This post will be shorter than the previous one, and hopefully will be followed by more at relatively regular intervals throughout the semester. My computer is still at the repair shop, but I'm hoping it'll finally be ready in the next day or two. I've talked to them, and they're working on it. I realized today I haven't had reliable, personal computer/Internet access since before the earthquake. It's slowed down my usual pace of emails, skypes, and everything else. Anyway. We're supposed to have internet of our own in our flats on the 22nd too, which will be great (we're piggybacking off the neighbors right now).
Speaking of earthquakes, the Japanese quake makes ours look like child's play. My thoughts go out to anyone affected by it, and if any of you readers have friends or family there, I hope they made it through all right. It only makes me feel even luckier.
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, my flatmates and I bought a car last week. Not wanting to waste any time, we took it out last weekend for a trip to the southern coast of the south island. We didn't go backpacking this time, but instead did a two-night car camp between Dunedin and Invercargill, about 250 kilometers away. It was the great kind of road trip: slow, numerous stops, lots of little hikes, great views, small coastal highways, and dirt roads.
The area we visited is called the Catlins and has a human population of about 1200 (and a sheep population of many more). Over two days, we took about half a dozen short walks, from as short as 20 minutes to a few hours, including exploration. The coast was incredible. Think half CA highway 1, half Caribbean beaches. Half was tall, rocky headlands, perfect for lighthouses and shipwrecks, but the other half was half-moon bays with gently rolling turquoise waves and wide white-sand beaches. The vegetation was equally confused: half was windswept scrub, half miniature rainforest. I'll put up some pictures once my computer is in service. The weather was by and large beautiful, and Saturday was hot.
Highlights included the barely two-lane dirt roads that crisscrossed the area and gave our car (who is named Neil Patrick Harris, by the way) a little belly massage. Our first campground (at Purakanui Bay) we found rather blindly, following signs down such roads to a bay with the same name (it was there!). The campsite was on grass, overlooking one of those half-moon bays, with tall white-rock cliffs on the other side. The best hike of the second day was down to a set of caves on the beach, which we explored as thoroughly as we could given that our light sources were very sad "torches" on our phones and the flashes from our camera. Some were slot caverns that we didn't reach the end of -- a return trip is definitely called for. They are also only accessible at low tide, adding to the intrigue.
We also visited the southernmost point on mainland New Zealand, Slope Point (46 degrees, 40 minutes south, by far the farthest I've ever been and a full 113 degrees south of Kotzebue). Andrew and I clambered down the giant boulders below the high point and walked out as far as we could go without getting sprayed by the crashing rollers. Our second campsite was in Curio Bay, with a great view over Porpoise Bay. At night, Andrew did some fire-spinning, which involves spinning burning balls on the end of chains held in each hand, we practiced walking in straight lines with our eyes closed, and we laid out to look at the amazing stars, though the only constellations I could identify were Orion (I didn't know he would be visible down here) and the Southern Cross.
Our last day we drove the last bit to Invercargill, making a side trip to the port town of Bluff. Halfway between Bluff and Invercargill, however, the fan in Neil started clicking, then the display started flickering, then the speedometer starting jumping and died, followed by the tachometer, the power steering, and the gas (over the course of about five minutes). Taylor had plenty of time to get the car to the side of the road, but there we were, two days into our first trip, with a broken down car (my first time!). As I told Andrew, our trip hadn't been nearly adventuresome enough.
Our first (and correct) guess was a dead alternator: it had been having issues before we bought the car, and we had just had the battery replaced. Still, we weren't going anywhere with a dead battery and no alternator. After thinking for a few minutes, laughing at the whole situation (including the fact that we had no food except half a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of syrup, no water, and there were weird deer-like animals making constant, loud noise in a field bordering the road), we realized Taylor had a AAA card from back home, and we believed they had a deal with the AA in New Zealand (no, that stands for Automobile Association). So she called AAA in the states to get the NZ number, then called them. While she was working on it, we had one guy stop and offer a ride (it was a busy highway, so a lot more were passing by), and another lady stopped by after we had a guy from AA on his way (AAA did have a deal with them). We hung out on the grass in the sun for about half an hour before the guy showed up, only 40 minutes after we had broken down. He pulled out a few instruments and agreed that the alternator was shot. He gave our battery a boost and we started down the road in front of him. We only died once more on the 10 km drive into Invercargill, where we parked in the AA lot, where Brian put our battery on a charger for two hours while we ate lunch. At 3 o'clock, we returned, replaced the battery, and bought a new one from him, which we would stick in the car if the other died. Then it was straight to Dunedin. To our surprise, the battery made it the entire way, the charge light on the dash turning on just as we pulled up to our flat. Neil was in the garage the last day getting a new alternator (total cost of about $200), and we managed to return the unused spare battery to AA for a full refund. So not a bad deal, and hopefully NPH will be up and running the rest of the semester.
As Yale enters its second week of spring break, we're entering our third week of classes. I'll have a separate post about them soon, when I have room and time to expand a little. So far, they haven't been too difficult, though, and even rather fun. This weekend I'm actually staying in Dunedin, as Arcadia has both a rugby game and a surf lesson planned for us. The next weekend? Backcountry time.
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