Sporadic Decisions and Ice Volcano Expedition!

I thought I would share with you one of the best experiences of my life: hopping on a random bus and going to Tongariro National Park!

My friend Colleen and I have been desperate to get out of Wellington. We've walked the streets, seen the sights, and sometimes it just feels like we could be in any city and we often forget we are in New Zealand.  When I pictured going to New Zealand I completely forgot I actually have a full load of work to do for school.  So most of my days are spent in my little room reading and taking notes.

Luckily, Colleen is just like me and can't be in one place too long without going crazy. So one night I brought my laptop in her room and decided to look at cheap bus tickets that would take us ANYWHERE outside of Wellington. I came across tickets to Tongariro National Park for REALLLY CHEAP but there was also a timer on the side of the webpage, and if I didn't buy the tickets within 5 minutes, the prices would go up.

So what does one do with the possibility of cheap bus tickets and only 5 minutes? Google Image it. So I googled Tongariro and got these amazing pictures of volcanos and neon-turquise natural lakes on top of them.  It looked absolutely incredible and the neon pools jogged my memory and I remembered this is one of the places I wanted to go. SO based on an impulse, I bought the tickets to leave friday morning for a 7 hour bus ride and return again Sunday with no real plan.

But then reality hit.

Looking past Google Images to a more thorough Google search, I saw that this hike was an 8-hour hike. Nooot that big of a deal, I was actually really excited about it.  But Colleen and I kept laughing and saying "what did we get ourselves into!"

Even more brilliant, it took us about 20 minutes to remember that it is WINTER! Google Tongariro Alpine Crossing (the amazing looking volcanic hike to the neon lakes- called the "Emerald Lakes"), and then Google Tongariro Alpine Crossing in the winter and it is a COMPLETELY different story let me tell ya.

On all the websites we looked at, there were warnings that Tongariro Alpine Crossing is an extremely vigorous hike in the winter and you need to be very physically fit (thanking myself for sucking up and paying for a gym membership at the beginning of my trip).  Also you need special gear including, but not limited to, an ice pick and crampons.

I don't know about you, but I don't keep ice picks or crampons casually on hand.

So after having a long discussion about what the hell crampons are, we read further to discover there is a high risk of avalanches in winter! Fantastic!

In the end, we booked a tour guide since being crushed by avalanches didn't seem appealing, we don't own ice picks, and we still don't know what the hell crampons are.

Within a couple days of booking our impulsive trip, we were off! 7 Hours later, we arrived here:

Yes this real!

This is right outside the Hostel we stayed at. The hostel was $32 a night, and although we had to room with 4 other people, the cheap price was well worth it. (It also had a cafe, bar, restaurant, communal kitchen and jacuzzis). 

Close up of one of the volcanoes. *This is Mt. Doom for all you Lord of the Rings fans!* 

Saturday was the day of our big adventure. We got up at 6:00am, bought eggs and pancake mix at a local gas station, made them in the communal kitchen, and by 6:45am our tour guides picked us up and drove us to the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing! 

This is what it looked like from the bottom, before we started climbing

Once there we were handed ice picks, crampons, and then we took off at a brisk pace toward, argumentally, the most beautiful place on Earth.

But of course, every rose has its thorns (or every volcano has its eruptions) and we were greeted by these cheery signs at the start of our walk: 

Nothing like poison and avalanche risks for some pre-8 hour hike encouragement! 

Right from the beginning the hike was incredible.  The terrain was rough, as most of the ground is covered in old lava flows from previous eruptions. At the beginning there was little patches of snow here and there but mainly just jagged rocks and dead-looking plants. 

Up in the clouds! 

Here is Mt. Doom again, although it's not so doom-y up close. 

The sky was incredible...Where the clouds meet the volcanoes! 

This was the first major milestone in the trip. It was at the top of what they call the "Devil's Staircase". I think it's called that because it is quite steep and a vigorous climb, but I was so entranced with everything around me I hardly noticed. 

Soon after, those little patches of snow/ice grew bigger and bigger and it was time for...........

........Crampons!!! They're giant spikes you attach to the bottom of your hiking boots to get a good grip on ice and snow. Thank God for crampons, is all I have to say. I would be tumbling down the volcanoes without them! 

This is showing you how steep it was to climb up. We were told not to take pictures because we had to concentrate hard on walking, since we could fall and die at any second. But I made sure to snap some pics anyway, so if I were to fall to my death at least you all would have pictures!! (It's OKAY Mom, I made sure I was steady on the slope before taking any pictures.)

Some more beautiful sights! 

This was taken almost at the top of the volcanoes we were on, its called the red crater. Because we were at such a high altitude (over 6,500 feet!) it was FREEZING but luckily, the rocks were really really warm because of the volcano underneath us. 

