After returning from the North Island, I had one night in Christchurch and left again in the morning for the rest of break. I did three hikes in the mountains of the South Island, as well as visit Milford Sound, which is a large fjord famous for being exceptionally pretty. I departed Christchurch with friends Chris, Elizabeth, and Kelley in Kelley and Elizabeth's car. We departed in the morning, and arrived at Mt. Cook
National Park - where we were to do our first hike - by mid afternoon. We did a one night trip to Mueller hut, which is an alpine hut situated between the Sealy and Sefton ranges, with a great view out towards Mt. Cook. Mt. Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand, and the whole area around it is glaciated year round - making it a stunning place to visit. The hike up to Mueller hut from the parking lot was steep, but
only took about 4 hours. We arrived just after dark, and set up our tents beneath the hut. (The hut costs $35 a night, whereas camping around it is free) It was a clear night and we saw alot of stars, and throughout the night we could hear the rumble of small avalanches tumbling down the high peaks around us. We woke up about an hour before sunrise, and made the short hike up to the nearby summit of Mt. Oliver,
where we watched the sun come up. It was truly a magical place.

The hike back down was uneventful, and we quickly got back on the road heading further south to Queenstown, where we were to meet Jess and Aaron for some ackpacking. We made it there, spent the night in a park parking lot, and met up with Jess and Aaron who were with our friends Tim and Nick, who were headed back to Christchurch. Our plan was to hike the 3-day Routeburn track, but when we finally got down to planning it we realized it was going to be difficult to arrange, because the
trail does not make a circuit. After a while, Jess and Aaron volunteered to drop us off at the trailhead, after which they would go to Mt. Cook for a few days and come pick us up at the other end, rather than do the backpack with us. We decided that this was a good option, despite not having their company, and that is what we did. The
Routeburn track follows a river valley, thne cuts up over an alpine saddle, and decsends back to the road on the other side, relatively close to the west coast. The first day of the trip was up the Routeburn river valley, and we had bright blue clear skies. On the second day, however, the clouds rolled in and spoiled most of our views of the alpine region. It rained all night and finally let up the morning of
the third day. To liven our spirits, we took a morning swim in the ice cold Lake Mackenzie, which was freezing but well worth it. It was cloudy for the rest of the walk out to the road, where we waited for Jess and Aaron to scoop us up.

The end of the Routeburn Track is about 45 minutes from Milford Sound, which is a glacial fjord on the west coast of the island. It is well known as a beautiful place, and has consequently become a huge tourist attraction. We made the short drive there in order to spend a day kayaking in the fjord before heading even farther south for our last backpacking trip. For our kayaking it was cloudy and raining all day, which was both good and bad for the experience. The bad side was that we saw almost none of the jagged peaks that rise steeply out of the water, save for their faint sillouettes beyond the cloud-cover. The good side however was the hundreds of tiny waterfalls which only appear during or just after rain, which fall off of the steep sides of the
fjord. The end result was an extremely strange and almost mystical beauty, and the kayaking was well worth it.

We now had six people, one small car, and we needed to get two hours south to the lakeside town of Te Anau to do the Kepler Track, which is a three-day backpack through the Kepler mountains. Jess and Chris volunteered to hitchhike, and the other four of us drove. In Te Anau, we met up with Sam, which made our group 7 strong. Seven is alot of people to go backpacking together, but we managed fine. The Kepler
track is essentially a loop, so getting from the finish back to the start was not a problem. At this point we were all a bit bummed about the weather, which had now been consistently cloudy for several days. This continued to be the case throughout the first day of the hike, but on the second day we made a steep ascent and ended up above the clouds. This was absolutely stunning. Looking west, there were the dark jagged peaks of so-called Fjordland puncturing the sheet-like cloud cover as
far as the eye could see. After the ascent, the rest of the day was a walk along the ridge, and the views stayed with us all day. A pretty rainbow followed us for much of this section. The third day was relatively uninteresting, with a decsent back down to through the forest to the lakeside, and then back on to Te Anau.

