Back Again

Every student who studies abroad leaves home with expectations.  We each expect different things depending upon our destinations: an academic experience, cultural immersion, great hiking, but most of us have the cliched expectation of coming back a different person, having learned something about ourselves that could not be discovered sitting at home.

When I left Minnesota I had all of these expectations and many more, but I didn't really have a good idea of how to go about realizing them all, especially that last, weighty one.  How exactly does one "find oneself?"  Especially, if one does not know who to look for?  Fortunately, I began by tackling an easier expectation, great hiking.  Soon, I was so caught up in school, trips and adventures that I had forgotten about forcing my expectations.  In short I was doing exactly what I promised: living in the moment.

Over the course of my time in New Zealand I did a pretty good job of keeping that promise.  How could I not when I had the help of friends who were so good at making sure I lived in the moment that when I first arrived home I had no perspective on what I had learned.  Certainly many of my expectations had been met and exceeded; my classes at Otago taught me much, I learned about Kiwi and Maori culture and I experienced no end of good hiking.  But what of that last most important expectation...of finding out something more about myself?  Not so easy to say.

After much thought (my 1.5 hour commute provides ample time) I was still at a loss.  I am, and have always been Allison Jacobel, born 3/14/1989.

On Sunday I was standing in the American Museum of Natural History, when suddenly, as I looked past a gigantic Bighorn Sheep it hit me:  Since I was little I have been surrounded by people who have helped me define who I am.  Twenty-one years of identity could not be significantly altered by five and a half months in a foreign country.  Instead, what the mountain vista behind that sheep made me realize was that my time in New Zealand had helped me define the conditions under which I could be myself and be happy...

A place of extraordinary natural beauty, a community of friends and a relaxed atmosphere in which to enjoy it all.  In hindsight it is little wonder that the first thing I did upon arriving in my dorm in New York City was to put up dozens of postcards and photos of beautiful places sent to me by friends and family or that the first book I bought was Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire.

As I thought about how to end this blog I considered recapping the highlights of my time in New Zealand, but I think those of you still reading this blog have heard enough of me rhapsodizing.  Instead, I will thank you for following my travels, and simply say that I am grateful to have been there and back again.

Love,
Allison

Adventures in Mt. Cook

As I first began to write this entry -  my second to last blog post - I was sitting comfortably 35,000 feet somewhere over the Southwestern United States (in flight wi-fi!).  But as usual I am both waaay behind on my blogging schedule and yet already getting ahead of myself in my story, so please allow me to backtrack.  Two weekends before I left New Zealand Jeff, Pete and myself (the cool Mac contingent) headed off on a fantastic trip to visit Mt. Cook.  We embarked on Thursday afternoon in a deceptively innocuous rental car and easily drove the 4 hours north.  Before we even reached the national park we had stunning views of the mountains and stopped to take a few pictures as the sun set.

Our first morning we awoke to cloudy skies and the threat of rain but decided to attempt the Mueller Hut route anyways (2km up over 1km distance).  This turned out to be a really good decision because while we didn't get the stunning vistas we would have seen if it had been sunny and cloudless, we did get to experience hiking in a snowstorm and we also got to hear (but not see) avalanches all around us!  This was a really eerie experience, particularly since we visited a monument to all of the climbers who had died attempting to climb area peaks.

On our way back down the clouds began to lift and we caught glimpses of the glaciers that surrounded us.  We also saw a kea (who we decided was a spy for the killer goats in the area).  Keas are the only known species of alpine parrots and despite their rare status are fairly despised creatures because of their taste for rubber.  In many alpine parking lots, signs warn visitors that keas may eat the rubber off of windshield wipers, or from around the rims of car windows.  Keas have also been known to carry off hiking boots (yummy) and even (shiny) wedding rings!

On the second day we awoke to sunny skies and a beautiful view out of our hostel.  We decided to use this day to visit Mt. Cook itself, by way of the Hooker Valley Track.  After a few minutes spent taking amusing photos in front of the sign for Hooker Valley we reached the trail head and began snapping pictures left and right.

