Sweet As

Dunedin at sunrise

And so begins the end of a fantastic adventure...

This post is out of place, and after writing it I will be posting at least 6 more about my last few road trips and memories. So I hope that the chronological order of things does not make you too confused.  Prior to today, Brady and I went on an 8 day road trip around the south island with a day trip in Wellington, and I have loads to tell you about it, but for now and for this moment, I am going to write my farewell.

To the reader, this will be to you my first draft, but in reality this is my 5^th one.  I have so much I wish to say but don’t know how to express before my emotions get the best of me, that I cannot seem to write it all in one sitting.

I am now on the plane, listening to Florence and the Machine and admiring my last views of New Zealand.  I’ve got a good 11hours flight ahead of me, so what have I got better to do than write?

Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown

As I look down at the expanse of land and look at exactly where I had explored, I can’t but feel I am leaving too soon.  I’ve yet to make my mark in this country and there is still so much I wished to see and do, trails to walk, mountains to climb, adrenaline stunts to complete.  And yet all too soon, my time here expired and now I am on my way home.  I have made plans to return in a few years time, along with concrete plans to travel and see my friends again.  But still, I cannot help feeling as though a small part of me is being left behind, a part of me that was whole and complete and which I do not want to part from.  Even though I will be back, and I will get the opportunity to finish exploring all that NZ has to offer, it will not be the same because it is not the country that makes the adventures and the trip worth it.  It is the people you meet, the friendships made, and the people who surround you.  So here is what I have to say to them:

Thank you.

Prior to leaving for NZ I was a little anxious about what I might find here.  Although I was 100% excited to come to NZ and not at all afraid to travel to a foreign country for 6 months with complete strangers, I was worried my expectations were too high and would not be met.  I am glad to say that my experience here went above and beyond anything I could have expected.  And I owe it all to you.  You made it all worth it and memorable, and above all the best trip I had in years.

Gillespies Beach at Sunset

I was surrounded by an amazing group of neighbors and friends from all over the world, and had one of the greatest Kiwi hosts.  I met the most extraordinary people and travelled with the best friend(s) I could have asked for.  Not one minute spent in the flat, in town, or on the road was wasted, apart for the occasional lazy Sunday, but everyone needs a rest now and then. ;p

My ultimate goal in coming to NZ was to find myself again.  To discover what I wanted to accomplish in my life and what sort of person I really am.  After some of the conflicts from my past, I still have a ways to go, but I have found some answers as to what it is I want to do. As for who I am, a person changes depending on the people who surround them, as we are constantly influenced through life by our friends, family, acquaintances and situations.  You have all changed me in some way, and what I fear the most is that the version of me you knew in NZ will slowly disappear as I travel to new or old places.  But it is inevitable and is a part of growing up.

So thank you, for making me a better person, for sharing the trip of a lifetime, and for being my friend.

I will miss you all so much and hope that our paths cross again.

Until then, this is W.W.A. Rhondiggity signing out (physically) from New Zealand.

Adrenaline 2

Dear Adventurers,

By now you must think I'm mad, and I'm happy to say that you are not far off the mark!  In fact, I would say I am crazy.  You see, not two weeks after my last bungee, my fellow Adventurer W.W.A. Aotūroa and I decided we needed a break from all the stress of exams.  And thus we made our way once again to Queenstown.


Now this was my second time there, while it was Aotūroa's first (especially with bungeeing), and we decided to do the Kawarau Bridge Bungy.  This is the birthplace of bungy, and if you were crazy enough (such as me), you could get your head or your entire body dunked!  So that is what I did.  I hope you enjoy the mini video below:

The jump was 43meters (not nearly as big as the Nevis), but was so much fun I could not get over it!  God knows what the next adrenaline filled adventure will be, but I hope it will be better than both the Nevis and Kawarau Bungy!


Until next time, this is W.W.A. Rhondiggity, signing out.

Adrenaline

My dear fellow adventurers,


I must first of all sincerely apologise for not writing more often.  Since my last post, I have been on a few adventures, which I will write about and share very soon, however at this time I am going through a hard time, as well as suffering and stressing out about a little thing called exams.

So in the meantime, I have decided to write an entry about my latest adrenaline rush, and hopefully let off a little steam at the same time.  I apologise in advance if I end up writing something that is of no consequence and totally random.

Sunset in Queenstown

A few weeks after arriving in New Zealand months ago, my flatmates and I made a bucket list of things we wished to do and accomplish while we were here.  One of those things was bungee jumping.  Just over a week ago, a friend and I travelled to beautiful Queenstown to accomplish that goal.  As is common with me, I was absolutely psyched to do it, and all weekend I had to reassure my friend that it was going to be like "Pocahontas diving off the cliff."  I was absolutely excited about it!  I have always wanted to experience flying without a plane, and so I figured this would be the closest thing to it.