From Te Anau, we went to the lakeside town of Wanaka to relax for a few days. The thers drove back to Christchurch, while Jess and I waited another day and flew back rom Queenstown. Break had come to an end.

These days I'm back in the swing of things at the university. Lectures end in about hree weeks, so due dates for my final assignments are starting to appear on the horizon. Nevertheless, I've still been finding time to travel. Last weekend I went to the southern coastal region of the island, and visited some of the unique forest andscape down there, including the southern tip of the island (which is only about halfway between the equator and the south pole). On the drive back towards Christchurch, we decided to take the scenic route through some very rural farmland, and ended up on a muddy tire-track road heading up into the mountains. The van (owned by Tim, Jess, and Aaron) had a bit of trouble and we had to push it several times to get it through the mud. we eventually had to turn around and find the main road again, because the van just couldn't make it. This coming weekend I am planning on going on another trip with the philosophy department, this time to Westport, a coal mining town on the west coast. I'm also hoping to take a weekend bike trip to the west coast via Arthur's Pass with two Germans I met through the tramping club. And finally, my brother Tim will be coming to visit in mid-June, which is very exciting. We will probably do some sort of campervan circuit around the south island.

Christchurch is very pretty these days, with autumn leaves all over the ground and fluttering through the air. I'm reading Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence again, which I found in the university library. All and all life is going well here. I'm feeling pretty settled and comfortable in the society now, and am beginning to make more of an effort to get outside the little bubble of Americans I am living in at Ilam Village. There are less than two months before I leave New Zealand, which is bittersweet.

Thats all for now,

Len

So I'll continue with the story of my April break:

After spending the night in Taupo, I was a bit in limbo. I had planned on doing the Tongariro Crossing hike that day, and then continuing on to the Coromandel Peninsula which is much farther North. To come back from Coromandel to do the hike would be very inconvenient, so I waited around town for most of the day just waiting for the weather report to see if I could do the Crossing the next day. I got a ride from Ellen, a girl from the Netherlands that I had met at the hostel, to Huka Falls, a set of powerful falls that dump into Lake Taupo from the north. After learning that the weather looked bad again the next day, I caught the bus I had intended to take anyways north to Rotorua, where I spent the night. At the hostel that night, I met a German named Arthur who had been touring around New Zealand on a cheap department-store bike with about three times the gear he needed.

In the morning, I caught a publicly-run bus from Rotorua to the coastal city of Tauranga, where I immediately caught a bus to the town of Coromandel via the old gold-mining town of Thames. From Coromandel I had planned on hitchhiking to Mahamudra, the Buddhist retreat center I was headed towards. While in town getting groceries and other things, I randomly began talking to some people I had seen on the bus, and learned that they were headed to Mahamudra to work as well. They were two sisters Floor and Juri and their mother Meriam, from the Netherlands. They were catching a ride to Mahamudra from Elaine, the manager of Mahamudra, and I tagged along with them.

At this point it was Thursday afternoon, and I stayed at Mahamudra until Monday afternoon. Normally, Mahamudra is a center where people can come to go on solitary retreats that are undergone in Tibetan Buddhist practice. Retreaters are provided with a private cabin and have groceries left on their doorstep each week. Some of these retreats might be for a specific purpose, for example one common retreat involves repeating 10,000 mantras to oneself. One of the retreaters was on a 7 year retreat. The weekend I was there, there was also a course being taught by a monk from Australia on Tantra. This meant that there were about 10 additional people staying at the center, and that there was plenty to do. I worked for a total of maybe 2 hours a day preparing breakfast and supper, doing dishes, and doing general cleanup around the place. In exchange for this I got a bed to sleep on and and the use of their kitchen to cook my food. My off-time I spent reading (from their spiritually-inspired library), talking with the guests and other people working, sitting in on the guided meditations and teachings and wandering around the place. If I had to describe the experience with one word, I'd call it relaxing. It was nice to after bustling about to finally have a consistent place to lay my head and not have to worry about how I was going to get around or what I was going to eat. While I Mahamudra, I took a few bicycle rides to the nearby town of Colville, and took a day hike up a nearby hill with Sam, who was a French guy taking a year off before heading to the University of Edinburgh. The picture to the right is from the top. One night, we all went to a local barn to join in a community jam-session. The area around Mahamudra was a big hippie destination in the 70's, and many agricultural communes still exist in the area. As a consequence, there is a strong community feel and everything in the town is run as a cooperative. At the jam session, everyone in attendance was able to join in to make music as a group. By the end of the night, I had played guitar, bass, bongos, piano, xylophone, dijeridoo, and sang.