After a leisurely lunch at the head of the Hooker Valley we returned to our rental car and drove around into the next valley for a hike around the Tasman Glacier.  This valley had less impressive vistas but more impressive geomorphological features including incredible amounts of till and some really well developed moraines.  But even more interesting were the icebergs floating near the terminus of the glacier.  Not only were they beautiful but they also provided excellent targets for our rock skipping efforts (a recurring trip activity).


Unfortunately, the next day it was time for us to head back to Dunedin, but as we departed we looked back and caught beautiful (albeit cloudy) views of Lake Tekapo and Mt. Cook.

On our way back to Dunedin we stopped (again) at the Moeraki Boulders and took some more funny pictures...

My final adventure before settling down to study for my exams was to take one last trip out to see the penguins (or penguinies as Jeff and Pete call them) on the peninsula.  Unlike the dawn trip Louis and I took, this time we went at dusk and saw about 30 penguins as they swam up to the shore and headed into their nests.  Unfortunately, because it was getting dark and flashes are not allowed, we couldn't take pictures, but it was a pretty cool experience.

I mentioned earlier that we had a "deceptively innocuous rental car".  I say that because on the way back we got into a small accident involving a large piece of firewood (in the middle of the very narrow curving road) and our front left tire rim.  The collision resulted in a flat tire (which AA took care of most efficiently) and a few nervous days for me while I waited to see how much a replacement rim would cost me but in the end everything turned out just fine.


Early Thursday morning I boarded a plane back to the US (via Auckland, LA and Phoenix) and arrived late Thursday night.  This was an interesting trick (more than 24 hours worth of flying in less than 24 hours) and reminded me of the rhyme..."There once was a woman named Bright, whose speed was far faster than light, she departed on day in a relativistic way and returned on the previous night!"  Unfortunatley, all the time zone shifts didn't feel quite that easy and I am just now beginning to feel like I know what time to go to bed and wake up. 

The transition was further complicated by my departure early Sunday morning (3am) for NYC and my internship at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.  I won't bore you with the details of that now, let is simply suffice to say that I'm really enjoying my work and my exploration of the city has only just begun.

My schedule here is very busy but I promise I will find time for one last post reflecting on my fantastic adventures in New Zealand.  Until then...

Love,
Allison

Awesome Mt. Aspiring

Last weekend (have I mentioned my weekends begin on Thursdays?), I headed out of Dunedin and towards the South Island's Mt. Aspiring National Park.  The plan was for Louis and myself to go tramping in the park's Rob Roy Valley, known for it's glaciers and alpine vistas (route in red at right).

Unlike previous adventures, this trip started with a long drive in a car instead of a bus.  To get to Wanaka (the closest town) we rented a car and drove.  This was a new experience for me because it meant driving on the left hand side of the road.  It didn't take long to adjust, but I still prefer driving out of town where I don't have to think about how to make turns!

The other interesting part of the drive was that we got stuck with a manual transmission meaning that I had to do all of the driving (Louis can't drive stick) and learn to shift with my left hand.  The switch wasn't nearly as difficult as tackling shifting on New Zealand's very steep roads.  However, I still managed to enjoy the beautiful fall scenery as it passed by.

Our first day on the trail (Friday) had been preceded by several days of rain, but we were still surprised when, with more than 10 km to go to the official trail head, the dirt road we had been following disappeared beneath a stream.  Theoretically this 'ford' shouldn't have been a problem, but since we were driving a very small rented car, and there was more rain in the forecast we decided not to chance it.  Thus the ford became our trail head. 

After a few hours of walking we reached the real trail head, and after a stop for lunch got our first views of the West Matukituki Valley.  From there it was only two hours to Aspiring Hut where we stayed for two nights.

We were especially glad to be in a hut with a warm fire because that night it poured....

The next morning we awoke to stunning views of the surrounding peaks through the hut's huge windows.  Beautiful, but we wanted to get closer so we decided to day hike up a bit higher to Liverpool Hut.

The hike up to Liverpool Hut was a steep one.  Although it appeared to involve a significant elevation increase over a reasonable horizontal distance, it actually ended up being a fairly flat walk until the last hour and a half when we climbed one km over a distance of one km.  1:1 Oofda!

