Weekend wonders and Microwaved Muffins

What a weekend... you wouldn't even believe it all so I think I will just put the slightly less traumatic version on here. I said in a previous post that a couple friends and I had rented beds at a hut where we would be camping for the weekend...and that was in some way how it went. We found out that in order to access  the hut we had to drive an extra 180 km round trip to pick up a key for the building. With the added drive time we weren't able to make it to our site until around 9:30 pm which is 3 hours after sundown here. A half mile hike was included in the adventure of finding our accommodation and when we reached our parking lot we spotted a mysterious man hanging out in his van. As we were the only ones that had booked the area, we had no cell service, we had to hike to get to the hut, we had only a pen light and cell phone lights, we would likely get lost, and we really didn't know if the man was just a hiker staying in his van for the night or a crazy ax murderer, we decided we would rather find a motel to stay in and fork out some good money instead of getting into unknown trouble. We locked the doors of our little red rental car just for good measure and drove out of there as fast as the narrow gravel road would take us. We knew that the town we would be visiting the next day was only a short bit down the road so away we went. We eventually found a motel that also rented out small cottages and we rented one for the night. The next morning we woke up to this as the view from our front door...

Not too bad of a deal if you ask me... we spent the early morning packing up our things because we fully intended to find our hut later that afternoon. After packing we headed out to the beach that we had just slept 100 feet from. We walked along and collected shells and sea-glass of course.

We checked out of the cut little cottage above and went to see what we were there to view...the coolest boulders in the world (Moeraki Boulders)

To make a long story short...from here we went to find our hut and got lost...in a very pretty place...But then we found our hut and it was quite unfortunate. Despite the lack of luxury or even basic accommodations within the hut, we stayed the night...night time here is roughly 14 hours...and what a long and cold 14 hours it was. I only slept a grand total of 2 of them and spent many of the other 12 in a half dazed state convinced that my toes were going to fall off if I bothered to move them.

The first of the above 3 pictures is where we got lost. The second is the color of the streams and rivers here. It is totally natural and is because of he mineral content in the water. The third is our lovely hut...not worth the $34 we spent to stay there if you ask me...but oh well.

The next morning we went hiking and climbed a mountain near by where we could see all the way out to the ocean and watch the waves break. It was astounding.

That was the view from the mountain....beautiful right? and under that is what I like to call the "Tony The Tiger" rock...The picture either doesn't do it justice or we were just really really tired but we really did think it looked like Tony the Tiger. Here is a 360 view from the top of the mountain with a peek at my companions.

After the hike we set out to return our key. The city (Dunedin) we had to take it to has the steepest road in the world and happens to only be accessible if you drive over a few mountains..well it snowed when we got there and we ended up sitting on the side of the only highway out for an hour or two before we were assisted by a woman stuck behind us who helped us to get traction and get off the road. The highway was closed for the night so we had to again drop some good money on a hotel room and extra food. We tried to leave the next day but the road was still closed so we scoped out the cheapest place in town to stay and then went to a museum. The saddest part about us being snowed into Dunedin was that there was only about 2 in of snow over the ground...2 in shut down the entire city and shut down Christchurch for 2 days!

So above we have the whole 2 inches of snow...Myself getting eaten by a croc in the museum while Carina saves me....Shell encrusted toilet seats (what kind of museum has shells in their toilet seats?!?!) and the mountains on our way out.

We finally got out of the city without having to stay a second night there. We got home kind of late and then returned our rental the next day and walked 2.5 hours (part of which was because we got lost) on the icy sidewalks home because we couldn't afford the bus after how much our weekend cost in surprise expenses.

So with all of that in mind you may be wondering where the microwaved muffins comes into the title...well we don't have ovens in our flats but we have microwaves that pretend they are ovens so I made muffins tonight and they aren't too bad :)

Until next time you may feast on these...or I will :)

Earthquakes, Foot aches and Rented cars

During the last week or so Christchurch has been quite seismically active. Last night we had a 5.1 magnitude earthquake. It was quite the ride for your senses. I woke up at 5:39 am to my bed shaking, door creaking and the faint realization the this quake was way bigger than any of the other ones we have had so far. It didn't do any damage to the city but it was really cool to feel. This site shows you all of the recent seismic activity in NZ: http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html 