On Monday, I got a lift from a woman who had been at Mahamudra for the course all the way back to Taupo to do the Tongariro Crossing. She was driving straight across the North Island, and by chance overheard me talking about going to Taupo and offered me the ride. The next day I did the hike, in cloudy weather. The Tongariro Crossing is basically a hike through the many craters of Mt. Tongariro. The clouds prevented any real views from the mountain, and also prevented me from being able to summit the neighboring Mt. Ngarahoe, which was Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings. The hike was really interesting nevertheless, and definitely worth it. The picture to the left is me at the so-called Emerald Lakes, about half-way through the trip.

After doing the Tongariro Crossing, I took a bus to Turangi, and hitchhiked to Taupo. I spent the night there, and started out early trying to hitchhike back north. I wanted to get back up to the Coromandel peninsula because I had booked a bus ticket from there to Auckland, where I had to be by Wednesday for my plane flight back to Christchurch. I made it as far as Tauranga, which was a bit less than halfway, but could not for the life of me catch a ride out of Tauranga. I began counting the cars that passed, and after passing 300 I gave up. I had the number of my flatmate Moana's parents, who lived in Tauranga, so I figured I'd give that a try. I rang them up (as they say here), and they said they would be happy to have me spend the night. Moana's parents were funny and interesting; her father was an Anglican priest, musician, and whiskey connoisseur. When he performs weddings, he always asks for a bottle of Scotch in lieu of payment. He made me taste a few whiskeys that he had collected this way before going to sleep.

In the morning, I took a bus to Auckland. I spent a few hours wandering around and eating lunch, and then it was time for my flight, which was fairly uneventful. This brings me to a good stopping point. We are now about halfway through my April adventures, the rest of which will include a lot of backpacking on the South Island. After I get through all of that, I'll leave some updates about life back at the university!

Wow, its been quite a while since I've made time to update this. Alot is happened, but I'll just overview the important parts.

The car that we had bought in march abruptly died about a week later, while returning from the west coast over Arthur's Pass. I wasn't there, but the cam belt snapped and all of the cams became misaligned. It would have costed more to fix than the car was worth, so it got left at a garage to be scrapped for parts. I havn't had too much trouble getting around without a car since, relying on a combination of friends' cars, hitchhiking, and using the bus lines around New Zealand.

We had basically all of April off from class at the university, so I took this opportunity to get around and see some more of New Zealand. All of the exchange students were in the same situation - wanting to pack as much in as possible - so it was funny to see everyone flocking from the international student residence halls as soon as classes ended. For the first part of break, I headed to the northern part of the South Island with Aaron from UMD, and my friends Jess and Tim. (from Iowa and California respectively). Tim's got a old Toyota Hiace van, dubbed "big blue", which has a couch as a back seat. We decorated it with fabric from the secondhand store and headed out to see some beautiful countryside. Our first stop was Kaikoura, which is about 3 hours north of Christchurch. There we spent the night at a free campground, and woke up to see a range of snowy peaks pressed up against the coast. We went to a swimming hole, which was freezing, and got back on the road again. We spent the next afternoon in Renwick, which is famous for being one of the biggest wine producing regions in New Zealand. There we rented bikes and went wine tasting at a few wineries. We moved on to Nelson on the northern coast of the South Island. There we went to a cool easter market, and camped out by the sea. We met some really interesting Israeli guys, who had been living on kibbutzes there but moved to NZ to work. We sat around drinking tea and talking to them for quite a while.