Colleen and I on top of the volcano where we ate lunch! 

After lunch we began our journey back down to the ground.  How might you get down a steep volcano covered in ice, you may ask? 

By sliding down it of course! I took this picture right before i sat down and slid going CRAZY fast down the volcano. 

Down the other side of the volcano! 

Oh yes, I forgot to mention I saw a volcano ERUPT! (just steam, not lava or pyroclastic material or anything THAT cool).

Oh, hey! Just another casual day in front of a volcanic eruption. 

I guess that is why they have this sign?

This crazy trip is what began my fascination of mountains. There's something very humbling about being surrounded by giant, unpredicable structures. It's so easy to get caught up in thinking your problems or even day to day happenings are a big deal. As someone who suffers anxiety pretty severely and frequently, even small things consume me in worry and fear. Being surrounded by giant, incredible mountains is very comforting. Because when you're going through life, you feel like the center of the world. Everything that happens to you feels like such a big deal. But when you see that giant mountain in front of you, you realize you're actually so small and everything you're dealing with isn't as big of a deal. You're just a tiny human amongst these massive, jagged mountains and it's finally put into perspective that you have very little control over life, and that's oddly comforting. 

You are going to feel fear, you're going to feel loneliness and the weight of a lot of different emotions, but no amount of fear or negativity really changes any situation. You will get into fights, you will fail some assignments...volcanoes might explode...but it's important to realize it's incredibly hard to control many aspects of life. As someone who is obsessed with trying to control every situation, I was extremely humbled being surrounded by the most fierce nature I've ever seen. When surrounded by mountains like these, all you can do is just look around and all you can think about is how amazing things are, just as they are. Drama, work, school...all that is nothing when you're standing on top of an active volcano. 

Overall, it was an incredible day. Absolutely breathtaking. Every part of this journey made me realize how incredibly lucky I am to have this experience. Trekking around active volcanoes is something I never imagined myself doing, and is certainly the most incredible thing I have done in my life.  

Oh, and I still can hardly move from how sore I am!

Shakey Start To Wellington Living

Well, I don't know what has consumed your Sunday (or what will, since I'm in the future), but what I have been doing is hiding under my table and shaking REALLY hard!

No, I haven't gone mad or paranoid while in the mere 2 weeks I've been here, but today I experienced over 30 earthquakes and some have been quite big.

It started Friday when I was in class, and all of a sudden there was a deep rumbling, my pen started rolling down my desk and my vision went blurry as the room shook around me. My teacher just crossed his arms and said, "Well, welcome to Wellington!" and everyone just sat there doing NOTHING as I was coming to the realization there was an earthquake. An EARTHQUAKE! Now even though Wellington has around 5 earthquakes a day, they are hardly ever felt. This one particular earthquake lasted around 30 terrifying seconds and reached a 5.7 magnitude.  I think I gave away the fact I was the only foreigner in the class when I started looking around like mad, gaping at everyone around me in disbelief when everyone else just continued to sit there and stare into space with no expression on their faces.

When I got back to my flat though, people were a little freaked out.  Apparently it was a lot bigger and longer than most are used to.  We got several aftershocks after that but they really were barely felt.  Saturday I felt no shaking so I figured it was a one time deal and that was that. I started joking to some friends about me not making it back in 1 piece and how these could be my last words....I spoke too soon.

Sunday morning (this morning) I was so rudely shooken awake by yet another earthquake.  But this time it was less thrilling and more terrifying.  I'm on the very top floor of my very tall apartment complex so the violent shaking which led me under my desk at 5:00am lasted around 45 seconds but the building continued to sway for another 5 minutes.  At first I was terrified to feel the skyscaper I'm at the top of dramatically swaying back and forth, but they actually are designed to sway. The swaying prevents the building from crumpling down to earth. There were quite a few aftershocks and I honestly could not tell at times if the shaking was nerves or the earth.  Now, New Zealand experiences quite a few earthquakes and everyone seems fine, so I wasn't nervous until the locals started freaking out and saying how bad this was.

Now, today I also went on a Lord of the Rings tour of some of the filming locations around Wellington! (I'll save all that for another blog post). The point being, I felt my first earthquake on ground level in Isengard.  It was just Colleen, our tour guide and I so when we heard the rumbling we all just fell silent and then were literally knocked off our feet by the size of this earthquake.  The tour guide started running and screaming for us to follow him to the middle of the field away from trees.  The shaking was so hard I could not even walk straight.  This was a 6.9 magnitude earthquake. To put it in perspective, the devastating Japan earthquake a few years back was a 9.1 magnitude and was the largest one us humans have seen. So this is a big deal.

This happened at the end of the tour, and when I got back to my apartment everything had fallen off the walls and shelves and was shattered on the ground.  Also, the building apparently had been evacuated and people were crying and university emergency responders were making everyone feel better with cookies.  I ate a loooot of cookies.

