Kepler Track

I've just returned from Spring Break, and I have quite a lot to share with you! I rented a car with my friends Emma, Sammy and Matt, and we set off early on the morning of August 25th toward Te Anau. Te Anau is a beautiful, small Fiordland town situated around a lake, and is home to the Kepler New Zealand Great Walk. These Great Walks are incredibly well-maintained trails around the country that are wildly popular with kiwis and tourists alike in season; in the winter, though, we were pretty much the only ones crazy enough to be out on the trail! We were almost deterred by the weather (it was pouring on Saturday), but we awoke to a fine day on Sunday and decided to set out anyway. This turned out to be a wonderful decision - we saw three rainbows on Sunday and had great weather all four days (with one small exception, but I'll talk about that later!).

Our first day began with a quiet walk through a forest along the lake, and turned into a gradual path up the mountain. Honestly, tramping uphill is not my favorite, and I struggled with it (especially with my heavy pack), but I was able to take small rest breaks, and we eventually made it up above the brushline. Our efforts were rewarded with spectacular views of Lake Te Anau and the surrounding mountains! We soon made it to Luxmore Hut (which we had to ourselves for the night), where we quickly dropped off our packs and then went to check out the Luxmore Caves nearby. That night, we made a delicious meal of pasta and lentils, and pulled mattresses into the main room to sleep by the fire. It was quite cozy.

the forest trail

view from the trail above the brushline

Luxmore Hut - our home for the first night

Luxmore Caves - it was pitch black inside, and we had to climb over and around the stream and many rock formations inside!

We awoke the next morning to a surprise - a fine coating of snow on the mountain around us! As we were packing up, three runners passed through the hut. They were on a "casual training run" up to Mt. Luxmore peak, according to their entry in the hut logbook. What exactly were the training for?! (Because running up a mountain seems like a hard enough task in itself!)

 

We soon set off on the trail, which continued uphill into deeper snow. We decided to climb up to Mt. Luxmore summit, which was only a small detour off the track. Around that time it began to snow again, and when combined with the mountain wind, it was quite chilly up there, to say the least! We wanted to keep moving in order to stay warm, so we headed to the first emergency shelter along the path to eat lunch. By the time we were done, the weather had cleared up a bit, and we were able to continue on the path to the second hut. There we met another group of Otago students, who were hiking the trail in the opposite direction (I must say, I'm glad we had our hard uphill day at the beginning and got it over with!). Once again, we spent a cozy night in the hut. I slept very well - tramping is incredibly tiring!

Mt Luxmore summit (1472 m)

our snowy trail through the clouds

our descent back down into the snowy forest

We began the third day by checking out the waterfall near Iris Burn Hut, and then tramped to the next hut along the trail, which was right on the edge of the lake. Emma, Matt and Sammy took a refreshing dip while I soaked my sore feet in the cold water. We had that hut to ourselves, and once again slept in the main room next to the fire. The third and fourth days were both mostly forest scenery, with a bit of wetlands.

the waterfall by Iris Burn Hut

our buddy Oscar, a friendly bird who helped us eat lunch on the trail one day

the lakefront by Moturau Hut

wetlands scenery

The track was incredible, and offered spectacular views of many different kinds of scenery. My only complaint for the trip is about my interactions with the sandflies. They are the worst. They are small, fast black flies that come in huge swarms, and their bites draw blood and turn into itchy scabs. If you think mosquitoes are bad, then you do not want to encounter sandflies. My hands, ankles and neck are still covered in bites even a week later! I guess a place this stunningly beautiful can't be perfect, or else everyone would live there!

So this concludes the first half of my Spring Break. I still have a lot to tell, but I'll save that for a later post!

Classes

So, I know I'm studying abroad, but so far I've neglected to mention much about this "studying" part. It is difficult to concentrate in such a beautiful place, and I usually try to spend my weekends on more interesting activities. However, I feel confident that I can give you an accurate depiction of my classes now that they're about half way over. (Can you believe that?! Fun sure does time when you're having a good fly...)

The "Link," which joins the student union and the library together

In general, I've just been trying to adjust to the environment of this large university. Whereas Bowdoin has 1700 students, Otago has about 20,000 undergrads! It is almost impossible to find a spot in the main library in the afternoon, and all of my classes are huge (ranging from 40 to 200 students - at Bowdoin 40 would be one of the biggest classes on campus). This university also uses TAs for tutorial / seminar and grading purposes. (And about the grading - there is a huge discrepancy between the basic level of class material and the extreme harshness of the grading. I'm beginning to welcome the fact that my grades will only transfer back to Bowdoin as pass/fail!) I'm so happy with my decision to come here because of the amazing experiences for travel and learning about a new location and culture, but the actual classes here are making me appreciate my choice of a small, liberal arts college at home!

