Arthur's Pass Trip

Hey everyone! Welcome back to another episode of "Is Luke Alive?"
Alas, this week we had our first casualty. Luke escaped alive, but his watch has sunk to it's watery grave, may it rest in peace.
*A Moment of Silence*

Okay, back to business. First off, Happy Easter to you all! You all are still a bit behind the times because Easter was totally yesterday, but I know you are celebrating today. Let's not forget that despite how good that lamb dinner tastes and how many years its been since you've last seen Uncle Billy, the real focus of Easter is the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Although I believe that ideally this should be a daily reflection, I would encourage you to spend some time thanking the God of the universe for enduring the pinnacle of human pain and humiliation for us in order to bridge the gap between our sin and His holiness. If there are any readers of my blog that are not fully convinced of the existence of God or the importance of Jesus's death, I would invite you to do some research or get in touch with me. I would be happy to fill you in on why we celebrate Easter, and share with you how to receive the coolest gift ever, an eternal relationship with your Creator.

Here at Uni, we have a five day break for Easter, which would be a great opportunity to study, considering we have term tests the following week. However, the temptation to go tramping instead was much stronger, and so I ended up in Arthur's Pass on an overnight hiking trip. Although it was not the most difficult tramp that I have done in New Zealand, it was by far the most fun. We hiked for several hours through the Waimakariri Valley to our destination, Carrington Hut, and all along the way, we got to cross the same river about 82,000,000,000 times. In the first couple crossings, I made a valiant attempt to keep my feet dry, but quickly gave up when we crossed some deeper sections up to my waist. Luckily, we had beautiful weather, and the river was actually quite refreshing.

When we arrived at Carrington Hut in the mid-afternoon, everyone emptied the river from their boots, and went about claiming a bunk. A large portion of the group stayed and did some exploring around the hut. However, I went with a couple other peeps further up the valley to the Waimakariri Hut and Falls, which added another four hours to our tramp. We couldn't actually tell which waterfall was the Waimakariri Falls, but we're willing to bet it was one of the ones we saw.

Later that night, after a fantastic dinner of rice, mashed potatoes and sausages, we all gathered around the campfire for New Zealand's awkward attempt at s'mores. We had chocolate covered cookies instead of graham crackers and chocolate, but they still tasted awesome. Honestly, it pretty hard to mess up a marshmallow, chocolate and cracker, no matter what it looks like.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast of oatmeal, I went with a small group out to a cable car for a ride. For those of you who do not know what a cable car is, refer to the picture below. It is pretty much a cart hanging from a cable that is hooked up to a winch system so you can cross the valley without drowning in the river. Fairly helpful I imagine, if drowning in the river isn't really your thing. 

After everyone had gotten a decent ride, we had to make some fast tracks to catch up to the rest of the group, who were heading back to the cars. On the way, I lost my watch in one of the river crossings, but it's fine, you don't really need to know the time in paradise anyway.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip. 10/10 would lose my watch again.

Check out the pictures!

*Some of the pictures are not mine and belong to Arun Kumar and Sam Bridge*

Preparing for the Adventure

First river crossing

The crew in front of Carrington Hut

Waimakariri Hut

Squad

Waimakariri Falls?

Cable Car

Well, I suppose I should study for those tests now....

Thanks for reading!

Oh, one last thing before I go. All those who guessed Lord of the Rings on my trivia last week, you were wrong; it was actually Narnia. It was the scene for the big battle from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Aslan shows up to give the White Witch a surprise after she had killed Him on the stone table.

Cheers,

Luke

Cave Stream

Yes, Luke is still alive.

Hey all!

Today I am going to fill you guys in on yesterday's adventures. I decided I to try to keep the blog as current as possible. I know, I know, please hold the applause... and don't get used to it.

Sooo anyway! I woke up bright and early at 10:30am on Saturday the 19th, and met up with the other students in the Arcadia University program. Despite the warm weather, we were decked out in thermals and super-attractive long socks. Why you may ask? Because we were on our way to CAVE STREAM! Now, New Zealand is super creative with their names; you'll never believe what Cave Stream is. Its a cave... with a stream in it. I know right, awesome; moving on. As we spelunked our way through the cave, we had to wade through the freezing-cold stream, which was up to the bellybutton on some people and the neck on others. It was a lot of fun because sometimes we would have to climb up a waterfall, or squeeze through a small crack in order to press onward. We also had to do it with the light of a headlamp (or torch) because for those of you who are not aware, caves are pitch black. This resulted in many slips, falls and splashes that were nothing short of hilarious. Unfortunately, we could not get too many pictures inside because it was both dark and wet, but here are some shots we managed to snag.

Look how happy we were before we found out how cold the water was

More naive happiness, less of Abbas's head

The Entrance

Entering Cave Stream

The Light!

And that's the hole from which we escaped

After we warmed up and dried off, we set off for Castle Hill for the afternoon, and more importantly, a picnic lunch.

Hop on over to my next post for Castle Hill!

Cheers,

Luke

Castle Hill

Hey everyone, Luke here.
Status: Still alive.

