for the ride, hoping for some nighttime jams in the nature reserve. It was a bit cumbersome, but totally worth it. I even played a bit on top of the ferry in the middle of the harbor. Never thought I'd do that before. So yes, an uplifting ride over on the ferry, everyone was happy about the weather and the weekend ahead. The guitar playing/sing alonging didn't hurt either. I went along with two guys from France, Two girls from China, a guy from Signapore, two American girls, and a guy from Signapore as well as one kiwi. As a matter of fact, two of them were friends from my road trip. They've all become pretty good friends of mine and I was proud to have them all along to show them the island that I'd had so much fun on. 

I was glad to see Matt again, he's the ranger that helped us with accommodation last time around. I was able to get more opportunities speak to him much more this time, mainly due to my role as the unofficial "organizer" of this trip. Last time I came I was just part of a big group and didn't have much time to converse with the rangers. He was extremely cool, and he told me about his newfound guitar skills and other interesting facts about the island as we hiked up to our house. Good news: this time our walk up didn't involve carrying a large sewage pipe up the hill. Big improvement. In any case, I was really happy to be able to hold conversation with Matt more this time around because he seemed to be a really interesting and personable character last time we stayed. 

This is Matt. The guy one the left, that is. The other one is me.

There's a small, cave-like island jutting just off from the main island, and Matt informed us that it was the permanent home of an immigrant man infected with leprosy in the early 1900s. As I mentioned before, Somes Island acted as an Ellis Island equivalent to New Zealand, and quarantined anyone that was sick in their large containment centers. This man basically lived in a small cave in his own lonely island for the rest of his days, with food and provisions dropped off by a plane overhead. I couldn't believe it. It was bad enough that, after traveling so far, he never got where he was going. He was also condemned to look at it from a distance for the rest of his life, never setting foot there. It was just beyond his reach. I guess you need to hear things like this every once in a while to realize just how much your life isn't as bad as you sometimes consider it to be.

The work this time around was much less structured and taxing, probably because we were coming of our own accord and weren't part of an organized group such as Australearn. Alas, we did not engage in anything as exciting or daring as "Extreme Planting", but we did take part in some Extreme Weeding, I suppose. We cleared suffocating 3 foot tall grass from around new plants. I had a particularly fun time doing this because I found a really cool serrated knife that could be affixed to my waist with a holster. In short, it looked like a sword, so I was happy. It was much easier to cut the grass with a knife than a hedge trimmer. I'd say we cleared/mulched/replanted about 40 different plants before packing it in for the day around 3:30. 

At this point, clouds had covered the sky and the wind had certainly picked up. We toured around the island a bit before the day-trippers had to journey back home on the ferry. Upon reaching the top of the island, I experienced a level of windiness that I had never felt before. I could literally stand on the edge of the abyss, lean forward, and the wind completely held my weight. And my cheeks did that roller coaster thing again. So all in all, though the ideal weather didn't hold out the entire day, New Zealand once again proved that every aspect of its weather held its own treasures. The last twenty minutes before the ferry departure was spent on a desperate sprint around half of the island to the docks, as we found that we had poorly judged our time. What a place to have a run. Some of the sights on the way:

Watching the last Saturday ferry depart

And then there were four. The rest of the night we had off, and spent thoroughly exploring and relaxing on Somes Island until well after dark. I've come to the conclusion that spending a night on Somes Island is one of the most unique and special experiences that one can experience while being in New Zealand. There's something about the complete silence and isolation from the rest of society. You're able to look back on civilization from a distance across the bay, taking it in as a separate entity and quietly considering it without distraction or influence. I guess this ties in with my thoughts coming over on the ferry. It was my kind of night. I'm a person who likes more laid-back environments, more one-on-one experiences with small groups of people rather than large, loud and crowded areas. 

We were napping on the trails and I decided to take cool pictures

"Get Off The Road!"

In other respects, the Somes Island nighttime experience also just really exciting. There's an entire nature reserve full of animals ready to be explored in the dark. Some of them like humans more than others, I learned. Side Bar: I petted a tiny penguin this time around. We didn't get it on camera because it decided it didn't like me after I petted it and ran away, but we got a pre-curser to the event: my stealthy approach.

Some more highlights of the night included a quiet reverie on the summit, inspecting abandoned WWII gun turrets, and a rather frightening experience with hostile animals noises coming from the nearby bush as we hung out at the island's lighthouse. They sounded like really angry monkeys, but also seemed to be getting more numerous in content and sinister in nature. I will admit two things regarding this situation. 1) I am a man, and 2) I was scared. Nothing wrong with that. You'd be scared to if you heard these noises. So we somewhat stealthily made our way back through the forests to our house. We had some quick food and waited for the generators to stop (they cut out at 11:30), and proceeded to round out the night with some peaceful guitar playing and candlelight chats. 

