Day trip to Rangitoto Island

Today, we went tramping on Rangitoto Island with about 50 other international students. Rangitoto island lies a a 45-minute ferry ride from Auckland, and is one of the least modified of about 50 volcanic cones and craters in the Auckland volcanic field. Rangitoto erupted from the sea in a series of dramatic explosions around 600 years ago, and is now extinct (so take it easy parents - we've not been balancing on the edge of a crater filled with boiling lava). It dominates the local seascape and the visit was like stepping into another world. The island is a public reserve and is famed worldwide as a botanical germ.

Many of the plants we found on Rangitoto are unusual hybrids, like the tree-perching epiphytes, which grow on the ground and sub-alpine moss cushing thriving at sea level. The island's predominantly pohutukawa forest is the largest one in the country. Things we saw and did included:
Summit views
The enormous volcanic crater
Lava flows (stoned)
Caves
Gull colonies (noisy!)
World war 2 sites (bunkers)
Coastal & forest walks.

All in all, this was a really nice day with really nice weather and really nice people!

A really nice view from the top (sorry 'bout the small-sized images, our bandwidth is limited)

The wharf

Is this a good shot of Rangitoto or what?

School is a killah and we are surfin'

Howdy, people! Really sorry that I update the blog just as often as julenissen gets a full shave - the reason is mainly that school is a real killer these days, with lots and lots of mandatory assignments. BUT, I've posted quite a few pics from our caving expedition in the Waitamo Caves (see below post) AND soon and very soon pics and report from last weekends surfing trip to Ragland will be published. Sooo...hang in there! A few teaser pics from Raglan can be seen below.

Jorgen surfin' dah waves of Raglan! We all got up on the board!

Karioi - the place where we stayed. Situated in the middle of the rainforest, this is a rather chill place.

This is the beach we surfed on. Is this beautiful or what?

Some waves and a beautiful landscape

Auckland Long Distance Champs 23 & 24. september!

I ran my first orienteering event down here on Saturday and Sunday. It was a pretty big orienteering competition in New Zealand, but it was really small compared to any competition in Norway. I would say that even a club championship in Norway beat this. We were only 4 persons in my class, but I still didn't win. I blame it on the compass the first day. I didn't think that it made a big difference running with a norwegian compass down here, but it definitly did! My compass just went spinning around, and since the terrain was very flat, it was hard to find the controls without a compass. On Sunday I got to borrow a southern hymn sphere compass, and that worked a lot better. Both competitions were held in a planted forest, as most of the orienteering forest down here. Most of the forest are industry forest that they plant and cut down every 20 year or so, that is why it is hard to make orienteering maps around here, because suddenly the whole forest is gone:) Since the forest was planted, it was really close between the trees so the sight was reduced. We could only look 5 meters in front of us, and on top of this it was really steep and sandy. So it was really heavy to run in, but it was fun to try it anyway. But I must say that the terrains back in Norway are a much nicer! The orienteering group is really small and most of the people were a lot older than me, with children and family, so that was a little disappointing. I had hoped for some younger people that I could exercise with :) The next orienteering event is not before the summer vacation so I have one month to get fit again:)

Barbeque party!

We have now been to our first kiwi barbeque party. One of the first thing we learned when we arrived New Zealand was that everybody has to bring their own plate to the barbie. So now could we try it ourselves. Me and Christian brought hamburgers and as all hamburgers down here they were made of sheep. Of course we didn't figure that out before after we had bought them. I don't think I can recommend them to anybody else. Next time we are buying burgers, we definitely are going to check what they are made of:) The party was held by one in Christian class. He is 35 years old, so the average age at the party was around 30, so we was definitively the youngest there. But there were a lot of nice people there and the barbeque was great, so it was a really nice evening.

Midsemesterbreak day 4: Waitomo Caves

We drove straight from Rotorua to Waitomo early in the morning and hooked up with Kieran McKay, who runs an adventure company called Absolute Adventure. Absolute Adventure provides authentic caving experiences for the active and adventurous - like ourselves. This was off the beaten track, a full-on adventure with a high level of physical and mental challenge rarely found in tourism today.We entered the cave at 11pm and returned around 3 hrs later. During those three hours, we had traversed high-level passages, explored beautiful streamway passages, viewed stunning crystal formations, rock-climbed, abseiled and climbed waterfalls. It was perfect!

It was a lot thougher than we had tought, but also much cooler than we had expected. It definitley got the adrenalin pumping. We had to wear climbing securitybelt under the whole trip, and the trip was pretty physical demanding. So in the end I was really glad I went down there with Christian and Jørgen. The last part of the trip was up again throug the river. It was very wet and the water was pretty cold, so that made it harder for the mucles to function properly:) And walking and climb against the current is not easy. But with Christian pulling me up with his hand and Jørgen pushing my butt, I also did made it to the end. We had to abseil(rappellere) three times during the walk.

I was terrified the first time, because I had no idea of how to do it, and it was scary to just trust the rope, and go 18 meters down in a black hole, with just a lot of water and rock underneath me. But we made it all three, and that was a cool feeling:)

It was really small passages some places, so it was good that we had not gained to much weight after we arrived here. I could almost not pass some of the places, so it was nothing for persons with claustrophobi. So if anybody is planning on going to New Zealand, then this is definitley something you should try!

Mari abseiling for the very first time!

...and she made it!

...which of course qualified for a kiss.

Jorgen and Christian caving Dressmann-style. Working suit from NOK 149, helmet 299, thermal 199 - take 2, pay for 1.

Jorgen smiling beautifully

...after finally managing to get up a waterfall (with just a little push)

Christian climbing up a narrow passage

...Mari going up the same passage

Jorgen, using every muscle in his body as he climbs up a second waterfall

Christian upon entering the cave

Jorgen doin' it

This sure was some expedition!

Christian planning the the next abseil.

A happy hulemann!