If you just popped on over from my Cave Stream post, thanks for continuing to read!

After our adventures at Cave Stream, we had a short drive to our next destination, Castle Hill, which is a very popular site for rock climbing, especially bouldering. We quickly ate our picnic lunch, including amazing homemade cookies provided by our head-honcho Jane, and set out to do some exploring and climbing. Not much explaining has to be done about a giant field full of rocks, but we had a blast. Check out of the pics!

Picnic Lunch

Abbas and I

AcadiaNZ

Can't call it a day without a homemade pie!

Now, Castle Hill was the location of an important scene from a pretty-well known movie. So now that you've seen the pictures, take a shot at the trivia question below.

What Movie Series had a Scene Filmed at Castle Hill?

If you're confident in your series choice, let me know which movie and scene it's from in the comments, and you get bonus points.

That's all for now!
Cheers,
Luke

Trip to Mount Somers

Hello World! I kind of dropped of the face of the planet for a couple weeks, but yes, Luke has managed to stay alive!

Sorry I haven't posted in while, but I have had a crazy last couple weekends, and homework has begun to pile up during the week. I have officially begun my tramping (hiking) adventures! Two weekends ago, I took a day trip up to Mount Somers at the edge of the Southern Alps, which is the mountain range that extends down the entire South Island. It was an easier tramp, but that is because it was the first official hike of the year for the CUTC (Canterbury University Tramping Club), and they wanted to cater to all hiking abilities. Regardless, it was beautiful! We departed at about 8am, arrived at the mountain by 10am, and did not get back on the bus to head home until 6:30pm. A solid day in the mountains. I've included some pictures below.

The Destination 

The mountains just dropped off into farmland that was absolutely gorgeous. 

The strange human on the rock is me.

View from the Summit of Mt. Somers.

Looking West towards the Southern Alps.

River at the the bottom of the mountain where I was able to fill my water bottles. NZ water tastes so good. 

I have also made a separate post with pictures from my latest trip last weekend, so jump on over to that next!

Cheers,
Luke

Trip to Lewis Pass

Hey all!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I also went hiking last weekend. The tramp had two groups; the first group was taken to the head of a valley (The white dot in the picture), and they followed the Boyle River for several miles to Magdalen Hut where they made camp. My group was dropped off at the "Engineers Camp" on the other side of the ridge. The following picture is from a friend's GPS.

We had to bushwhack our way up onto the ridge because we are too cool for actual trails apparently. We traversed this for about 14km, peaking both Mons Sex Millia and another unnamed peak. The wearer of the GPS chose not to peak the unnamed one, but it would have appeared somewhere around kilometer 6 in the picture. Once we were about parallel with Magdalen Hut, we began our decent, which was a combination of slips, slides and rolls down the face of the ridge; it was quite steep in some places. The terrain on ridge was a mixture of loose rock and really annoying vegetation. Some of the plants actually wanted to kill you, like the New Zealand Flax, which I just call Swordweed of Death. This friendly little plant really liked to slice your legs when you walked past it, and on the initial upward scramble, it would conveniently grow inside other plants, so went you went to grab a low lying bush for support, it would never fail to stab your hands for you. Awesomesauce.
Honestly though, other than being annoying, the plants weren't much to worry about. The only thing that will kill you in New Zealand is the weather because it is so unpredictable. While we were on the ridge, a perfectly sunny day turned to cold mist accompanied by strong winds that loved to try to help you take the quick route down into the valley.

Once, we had landed safely in the valley, we made our way across to Magdalen Hut to meet the others. On the way, we met a couple pretty cool cows, hopped some barbed wire fences and generally tried to avoid any sign of farmers, who were so unknowingly nice to let us cross their land.

The next morning, we left via the valley with the rest of the crew, which on the map is the flat bit from about 18 km to 27km. On the ride back to Uni, I hopped in a car with some of the trip leaders I had befriended, and we stopped for New Zealand Fish and Chips on the way. The fish was pretty much on par with anything you would get on the Northeast Coast of the States, and the chips were arguably better. We also split a deep-fried banana sundae, which was absolutely immaculate. America isn't the only country that will fry anything apparently.

But I know you guys are only here for the eye candy, so here some some pictures from the trip!

The upward scramble. 

This, my friends, is New Zealand

Any this is too.

If you look closely you see the rest of the group making their way along the ridge.

I'm pretty much the King of Selfies.

This is also New Zealand

Looking into the Valley
If you follow the Boyle River from left to right to where it enters the trees on both sides, there is a tiny patch of grass in the big clump of woods on the right; that is where Magdalen Hut is and also our destination. 

Chilling on the way down.

COWS!

The Fearless Explorer Luke Jensen makes
his way towards food. 

The Tent Life. 

Food, Fire and Friends

Had to do some river crossing the next morning 

Well, that's about it for now folks. Congratulations if you've made it this far, and thanks for checking to see if I'm still alive. Unfortunately, I didn't make it out on a tramp this weekend, but there are some exciting trips coming up so stay tuned!

Cheers,
Luke