Easter Break P3

Further continuing my story from the second part, the next day we woke up and headed out to Wharariki Beach right at the northern tip of the southern island. It’s about an hour drive beyond Takaka where we’d been based, and then after that you need to walk about 20 minutes, but it’s well worth the walk for the beach, which many people claim to be one of the best beaches in all of New Zealand. It was an absolutely perfect day for the beach, nary a cloud in the sky. Enough words, let’s see some pics…

We even got to see some seals, one of whom was surfing the wave!

We did some dune jumping, which is always good fun, even if not the best thing for the dunes (we didn’t do it that much really, anyways).

After spending a few hours at Wharariki beach that morning, we left and headed off to the sea cliffs at Pohara. We did some pretty relaxed climbs, as we were all feeling quite relaxed and not in the mood for anything really trying. I lead two climbs, a 15 (5.8) and a 16 (5.9). Nothing whatsoever challenging, but a great amount of fun none the less. After that, my buddy wanted to jump on a juggy overhanging 22 (5.11a) called Flexestentialism, and I soon thereafter changed my mind about not doing anything hard that day.  After he got up there, I asked him to leave the rope for me to top rope, as I didn’t think I could fully lead it, being fairly tired from the previous day. Well, I managed to do it in one go, which I was quite impressed with. Anyways, the first picture is me starting a lead on one of the easy routes, while the second one is myself on Flexestentialism.

Climbing until it was basically dark again, we headed back to the Hang Dog campground right next to Paynes Ford. We were originally planning on going off to Nelson Lakes and camping there, but ended up staying at Hang Dog mainly due to the time, so we set our tent back up again.

After spending the night, we woke up early, and got on our way back to Chch, a ~6hour drive that needed to get done that day as we needed to get our rental car back while the place was still open.

There you have it, folks. The final installment of my Easter break journey. Waaay too late, but better late than never! I’ll try to post more and more frequently, but I seemingly always see that. I’ll believe it myself when I see it. Until then, may you all have happy adventures!

Easter Break P2

So, continuing my story from the first part, we finished up at Abel Tasman and Marahau, and headed north into the Golden Bay. It’s only 50km to Takaka, but it takes about 1h to drive it. In short, the road is really ridiculous and twisty and curvy and what not. After going over the Takaka Hill (the crazy section of road), we made our way to the Hang Dog Climber’s Campground. The Hangdog is one of the coolest places I’ve been to in a good while, and a great little hippie hang out. We got there towards the evening, set up camp, ate a little bit, and then hung out with a bunch of friends that we were meeting up with there.

The next day, the climbing began! The Hangdog is conveniently located about 2 minutes walk away from Paynes Ford, one of, if not the best location for some sport climbing in the south island. It’s all limestone, and great quality limestone at that. Sweet as. Did some leading that day, as well as some top roping, and it was a good time for all. Don’t have too many pics from the climbing that day, but here we go.

The first three are from this super fun and pumpy 22 (.11a) that I top roped (as I didn’t think I could lead it, and the first bolt was rather high) called Go With The Flow. As I said, it was super fun, really pumpy, very technical, and had an awesome tufa on it.

Easter Break P1

Howdy folks, sorry for the lack of updates (really this time, I am), it’s just that the past three weeks have been my mid term holidays, and before that I had a work filled week and a half, preceded by the Easter Holidays. So, in order to catch up, I’m going to start back with the Easter Holidays, and go at it from there. The TR from the Easter Trip will be broken up in a few sections to basically get some stuff up as soon as possible. So, without any further ado, here we go…

The Easter Holidays were on March 21-25, and this being a fairly substantial chunk of time, I decided that a road trip was in order. Not having a car (more on that another time), I rented out some tiny piece of shit car with a buddy of mine, and early on the 21st, we were off, heading away towards Abel Tasman National Park. Before even leaving Chch, we picked up a German hitchhiker who was heading towards Hanmer Springs. It was interesting to talk with him, we found out that he was basically doing a round the world trip, and that such trips are fairly common for Germans to be doing. We stopped in Hanmer and get lunch there after dropping this guy off, and then proceeded on our way towards Abel Tas.

The driving is really nice, and quite pleasant, especially as there aren’t that many cars out there on the roads. The road its self goes over Lewis Pass, and travels through some great country with some gorgeous freestone rivers running through it.

Dank Sauce.

Howdy howdy, sorry for the lack of updates, its just that I’ve been away a lot recently having fun and what not. In any event, here we go. Last weekend, I finally made it out to Castle Hill with the climbing club here at UC. We left Saturday morning, and pretty much had an incredible incredible wonderful amazing oh-my-god-this-is-awesome good time. The following is my trip report along with some pictures, some of which (notably most of the ones of myself) were taken by my buddy Dan, who’s a great photographer. Check out some of his other stuff on his Flickr page, it’s quite good. I’ll also note that this post utilises a great amount of climbing lingo, so if you’re not a climber, don’t worry about all the technicalities…

The first day, we went out to Quantum Field, a large area in the main section of Castle Hill to wrestle some pebbles out there. The place is really amazing, with just so many rocks everywhere. It’s beyond your wildest dreams.

Ilam Gardens

So last week, as I mentioned here, I went to check out the Ilam Gardens. To get into the gardens, it’s literally a two minute walk from my flat, so I decided that it had to be checked out. Well, here are some pics from my exploration around the gardens. Hope you enjoy!

The West Is Wet

This past weekend, instead of sitting around Chch, a couple friends and myself included decided to go on a road trip to Fox Glacier. We managed to rent a car (it’s wonderful not having to be 25 to rent a car!), and early friday morning we were off. To give you an idea of the route we took (there was only one option really), check it out on Google Maps. The reason I say that there was only one option is because well, there really is only one road leading from Chch to the west coast directly. It’s a narrow and windy road, so the ~400km that one would think should take ~4h (as per the 100km/h limit on open roads) took closer to 6h to drive. I will say though that driving on the left side of the road wasn’t anywhere near as bad as one might think, a bit tricky for the first few minutes, but after that, really not that bad.

The first wickedly cool thing that we saw in our drive was the magical Castle Hill. For those of you not aware, Castle Hill is a world wide destination for bouldering with it’s pristine limestone boulders, being often considered one of the best places in the world to boulder. I’m sure that I’ll be making my way out there at least a few times this semester.

The Epic Surf Day

Here are a few photos from the second day that I spent at the beach. This was a different beach than the first (that being Sumner beach), New Brighton beach. New Brighton also happens to be where I spent the afternoon surfing and loving it, as well. So, without further ado, photos:

First Day At The Beach

Here are a few photos from the first time I went to the beach here in NZ. It’s from a beach called Sumner beach, very close to Chch. It’s about a 30m bus ride from the uni, so not too bad really. Enough words.  If you have any questions, please ask…