Glaciers, lakes and pancakes

Apologies if the formatting of this blog isn't quite right - I'm writing it on my phone! Will check it when I get my laptop to free wifi :-)

The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind of walking, hiking, snow, forests, and beaches... Here's a brief run down:

Fox Glacier
After a lovely lady in a national park gave us a weather update, we rescheduled our helihike to the day earlier, and what a great decision it was. Friday, just after lunch, we were kitted up and flying in beautiful sunshine up to a glacier - I don't know if we were more excited about helicopters or the glacier, but either way we were really excited! Pretty soon on our hike we were shown our first ice cave, with the statement of "it's pretty narrow", which half way through we discovered was the biggest understatement of the century, as we ended up lying on our back, sliding down the ice with just an inch of space between our faces and the ice - we both agreed we would never have gone in if we'd known, but we came out on such a high, very glad that we did go in!! The rest of the day didn't involve quite so much squeezing but did involve more ice caves, and lots of pretty pictures (to be added when I get my laptop to wifi!)

Lake Matheson
Also near Fox Glacier, this lake is a great one for taking those reflection photos that are iconic of New Zealand. Unfortunately the best time to take those photos is dawn or dusk, and we were certainly not up at dawn after the excitement of yesterday, but the views were stunning all the same!

Pancake Rocks
We headed to pancake rocks mostly because of the name, but also because it was the perfect driving stopping distance! A quick check in the information centre told us high tide was the best time and that was at 12.40, so we set off in search of some caves first, and we were not disappointed. As it's winter over here, we passed just four people all morning, and when we got to the caves, we were the only ones in there, so we could explore to our hearts content (which I was more keen on than Chris I think!). After getting as far as we could through the stalagmites and stalactites, we headed back to the pancakes, and watched the high tide slam around them, wearing them slowly away. Unfortunately no blow holes, but impressive all the same.

Lake Rotoiti
Another good driving distance, we stopped at this lake mostly based on one line in the Lonely Planet that said it had some nice walks. Another helpful lady in the information centre sent us up a hill with an "easy gradient" (if that's an easy gradient when I'm her age, I'm beyond pleased with myself!)that meandered in and out of the bushline as it climbed. We got up to the snowline, stopped for some lunch, and decided to keep going a bit - a decision that pleased Chris more than me, as I kept sinking in the snow! We made it up to a little hut that travellers can stay in, and turned around - the walk back down was much faster!

The Ferry
The next day we were in Picton, a little town consisting mostly of hostels, motels and hotels to house the travellers getting off the ferry from the North Island. We wandered along the coast line for a little bit, before heading back to the campervan to get on the ferry. On the ferry, we watched the impressive coastline until it was out of sight, and then planned our route round the North Island, which will include hobbits, thermal areas, glowworms and more! Excitement!

Avalanche Peak Chat

Our walk in Arthur's Pass National Park, in the form of dialogue excerpts.

"Hey, let's go on this 6-8 hour walk up the side of the mountain and back down"

...

"Before I give you that guide, I have to ask... Do you have crampons and ice axes?"

...

"We've not had much snow this winter, so you should be able to get up to the edge of the bush line and back down, but stick to the paths and be sensible."

...

"You know how we said we were going up the side of the mountain? I didn't think it would be this much up."

...

"oo there's snow!" "oo there's a pretty view!" "oo more snow" "oo another pretty view" "oo the snow is getting deeper"

...

"Getting up this track is pretty slippy, but I think getting down will be even worse. But that's a problem for after a cheese sandwich."

...

"10/10 lunch spot"

...

"There's no snow on the rock ledges, let's climb higher"

...

"That's the top just there... oh wait..."

...

"We're almost at the edge of the bush line...oh wait..."

...

"I don't think the views will get any better if we climb any higher."

...

"Yeah, I was going to suggest a controlled slide down."

...

"These bridges were near the start, right?"

...

"I'm bored of going downhill"

...

"You know how we were going to climb up to that waterfall afterwards. I don't think I can be bothered."

...

"Those bridges weren't near the start."

...

"Yay, the bottom. Let's just have a kitkat"

...

"You should definitely go to the waterfall viewing platform, it's only 20 minutes!"

...

"You know when I said I couldn't be bothered to climb to the waterfall. I was right."

...

"Ok. It was worth it."

Quake City

Walking into Christchurch didn't feel like walking into a city centre. No big tall skyscrapers, no massive branded shops that are in every city in the world; There's corners without coffee shops, and there's barely a road anywhere without road-works on. We wandered and wondered where all the people were, why it was so quiet, why the tram goes round on a tiny loop to nowhere, desperate for passengers to give it some purpose. It wasn't until we sat down in Cathedral Square, in front of a derelict old cathedral that we realised the earthquake of five years ago was the answer to all of our questions, and the reason that there is a definite lack of identity in the middle of the second largest city New Zealand.