I've got to get to an essay now, but I'll be back on with Part 2 in a few days. Take care.

A Journey to The Island, Part 1: Extreme Planting

Hi, everyone. Sorry about the lack of posts recently, I've been trying to keep up with my readings and I suppose I'm also a tiny bit lazy. Onward with the grand narrative...

Four weeks of interesting but increasingly tedious schoolwork yielded a fair amount of local exploration around the Wellington area, but inside of me laid an ever growing thirst for a more nature-rich, truly "New Zealand" experience. Last weekend, in what turned out to be a very lucky choice of dates weather-wise, My study abroad program organized a weekend volunteer project at Matiu-Somes Island, a small land mass laying in the middle of Wellington harbor, visible from most high points in the city. Somes Island was originally used as a quarantine area for infected immigrants seeking to enter Wellington, followed by an animal quarantine station, followed by what has now become a rather extensive and beautiful nature reserve. I was very excited for the opportunity to see another beautiful piece of the country and to give back to the land I now inhabit, and the forecast foretold sunny skies and not much wind. 

I awoke around 7:45 a.m., a time which would have struck extreme fear into my heart at home but one that I've grown used to after choosing 9 a.m. classes. It's good to get the most out of the sunlight as it sets at 5:30 during the winter here. I had a pretty decent breakfast (I've branched out from just eggs recently into more gourmet options such as sausages and oatmeal. Exciting.) and packed quickly. I've yet to buy a sleeping bag so I packed my top two layers of sheets into my pack along with a change of clothes and some toiletries. I also found an ingenius method of attaching my pillow to my pack through a loop on the side. It only gets more exciting from here.

The walk from my flat to Wellington Harbor is a solid 25 minute walk, but I probably walk through the city more extensively than this at least 4 times a week, so it wasn't a huge deal for me, even with the pack on. I am noticing my stamina increasing very slowly after living in this walking-intensive city, which I'm happy about. A few friends and I met up at the top of the hill and made our way down the impossibly steep slope known as Vivian Street. I'll expand more on Vivian Street later, but to make a long story short, it's everything evil in the world manifested in a city street. It's the quickest way home but is legitimately at a 70 degree angle uphill. To make matters worse, at this angle, you look equally as ridiculous going down the street than you do going up it. 

So we trekked down Vivian, walked across the city through Willis St., and came at last to the shores of the sea at Wellington Harbor. At this point it was about 9:35, and our wharf departed at 10:00. After some confusion of which boat to go on and how to get tickets and a solid 20 minutes of sitting in silence/staring into the abyss due to the fact that we still hadn't really awoken, we shuffled onto the Daily Post ferry, soon to set out for Somes Island. The weather channel didn't lie (a rare occurence around here; weather is ever changing and impossible to predict) and we enjoyed a beautiful, cloudless day with minimal winds, about 15 degrees Celsius. I'm going to act really smart and pompous and leave it at that, letting all you Americans calculate the Fahrenheit on your own. 

Wellington City seen from the water.

After about 20 minutes we began to approach the island. Myself and several others, without prior planning, all found ourselves spontaneously whistling the theme to Jurassic Park. It really, really felt like that scene in the movie when they approach by helicopter and Richard Attenborough goes "Welcome...to Jurassic Park." Only we approached by ferry. We spared no expense.

Landing on the island, we were met by two rangers who introduced themselves and shuttled everyone from the boat into a small shack immediately after getting off. We found after a short lecture by the woman ranger, Jo, that the shack was a containment area, used for inspection of all bags and shoes for unwanted plants, dirt, and stowaway rats and mice. New Zealand has a fragile ecosystem as it's very isolated from other lands, and this island in particular is home to many endangered species. We all shuffled through our bags and picked our shoes free of dirt, and proceeded to listen to Jo talk a bit more about the island. They loaded all of our bags onto a small, beat up but hardcore looking tractor rig and hauled it up the hill. Our bags got the easy ride. We, however, had another experience altogether.

First task: carry a 20 foot, rather light looking but in fact very heavy drainage pipe up the side of the island to the summit. I still haven't decided if this was a real favor he needed or if it's some sick form of hazing that the D.O.C. puts its volunteers through every day. We split into teams of three, switching off every hundred meters or so. It was actually executed quite impressively, with military precision. Even with two other people, the pipe was very heavy, especially at such an incline. The weather was still beautiful and the sun was out, and I felt that this was a great way to get our energy going for the day ahead.

