What Remains

It's been over two months since the earthquake and I can hardly believe it. I'll be heading back to Canada in less than two months ... I hope the time doesn't fly by as fast as it has so far but in my heart I know it will. 

Earlier this month I finally made the trip to as close to downtown as you can get in Christchurch these days. The city centre is blocked off completely by fences and is patrolled 24/7 by volunteer and military personnel. Still, as you walk toward the CBD the damage is extensive - it makes you glad you can't walk straight through to the heart of it. I wandered about the sealed-off area, and just looking around made me fall completely silent; I was overwhelmed by how tangible the grief was. It hung on every dilapidated building, every fallen brick, and every crack in the road. I felt helpless; what could I do to help Christchurch? Volunteers can't get in, and there's not much left to do outside of the worst damaged areas. It's as though the city's heart has been ripped out and everyone can see the bloody hole that's left behind - you can look at it, take pictures, gawk like it's a museum display and then go home. As long as you have a home to go back to; as long as you're not terrified the earth will shake again and your walls will fall down around you.

Despite the fact that I felt no desire to pull out a camera and violate the exposed innards of my current city, I know people back home have been asking to see it. I only had the nerve to take a few.

What remains to be seen of the cathedral.

One of many destroyed churches

Hope Kiwi Pass

A few weeks ago, the University of Canterbury finally had its Clubs Days, where the school's teams, societies and clubs set up booths and convince you to join the ranks of their esteemed members. I joined the volleyball club (although they have no gym to play in post-earthquake), the Gentlemen's Club (a social club, for Bingo nights and cocktail parties), dance classes (although I have yet to attend one), but most importantly I joined the Tramping Club. Although I may have explained what tramping is in an earlier blog, let me refresh your memory: Tramping = Hiking. And no, Mum, tramping does not make you a tramp :)

Canterbury University Tramping Club (CUTC) runs trips all over the South Island every weekend. It's an amazing way to see parts of New Zealand that are only accessible by foot. CUTC's Freshers trip kickstarts the year, combining new members with past members on an overnight. Normally there would be over 100 people on the trip, but as a result of the earthquake, a lot of people pulled out of UC so there were only 50 people this year. The trip took us to Hope Kiwi Pass, which is in Lake Sumner Forest Park (100 km northwest of Christchurch). Mal and Drea both came, and we met loads of new people.

A few of the TC's members

The hike out was sunny and pleasant, although there were many wasps about and Mal got stung on her ankle, resulting in a 3-day cankle. Arriving at Hope Valley 16km later, we spent the afternoon playing sardines in the long grass. At night, we hung out with our new friends before retiring to our tents.

Playing in the long grass

Not a bad view!

Sunday wasn't quite as beautiful as Saturday, but it was still a pleasant walk back. We were greeted with a BBQ at the carpark, along with a lesson in river crossing (there are lot of drownings in NZ each year so they take river crossings very seriously). The water was frigid so I was thankful to have clothes to change into! We were bussed back to Christchurch and arrived back at Ilam around 7:00. We were exhausted, but we loved the trip and I definitely can't wait to get back out with the CUTC again soon.

Morning light hitting a different kind of tent city

Kaikoura

After the first week back at "school," Derek and I took a weekend trip to Kaikoura (about 2.5 hours north of Christchurch) to enjoy his last few days in New Zealand. Kaikoura is right on the coast and is named for its abundance of crayfish (the Maori name is Te Ahi-kai-koura-a-Tama-ki-te-rangi). The drive there on Friday was gorgeous - sunny and clear - but of course I managed to sleep for most of it, and it turned out that that would be the nicest weather we'd have all weekend. We arrived in Kaikoura around dinner and ate our fish & chips on the beach while enjoying the sunset seen above. We camped at a site that was about 20 minutes from the centre of Kaikoura, but since it was dark we had some extreme difficulty finding it. After about 45 minutes of extra driving we finally rolled into the site and set up our tent. 


On Saturday morning we explored a drizzly Kaikoura before heading out for a bit of surfing. I rented a board, but Derek had brought his from Canada. It was not my best surf, but considering the waves were fairly inconsistent and difficult to read I didn't sweat it too much. Derek had a bit more luck but it wasn't great for him either. After a few hours, we returned the board and drove back toward the campsite. On the way, we stopped to check out a fur seal population; there were easily a hundred seals hanging out on the shore just off of the highway. We did a quick walk along the Ohau Stream to a waterfall, and on the way ran into a couple of adorable seal pups. In the fall, all of the baby seals head up the stream to hang out with each other while their mummies ditch them to hunt in the sea. Pretty adorable!

My new best friends

On Sunday the weather was looking like it would potentially clear a bit, so we opted to do a hike as opposed to surfing again. We chose to hike 1600m Mt Fyffe, hoping for some beautiful views. It was gorgeous for about the first hour on the way up (and when I say up I mean UP - it was switchback central; there was not one flat section on the hike) but after that we were hiking in a cloud. When all you're doing is exhausting yourself by walking a constant upward path and getting no visual benefit, you'd think you'd stop ... but not Derek and I. Being stubborn, we wanted to hit the summit, so we continued on along our soggy trek until we made it. It was not worth it at all. 

