No excuses for my lack of updates... I fell off the face of the planet perhaps? Anywho, I suppose the silence may partly be due to lack of the intense excitement of my past months in New Zealand. I fell pretty sick and declined some tramping trips. No worries, I plan to catch up. I’m still following my plan to “Go somewhere every weekend” rule. If I haven’t been tramping, I’ve been climbing.
My friend James is a pretty avid climber. He’s quite a character. Bright curly ginga hair that he’s recently shaved off, leaving just the beard. He is dyslexic, so functionally illiterate. No wonder he didn’t really like typical school. Instead he took courses in outdoor education and became a guide... and a climber. So he takes me climbing. After two relatively unsuccessful efforts due to my own illness and the, excuse me, shitty weather, we finally had a lovely day of climbing this most recent Saturday (the 30th of October). My first climb after I James did the lead two weeks prior nearly gave me a heart attack. I'm not sure why, but I clung to the wall as if my life depended on it. I never fell off of it, but when I got down I actually felt noxious. Thank god I redeemed myself on Saturday. It was a relief for my ego. We were out there from 11 am to 7 pm. I stopped climbing around 4. Anyways, it was nice.
New Zealand is really funky with its drinking culture. Exhibit A: Tea Party. The student association puts on a massive party with popular bands (like Kids of 88 and the Naked and Famous, look 'em up , they're good) ON the last day of school. It starts at 9 am and you're not allowed to leave and come back, which sucks. The most popular game students play is 6 before 6 where you drink 6 standards before 6 am. hmm...
To continue with the theme of alcohol for breakfast, Mark's flat joined their neighbors for a champagne breakfast, i.e. an excuse to have a barbecue at 9 o'clock in the morning. That was pretty nice actually and it was right before Band Together, the concert put on by Christchurch for their poor earthquake victims on October 23rd. I rode out to the concert for a couple of hours, just in time to catch Minuit (look her up, pretty awesome too) and Bob Parker, mayor of Chch, playing guitar with the Bats.
The next day I hitched out to the Kelly Range, on the west side of Arthur's Pass. The hike up was pretty demanding, a two hour climb straight up and then about a 40 minute alpine traverse. The view would have been great if not for the fog which made it quite a hassle to find the trail markers past the hut. Sooo, instead of the planned two night stay in Carrol Hut, I hit the road the next day after playing around the river at the base of the range for a bit. Not a bad experience all in all, but a little disappointing.
To keep active, I went out to Sumner to Barnett park with Tom because I saw this interesting looking trail there that passed through a valley of caves. It was pretty cool, a small trail led to the side to visit the Paradise caves which reveal an intense climbing area with no vertical faces. Quickdraws hang on the underbelly of the cave glistening like Christmas decorations. James informed me that he's never been able to do any of these climbs. Anywho, Tom and I took a different way down, with the main trail in sight. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that some of the hill that we were on would happen to be soil... loose soil. Tom was first to go down as I'm always a bit nervous. He slipped and caught himself. I saw this and knew to be careful. Unfortunately (once more), the solid rock I thought I stepped on was another mound of loose soil and I slipped... a little bit further. With my right leg hovering over a bit of a 5 ft drop and my hands dug as deep as I could get them in soil, I yelled for Tom to save me. He climbed back up right quick, grabbed my pants and yanked me over. Yay Tom!
ps - I'm advancing fast on sock number two. number one fits, but looks as funky as a first attempt at a sock would look.
