Is Luke Alive?

Friday, May 27, 2016

TWALK!

Helllooooo Ladies and Gentlemen!

Another one of Luke's adventures, coming your way, characteristically on time!
He is (drum-roll please).... STILL ALIVE! Woohooo! Joy, happiness, peace, etc, etc.

Last weekend, I participated in easily one of the most insane events I have ever been blessed to be a part of. It goes by the name of "Twalk," and it is a 24 hour orienteering/scavenger hunt race. My team consisted of myself, Tyler, and Phill, and we were one of 80 teams that entered the race, comprising of over 400 people. The goal was to find as many "controls" as possible within a 24 hour period. Now, a control was a white paper plate (which is super fun to try to find in the snow by the way), with a particular word or phrase written on it that you had to copy down once you found it. These controls were scattered over hundreds of square kilometers, and in order to find them, you had to navigate via a compass and topo map. There was a short clue associated with each control, so once you arrived at the right location, you had an idea of what to look for.

Early last Saturday morning, all the teams met at the University of Canterbury, all dressed up because you do the first leg of the race in costume (obviously). We were herded onto several large buses, and driven to the starting line, the location of which nobody knew. Once the race began, all the teams began the first leg of race, which contained fifteen controls, and ended at the "Hash House." The Hash House was the central headquarters for the race. There was food being served around the clock, a running scoreboard, and people passed out in corners getting some sleep in-between legs. As soon as a team reached the Hash House, they turned in their scores for that particular leg, got some food, copied down where the controls where hidden on the next leg from a master map, and half an hour later, departed for the next section. There were five possible legs to complete in total, with a little over 80 controls to be found. Only the top teams were able to finish all five of the legs; our team made it out on four of them.

It was absolutely crazy how insane some of the teams were. My team covered about 50 miles in the 24 hours, but some of the higher ranked teams covered about 75 miles. It is an event that I would definitely do again, and probably train for next time.

Check out of the pictures! (None of these pictures are mine; I was too busy running around like a maniac).

Buses dropping everyone off

Team: "We're Lumberjacks and We're Okay"

Panorama of the starting line

The Porta-Potty Team won best costume.

All the teams, searching for the first control.

The lights you see are teams searching for controls out on "Leg 2"

Tents outside of the Hash House.

The lights are teams out on "Leg 3" over on the other side of the lake.

1st Student and 1st Overall Trophies.

Absolutely insane weekend. 10/10 would destroy my knees again.

Cheers,
Luke

Monday, May 23, 2016

Into the Fires of Mount Doom

Hey Everyone!
Sorry it's been so long since I've posted; I know you all have been dying of anticipation. Well, the short story is that I am still alive. As for the long story.... Keep reading and find out!

Today, I am actually going to jump back a couple weeks. Waaaay back to the last week of term break, and right after I finished my adventures in and around the Kepler Track (Yeah this post is a bit late). However, one needs time to recount one's adventures, especially if they involve travelling to Mount Doom and valiantly destroying the One Ring!

We are going to check back in on Luke's adventures right off Doug the Drag Racer (remember him) dropped him and Kyle off in Christchurch. We gave ourselves about a day to recover, eat, pretend to do homework, eat some more, and get a bit of shuteye, before heading in the opposite direction of our previous journey. Luke, Kyle, and Rachel woke up bright and early the next day to catch our Northward flight to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Upon arriving in Wellington, we met up with some other peeps, Savannah and Jailene, and explored the city for a couple days. We visited a few museums, saw the Weta Workshop (A special effects and prop company that worked on Lord of the Rings), and dined on some local food. The definite highlight of our time in Wellington was sitting in a local square, munching on an apple from a nearby farmers market, and listening to street musician Andy Gartrell serenade us for about three hours. Seriously though, he was an awesome guy, and played even more awesome music; check him out on Facebook and Soundcloud!
Now for a few pictures.

Look who greeted us when we got off the plane!

Why are museums always so tiring?

Weta Workshop!

All kinds of cool props.

Aaaanddd, that's about when my phone (and only camera) died... Some genius left my phone charger in Christchurch.

Luke, Kyle and Rachel's plan was to pick up a rental car in Wellington around noon, and then drive to Tongariro National Park, to start the first leg of our tramp. However, we didn't end up hitting the road until about 6pm, and consequently, we actually started hiking at around 9pm. Luckily, it was a short leg to the first campsite, and we were all asleep by a bit after midnight.