Pretty view of Kaikoura on the early part of the hike

Getting a little cloudy ...

Still stubbornly heading up through the cloud

The descent made both of our heads spin and we were practically falling over one another by the time we reached the car 6 hours after we'd started the hike. We rewarded ourselves with dinner out at a delicious restaurant and a movie at the local theatre where they still use film reels and have an intermission during which you can buy more popcorn!


Monday morning, Derek surfed for a few hours while I played photographer. It was pretty gross when we first got to the coast but it managed to clear after a couple of hours. The surf was much better than it had been on Saturday, which made Derek a happy surfbum. After a couple of hours, we hopped in the car and drove back to Christchurch in time for my afternoon class.

Tent City

On March 14th, one of my four classes resumed. It was held in a large, white tent in a parking lot, and the class was seated on fold-out chairs. Sometimes it was impossible to hear the lecturer over the flapping of the tent, or the passing of an airplane. It was hot, uncomfortable and all-around conducive to no learning. But at least classes had started, right? Definitely the oddest back-to-school I've experienced yet.

Some of our tent classrooms

Temporary Cafe

For the classes that didn't get scheduled tent time, all lectures were online as audios or videos. There's a lot of dedication required when it's sunny outside but you know you have 4 Coastal Studies lectures to catch up on ... let's just say I'm not quite caught up as of yet. Luckily, as the weeks have gone by and more buildings have been approved for general access, more and more classes are being held in actual lecture halls. I've never appreciated a hard surface to write on more! All of my courses are back in full swing as of this week, so hopefully the semester continues smoothly.

The Final Stops

After a rainy night, we got up early and took the windy, turn after turn after turn drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound. This seems like a great time for the second edition of Ally's poorly made New Zealand travel maps! Check it out (if you're confused, Te Anau is the lower of the two furthest left pins):

At Milford Sound we did the only thing there is to do ... take a boat cruise! We chose Mitre Peak since they had smaller boats that didn't take buttloads (I mean, busloads) of tourists on board. Since it had been pouring the night before, we were surrounded by unreal waterfalls - it was hard to see where they came from due to the mist/fog/clouds, which made it that much more incredible. On top of all that beauty, our boat kept being chased by dolphins! At one point, the driver stopped the boat and a dolphin was just chilling right next to the bow, and Drea and I stood there staring at it for over a minute ... we were so close we could have touched it! It was a pretty magnificent experience overall.

When the cruise was over, we hopped back in the car and drove to Dunedin, our final stop of the trip. We stayed with Charlie, a friend from UBC, in an all-boys house (a little intimidating, not to mention the odd smell ... just kidding!). It was great to catch up with another old friend. While we were eating dinner, the news about the Japan earthquake / tsunami was on TV. It was terrifying to see a natural disaster of much greater severity so close after Christchurch had been impacted by one ... definitely didn't calm our nerves at all. 

If only they were real ...

That night, the girls went out to experience a good time Dunedin-style, but Derek and I stayed in since he'd accidentally ingested gluten with his Chinese dinner ... not very much fun for him! :( On Saturday morning we drove back to Christchurch, with a quick stop to a berry farm (mmm my favourite). We sorrowfully returned the Dragon to the car rental, and
started to prepare ourselves for the re-start of classes on Monday the 14th.

Unconventional S'mores

When we woke up in Te Anau, the skies were slightly overcast but we decided to go ahead with our morning activity. We hiked a 3 hour section of the famous Kepler Track, from Rainbow Reach to Lake Manapouri. It was a fairly nice walk, not very difficult and it had some nice views. Some of the Lord of the Rings river scenes had been filmed nearby, and any LOTR tidbit is always nice in New Zealand!

At the hut on Lake Manapouri we talked to a few people who'd actually been doing the whole Kepler Track, and it sounded incredible. I would love to do one of NZ's Great Walks. We ate our lunch while being attacked by sandflies (no fun!) and scooted back to Te Anau.

Loving Lake Gunn

We then drove into Fiordland National Park, which is actually huge - Te Anau is right on the edge of it, and it extends much further North and South so that it takes up a good portion of the South West of New Zealand. We set up camp at Lake Gunn, a picturesque campsite about 80km north of Te Anau. There was only one other tent at the site when we arrived, a cute little yellow one. About an hour after our arrival, the tent's owners pulled in to the site ... and it was no other than Kat Brown and her boyfriend Ryan, friends from RKY! I'd known they were in New Zealand, but we weren't expecting to meet up under those circumstances at all, so it was very exciting.

Catching up :)

The campsite kept filling up, and that night we made a campfire and hung out with everyone. We met a bunch of Germans and introduced them to s'mores - but our lack of graham crackers, chocolate or conventional marshmallows meant we had to make due with aeroroot cookies, M&M's, and the not-so-tasty strawberry marshmallows that seem to be the only ones available in NZ. Needless to say, the s'mores were unconventional but still proved to be delicious!