All the way up until we were in the suspended "shack" from which we were going to jump, I was ecstatic!  Then I found out I had to be the first to jump... O_O  I was a little more nervous now, but still confident I could do it.

But then I sat in the chair and made the mistake to look behind me.  Now, up until then I never really thought that I had a fear of vertigo, but when you are standing on the ledge of a slightly swinging suspended shack, I can tell you, vertigo hits you no matter what!  It also does not help that they expect you to dive head first, when all you can see below you is a small river and rocks... Vertigo hit so bad, I had to ask for a minute to clear my head, but instead of course I just thought about the height.  So I was slightly frozen for a time.  Finally though, I took a deep breath and did not allow my mind to think another thing, and I jumped!

It was the most exhilarating thing ever!  The men who strapped me up confirmed that it feels like flying, and my expectations were met.  The first 4 seconds of the fall were terrifying, but once I cleared my head and just enjoyed the sensation, it was the best feeling in the world!  When I "hit" the bottom of the bungee and rebounded, I was impatient to be free-falling again.  When looking at the ground, it does not seem to be coming at you very fast, and although time passed by at regular speed, for me it was as if it was slowed down.

It has been well over two years since my last downhill, and I miss it so much.  Unfortunately, I have not been training enough to simply jump back into speed racing, but I miss it dearly.  I miss the rush, the wind in my face, the adrenaline, the exhilaration to go a little faster, to take chances, the nerves and butterflies I got before every race, and the amazing feeling I got when crossing the finish line.  Bungee jumping that weekend brought all of those sensations back to me, which only made me slightly nostalgic.  But it made me realise what I really missed, and that is the constant rush of adrenaline, which I would get at least 2 to 3 times a month.

Now all I get to look forward to is sitting behind a desk to study, hit the gym, and train slalom and giant slalom.  In the summer, I'll go mountain biking, rock climbing, and hiking, and although some of the sports provide my fill of adrenaline, I only get to them part-time over the summer, on top summer classes and work.

I miss my old self.  I used to be a crazy, energetic, adventure searching gal, who would go hike straight up a rocky mountain side with her sister and no designated trail, while it was raining and thundering.

Most of all, and a potentially good reason for my current state, I used to not be in the same place for more than 2-3 weeks.  Staying in one place for so long makes me become stagnant.  I thought that I would find myself again by coming to New Zealand, but instead I found that, despite the fact I'm in a country that has so much still be explored, I have lost some of my interest.  I hate this feeling, and part of it may also be due to my stress with school, but once my exams are done, I am going to get out of here.  I am going to hit the road and just keep driving, exploring to the northern parts of New Zealand.  I will find myself again!  And I will become the fun, socializing person that I was at the beginning of the semester!

I apologise for my slight venting at the end.  Many of you have heard it before, and are probably sick and tired of hearing it so much...

I promise the next entry will be full of happy and funny adventures.

Until next time, this is W.W.A. Rhondiggity, signing out.

Off the Beaten Path

Well, it has been a few weeks since my spring break and I have found it hard to concentrate on my studies once again.  My plan to head to the mountains and train for a week did not fall through, so instead W.W.A Porangi and Aotura went on a road trip with me to Lake Tekapo, Mt. Cook, and the Catlins.  But before we hit the road, W.W.A. Porangi and I explored a lot of the surroundings of Dunedin.  Here is a bried overview:

1. we walked out to the coast on the Otago Peninsula.  After about an hour of walking, we finally saw the ocean but were no where near it.  So we decided to just walk straight until we hit it.  This led to an interesting adventure through a golf course, bushes, and finally to edge of cliffs.  All in all, it was quite fun.

2. Later that day we hung out with our our friend Lydia and played loads of S***head.  It is a card game which we are absolutely obsessed with (the rules can be found here).  After a good 2hrs of play, we decided to go see the glowworms.  These are literally tiny little worms that glow at night.  So we hopped into a car and drove out to the trail head.  For obvious reasons, we could not get a picture of these creatures.  But it was pretty amazing.  I had my head lamp on, and once we hit the end of the trail which was at a river, we stopped and I shut off my lamp only to look up and see millions of little "stars" along the walls of the river.  It was beautiful!