As I was writing this, there have been 2 more aftershocks.  My flatmates and I all have an emergency bag just in case we have to evacuate so I am prepared and doing all I can.  Rumor has it there is a chance these earthquakes are leading up to one huge one, however this is been dubbed very unlikely and hopefully they should stop by tomorrow.  There has been some damage including the drywall peeling apart (I didn't know earthquakes could do that!), broken glass everywhere, terrible messes from stuff falling off shelves and walls, oh and a store SUNK INTO THE GROUND (!) 5 centimeters. I must say, even though this is NOT a typical thing to happen in Wellington, it has been quite the experience.

Well, Wellington rocks in more than just one way, ey?

Differences and Observations

The cost of living in New Zealand is crazy.

I got a couple snacks and some meal type stuff at the grocery store and it came to $113.  I get the same grocery list in the US for about $35. 

Also…you pay for everything here.  I mean EVERYTHING! I have to pay for electrical in my dorm and WiFi (which is limited).  Yes, I realize paying for electrical is a normal life pain, but not typically when you are in college! You have to pay to get “free wifi” at public places.  You pay for each bag the bagger puts your groceries in at the store.  You pay $4 for the cheapest bottle of water I have found so far.  I’m honestly waiting for the day when you have to pay per word you speak. 

It’s quite frustrating and discouraging actually. They don’t pay for school here, so when they pay for electrical and wifi and to go to the school gym and such it’s not THAT big of a deal.  But I’m still paying RWU tuition (which includes electrical, wifi, gym, food, HEAT, classes, clubs so I don’t have to pay separate) even though I’m not there.  So paying all this on top of that is crazy. 

They also eat a TON. It was actually funny.  When we arrived at orientation we got breakfast, “morning tea “(another meal), lunch, “afternoon tea” (another meal), dinner, and then supper.  This is not a joke. This is how they eat here.  Needless to say, I’m joining the gym tomorrow.

Also, classes are of 300 kids.  At RWU, my class size is around 20 students.  So I will be in a lecture with 300 other students.  I am a little nervous for this.  Also, they don’t really have assignments during the semester.  Everything is really focused on the exam at the end of the semester.  I am not the best test taker so I guess we will see how that goes. 

They are also VERY relaxed about everything here.  Colleen and I were freaking out about not being registered for ANY classes for Monday and everyone at the school was like oh no, don’t worry about it! And Monday is tomorrow (as I’m writing this) and I’m still not registered for classes.  So!

They call food or “tea time” Kai.

They say things like “sweet as” or “cheap as” for things that are really sweet or really cheap.  It sounds like they never finish their sentences but it’s ok.

They also hardly pronounce vowels.  The accent is taking a little while to get used to but I’m learning fast.  Also I thought this was interesting.  American accents aren’t really noticed by New Zealanders (so I’m told by them) because American culture is such a big part of their culture through music and movies and TV shows and such.  They don’t really notice an accent in us at all. 

The Windy City!

I arrived safely to Wellington! (as you already know because I’m typing this).  I got to my flat on Thursday (so Wednesday for you East-Coasters).  No one was here until Sunday.  I’m rooming with 4 other people (Charolette, Leigh, Olivia and Rosie) AND I’m on the very top floor of the apartments and this is my AWESOME view:

Colleen (the other girl from my group attending Massey Wellington) is 2 floors below me so were very close.  We actually missed Massey’s international student orientation because we were at the other orientation…so we came in late and awkward and all the other international students already knew each other so we felt a little left out and confused.  We also were the only ones who had NO class schedule so we had to spend extra time figuring that out.  After that we started talking to the other international kids.  We met some from the US, 2 German girls, 1 from Hong Kong, a guy from Finland, a guy from Norway and some other cool countries.

That night I went to a liquor store and DIDN’T buy my first legal drink because I forgot my passport.  So I paid and Colleen had to buy the wine I wanted for me.  Wine here is incredibly cheap.  $8 for the bottle I got (a small water bottle costs $5).  We then went back to our apartments and went to a gathering of other international students and eventually left to meet up with the Victoria University friends we made at orientation.  We went to a few bars, met some cool people and had a blast.  New Zealanders are very friendly and kind.  We met a ton of people who were all fun and not creepy what so ever. 

My flatmates started arriving early Sunday morning.  So far I’ve met Charlotte, Leigh, and Olivia.  There's one other girl whose flight was delayed because it is WINDY here.  They seem nice so I’m excited to get past the awkward stage and hopefully become friends.

Orientation!

(click on pictures below for a bigger view)

I arrived at Auckland Airport an hour earlier than expected and since it’s their winter it was pitch black out for the first 3 hours I was there! But I got to see the sun rise as we drove to the Whangaparaoa peninsula.  I was expecting to be freezing cold but it really was not bad temperature wise!