In the past week I think that I walked just about every major sidewalk and several of the lesser traveled ones in CHCH. It all started with a search for a candy thermometer. You see...we want to make lemon drop hard candies and in order to do so we need a proper thermometer. We also have no interest in spending $36 on one...so one of the girls and I went to every store that sells anything remotely close to housewares or cooking supplies within about 3 miles of where we live. That search was eventually successful with the purchase of a less expensive thermometer but to be honest, we really did walk a lot. A few days later we decided that a road trip was a good idea so we walked to the visitors center (about 3 miles away) to get maps and guides of the area we planned to visit and got lost while trying to find a store to buy sleeping bags. With all of the rebuilding going on is CHCH there are lots of areas that are blocked off or just restrict all pedestrian traffic. 4 hours and roughly 12 miles later we set foot in our apartments with sleeping bags and plenty of maps.

We rented bunks in a cabin and a bright red car for the weekend andI plan to take lots of pictures so that I can share the splendor of the Moeraki boulders with you all.

L&P and lots-a-apples

This week has been little more than the start of classes and learning a bit about proper grocery shopping and cooking. I am getting a feel for how much food I need in order to last a week and I am also getting used to lots of exciting Kiwi foods. We found this little fruit mart near our apartments that sells apples and kiwi fruit for only $1 per kilo, so I stocked up. I also have this new found love for L&P which is like carbonated lemonade.
Aside from lots of grocery shopping, I have also become very acquainted with the bus system here in Christchurch. We took a bus to the coast and walked on the beach...the downside was it was getting dark and the temp was only just hovering at freezing so we were really cold. Despite that we still had a picnic at a little park before getting a bit lost on the bus routes. In the end I made it home and ended my night with crumpets and hazelnut chocolate spread....oh how sweet this country is.
I think tomorrow I will explore the exciting world  of doing laundry..yay....

A week of exploring

So my first week in NZ is over and I have done lots of fun stuff. We spent the first full day here exploring all of the earth quake damage and even felt one our selves. After a few days of paperwork and other not so fun stuff, we went to a little town called Lyttleton (no pun intended...I think). This town is built up the side of a mountain and was damaged a lot by the quakes so we did some service work for them. A couple of us had some fun hauling rubble down the street in buckets and wheelbarrows. The we were treated to fish n' chips at a little place by the harbor. After a very salty and greasy (yumm) lunch, I headed up the hillside to a woman's house that had been cracked by the quakes. The construction teams haven't had a chance to tear down her walls and rebuild them so we bogged ( you know...spackle?) them to keep the rain out of her house.  If you look closely at the little tan house with the red roof that's just above the cemetary...that's the house we helped fix.

After the adventure there we drove to the middle of the island to a tiny town called Springfield at the foot of the mountains. We stayed in a motel called Smily's. It is the place where lots of people from the crew of Narnia and Lord of The Rings have stayed and the man that owns it often finds himself driving Peter Jackson around. We got up bright and early the next day for quite an adventure. We got on a bus and drove into the mountains. You could just feel the Lord of the Rings closing in on you :). We hiked through some hills and got to see where the Maori used to sleep to keep warm. Then we went up to an area where Narnia was filmed and had coffee and cookies. Then we went back down the mountain to a farm where they gave me a yummy chocolate birthday cake and we had a huge lunch. We got to shear a sheep too. Then we went Jet boating on the river that is shown lots of times in LOTR. I wish I would have taken my camera for that. It was a boat that went really fast and skimmed on the water...kind of like a huge jet ski. It was very exciting.

The background of the blog is a picture that I took during our adventures.I climbed up to the top of huge rock and did a spin around for you all so you could get a look at what I was seeing.

So here is the scoop!

So days one and two are officially over for me. It all got off to a rocky start because my power converter was kind enough to ruin all the plugs in my room, but hopefully that will get fixed soon. I haven't seen much of the South Island but I do know that Christchurch is much worse off as a city that I expected. Today we took a walk around most of the city which was cool because they have so many pretty trees here. We started in gardens and then went downtown where the majority of the damage from the quakes is. We walked past a street that was really devastated and then walked past it again 20 min  later. In only that amount of time they had already started demolishing the buildings on that street and I got lots of pictures and a video of the action that I will put up soon.
I'll give you all more stories once the power in my room gets fixed, as I am currently running on 20% battery life in my computer.
I'll chat you soon!