As I've mentioned before, I'm taking Genetics, Abnormal Psychology, NZ Politics, and an anthropology class on reproduction. My Genetics lecture is fairly dry, but the labs are interesting. We are currently breeding our own fruit fly lines to look for Mendelian inheritance patterns; it results in flies everywhere in the lab, but it is quite fun! Abnormal Psychology is quite the opposite - the lecture is engaging, but the "lab" bores me to tears every week! The "lab," which I put in quotes for good reason, most often involves us watching videos of patient cases and taking notes on them. We occasionally do computer behavioral testing on ourselves, but that only lasts about 5 minutes and leads to an hour long discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the methodology. Needless to say, Wednesday nights from 7 to 9 pm are not my favorite part of each week.

NZ Politics is fairly interesting, especially when considered as a comparison to American politics. However, although my professor assured us that the course requires absolutely no starting knowledge of the NZ political system (check on that criterion for me), she often assumes that we know basic things and skips over simple explanations. And I'm sure the kiwis do know these basics simply by growing up here, but I tend to get a bit lost at some points!

And finally, we come to anthropology. It is by far my favorite class here. I only have class once a week for a two hour block - we usually have a lecture for the first hour and watch a video in the second hour. The course focuses on realizing the great diversity of practices and ideologies associated with reproductive issues around the world, including birth control, abortion, family size, adoption, trafficking, prostitution, fertility, reproductive technologies, family lineages, and many other topics. I truly enjoy doing the readings for this class each week, despite the fact that they are sometimes rather heavy and can be emotionally upsetting. Having the opportunity to take this specialized class makes up for the weaknesses in my other courses!

what I call "the beehive" in the library - a 4-story wall of study cubicles

So next week is Spring Break, and I'll be gone until September 3rd. I will be out of touch for that time - I'm going further south (yay - even colder!) to Fiordland and Milford Sound, and doing some three- or four-day tramps and a sunrise kayaking trip. I'm sure I'll have a ton of great stories and pictures for you when I return!

Hockey and MMA

I know I haven't written in a while - my workload has picked up significantly, so I've been spending a good amount of time in the library. This past weekend I did get a chance to watch my friend Jono's field hockey final. (Here, when you say "hockey," people assume you mean "field hockey." You'd have to specify "ice hockey" if you want to talk about that. And yes, men play field hockey here!) Unfortunately his team lost, but they put up in a good effort to finish with a score of 5-2.

As you may remember, I've been taking kickboxing classes twice a week here. One of my instructors told us about a fight night on Saturday, and I was keen to see some actual action now that I've learned some of the moves myself. So I went to the MMA / Muay Thai tournament! It was an interesting crowd - lots of burly, bearded men with young, tattooed, short-skirted women. (And then me...) It was an entertaining night for sure! There were 12 bouts - 11 amateur fights and 1 professional bout to finish off the night. My instructor fought, but unfortunately lost by TKO in the second round. He put up quite a fight, though; I was very impressed. All in all, I got to see some nice punches, a few bloody noses, and the eclectic South Dunedin crowd. It certainly was an unusual night for me!

New Zealand Film Festival

This Saturday morning started off with another rainy trip to the farmers' market. Today I got some (cheap!) apples, broccoli, garlic, smoked brie cheese, and apricot pineapple jam. It was a wet and successful outing! Some friends and I had planned to go hiking, but we were deterred by the rain and instead decided to check out one of the New Zealand International Film Festival movies.

The festival, which began at the end of July and goes through mid-August, shows several movies a day at various theatres around town. It includes festival entries from around the world in various categories, including animation, New Zealand cinema, documentaries, foreign language films, and some films classified by the festival program as "incredibly strange." Today, I went to see In Darkness at a theatre in the outer Octagon (the Octagon is the main town center, and, unsurprisingly, is eight-sided). In Darkness is a Polish Holocaust film based on an actual Polish sewer inspector, Leopold Socha, who helped hide refugee Jews in the sewers under Lvov during World War II. It was an incredibly emotional, brilliantly acted film - I highly recommend it (just know that you need to mentally prepare yourself first). I may try to see several more films; I'm especially interested to see the documentaries Bully and Chasing Ice, and perhaps a few more foreign films!

Rialto theatre in Dunedin

Bushball

This weekend I went on a trip with the Otago University Tramping Club to the beautiful Mount Aspiring National Park. On Friday afternoon, we all crammed into 12-passenger vans with our huge tramping backpacks - it was a fairly cozy trip. We made several stops at tiny bars in various towns along the way. At one of the pubs, there was a very patient cat sitting on a barstool that put up with about twenty of us crowding around and petting it. That is something I doubt you would see in a bar at home!