3.  The next day, Porangi and I decided to head back to where the glowworms were and check out Nichol's Falls.  If was a hidden gem surrounded by greenery, with a trek similar to walking in the amazon.  It was quite fun and well worth the trip. =)

4.  After that, we decided to plan out our road trip.

Firstly, I got to drive in NZ!!!  It was so fun!  And I can't tell you how much I missed driving!  It was an automatic and it was not exactly the most powerful car...  In fact, we named her "Princess Cherry" because she was bright red, and took her sweet time. ;p

The first destination was Lake Tekapo.  It was simply gorgeous and breathtaking.  W.W.A. Porangi, crazy as she is had decided that she simply had to put her feet in the water, despite the water being below freezing!  But what a hoot she can be!  After that, we explored the country side along the lake and found a camp ground.  Porangi and I sang our hearts out because we could not hold in our joy any longer, while Aotura ran about like a crazy person.

We then spent the night under the stars and saw the Milky Way!  The next morning I woke up frosted over, the sun slowly rising over the mountains and a black swan in the lake.  Porangi enjoyed chasing a couple of ducks that constantly hovered around us for food.

We then hit the road for Mt. Cook.  Once there, we headed for the Tasman glacier located behind Mt. Cook.  Once again, W.W.A. Porangi dipped her toes in the water, and this time I joined in.  We also drank from it.  It was so refreshing and cold!  But delicious non the less.  We crossed paths with some French people there too, and I think they may have thought me crazy because it was extremely windy and not all that warm, but after having run around and laid in the sun, I was rather warm, so I was walking about in a tank top, whilst everyone else were bundled up...  After that we went to the Hermitage, a restaurant, hotel, and resort with a museum about Sir Edmund Hillary and his Mt. Everest feat.

From there, we decided to make our way towards Awakino Resort to hit the slopes!  Unfortunately, once we got there, we found out that they were closed.  Why?  Well, quite simply they had no snow.  So that made it a little hard to ski.  Instead kept heading East and spent the night in Waimate.  Home of some Wallabies.  These are basically mini kangaroos.  They are in no way native to NZ, but we thought we would check them out anyway, since we weren't able to ski.

Again, this did not happen.  See, when you are camping you have this tendency to go to bed early and wake up early.  We were up at about 7:30am, and the place did not open til 9am, so we hit the road.  We went to find some penguins instead along the East coast.  Unfortunately, they are only around in the afternoon, but we did find sea lions lazing about in the sun.  We also went to see the Moeraki Boulders again, as not all of us had seen them yet.

Finally, although  our trip was meant to last 4 days but only took 3, we returned to Dunedin.  We decided that the next day we would explore further south.  So the next day we set out to see the Catlins National Park.  I don't think I have ever seen land quite so green!  We saw lots of sheep and open green fields, as well as many waterfalls.  Once back, we ended the trip with some good old fish n' chips along St. Clair's Beach.

On the last day of having our rental, we decided to wake up early to watch the sunrise over the ocean.  So we headed back to St. Clair's Beach around 7am, and then went to the Farmer's Marked before returning home.

Although this trip did not go entirely as planned, it was rather amazing!  The girls and I have concocted a Bucket List of things to do while here, and from now on each weekend we hope to scratch something off it.  A new one I just found is this...  It is going to be epic!

Until then, this is W.W.A. Rhondiggity, signing out.

Sunrise Take 2

Dear adventurers!

This past weekend I went on one incredible adventure!  Along with my fellow explorers World Wide Adventurers Porangi and Aoturoa, we pulled our behinds out of bed at 4:45am so that we could hit the trails before the sunrise.  Our goal for the day: to reach Butter's Peak before sunrise and perform some form of ritual morning dance.  Was it a success?  Well, you tell me.

We were meant to meet up with a group of explorers from the University Tramping Club, but for some reason the walk to the base of the trail took longer than expected.  So it was just the three of us.  About two thirds into the hike, we could see the sun was beginning to rise but had not crested the horizon yet.  We still had a good 20-30min to go, so what did we do?  We booked it up there.  Of course this would not have been such a problem had there not been left-over snow and ice along the trail, which made it twice as hard.

But we made it!  May I just point out how views can be three times more breathtaking when you crest over a peak?  For instance, as you look at the video below, I was climbing up the rocky side of Butter's Peak and as soon as I crested over the top, I was almost blown off the mountain by the view of the red fireball in front of me.  Don't you agree?

Once we calmed down from the excitement of the view (yes, we got quite psyched, especially WWA Porangi), we started to perform the ritual.  Now we had no clue what we were doing, but to thank the good spirits for the new day and the success of our hike, we were told by anonymous sources to climb upon one of the jutting rocks and performed a myriad of poses/ dance.  Again, the instructions were lacking in information and we had no clue what were doing.  Here are just a few photos of the best poses:

The Bird

The Cat or Panther or something...

The Swan

The Gorilla or Monkey

The Toilet Squat or Frog

The Gecko

The Warrior

Which is your favourite?  Have you heard of or recommend any other rituals or regions you wish me to explore?  Break is coming up, so depending on my already scheduled trips, I may be able to satisfy the masses.

