oh snap! peninsula & catlins

And thus it begins – this long post through which I shall attempt to try and share how awesome this past weekend was.  I don’t even really know where to begin; I want to be able to share every detail but know that that is not going to be possible.  But here goes.

During our first few weeks in New Zealand I’ve talked with many people about plans to travel around the country and experience so much of what NZ has in store.  On more than one occasion the topic has come up about how we are all going to get around.  Alex has been pretty set on buying a car since the start, especially since he will be staying in NZ until the middle of August to work with a ministry called Snowboarders for Christ.  I have been sort of riding the fence, not really sure about what to do.  On one hand it sounded great to get a car that’s really mine, not have to dish out $30 a day (for the cheapest rental car place, not including $8 a gallon for gas) every weekend of the semester to rent but on the other hand I have never owned a car or even been able to call a car my own and it’s a bit overwhelming, thinking about buying and maintaining my first car in New Zealand.  Oh, and they drive on the left side of the road here.  Well, lo and behold, the time has come for the decision, and about two weeks ago Alex and I got serious about going at this together, splitting a used car 50/50 so that we can travel all over the south island on weekends and use this as even more of an opportunity to be able to witness to those around us - in this case our passengers.  So back to this past Wednesday – Alex wins the bid on TradeMe (New Zealand’s version of ebay) and we are the proud owners of a maroon ’94 Honda Station-Wagon.  We’ve named her Lucille and she’s a real trooper.  As goes with any used car we have already had an interesting time getting some things sorted, but hey, part of the adventure right?  The past owner decided that it would be a good idea to drop it off at a liquor store on Friday when we planned to meet her to pick it up; why, I do not know, especially since this girl lives literally 2 minutes’ walk from both my house and Alex’s – I think that alcohol might have had something to do with that decision process.  So it wasn’t much of a surprise when we discovered that Lucille was quite thirsty for some oil and coolant.  But after taking care of that she was great.  Needless to say, we are going to be taking Lucille into the shop for a checkup (to ease your nerves, spencer and dad : )  No but really she is a tank and has served us well on our maiden voyage this past weekend.  Pictures of Lucille will be up soon, but not in this post.  Sorry for the overwhelming suspense.

So this weekend – epic.  I really mean it, it was so so good.  The car was filled with myself, Alex, Carolyn from philly, her flatmate Jen, Suzie from Scotland, and a whole bunch of gear.  It worked out that all five of us are Christians so it panned out to be an amazing weekend of fellowship for each one of us and we just had such a fantastic time getting to know each other better, sharing our stories, listening, and encouraging each other, and having a whole ton of fun.  This car situation is even better because Alex and I can use it to be able to grow with so many other people while we are here.  It provides such an opportunity to really get to know others (what better way than to witness God’s glory in His creation AND get to roadtrip through all of it?) and to be a solid servant of Christ by being aware that we are an example in literally every situation that comes up. 

our dear Leonard

So before I explain any further I need to fill you all in on something.  I have fallen in love.  Spencer, I’m sorry.  I thought I could withstand it but my affection for this particular kiwi is just irresistible.  His name is Leonard, Leonard the Llama.

I found Leonard waiting for me at a table at a tent fair I walked through at the Octagon last weekend.  Leonard is now the official photo-bomber and roadtrip extraordinaire.  He is a truly special llama.  Click Leonard to see the beginnings of his album.

 Our first stop on Friday was the peninsula.  This is only about 45 minutes from Dunedin and is well known for the extensive wildlife – penguins, seals, albatross.  Our destination for the evening was a place called Sandfly Bay, known for the yellow-eyed penguins.  On the way we stopped many times, just unable to continue driving by the phenomenonal scenery without stopping to get out of the car and take pictures (and remember, we aren’t even a half hour from where I’m living at this point).  So we see a sign for Lanarch Castle – the only originally fortified castle in New Zealand.  So we decided to detour and at least see it while we are in the area.  Turns out, this castle is near the top of a really huge hill – I think we drove up the steep winding road for a solid fifteen minutes.  When we got to the top we learned that it’s $12.50 per person just to see the castle, so we promptly turned around and considered it good enough that we made it to the gate.  Shortly after our turnaround we stopped to take pictures and Alex checked under the hood because Lucille seemed to be heating up a bit.  Sure enough, she was quite hot and we needed to let her cool off (this was before we realized she was low on coolant and oil).  We took our time with pictures and then I went over to Alex to see what was up with Lucille.  I got over about the time that he was getting ready to unscrew the cap to the coolant container.  I think his thought process went something like ‘there’s quite a lot of pressure in the coolant compartment.  Maybe if I turn this cap the pressure will be relieved faster and Lucille will cool down faster’.  Boy, let me tell you, a whole heck of a lot of pressure was relieved in the next instant when he turned the cap (mind you, the one that reads “caution! never open when hot” - a minor detail that he neglected) and before I knew what happened the cap was shot in the air and the coolant compartment was spewing fluid with the force of a volcano.  Fortunately Alex was ok and the cap did not hit him in the eye, which would have been very bad.  I am glad to say that this is something that we can laugh about now, and after Lucille blew off some steam – pun definitely intended – and was fed her oil she ran much better.  What a ridiculous situation, and all in the first hour of our trip.