If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? Hell yeah!

After our delightful morning in Wanaka, we drove to Queenstown. The locals will tell you it's "just over the hill" ... the hill is actually the highest paved road in New Zealand, and it's followed by an outrageous amount of switchbacks that had all of us feeling a little queasy by the end. Once we were in downtown Queenstown, we went to the AJ Hackett bungy centre where we checked in and then awaited the bus that would come pick us up.

On the drive to Queenstown

YES, I was going bungy jumping (in NZ it's spelled bungy, not bungee) and after what happened while cliff jumping this summer, I was terrified. Kelsey was also nervous for the jump, so we decided we'd jump tandem to provide each other some support. On the bus ride to the Kawarau Bridge, my stomach was churning, and I was getting more and more nervous by the minute. Annoyingly, it turned out that we went right back on the road toward Wanaka so we could have just avoided taking the bus altogether - oh well.


At the World's First bungee site we were greeted by a peppy guide who took us to a desk where we got weighed, then all of a sudden we were walking out onto the bridge. My stomach was doing cartwheels and Kelsey was wringing her hands, but Derek and Drea were cool as cucumbers. When we told the bungee operators we wanted to go tandem, the oldest one there said "Twice as much can go wrong with a tandem jump" in a gruff voice. Miss peppy guide urged us to jump solo, and we finally agreed (mostly terrified by the bungee cowboy's words). Kelsey went first, and luckily we couldn't see her after she jumped off. Next, it was my turn ... I was practically peeing my pants at this point, but the man who was tying up my legs gave me no chance to hesitate, just talked to me the whole time until suddenly I was at the edge, my photo was being taken, and it was time to JUMP!

There is nothing rational about hurling yourself off a 45m bridge toward water. For a second, I thought I couldn't do it - I felt just like I'd felt on that cliff. But then my knees buckled and I had no choice, I was doing it so I might as well enjoy it! I spread my arms and fell, and it was an incredible rush - followed by a dive into the icy water below. I was unbelievably happy - I DID IT!! Luckily Mal was on the viewing deck (anyone can stop their car and watch some bungee if they feel like it) so she got it on video ...

Bungee Jump from Ally Stocks on Vimeo.
 

Drea's and Derek's jumps were very graceful and very wet (they got fully dunked in the water; I went halfway), and when we were all finished we were a jumble of excitement and adrenaline. We relaxed in the sun and watched a few more bungee jumps (some people looked very awkward and wiggly when they jumped) before taking the bus back to Queenstown, hopping in the car and driving to Te Anau where we stayed the night at a creepy campsite that lacked grass space for tents. 

Wanaka

In the late afternoon of Tuesday March 8th, we drove through mountainous regions and past gorgeous bodies of water until we hit a road sign - if we turned left, we'd head to Queenstown; right, to Wanaka. We were tired from all of our stops that day, and thought it might be smarter to stay in Queenstown that night (we'd be heading there the next day anyway) but something persisted in us, and we drove to Wanaka. I am thrilled that we did - Wanaka is easily one of the highlights of our trip.

 

Everyone who's been there says that Wanaka is the smaller but better version of Queenstown. I don't really think the two cities are similar at all, but either way, Wanaka takes the cake. As we drove into the town, the sun was beginning to set and the mountains, the lake, the sky were all being accentuated by the light. We giddily ran from the car down to the lake and jumped in; it was freezing but we all had huge smiles on our faces. Considering we'd been camping for the whole trip, we'd become pretty grungy so it was nice to get some water through our hair (which was looking similar to the way it did back in Rotorua on the North Island).

As we basked in the last of the day's sun, we made the decision to spend the night in beds. We had a number of options to choose from (considering our budget) which included a couple of hostels and motels, but Derek and I found one that blew them all away - the Durry Hill Motel. We chatted with an elderly man about staying at his motel, and he kindly showed us where we'd spend the night - we were shocked (in a good way!). We had a full kitchen, dining room, living room, two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a garage and a backyard. It cost $40 each for the night, so we went for it! I thought back to the days on family camping trips when Mum and Dad would tell us that we were staying in a hotel that night - John, Jane and I would go CRAZY with excitement! I seem to recall a cartoon of someone running blindly into a tree with happiness ... 

Sparing no expense at this point, we ate dinner out at Thai Siam - you guessed it - a Thai restaurant! Yum yum yum. We bought ice cream, popcorn and candy and watched a terrible Nicolas Cage movie in our fabulously comfy living room, showered, and collapsed into the most comfortable beds we'd slept in in forever.

The next morning we made massive breakfasts of pancakes, strawberries and scrambled eggs. The ever-wonderful William Durry chatted with us about how he'd built all of the houses in the motel complex, and directed us to fill up our water bottles down the hill with natural spring water he'd made available to the public. We spent the morning exploring Wanaka and taking it easy before we hopped back in the car to head to our next destination: Queenstown.