From the Nelson area, I broke off from Tim, Aaron and Jess to head up to the North Island to stay at a Buddhist retreat center and do a hike that I had intended on doing for a while. I did one day of the coastal Abel Tasman track, which is basically a flat hike along the beach. After this I took a bus back to Nelson and hitchhiked to Picton, where the ferry departs for the North Island. I got a ride from two Austrian guys on a gap year before university, and then from a woman who lived in Wellington (the capital, on the North Island) and had been visiting a friend. On the ferry, I met up with my friend Sam, who was traveling with a few of his friends from home who had come to visit. I had planned on getting a ride with him about halfway up the North Island. The ferry drops off in Wellington, where I stayed with my friend Julia (from orientation at the beginning of the semester). Sam, his friends and I departed north in the morning. We had all planned on doing the Tongariro Crossing the next day, which is a long one-day hike through the many craters of the volcanoe Mt. Tongariro. Togariro is one of three large volcanoes in the central part of the island, which are sacred to the Maori (indigenous people of NZ). While about halfway through the drive, we stopped at an information center where we learned that the Tongariro Crossing would be impossible the next day due to bad weather. Sam and his friends decided that they would stay the night where we were since there was no longer any hurry to keep going. A bit frustrated that my plans had become so shifted, I decided that I wanted to keep going north, and perhaps make it to the retreat center earlier than I had planned. I said by to Sam and the others, and started hitchhiking. My first ride took city of Palmerston North, about one hour from where I had started. The driver was a convinced but thoughtful creationist, and after he learned I was studying philosophy we talked the whole ride about evolution, creationism, and whether there is such thing as truth. It was actually a pretty fascinating conversation, and when he dropped me off I had plenty to think about. From Palmerston North I caught a ride from a pretty uninteresting guy to Bulls, which is a bit of a crap-hole town just before what is called the "desert-road", which crosses through a dry, scrubby, and completely uncivilized section of the country. I waited in Bulls for a while, and finally got a ride from a truck driver in a big freight truck through the desert road to Taupo, where I spent the night. This guy was pretty interesting too. He was driving all the way up the North Island from Wellington to Auckland, and his friend in another truck was doing the same route. On and off throughout the ride they would shout jokingly at each other over the CB radio, talking about music, other truck drivers, or whatever was on their mind. It was an interesting glimpse into the life of a truck driver - where you have to stay awake throughout the night navigating boring roads, get a little bit of sleep, and then do it again. I waited for him to have dinner and smoke a few cigarettes, and didn't get to Taupo until about 1am, where I spent the night in a hostel.

Well, that's about all the typing I can tolerate for now so I'm giving up. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through break so far, so expect some more stories soon about the Buddhist retreat center, and backpacking about on the South Island.

Ahoy! Once again, I've got loads of news to report (a Kiwi would say, "I've got heaps to report"). I started classes, bought a car and a bike, joined some clubs, and finally made it out to the Southern Alps, the big mountains of New Zealand. Let's jump right in!

After adjusting my schedule a good bit, I decided on four courses to take: a classical mechanics physics course, a contemporary political philosophy course, a philosophy course on logic and computability, and a geography course on global climate change. The physics course is quite interesting in my view, and the lecturer is very eccentric and bright. He often gets out of breath in class, and waves his stick around a lot trying to get us to visualize what he is talking about. It is a small class, with about 20 or so students, and I'm the only American in it as far as I know. The political philosophy course is about the same size, and it focuses on philosophical issues of social justice. We are talking about defining justice, justifying redistribution of wealth, and looking at various theories like libertarianism, marxism, liberalism, utilitarianism, and so on. The professor looks a bit like Austin Powers, and wears the same wacky pants every lecture. The course is cross-listed as a political science course, and most of the students are politics majors. Both of those courses are 300 level, which is the equivalent of 400 level in the US. My other two courses are 100 level, which means that they are really easy. The logic class has been pretty slow starting, but by the end of the semester it looks like we're going to be talking about some really interesting stuff. The geography class has been quite cool. We've been talking about the carbon cycle (how trees, the ocean, and the atmosphere absorb the carbon that is produced by human activity) as well as local issues of environmental change in New Zealand. Today we had a field trip up to the Banks Peninsula, which is a volcanic region just South of Christchurch.