Our house turned out to be a very nice vacationing flat full of nooks and crannies to sleep many  people. I grabbed a nice chunk of bed sitting in the family room overlooking the harbor and dropped all of my things, finally feeling that weighless sensation after being released from a heavy load. After divvying up our sleeping places, eating some "morning tea" (it was quiche, and it didn't taste too bad) and "taking ten", we walked up the hill to begin our first assignment. Our activities for the next four hours can only be described as a hardcore form of "extreme planting", an activity that should most certainly be coined as the next olympic sport. 

The land on the island was beautiful and we soon found ourselves walking along a roped off path along the beach. The scenery reminded me of the opening scenes of "Prince Caspian". The beach was located at the foot of a large, steep mountainside. We were to plant about 50 saplings of the endangered plant species "Euphorbia" into this mountainside. After demonstrating the technique of digging a level ground, making a hole, pouring in a water-saving concoction called they called "liquid rain" (I kept calling it Purple Rain for kicks), etc, Jo asked for 3 volunteers to go up the steep side of the mountainside to attempt to plant some saplings there. I was in an adventerous mood and raised my hand along with a few others. 

Getting up the hill was a mighty challenge. To start, my sneakers have little to no traction, and the ground constantly fell apart at your feet as you climbed. Using the spade as a grappeling device, I was able to slowly climb the steep mountainside until I found blessed solid footing upon a rock. I helped the other 2 up and we began the arduous process of finding small bits of plentiful earth in an area rife with large rocks. 

Yes, that's me up there

It was an incredible challenge just to journey up this hill, let alone to gain the proper leverage and grip to dig a hole and plant a sapling. It took about five minutes each time to find the right angles and footholds to start planting again. I took occasional breaks to watch the sailboat races in the distance and the birds as they circled above the sea. About an hour, 15 plants, and several precarious slips and a few epic "QUICK grab onto a random vine somewhere to save yourself from falling to your death" moments, we made our way sideways across the cliff face to plant some more, because why not? At this point it became an issue to watch out for already planted saplings as other groups had covered areas in between. 

My "extreme planting" team

Remember that book "The Lorax"? That was a great book.

I found the most ridiculous, rocky and steep way down because, as I said, I was in an adventurous mood, and scaled my way down to join everyone for lunch. Before I decided to turn around and scale this bad boy, my friend Alise grabbed what may become the most epic picture of all time:

"This Summer...One Man...Has Had Enough."

I don't think I've mentioned this, but they fed us 3 square meals a day, which is very exciting when you're cooking your own food all the time. Lunch included chicken/lettuce/tomato in a torpedo roll, an apple, and a ridiculously rich and delicious piece of brownie/cake. 

After lunch, Jo asked for yet another few volunteers to join her on a particularly difficult ascent to plant saplings in a difficult area. I joined a few other kids and the rest journeyed back to our house with all the equipment. The ascent we took was so unstable that we took all of our backpacks, plants and planting tools with us, planning to basically climb to the top of the cliff and make our way home from there, as climbing back down would be impossible.

 Following You, I Climb The Mountain

We had a good time and go to know Jo a bit more. She turned out to be a pretty cool person, despite my initial impressions (she asked a woman and her baby to leave the shack during the intro session when the baby was making noises. It was a bit awkward). We some great discussions, ranging from such topics of geckos to sociology to the book "1984".

Jo keeping ahead of the pack

The EXTREME extreme planters

 

I still can't believe how beautiful it can get here, especially since it's during the winter (albeit at the very end of it - Spring in three weeks!). It was all blue skies and warm sun. Wellington has been blessed with now officially 8 days straight of sunny Spring-like days. In a town infamous for its wind and rain, this is incredible for the Winter months. People were kayaking and sailboat racing and all of the animals were demonstrating their various chirps and bellows (particularly the birds). 

The second leg of extreme planting took another half hour, and reaching the summit and some solid walking ground was a welcome relief. We walked with Jo back to our house and took a half hour break to rest. Our next task involved planting some particularly porcupine-like grass plants in a lamb and sheep breeding area. I'm going to wrap part one up now because I need to get some work done, but I promise part 2 will be up quickly. Sorry again for the delay between posts there. I'll leave you all with a priceless portrait/memento (can be utilized as a signed 8x10 glossy upon my return) of yours truly as a sign of reconciliation. Until next time,

Bill