But oh how the views were worth it!  After an extended lunch at the hut we had trouble leaving because it was so beautiful.  But as we reached the valley floor we were rewarded with views of the setting sun on the surrounding peaks.

On our final day of tramping we hiked up to the Rob Roy Glacier which was spectacular but photographed poorly due to the rain.

That afternoon we hiked back to the real trail head and then caught a ride back to our car with a couple of Kiwis who were on their way back from a weekend of trout fishing.

Back on the main road at 3pm, we made a stop for Thai food and drove through the dark (singing the Beatles and Paul Simon at the top of our lungs to keep awake) back to Dunedin.

But as usual.....there's still more!

The next morning we woke up at 5:30am and headed off to see the penguin colony on the Dunedin Peninsula.  The penguins are most active at dawn and dusk and since we had the rental car until 10 it was the perfect opportunity.  We also got to see the sunrise!   

Cruising back into Dunedin (this time singing the Bee Gees and Buddy Holly) at 8:25, just in time for Louis' 9am class, we congratulated ourselves on another successful weekend escape.

Next weekend, I'm headed off to Mt. Cook with Jeff and Peter (fellow Mac students) so more fantastic pictures of snow-capped peaks await! 

Love,
Allison

Coasting through the Catlins

Last weekend I escaped increasingly chilly Dunedin and headed off on a fantastic adventure with the tramping club to the Catlins.

The Catlins are located on the coastline south of Dunedin and are beautifully rugged cliffs and beaches which are the perfect location for day hikes.  Unfortunately, they are also known for being rainy this time of year (as is much of the South Island) so we decided to stay at a holiday park with dorm rooms.

Our first day we headed off to one of the area's beaches known for its exposures of the Southland Syncline.  If you don't know what a syncline is, don't worry, basically what I'm saying is that this beach had really exciting rock outcrops!  But not only did this beach have beautifully dipping beds, it also had some exciting erosional features, beautiful sands and fascinating sedimentological structures.

Let me show you what I mean....

 Lots of caves and channels which show the dipping beds

Crazy fluvial erosion features that have been filled in with pink algae











Beautiful purple beach sands composed of shell fragments

Hummocky swaley sedimentary structures representing massive storm events.







OK, so now that I've finished geeking out about the rocks (at least from the first stop) I can tell you about the rest of our time at the beach.  After walking for about 45 minutes over the rocky coast we reached a very steep and rocky cliff which we could not go around.  So we had to go up the cliff and back down the other side.  The up part wasn't too bad (a lot of holding on to tree roots and slipping and sliding) but when we got to the top it wasn't immediately clear how to get back down.  I followed a few other people down a little ways, but it became clear that as more people passed along the same route it got slicker and slicker until it reached the point where I lost my footing and smacked my tailbone on a rock (ow!).

At that point I decided that it was probably best to try to find my own route.  I started off in my own direction and was doing quite well until the branch I was hanging from snapped, causing me to slide down the remaining 15 feet.  I landed at the bottom (on my feet) and am proud to say that not only did I get down faster than anyone else, but I also won a tramping club award (a Speights beer) for the most graceful descent.  The only drawback was that I emerged with a bloody torso and a bruised rib.  I'll live.

But that was only the first stop on the first day!!

Next we headed off to a fossilized forest which was created when volcanic activity inundated the area, preventing the decomposition of a coastal forest.  This was really cool because not only were the trunks still perfectly preserved several million years later but they actually still looked fresh!

It was also at this beach that the sun finally came out making this late afternoon picture possible.

Our last stop that day was to visit the southernmost point on the South Island.  This is probably the closest I will ever get to Antarctica unless I get hooked on studying ice this summer at LDEO.  Strangley, I found out that I was not actually nearly as far south as I had imagined myself to be.  This point is only about halfway between the Equator and the South Pole.

So why is it so COLD here?

The next day we made our first stop at Jack's Blowhole (which sucked-haha) and then moved on to Purakaunui Falls.

