snow craft!!

Well, I'll make this post real quick because I have some work to catch up, because I was away all weekend. What was I doing, Snow crafting! We headed up to Temple Basin in Arthur's Pass (The same place I went 2 weekends ago) and carried our packs up 1000m difference in elevation through over a foot of snow! I have enough exercise from that weekend for the next two weeks I'm pretty sure. Anyway, Julie, Tom and I slept in out crappy 25 $NZD tent we bought last week, and surprisingly held up against the freezing temperatures. I took the orion constellation photo about 5:00am, and got some other great long-exposure shots.




We proceeded up the rest of the mountain, practicing self-arresting with our snow-axes in case we were to ever slip down a mountain face. Lots of fun, and pretty useful training i'd say! On the way down after our self-arresting training we slid down the mountain on our butts. A lot quicker than going up. Soon ill post the helmet cam video I took.

you can view more pictures from the trip on my facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045137&id=1090560130&l=34de07876b

and heres some photos from the first week:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043531&id=1090560130&l=a911658a71


-"Lukey" Stover

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. -- T.S. Eliot

A day downtown, and the museum

Julie, Julie and I decided to go see some of the sites in Christchurch, but we ended up spending most of our time at the Christchurch Museum, right next to the Botanical Gardens. What a great museum! Everything from before the colonizing of NZ to modern times, geology, Antarctic, transportation, it was all there!


Here's one for Dad and Don, or any other motorcycle fans:A gold plated Jawa!!!
After a bet was placed by the director of Orange County gold plating in California that if 2-time world speedway champion Ivan Mauger won the speedway for the 3rd time in a row, he would gold plate his bike. And Mauger did just that in 1970! It was named the Triple Crown Special.











Or how about this Egyptian Baboon-Headed urn? pretty neat! haha




















I have a bunch of photos from the museum, but anyway moving on:


We left the museum and proceeded to the weekend market which was great, then headed to a small Thai restaurant where we had Green Chicken Curry, it was great. Looking to make it this week at the flat. I found a great recipe for slow-cooker "pizza". Cook the pasta and ground beef, then add those ingredients in layers with mozzerela, pepperoni and pasta sauce. Easy! and about 8 meals for about $15USD.

13th day in New Zealand.

So, it came to the realization of Carlos (a fellow physics student from Austin, Texas) and I yesterday that we have only been here for 12 days! It sure does seem like a month, and we cant get over how much we have accomplished, the number of people we've met and how well were getting adjusted for the city.

It also hit me yesterday that if I have been here for 12 days, I have another 353 days to go! A little daunting, no? Looks like I may very well complete all my goals on my New Zealand bucket list!

One thing I did yesterday off my list was SURFING! Myself and a few friends headed off to New Brighton Beach (pictured above) and surfed in the pacific! Using wet suits (which worked great being that it is winter here) we spent the last few hours of the daylight surfing! Surfing is so much fun! I didn't do too bad for a first time, and I hope to keep improving. Closer to the summer I may find a cheap surfboard. I finally found an activity to enjoy at the beach! It was a lot of fun watching all of us succeed and fail at surfing. The waves are great for learning, and are much better than waves on the U.S east coast. While resting on the rented surfboard looking back at the beach you could watch the orange sunset and New Zealand's fogged-in terrain. Then I realized, "I'm surfing in New Zealand!" After returning we hit up a fish and chips restaurant which for $3 USD you can get a huge slab of fish and more chips (thick fries) than you could ever need. I had kumra fritters, a fijian root similar to a sweet potato fried, which was excellent!

Well, off to see the city, I might visit some of the garden's and the art museum. Next weekend i'm taking an overnight trip to learn about snow-crafting (ice-axes and crampons to scale icy mountains)