So this is where I was staying the first 4 days and 3 nights into my adventure:

I was lucky because I was hardly jetlagged. I was dead tired by 7:00pm but otherwise through the day I was wide awake. The orientation crew purposely kept us up and filled our days with activities so we didn’t just sleep all day. Our days started at 8:00am and the first night they let us go to bed at 8:00pm, the second night around 9, and the last night we got to bed around 10pm. I along with almost everyone else tended to wake up at 5am. Although it was 1pm back on East Coast time so why 5:00am was the popular time to wake up I don’t know. 

The first day we went on a nice wander (hike) around. What’s awesome there is that there were no paths…we could literally wander wherever. There were gates but they served no purpose other than landmarks to know where you were.  They had steps so people can hop them.  There were no boundaries and there was something incredibly exhilarating running about gorgeous rolling hills.

That night we went to hot pools and it was INCREDIBLE! The pools were fed by natural thermal mineral water and the water actually felt different on my skin than plain water. It felt very nice after being jetlagged and sore from being cramped for around 24 hours on a plane. My new friends and I also met a group of New Zealand/Scottish guys who were incredibly entertaining to talk to. They were doing pranks for “points” and whoever had the most would win. Two of my friends and I joined in and tied for 2^nd place!

Day 2 of orientation began be doing some ROGAINE (Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Nature & Exercise).  We got into groups and had a huge scavenger hunt all over the peninsula.  We had only 45 minutes and we had to use a map to find landmarks and then hidden by them were little wooden blocks with symbols on them.  We had to draw the symbol for a certain amount of points and whomever had the most points won.  The ones further away were worth more so thank god my group was athletic because we were sprinting up steep hills and jumping fences and it got pretty intense.  We came in 2^nd place by only 10 points so my group did AWESOME! This was one of my favorite things we did.

We then went kayaking in the ocean.  This was awesome to sum it up the best I can.  The water is crystal clear blue and actually really warm.  Like warmer than the Atlantic Ocean even though it’s winter there and very close to Antarctica.  I was in shorts and a light windbreaker and was soaked head to toe and still very warm! We played a game of Ultimate Frisbee but in kayaks…my team blew everyone else away with some awesome moves and ended up winning. 

I also went mountain boarding…its pretty much skateboarding down mountains.  Through this experience I learned I cannot mountain board to save my precious life. I was the single only person to never get the hang of it.

We also went into Auckland and explored the city! This turned into me and 3 of my new found friends sitting in a random cellphone store for over an hour because we had wifi for the first time in 4 days! I got to talk to my mom and Connor, which was just so nice.  Seeing them type a response to me for the first time made me cry. It's funny how when I was isolated in the rolling hills of this new foreign country I was able to forget all the worry of being alone across the world from everything I knew. When I was finally able to have contact with that side of the world I knew and left, it made me severely homesick. Wifi here is hard to come by anyway.  You normally have to go into a café, buy something, and then get a code that lasts about an hour and then you buy something else to get the updated code.   When we finally realized how lame we were being crying over WiFi, we left and I was really home sick and sad but it didn’t take long until I forgot all that and was excited again.  My friend and I went up into the Skytower and I took these sweet pictures!

Some girls I met from the group

Sky Tower from below

Auckland from above (and a rainbow)!

Aaaand we ended up holding up the bus that was to take us away from Auckland and so Marilyn, Anna, and I had to sing a song to the bus.  It was quite funny. But then we drove to the Marae! There was a whole ceremony that I will explain briefly…If you’re bored reading this skip down this whole explanation!

Ok so women are in the front, men follow and after one of the Maori women makes a high pitched call we walk into the meeting house (taking our shoes off first).  Then the Maori sing a song and talk, and then it was the visitor’s turn to talk (us) and this was followed by the hongi, where we all lined up and pressed noses with each of the Maori people.  The hongi (pressing of the noses) is a traditional Maori greeting.  I was quite uncomfortable at first but it was a cool experience. 

This is where we slept that night……

We also went on a night walk. They have a traditional Maori village set up where the Maori people dressed up in traditional clothing and went through the process of what would happen in the old days when visiters came. They did the Haka—a traditional war cry where they dance intensely and buldge their eyes out and stick out their tongue. The visitors must not flinch while this happens. This is what it looked like….

Then they sang us some songs and it was all fun!

The next day I climbed a volcano.

volcanic crater 

This same day I flew to Wellington.  OH and I never mentioned.  There is only one other girl from the group attending Massey Wellington.  And she is awesome so I’m so glad she was (and is) with me! Most everyone either stayed in Auckland or went to Victoria University in Wellington.  Same city, different school. 

And with that, Orientation was over!