As I said before, I got a car! I am sharing it with three others: Aaron (from UMD), and Kelley and Jess, who are also from the US and came through the same program. The car is a stick shift, so I've been learning how to drive a manual and drive on the left side of the road simultaneously. So far it has been pretty straightforward. The car cost just $550 New Zealand, which comes out to about $100 US for each of us. Its a diesel engine, and we are going to ascertain some diesel, which is both cheaper and less harmful for the environment. The picture to the left is of Jess and Kelley in front of the car, which we have named Monroe.

Since getting a bike, I've been able to explore alot more of Christchurch and the surrounding areas. It has also helped me get used to driving on the left-side of the road, because bikes are required to stay on the road in the cities. Biking is really encouraged here, so there are bike lanes on most of the larger roads in the city. The city is also very flat, which makes getting around very easy. Today I biked up to the Port Hills, which border the city and lead into the Banks Peninsula. I road along the ridge, and spotted the quaint little port town of Lyttelton and decided I had to go down there and grab a coffee. I locked my bike to a fence up top, and scrambled down the small mountain to Lyttelton and bummed around for a while. I decided I was too lazy to climb back up, and so took the bus home. The bus from Lyttelton is really cool, because it takes a tunnel through the mountain. My bike is currently locked up on top of a mountain, so tomorrow I'll go back and retrieve it before classes.

I've found some cool student organizations at the university here. One of them rides down into the downtown area of Christchurch every morning, collects unused food from posh cafes, and takes it all to the City Mission, where it is eaten by the homeless and needy of Christchurch. Its a bit of a myth that New Zealand has no poor, they just aren't that visible. I've now down this once, and plan to do it each Wednesday. I've also found a yoga and meditation club, which I attended last week. Its not quite as cool as the meditation club at UMD (they don't have an awesome monk leading the meditations), but the people seem very cool, and it's very laid back. Another club is the "kakariki" club, which is the Maori word for "green". They do a broad range of environmental activities, including maintaining a community garden on campus. One can volunteer to help out in the garden, and in exchange get a share of fresh vegetables from the harvest. I haven't had a chance to volunteer yet, but I've checked out the garden and spoken with the members. Finally, there's the tramping club (tramping means backpacking). I went to the first meeting for this club, and there were over 100 people there. Its mostly international students, who want to see the rugged side of New Zealand while they are here. A few of my flat mates went on a trip with the club this weekend, and had a blast.

This weekend, I went out to Arthur's Pass National Park and did a 2 day solo hiking trip. Alot of people were going to the Wildfood's festival out on the West Coast, which is centered upon eating worms and other strange foods - mostly animals. As a vegetarian, I wasn't too interested in this, so I did the hike instead. The co-owners of the car (Aaron, Kelley, and Jess), were all headed out there, so I had them drop me off in the mountains along the way. I climbed Avalanche Peak, which has great views of the surrounding peaks. The first photo is of Avanlanche Peak's neigbor Mt. Rolleston, from the summit. After summiting, I dropped down the other side of the mountain to a hut for the night. Most of the descent was along a big rock slide, which made me quite nervous. It took forever, but I finally made it all the way down to the hut. The second photo is of this. The hut was a primitive little structure, and housed 10 people for the night. It was full, and the people staying were from all over. There was myself, three other Americans, three Czech's, and four Kiwis. On the second day, the hike was along two sections of river, and I ran into two of the Kiwis and we hiked the last section together. They were two men in their 60's, and after we had been talking for a while, they asked how I was getting back to Christchurch. I told them I was probably just going to take the bus, two which they promptly offered me a lift. I accepted the offer, because the bus was $25. The third photo is of them as we were finishing the hike. The hike was not a loop, so we finished about 8km down the road from where they had left their car. In exchange for the free ride, I hitched back to Arthur's Pass Village, picked up there car while they and the other Americans waited at the end of the trail, and brought the car back to them. Their car was an automatic, so it was quite easy. One of the men, Tony, used to work in the geography department at the University of Canterbury, where I am going, and is now a sculptor. The other was retired. Surprisingly, on the two hour ride back to Christchurch, we never made it to American politics, which is rare with the Kiwis.

