Whatipu

While I was on the climbing trip last weekend, one of the girls was talking about how the Tramping Club(tramping=hiking here.. doesn't it sound dirty?) was doing a bush school for beginners this past weekend. I decided to sign up and go along in hopes of learning something new, and forcing myself to be in an outdoor education setting again. For those of you that don't know, I'd like to grow up and do something in that field, and since I haven't been around that type of thing in a while, I thought it would be a good opportunity to see some more leadership styles and such. However, before that happened, I had another week of classese to spend in Auckland:



I made a curry one night. I was pretty excited about it, and impressed I might actually be able to cook. It doesn't look that appetizing, but I thought it was delicious.



So in each of our classes, we're supposed to have a class rep. I'm not sure what that entails, but I know no one is ever interested in it, so it must not be that great. However, in my math class(in which I'm pretty sure I'm the only white kid), all the over achieving Asians jumped up at the opportunity. This is the most adamant of them fighting it out in front of the entire lecture theatre with a game of paper, scissors, rock(weird order here, I know). I thought it was hilarious.



And on to the tramping trip. The first day was hiking along a grassy beach.






These things were awesome and everywhere. They reminded me of Gladiator, which I immediately watched on Sunday night when I got home. Best movie ever?



So here in New Zealand, they don't really care about keeping your pack/boots/self dry and warm. Instead, they plunge into rivers and swamps. They often do "stream bashes" where they just hike up and down rivers/waterfalls and have a good ole time in the water(I'm doing one this sunday.. yippee!) Anyway, this is me having a fricken ball in the mud!



More Gladiator-ness in between swamps.




Yep, straight up swimming across with our packs. Also, check out the black sand dune in the middle ground.




Sorry Patagooches. You now smell for eternity. It's a good thing you were free and I didn't like you anyway.




View from campsite.



Ahhh...



This is Peter. He's cool. That is also a giant spider. That's not cool. They were in our tents. Very not cool.



Our crazy right winged, military navy leader teaching about something. Did I say he's crazy?



Hike out on a ridge the next day.



That's what we hiked along the day before.


Welp that's all for now. This week has involved actually doing lots of work for school. It actually feels nice to be productive, although I'm not looking forward to a paper. But as much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, I guess that's what I'm here for, eh? I'll leave you with this.