We arrived at the park around midnight. Everyone was fairly tired from the drive, so we quickly set up some tent flies in the carpark and climbed into our sleeping bags. It was a cold night, but I was fairly comfortable in my three layers of long underwear. We were woken up in the morning by the shrill sounds of a bugle and the chilly nip of frost. Since it was dark when we arrived, I hadn't really been able to see our surroundings, so I was amazed when I stood up and was greeted by this view:

After some breakfast, we packed up and headed into they valley of the park. The trail went through a farm, and there were cows and sheep dotting the mountains around us. It was quite a beautiful and relaxing trek; we stopped several times to rest, have some snacks, and throw a frisbee around. About 60 people went on the trip, so we had quite a large group hiking through the mountains.

our group heading out on the trail

the river that we followed to the hut - the water was so blue!

we crossed several bridges like this on a hike later in the day

We arrived at the hut in the middle of the afternoon. The hut was very nice - it had two large bunkrooms and a common room with many tables and room to set up our camp stoves. (Although I must admit, anything would have been a step up from sleeping outside in the gravel carpark the night before.) After resting briefly and claiming a spot for my sleeping bag, I headed out on a short tramp around the hut with my friends Maddie and Ryan. The trail took us through a beautiful forest and out to Pearl Flat, where there was a beautiful view of some glaciers and Mount Aspiring, for which the park is named.

Mt. Aspiring is straight ahead - it was so tall that most of it was hidden in the clouds!

The "ball in the bush" part of Bushball occurred on Saturday night. This year's theme was "Into the Wild," and everyone got dolled-up in their leopard and zebra print dresses and suits (yes, one of the guys had a full leopard suit - pants and all). We had a lovely dinner of spicy pumpkin soup, pasta with marinara sauce, and chocolate caramel bars. We then pushed all the tables to the side and had a lively dance party! Although most people crashed and went to bed fairly early after the day of hiking, it was still a fun night.

Sunday morning, we had a large breakfast of pancakes, eggs, hash browns, toast, and bacon. I helped crack and cook over one hundred eggs, and I got a special chocolate pancake for helping out! We cleaned the hut and then headed out. I don't have any pictures of the hike back because it was raining pretty heavily, and my camera was strapped safely inside my rain-covered bag. We didn't stop on Sunday at all, and made it back to the carpark in less than two hours. After changing into some dry clothes, we packed up and drove home. I slept most of the way back (surprise, surprise!). This weekend was quite an experience - I never thought I'd pack heels in my tramping backpack, but they were put to good use at Bushball! I'm hopeful another tramping trip will happen soon!

(courtesy of Maddie Smith)

(courtesy of Maddie Smith)

OUSA

OUSA, or the Otago University Students' Association, holds classes each semester in everything from aerial silk aerobics to ukelele, cheese making to beginners' Russian. Today, I began salsa dancing and kickboxing classes!

The salsa class was fun - we just learned some basic steps and listened to sexy salsa music! We switched partners about once a minute, so I got to dance with almost everyone in the class. It is a fun group. We learned the simple meringue step with some spin moves, and then the basic salsa step. One, two, three, rest, five, six, seven, rest. There are more girls than guys in the class, so I got some experience dancing the male part and leading! (I'm not sure if that will ever come in handy, but oh well!)

...And kickboxing. It is going to kick my butt. The course is an hour and a half twice a week; it is the perfect way to get back into shape! We started with a rigorous warmup of skipping rope, push ups, sit ups, squats, lunges, and shuttle run relays - but we were reminded to "pace ourselves, as we still had an hour and fifteen minutes left!" Today we just practiced the proper stance and some basic punches - the jab, the cross, and the hook. We even got to pair up and practice with boxing gloves and pads at the end! I must say, it is quite fun (and a great stress reliever) to punch something! I am so excited about this class - you all better watch out, because I am going to be so tough by the end of it! Ha!

Botanic Gardens

"my" entrance to the Gardens

 My apartment backs up onto the Dunedin Botanic Gardens, but until today, I had never been in the gardens except to walk to the grocery store on the other side. I decided to explore a bit, and though it is winter here and nothing is in bloom, it was beautiful! The garden has sections for plants from different geographic locations - the Mediterranean, South Africa, local New Zealand plants, and everything in between. I'm sure it is going to be quite spectacular when it all blooms in the spring!

the Leith, for which my street is named

part of the South African exhibit