Next, was a stop at Cannibal Beach where we ate a delicious protein-rich lunch (no joke, I do not lie) and saw a raft of sea lions.  This was pretty exciting because they were very active and vocal.  I took a few videos of them playing/fighting but mostly we tried not to disturb them because they are a 'threatened species' and protected under the Marine Mammals Act of New Zealand.

Our final stop of the trip was at the Nugget Point Lighthouse where I was again enthralled by the rocks.  In fact I was so distracted that I seem to have forgotten to take any pictures of the lighthouse except this one from afar. 

Check out the bedding in those nuggets!!!  Rotated 90 degrees!!!

And that was my trip to the Catlins!  This weekend I'm hanging out in Dunedin where I'm spending most of my time in the library writing three papers and procrastinating by updating my blog.  The semester is coming to a close (I'm leaving on the 3rd of June-less than a month) but never fear, two more adventures are in the works.  Thursday I'm heading off with Louis go tramping in a location which we will decide upon Wednesday morning (see how spontaneous I've become!) when he returns from doing the Kepler.  This trip should be made extra exciting by the fact that we will be renting a car and driving on the left side of the road!  Then, if we manage not to get into an accident or die in a snowstorm, we're headed off to do some hiking around Mt. Cook the following Thursday.

Much love,

Allison

Two Weeks of Mischef and Mayhem

WOW!  Once again I have had incredible adventures over the past two weeks.  I'm going to try to make this post heavy on the pictures so you don't get sick of my narration (and adjectives) but still get the idea of how fantastic it was!

With my field trip to the south and my Easter Break travels in the middle I've traveled pretty extensively.  Here is a map to give you a sense of what I've been up to.  The black dot in Fiordland is Borland and the thick red line with the black dots shows my Easter Break route.

 My first adventure was with my New Zealand Field Studies and Mapping class to Borland.  Just like with our last field trip our task was to map the contacts and outcrops we saw, but this time we had the added complication of seeing all three rock types (igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary) and some crazy structural features (faults, anticlines and synclines.)

Fortunately, this field trip involved much more comfortable conditions than our previous field trip to Maerewhenua.  This time around we were housed in small cabins and had pretty good food every night and even some local beer on the last night!  We also got very lucky with the weather.  Fiordland is known for being extremely rainy during this time of the year (for evidence please read my last post!) but we were fortunate enough to have only one day of rain.  The good weather meant that we had fantastic views from the top of the Borland Mountain Saddle, a beautiful lunch stop on the first day and a gorgeous sunrise on the second day.

 (People going clockwise: Christine-UVM, MacKenzie-Smith, me-Mac, Louis-Mac, Tim-Colby, Travis-Hamilton, Cassidy-Hamilton and Drew-Hamilton took the picture.)

At the end of the lunch stop pictured at right a rather amusing event occurred.  As we were attempting to pull back on to the gravel road a large boulder got rolled under the axle of our van.  After much rocking (haha) of the van we realized that we could not shake the vehicle loose and were going to have to lift it up so that someone could crawl under the van and knock the rock out of the way.  So everyone got into position around the back of the van and lifted it up.  Then, one brave instructor crawled under the van and removed the offending cobble. 

We saw some pretty cool rocks too, my favorites were the turbidites which are packages of sediments representing the sequential failure of submarine slopes.

However, on the last day of the field trip our luck ran out and it began to pour.  This made our visiting the last outcrops somewhat difficult, especially since part of the day involved mapping along a riverbank.  We started off tramping along the river and were forced to make a river crossing where the water was up to our calves.  On the way back at the end of the day it reached mid thigh.  Notice I didn't say it began to rain....it really was pouring!

After our eventful week in Borland we returned to Dunedin for a day to dry out and rest up.  For me resting up involved sorting through a lot of e-mails including two of particular interest.  The first was from Columbia University notifying me that I had been offered an internship at their Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory this summer!  This is incredibly exciting because it means that I get to work with Dr. Jerry McManus on constraining the relative timing of glaciations in North and South America.  It is also exciting because it means that I will be spending ten weeks living on New York City's Upper West Side.  Visitors welcome!!