Well, thats about all I can recall at the moment, but I'll have more updates soon!

Hello! How is everyone? Well if you're not going to talk, I'll just continue with the story! After spending the night at our friend Bridget's place in Auckland, we booked an overnight bus South and spent the day wandering around the city. We went up Sky Tower, which is a somewhat obnoxious needle-like tower in the center of the Auckland skyline. They've got a revolving restaurant that rotates 360 degrees every hour, and we had lunch up there. It actually took some getting used to, and after eating we were ready to stop rotating. We walked around some neat shops and caught our bus in the evening.

The next day and night we spent in the city of Palmerston North, which a few hours from the Southern tip of the North island. There we stayed with our friend Marcus from orientation, who was studying there. The highlight of this stop was the town legend, "the naked pie guy". In NZ, a pie isn't generally a dessert dish, but a smaller pastry filled with meat or vegetables that you eat as a meal or a snack. We went into his shop, where an elderly man was operating the register just wearing a pair of shorts. Lauren asked him if he actually got naked, to which the man simply dropped his shorts. This was the source of much laughter while we ate our pies.

From Palmerston North we went to Wellington, which is the capital of New Zealand, and is the closest point to the South Island on the North Island. We waited forever for a bus to the university, where our friends (from orientation) April and Julia were going to school for the semester. We passed the New Zealand Parliament building, dubbed "the beehive". It really does look something like a beehive, but I suppose thats also some sort of crack on the politicians, who everyone makes fun of here (nothing new there) . We had a relaxing evening with Julia and April, during which we watched the extended version of the Lord of The Rings III over quesadillas and wine. By the way, there is tons of Asian food here, but not much Mexican. Thai and Chinese are especially big, due to the large amount of immigration from these countries.

From Wellington, we took the three hour Ferry across Cook Straight to Picton, which is near the North tip of the South Island. The ferry was really cool. It was a giant cruise ship, and one could wander around, go outside, or even visit a movie theater. Approaching the South Island, dolphins were all around the boat. We docked, and caught a bus for the 6 hour trip to Christchurch. The first thing I noticed looking out the bus window was that the South Island seemed a lot dryer than the North. While the North was typically rolling green hills, here I saw a lot of long brown grass. There were also a lot more sheep. For those who haven't heard, there are something like 10 times as many sheep as there are humans in New Zealand.

We finally made it to Christchurch, and checked into our new home of Ilam Village flats, just off campus at the University of Canterbury. Everyone gets their own room, and six flat mates share a kitchen and bathroom. In my flat are three Americans and three Kiwis, three guys and three girls. About half of the people in Ilam Village are Americans. This makes meeting new people easy, but a lot of the Americans are hanging out together in big groups, which makes it difficult to make friends with people from New Zealand or elsewhere. There are also alot of students from Canada, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and China living here. The RA's have been hosting a bunch of events to encourage people to get to know each other. Some of them have been pretty lame (for example "speed-meeting"), but people are getting to know each other on their own anyways.

Well, I think I'm about ready to quit typing again. Next time I'll talk some more about Christchurch, as well as some of the things I've done around town and in the area. Classes start the day after tomorrow, so that should be quite interesting. Bye!

Kia Ora,

Hey everyone! I'm starting this blog to document my travels and studies in the "land of the long white cloud" - New Zealand. I've been in the country for about two weeks now and there's already tons to tell about. I've got a bunch more pictures, which you can see at http://picasaweb.google.com/ltgoff . I'll embed a few of the important ones for if you are feeling lazy. Basically for this first entry is summarize what I've been up to since landing and offer some of my thoughts and impressions of it all. OK, sweet.