Until then, this is W.W.A. Rhondiggity, signing out.

PS: Porangi= crazy, be insane; Aoturoa= earth, nature

Photos 2-8 courtesy of  W.W.A. Porangi.

The Odd Case

My fellow Adventurers!

What crazy adventurers have I been on!  In addition to exploring the New Zealand region, I have been spending a good deal of time exploring and investigating the people who reside in the city.  My findings thus far are that a greater part of the population consist of young adults who apparently spend most of their time in big fancy buildings either listening to their elders tell them about specific topics (more than once a week!), while also spending a good deal of time in a building they call the library, researching, writing and reading.  It is wonder they don't get sick of it!

Oh wait, yes, yes they do!  In fact to get away from all of it, and I guess as some sort of reward, they appear to really enjoy the night life and going to the "watering hole" to enjoy friends company.  I believe they also hope to find a mate there, but that will require further investigation.  However I have found their method of sizing up a person as a potential partner rather intriguing.  You see, the people will walk around town in their little groups (usually gender specified).  The males will go "hang" by the bar, while the ladies enjoy moving their bodies to the rhythm of music.  This is called dancing, or more modernly "booty shaking."  If the way they move intrigues a male, then he will approach her from behind and dance along with her.

This is rather different to what many people of a certain age are used to.  Back in the day, it was more common for the male to either approach from the front, or to simply ask a female to dance in the first place, with his attraction being her personality and of course her looks.  Today, this is not the case.  The male will just strut up from behind and, whether or not the female approves or likes the male, he will get right up close and dance along with her.

If the female was not intending to attract anyone, which is highly unlikely, or is not mutually attracted to the male, she will either trick him into thinking she is pulling a new move and spin away and get in the middle of her pack, where the rest of the females will keep her from the male.  Or depending on the personality, she will be abrupt, stop dancing, and walk away.  Either method ends up being awkward and unpleasant.

As I said before, this territory is new for me and I have yet to get more solid evidence and proof.  I hope to investigate this further within the next week or so, but for now my investigation of the day life of a kiwi is yet to be completed.

Until then, this is W.W.A. Rhondiggity, signing out.

An All Blacks night

My fellow adventures!!

My first blog regarding my extended weekend will start with Friday, on which day I went to the All Blacks versus Fiji game.

Before meeting up with my friends to head to the game, I went to meet some other friends who told me I absolutely could no go another day without trying a local ice-cream shop.  In addition to this, they had made plans to get their ears pierced.  I was more than happy to join them and had told them that I too had wanted (once upon a time) to get my cartilage pierced.

Well, it would appear I had miscommunicated my intentions for once I joined them, one told me that another was rather nervous about it and she had told her to not worry about because I was going to do it along with her.  This meant that I was not allowed to back out.  I was a little dumbfounded, but at the same time excited to finally get it done.  I will not lie, it has been a few years since I got a piercing and i was definitely nervous.

The thing about piercings that frighten me is the sound of the gun.  It always surprises me when it goes off and I always fear that I will move.  This gun however was a very silent one as it was all manual.  No spring or anything!  So when it was done, I felt rather stupid for being nervous (in addition to there being no pain).  So now I have yet another piercing!  Along with my chain, it is hardly noticeable whatsoever! ;)

After that, we treated ourselves to the ice-cream.  This place sure knows how to do business!  If you chose a single size but two flavors, you get two heaping scoops for the price of one!  And the flavors are delicious!  A definite must if you ever visit Dunedin!  It is called Rob Roy's Dairy and is on the corner of Albany St. and George St.

So after that little adventure, I went to join my All Blacks fan friends to head to the game!  I showed up at their door with one minute to go before the taxi arrived to find most of them with their faces painted.  Feeling left out (especially since no one had told me this was happening) I grabbed the pot of black paint, took a small scoop of it, spread it on my hands and made an impression of my hand across my face to make up for it.  Many loved it and I think it turned out rather well (even though I look more to be dirty around the mouth than purposefully painted).

So we all loaded up in the vans and got to the stadium with plenty of time before the game.  And what a game it was!  First we got to see the famous haka which was performed after the Fiji team did their traditional dance, and then the All Blacks just pummeled the Fiji team to win by a whopping 60-14 points!  Just incredibly fun and entertaining to watch with some amazing points scored by both teams!  A really fun night!  Someday I certainly do hope to see another game, but for this trip it will be the one and only, especially since the All Blacks don't play again in the South Island during the World Cup.

Once we returned home, I chilled out and ate dinner with my good friend Morgan before I headed to my room to pack for my unexpectedly long weekend full of adventure!  But that story will be saved for another time!

Until then, this is W.W.A. Rhondiggity, signing out.