The West Coast by the Numbers

11 days

2,500 kilometers traveled

2 tremendous professors, Dr. Erik Lindquist and Dr. Joe Sheldon

3 great accommodations allowing us to see diverse forests, caves, glacial valleys and so much more

30 native plant species to identify

Several day hikes (some included Mt. Cheeseman, Inland Pack Track in Paparoa National Park and Franz Josef Glacier)

20 minutes (or 2.5 hours) it took to summit Mt. Cheeseman

3,000 times we heard Kooba (Calvin ’11) exclaim, “Hey, check this out! It’s so cool!”

5:45 a.m. The time needed to wake up in order to see magnificent bird life

4 or 5 wrong turns before we reached the place to hear rowi, (Apteryx rowi) New Zealand’s rarest kiwi bird. Oops.

300 rowi left in the wild and we heard at least one of them.

ONE BIG ADVENTURE.

Doing our best haka faces

Inland Pack Track in Paparoa National Park

Franz Josef Glacier

Term Break Adventures, Courtesy of Erica

Erica (Dordt '12) writes;

Road Tripping the South Island!

It all started Saturday at 7.30 in the morning. Four girls and one guy all squished into a white Honda Accord, affectionately known as Parnassus. Parnassus is the name of a town we went through and it became the car’s name. That first day we drove about 8 hours down to Dunedin. Dunedin is a really old city with lots of big old Cathedrals and stone buildings. We walked around and then went out for supper. We started the routine of having bed time stories read by Lauren! She is an epic story teller and we were all excited for bed time to keep reading. Of course, we decided Lord of the Rings would be appropriate reading as we were seeing so many of the film sites.

The next morning we woke up early to try and catch a glimpse of the spotted blue penguins that are supposed to be along the coast. Alas, we did not get to see them. We also were going to go see a castle but we found out at the gate that it was going to cost significantly more than we were willing to pay. We didn’t even get to catch a glimpse of it. They kept the gate far enough back that you couldn’t see anything. Sad Day! So our morning started a little bit down, but never fear, that day we started our trek through middle earth. We drove through the country where they filmed Rohan in Lord of the Rings. It was beautiful country and I took far too many pictures. That night we stayed in Queenstown. Queenstown is a gorgeous spot. The city is cute and probably slightly touristy but I liked it. The town is right on a lake with mountains surrounding it. We walked around the city and did some touristy shopping. Did you know you can actually buy the one ring from Lord of the Rings? I thought that it was slightly ridiculous to call it the one ring when you can buy a whole handful. Seriously! You can also buy any other Lord of the Rings trinket that you could ever dream up.

We only stayed there one night and then we headed to a little place called the Kinloch lodge. Courtnay recommended the spot to us. It was quite back-woodsy but very nice. The only downside was there were LOTS of black flies. We got to see some of the big old forests where they did more filming for Lord of the Rings. We re-enacted some epic battles just to get the true feel of it. We also got to hike the first day of the Routeburn track. It is a famous backpacking track that is ranked as one of the top ten trails in the world!!!!

After the Kinloch we drove to an area called Milford Sound. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. There were massive rocks that jutted way, way up into the air. They are so rocky that trees can’t really grow on them. There is just moss and sometimes trees grow on the moss but they don’t last very long. Once they get too big they tumble down the mountain. There are millions of waterfalls cascading down the rocks. Milford Sound is also on the coast and we took a cruise of the sound and got to see a Yellow Crested penguin!!!! These are REALLY rare, we found out. They don’t even know where the penguins go after they leave the sound, but WE SAW ONE! I had never seen a penguin before so that was pretty cool. We also got to hike the other end of the Routeburn track. I was very excited about that too. The view at the top was fantastic! The Milford Sound area was definitely my favorite area. Krista, Jada and I also got in some banana grams which was good fun!

After that we headed back out to a place called Lake Tekapo. It was cool and rainy which was too bad because we didn’t get to see some more Lord of the rings scenery. We saw bits that we thought may have been from the movies but mostly we saw clouds. Lake Tekapo was nice but cold and rainy. After that we had to head back. We spent a night in Christchurch because we weren’t able to come back to the Convent until Sunday.

All in all, the trip was great! I got to spend quality time with my friends and we got to see some awesome scenery! I don’t think you could ask for a better way to spend your week break!