The second piece of e-mail awaiting me contained news of my being awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship!  Needless to say these were both fantastic lead-ins to Easter Break.

So after a day of rest (it was good Friday after all) Christine and I headed off on a bus to the resort town of Wanaka.  In Wanaka we spent a few minutes getting organized and then we started off on our first real adventure: HITCHHIKING!!  We had been told that New Zealand is one of the best places in the world to hitchhike and since the bus tickets were so expensive, despite the fact that our stop (Makarora) was only an hour and a half up the road, we decided to go for it!

After waiting about 15 minutes we were picked up by Ben, Emma and their dog Kiera (who we got to pet!) who took us about a half hour up the road to their turnoff.  We then waited about five minutes and were picked up by Graham, a Department of Conservation District Manager.  When Graham found out that we were headed to Makaroa to hike the Wilkins-Young Circuit he began to tell us about the geological and settlement history of the area.  He was an excellent tour guide and clearly eager to talk about the area.  As we neared Makarora it began to rain and since Christine and I had been planning on camping out that night we gratefully accepted Graham's offer of rooms in his DOC house overnight.  Now before you get all creeped out, it was really very nice!  We each had our own rooms and watched a documentary about chimpanzees before going to bed early.

The next morning (clear skies) we were set to begin our hike with a river crossing, but since it had been raining it was impossible to cross the river.  Instead, Graham dropped us off (on his way to an Easter Sunday Service) at the Blue Pools trail head which added an extra 7 km to our hike but got us on our way.

That day we did 27.5 km to reach Young Hut where we were very lucky to arrive early enough to get one of the 20 bunks.  That night about 20 more people slept on the floor and outside!  A popular track indeed.

The next morning we set off for the pass crossing which involved 1000m ascent (which led us to the snow line) and 861m descent over the course of 11.5 km (see picture for an idea of the incline).  Needless to say we were pretty exhausted when we finally reached Siberia Hut late that afternoon.  However, it was well worth it!

 (Top: Mount Awful (stolen from the DOC website) Bottom: Mt. Dreadful)

On our final day we again had beautiful weather (it actually never rained during the whole trip except for that first night) and hiked 29 km back to Makarora and across the Makarora River which was no longer at flood stage but was still up to our butts and flowing very quickly (the picture is taken significantly upstream at a lake).  For those of you keeping track that's a total of 42 miles and 4,888 feet of vertical in three days.

The next day we were picked up in Makarora by Louis and his dad who was visiting over the break. Together the four of us drove through Haast Pass and up the West Coast to Fox Glacier where we spent the afternoon on a "1/2 day glacier adventure."

The next day we drove to the town of Greymouth where Christine and I said goodbye to Louis and his Dad and jumped on the TranzAlpine Train which took us through Arthur's Pass, across the mountains and down into Christchurch on the East Coast.  This was a stunning journey but it also made me realize how difficult it is to take pictures from a moving train which is why I'm not including any pictures.

The day after we arrived in CHC, we took a bus to Banks Peninsula and the French town of Akaroa.  In Akaroa we checked in to a delightful backpackers hostel and then headed out to do some sea kayaking.  We had beautiful views of the volcanic crater that forms Banks Peninsula and also got to kayak along with four dolphins!

The following day we hiked to the rim of the Caldera (another 590m or 1,935 feet for those of you keeping track) and saw beautiful views of the peninsula and the ocean.

Finally, on Saturday we returned to Christchurch where we stayed the night with a friend of Christine's who is studying abroad at the University of Canterbury.  Sunday morning we visited my old school (Ilam), which looked exactly the same as it did 14 years ago.  That afternoon after meeting up with Louis and his dad again (who took us out to lunch at a phenomenal place called Burgers & Beers Inc.) we all drove back to Dunedin!

And that is the short version of what I've been up to over the past two weeks!

I think it's probably time for me to get back to the studying part of my study abroad experience!  This weekend is going to be a quiet one, but plans are being set for trips to the Catlins and Mt. Cook!  Stay tuned....

Love,
Allison