So I landed into New Zealand in Auckland, which is the largest and most populated city in the country. New Zealand consists of two main islands, which go by the ingenious names of "the North Island" and "the South Island". Auckland is in the North Island. I came to New Zealand through a program, and my first four days I spent with a group of 12 other Americans as an orientation program. I was to be picked up at the Auckland airport by our two guides: Sara and Aaron, who were Kiwi and American, respectively. They were not there when I came through customs and "biosecurity", so my first adventure was to figure out how to use a New Zealand payphone. I had no coins, so I had to carry all of my bags into this tiny little shop and buy some tic-tacs to get change. Finally I got in touch with Sara, and they said they were just a bit late. I waited outside and was picked up by the group about 20 minutes later. We had this nice bus that was big enough for about 3 times as many people as we had. I met the group and we had a two hour or so ride to the small city of Rotorua, which is towards the center of the island.

Rotorua is a very geologically active place with lots of geysers, and as a consequence clouds of steam float about and a sulpherous smell permeates the place. It smells sorta like the whole place just farted, but I actually grew to like the scent. We checked into our hotel, which was very nice. The next three days we spent in the Rotorua area, getting a taste of some mild New Zealand extreme sports. Amoung the things we did were swing from a giant swing, go luging down a mountain, white-water rafting, and "black-water" rafting, which is through a cave. We also went to a traditional Maori "Hangi", which consists of a meal and a demonstration of Maori music and dancing. The Maori are the indegenous people of New Zealand, who migrated to the country about a thousand years ago from other Polynesian islands. The British arrived about 250 years ago, and colonized the country. The country is still occupied by both ethnicities. The British emerged with political and economic dominance, and the Maori are in a sense somewhat of a lower-class. More on that later however.

After Rotorua, we headed back to Auckland. We stopped at a McDonalds, and this is probably the first time I've eaten in a McDonalds in a few years. Its quite a bit different than the ones in the states - and the food is actually a little better - but I still hate to see them all over the place. Particularly in the cities, there are alot of American fast food franchises in New zealand: Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Dunkin Donuts - just to name a few. It makes me sad. Anyways, in Auckland we stayed in Auckland Central Backpackers, which is a massive budjet backpackers hostel. They do not clean the sheets, and the bar in the basement goes all night and can be heard from at least the 3rd floor. In Auckland we wandered around and went to the beach, and ended our orientation program with an evening cruise in the harbor. The group got along very well and we all got pretty close in just four days. Unfortunately, we are all spread across the country. Five of us (including the three that came from UMD) are at the university (they call it just "uni" here) in the city of Christchurch. We have stuck together because we're good friends now, but are trying not to let it get in the way of meeting Kiwis and people from around the world. Nobody came all the way to New Zealand just to hang out with a bunch of Americans.

After orientation ended, the three of us from Maryland decided to travel up to the Bay of Islands in the Northern part of the North Island before going down to Christchurch, which is in the South Island. The group was me, Aaron Frank, and Lauren Nielson - who all work at the ORC. The Bay of Islands is a beautiful blue bay filled with hundreds of little islands, as the name might suggest. The bus ride up there took most of an afternoon, and the first night we just cooked some dinner and spent the night at a hostel in the town of Paihia. We all seemed to like the idea of paddling out to one of the islands and camping for the night, so in the morning we went to a Kayak rental shop to inquire about taking one overnight. The man working there told us that it was too windy to kayak that day, but that he knew of a great 6 hour hike at Cape Brett. They call hiking "tramping" here, so I might slip in and out of using the word "hike". To get to the trailhead, we had to first cross the Bay to the town of Russell, and then find a way up 45 minutes of windy road to the Maori willage of Rawhiti. By the time we made it to Russell, it was late, so we spent the night there at a hostel. It was really more of a homestay, and the owner Janet was very nice and gave us suggestions about our hike. She recommeded that we hitch a ride to Rawhiti rather than charter a van and pay alot of money. Hitchiking is still widely practiced in New Zealand, and outside of Auckland it is said to be very safe. In the rural areas, you'll likely either find a ride from a farmer or other travellers.

