Mount Cargill

My fellow adventurers!

What a day I had yesterday!  My first tramping trip in New Zealand! Here are the stats:

Walked 46.18 km which is about 26.89 miles
Took us 6 hrs (maybe a little more but we hung out and explored at the top)
Crawled during 1hr of the hike (we got ambitious and headed through wild bushes)
Nearly got blown off the mountain 2x
Was awed by the views: 100x
Feet: sore
Back: sore
Knees: sore

Worth it?  Absolutely!!  Not only did I have a great time with some new friends, but just look at this view!!

New Zealand is amazing!  And I have only been able to explore the one town so far.  can you imagine the rest??

By the time we got to the summit, we thought we might stay for the sunset, however as only 1 out of 5 of us brought a headlamp, we decided it best to head back down the mountain with natural light, rather falling off a cliff in the dark.

At the summit though, I got my first aerial view of Dunedin (below and above).  Although the campus is small, the town is BIG.  And I mean it spreads all over to the point I was unable to get all of it in one shot (it continues past both sides of these photos).  There is so much to see that I fear 5 months will not be enough to discover all there is here.  And that is just Dunedin!  I will have to make sacrifices so that i explore the rest of the country too, and not just this one part.

While at the summit we explored some other peaks and interesting rock formations, such as the Organ pipes:

And Butter's Peak:

Just before sunset really hit and we headed down the mountain though, I got to view an amazing pre-sunset.  It made me wish we could stay for the finale, but like I said, we did not have enough head lamps to prevent our fellow travelers from falling off a cliff or the hillside.

For you entertainment, I made a very brief video of our crawling through the bushes when we wanted to reach the very top of the Organ Pipes.  It is by far not my best video, but I still hope you enjoy it!!

My assumptions of the people who climbed this regularly are that they were short, with windproof skin and hair, and that they survived on the vegetation, as we did not see any animals except for a few birds, and that they probably resided underground or in caves.

This is the first week of studies, and tomorrow is going to be my busiest day yet.  Unfortunately, it is also the day where I hope to meet up again with a few of the 'Tetrises' I met on the train.  Apparently there will be quite the festivities going on along one of the streets starting at 9am tomorrow.  Lucky for me, I will be in classes until 6pm.  I would be most excited if I see any odd behavior at any odd times (such as in class) to report back to you.

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