Christchurch is desperately trying to find itself again, after being literally shaken to the ground. Beautiful buildings that once stood are now piles of rubble, in an area waiting for a new building. New buildings have developed, and are bright shining beacons of the future in a world that has few reminders of the past. Office blocks are growing, museums have found new homes (or been created from the events themselves - Quake City). Hotels are appearing again, and tourists are slowly making their way back to a city (and wider area) that desperately needs their income. There's one lonely food cart on Cathedral Square (who sells some decent French Fries - try the chilli mayo!), and a city mall (Re:Start) made from shipping containers, which hopefully isn't temporary, because it is a great visual representation of the incredible things we can do in the face of adversity. A new memorial is being created by the river bank, to all of those who lost their lives during the quakes. Christchurch is rebuilding itself.

And amidst all of this is the cathedral, part standing by itself, part being held up by scaffolding, and part demolished, fenced all around, with no access to a once proud structure which is now clearly not safe to enter. Due to disagreements about who should pay for the next step, it stands alone in the city, the one last remnant of 22^nd February 2011. One last reminder to those who lived through it and are trying to piece their lives back together, to the tourists who only saw what happened on the TV and can't quite picture it (because that kind of thing doesn't happen to you, right?), and to those who have simply forgotten it happened, and need to remember the reason why Christchurch still isn't quite up to full strength. 

Australia Five Photos

So I've been in Australia for 7 months now, mostly working for PGL at Camp Rumbug, and it's been an absolute blast. It's hard to describe everything that's happened, so I'm going to do that thing where I post my top 5 photos and an explanation of each in less than 150 words... Here goes.

Me and my Brits (L-R:Jake, Drew and Katie) These are the guys I lived with, ate with, had water pistol fights with (sometimes indoors - sorry Mum!), BBQed with, went to the zoo with, played cards with, watched far too many films with, and went to the beach in matching hats with. We're so cool. They were an absolute pleasure to live, work and play alongside :) 

Each morning on group, I had to go to work at least half an hour before breakfast and make and butter toast for my whole group. This is roughly 1 loaf per 10 people, and when I had up to 200 people (including teachers) in a group, that works out as a whole lot of toast far too early in the morning. Why am I talking about toast when the picture is clearly of the sunrise? This is the view that made it all easier. The view that made standing at that toaster bearable. Foggy days were hard work - luckily there weren't many of them! 

This is some more of the gang, at a party in our house. They are complete lunatics, but they are my Rumbug family. They were welcoming, and accepting of all of my (our) British idiosyncrasies (most of the time - it's still a hoover though guys). They put up with me in my good moods and my bad, and as with my actual family, criticised my odd socks every day. They invited me to their houses, let me invite myself round to their houses, had a surprise birthday party for me (not the party pictured), fed me, laughed with me, listened to my rants, worried about me when I had a cold (and got stressed that I was still wearing shorts in the winter) and helped me whenever I needed help. They are awesome people. 

Mostly, I had weekends off. This one weekend, I had big plans to stay up all night to watch Wimbledon, and to sleep during the days (time zones make watching sports in the UK very difficult!). I knew that I had to go to the post office on the Saturday morning though, so I got up thinking I'd drive there and back, and straight back to bed. On the drive there, it was such a beautiful day, I changed my plans. I headed down to Wilsons Prom, the local National Park, and climbed Mt Oberon, and had the most spectacular views. Found a quiet spot and had some time watching the clouds float by.  

Over Easter, we were lucky enough to get two weeks off work. Me, Katie, Drew and Claire flew over to Tasmania, and had a fabulous 2 weeks, with great weather. We stayed in Hobart for a few days, headed down to Port Arthur (one of the British Prisons), went up to Cradle Mountain (I've got a great photo of a rainbow over Lake St Clair which was very close to being on this blog!) and Wineglass Bay, we stayed in a town called Penguin (The only town called Penguin in the world), and camped on Bruny Island - this photo is from our private beach that we camped next to. Life is so hard when you have a private beach! 

As you can see, it's been pretty spectacular, and spectacularly pretty. I'm now off to New Zealand, followed by South East Asia, so will be blogging mostly to keep Mum happy ;) but it's also good to have some kind of record of my travels, because I am terrible at keeping a diary! As this chapter of my adventure comes to an end, and another one is about to start, this one quote sums up how I'm feeling pretty much perfectly...

"As I go on, my idea of home is expanding &

I can’t wait to find out how big it will be" 

- Brian Andreas

Blog Break

So, apparently I didn't write anything about my actual Latvia trip, or even my SECOND Latvia trip - the one where I was the leader of the project in 2015. For details on either of these projects, please follow these links:

GOLD Latvia 2014

GOLD Latvia 2015

2016 has found me in Australia, working for PGL at the most beautiful camp in the entire world - Camp Rumbug (I may be a little biased). My time at Camp Rumbug is almost at an end, so when I finish I'll write a blog about that and then continue on with my upcoming adventures...