just the drive to the peninsula, no big deal

view from where Lucille had her spit up

Next we drove to the tip of the peninsula and saw some albatross.  Now I need to humble myself and admit – mom and Nick – that these birds are indeed very large.  I was too busy taking pictures of them in the air to actually focus much on their size, but indeed they are huge.  So Disney isn't far off; Matt, you and I can stand corrected.  After that we drove to a place called Sandfly Bay, where the penguins roam.  Word on the street says that the best time to go is early-mid evening, when they are returning from feeding.  Unfortunately we were too late and missed them, but this will definitely be a place that I’ll be returning to later in the semester.  The beach was lovely at dusk and was a really beautiful picture of the closing of another day in the Lord’s playground.  We also got some really sweet as jumping pictures.  From there we drove around searching for a good place to camp, and were quite unsuccessful.  Turns out that farmers like to fence their fields quite extensively to keep their sheep and cows from roaming, go figure, so we couldn’t find a good spot to crash for the night.  It was about 10 pm at this time and we were driving down a dirt road (a whole lot of the roads here aren’t paved once you get off the main highways) and we passed a super sketchy man walking whom we prompty named Grizzly Man Evans (why, I don’t know) and this sealed the deal – we weren’t camping anywhere near there.  But we drove a ways on and then noticed that the stars were soooo amazing and we also hadn’t eaten dinner by this point.  So we stopped and made some PB&J sandwiches and stared in awe at the most stars I’ve ever seen in my life.  It was a really cool time to talk to each other and reflect on God’s glory.  We read some of Isaiah and pondered the enormity of the Lord, and yet we are called His.  A good, but humbling reminder.

a little jumping action

view across from nugget point

the nuggets at Nugget Point

Our last attempt at a campsite was Tunnel Beach, but that didn’t work out so we just decided to scrap the search and have a sleepover at Carolyn/Jen’s flat and then wake up to see the sun rise at Tunnel the next morning.  When we woke up it was rainy and cloudy so we were blessed with a few more hours of sleep before we got up for coffee/tea and oatmeal, headed off to the farmers’ market and then finally on our way to the Catlins.  The drive from Dunedin is about 2.5 hours and on roads that seriously give West Virginia a run for its money.  And by that I mean that the roads are soooo much more windy than WV, if you can believe that! 
The Catlins is similar to a sort of state park setup – in the way that it includes many different neat places to see, like caves, beaches, bays, hikes, waterfalls, etc.  So we got there and the first thing we went to see was a place called Nugget Point.  This was really cool; it was a hike along a cliff face to the final destination of a really old lighthouse.  And like everything else in this country, the walk to the destination is even better than the destination itself.  We were able to see a whole bunch of seals along the walk, far below us on the rock below the cliffs.  They are really funny creatures.  The lighthouse actually still works and is automated now, and is in this spot because of all of the huge rocks in the sea around that area (‘nuggets’).  

Nugget Point

Parakanui Falls

Next we drove to a photogenic location that brags of National Geographic having used it in one of their issues.  Named Parakanui Falls, this place was really cool.  I got some more practice at being able to slow down the water by changing the aperture and then Alex just went to town with it. 

After the falls we had some random fun, like Alex climbing inside a dead tree and posing with Leonard, then we were on our way to Parakanui Bay, where we found a legit campsite right beside the beach.  It was really nice because the site was large and there weren’t that many people there, and we drove up the hill a ways and found a site all alone and overlooking the bay.  We set up camp while Alex worked on dinner in the rain and we dodged huge piled of cow poop.  I wonder: where were the cows that left so many gifts for us?  We didn’t see any cows at the bay but they could not have been far.  We had a great dinner of rice, meat, and potatoes and s’mores to top it off.  Then it was bed before getting up for the sunrise bright and early.  Definitely was not excited about waking up at 6:30 but boy was it worth it.  It was pretty cloudy but that actually made for some really unique color composition and a brilliant burst of golden light when the sun did rise up through a break in the clouds.  I don’t think I have ever seen such a beautiful sunrise.  Like with all of the others so far, my sunrise photos do not do the event justice…however these are really very stunning and I’m pleased with what we were able to capture.  Truly captivating.

the view from our campsite

one of many amazing photos from the epic sunrise

Very soon after the sun rose we saw a seal on the beach where we were standing, but on the far other side.  We got a bit closer to it but didn’t want to bother him so we didn’t go super close.  Then it was so time for some breakfast.  We drove to the nearby town of Owaka and found a café – Owaka Café, no less.  Then we decided on some neat spots to explore before heading home.  Our plans rapidly changed when I discovered that the drive to Slope Point was only about an hour from where we were.  Slope Point is the official most southerly point of the south island.  We got there and it didn’t feel super duper special, other than it had a sign that pointed in one direction to the equator and the other to the South Pole.  Fun fact: The south pole is the first place in the world to see the sun rise.  Well, maybe the South Pole gets the sun first every day, but on this particular day it was the moon that came out early:

yep, we mooned the south pole

One might think that this was the end of our adventure, but definitely not for me!  I took over the driving for the whole way back to Dunedin, about 200 km.  Driving on the left side isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but going through towns is definitely still going to take some getting used to – intersections are tough still because I’ve been here long enough that the opposite side of the road thing is more normal, but I haven’t forgotten about how I’ve learned to drive at home, so my brain has trouble determining which way is the one that it should go with.  It just requires much more focus than I’m used to.  But I did really well and feel much more confident of my ability to drive here than I did a few days ago.  We got back in time to shower and get to evening church at Grace, which I really really like.  I got to talk with a woman named Pippa after the service and found out that she’s one of the Uni student ministry leaders.  I’ve got some information on the biblestudy group that meets Thursday nights and I think I will make a point to attend that, as well as evangelical training.  I’m really excited for the community at Grace Bible Church and to continue getting to know the people there.  I have really been made to feel so welcome and I’m excited to give back.  Amazing that within 3 days of moving to this town I’d already found a church, yet it took me nearly 2 years to find the church that I attend back at Grove City.  Funny how God works sometimes, but I know He’s always got a plan!  Until next time : )