In the morning we headed out to the road with all of our stuff for three days, and got a ride for the first few kilometers from Janet's neighbor. This was the first time any of us had hitchiked, so at first we sort of nervously put out our thumbs in a way that was not very visible. We also didn't realize that you have to stand somewhere where a car can actually stop if you want to get a ride. After having about 20 cars pass with no luck, we finally got a ride from a guy named Matt Pascoe. He was formerly a graphic design artist in Auckland, but changed gears and moved up north in order to be outside. Now he works as a caretaker for very wealthy properties up in the hills in the area. Foreigners buy these giant homes, use helecopters to get in and out, and only even live there for a few short stretches of time in a year. Matt had to drop us off and get to work, and we spent a good 45 minutes waiting at the next bend in the road for a car to pass. Finally a black land-rover came, and pulled over. We shouted in delight and started running towards the vehicle, at which point the woman in the passenger seat motioned that they had not pulled over to pick us up but to make a phone call. We were shocked and dissapointed, especially because the whole backseat and trunk where empty. After they left, we got picked up by a Maori man with a dog and a pickup truck, who took us to pretty close to the trailhead. We walked the rest of the way.

The hike started off very nice, moving from a sort of grassland into very thick jungle as we climbed. The jungle was so dense we couldn't even see each other most of the time. The trail was thin and windy, and without a good map somehow we got off course. We eventually arrived at an old whaling station which was about an hour and half from the trail we needed to be on. We stopped on the beach and had lunch, and while Lauren and I initially wanted to just head back and call it a success, Aaron talked us into going the rest of the way. At that point it would have been only an hour back to the road. The tramp ended up taking forever, and we didn't arrive until about 8:30 as it was getting dark. If we had been any later, we would have had to camp on the trail, because the last section had cliffs falling down on either side of the trail. The hike was beautiful. Off of the main peninsula we were on, smaller ones branched off into the Pacific like little fingers - with gorgeous cliffs falling down to the water. Exhausted, we finally made it to the hut at the very end of the cape. The first thing we see when we walk in to the hut is the couple from the empty Land Rover that wouldn't pick us up! They recognized us immediately, and felt so bad that in the morning they offered us a lift back to Auckland.

The couple headed out early the next morning to make the hike back, but we were not ready to start walking again. We discussed it for a while, and decided we would book a boat ride back from the Cape to Rawhiti in order to beat them back to their car. We were able to call a water taxi by cell phone, but he had to pick us up very soon in order to do it. We ended up packing up in a hurry and running a large portion of the two hour hike back to Deep Water Cove, where he was able to pick us up. On the way down to Auckland, the couple was very talkative and we spent a long time talking about American politics. Not surpisingly, they were baffled how we could have re-elected George W, were pissed about the war in Iraq, and wondered why we didn't care about the environment. We started talking about New Zealand politics, and they let us know their opinion of Maori, which was quite low. They were under the impression that the Maori were a very lazy people, and were exploiting New Zealand's large social welfare program. Apparently one can make a decent living off of government support here if they are unemployed, and so oftentimes one generation after another will simply choose not to work. There is a legitimate complaint to be made here, of course, because in any society one should be expected to put a reasonable effort into the survival of themselves and others. However, the over-generalizations made by this couple bordered on just flat out racist. We didn't want to make them angry, because they were our ride to Auckland, so I just asked more questions rather than voice any pointed opposition to what they were saying. They ended up driving us right to the flat of our friend Bridget (from orientation) in Auckland, where we spent the night.

Well, thats all I feel like writing right now, so hopefully that will keep you reading for a while. There's alot more thats happened up to now, and hopefully I can catch up in the next couple of days. Cheers!