Alright, time for a quick game of trivia. Guess who didn't bring a sleeping pad to Tongairo? If you guessed Chuck Norris, you're wrong, but close; he didn't have to deal with carry-on bag sizes when he jumped from the South to the North island. However, his close friend, Luke Jensen, did not bring one. Yeah, it was a pretty cold night. I was wearing all my layers, and my sleeping bag was wrapped in an emergency blanket to conserve heat. The sun and I woke up at about the same, and he watched gleefully as I shook the ice off of my rain-fly. He had every right to be gleeful though because he didn't have to ascend Mount Doom that day; he got to fly over it.

A couple hours of hiking brought us up onto the Tongariro ridge, from which we could climb up the steep side of Mount Doom. It was a grueling, hand-over-hand climb up a giant skree field. For those of you who don't know, skree is just a lot of loose rocks that really want to kill you. We managed to make it to the top, and it was definitely one of the best views I have ever seen in my entire life. We did some awesome skreeing on the way down, and made it to the bottom in about a sixth of the time it took to climb it. Now, skreeing is a lot like skiing. You are moving down a slope at high speeds; the only difference is if that if you fall, instead of hitting snow, you slam your face off a bunch of fast moving rocks. So gold.

Here's how I imagine the term was born:
Dude 1: Brooo, this is almost exactly like skiing...
Dude 2: Except there are rocks.
Dude 3: Brooo....so its like skreeing....

Don't have any idea how the i's became e's, but that conversation is probably close to word for word. But anywho, we finished off our ten hour day by arriving at campsite number two, and sleeping under the shadow of the now-conquered Mount Doom.

We awoke to our second full day, eagerly anticipating our journey across New Zealand's only desert. It was another long ten hour day, of nothing particularly eventful, just gaining a lot of ground. That night, we met a Kiwi named Philip, and the next morning I decided to hike with him since we were all going in the same direction. We absolutely smashed day number three; it was supposed to take us eleven hours, but we arrived at the next campsite in seven. We talked about all sorts of topics during our hike: books, movies, hiking, barefoot running, religion, politics, family, jobs, world peace, the cure for cancer, etc etc. It was kind of crazy how much we had in common, and we got along swimmingly. Since we weren't sick of each other yet, we figured we would finish off the last day together as well. At the end, I met up with Kyle and Rachel back at our rental car, after 50 miles of circumnavigating Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom) and Mount Ruapehu.

A quick flight the next morning back to Christchurch concluded our adventures on the North Island.
Photo credits to Rachel Cope on these pictures because she was smart enough to bring a phone charger. Check them out!

So majestic. Oh look, and Mount Doom.

Yeah it's only a wee bit steep.

Looking into the crater!

When on Mount Doom...

Some of the view from the top.

A bit later in the day, after descending from Mount Doom.

Looking back on Mount Doom.

Next day, crossing through the desert. Mount Doom is getting further away!

Dope Hut shot

Thanks for reading guys!

PS. You may have seen some lumberjack photos hitting up Facebook. That was my most recent adventure, and I promise I will be quicker about posting about that one! Check back in next weekendish.

Cheers!
Luke

Friday, April 22, 2016

Journey Into the Southland!

Hey everyone!
It is safe to say that Luke has defied all odds and is still alive.
"Wow, that's boring. Why do I even bother checking anymore?" You may ask.
Well let me tell you a story; a story of how Luke approached death, and after a brief moment of formalities proceeded to beat the living daylights out of it.

Pop some popcorn and find a comfy seat ladies and gentleman because this is gonna to be a long one.

It's early in the morning on April 15th. Much of Christchurch is asleep, except for two fearless adventurers, myself and my Brother-Man, Kyle Alpert. We stand just outside the city, awaiting our fate, the tools of our trade majestically reflecting the early sunlight that can only be found on a Friday morning.
Destination: Queenstown.

"Tools of the Trade"

As if anyone would pick him up

After a short thirty minutes of standing on the roadside, a car finally pulled over, and thus began our first hitchhike. The driver was a cool dude, and I cannot remember his name for the life of me, so I will affectionately refer to him as "The Electrician." Coincidentally, that is also his job. Now, The Electrician just happened to be going all the way to Queenstown, which about 300 miles away, and it is safe to say, we got extremely lucky. He even stopped at a famous Mount Cook lookout, and for food several times, so we did not get too hangry.

Mount Cook

The sexy beast you see in the picture, way off in the distance, is the legendary Mount Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand. And the guy, well... that's Kyle.

After a long six hour drive, we finally arrived in Queenstown, the Adventure Capital of the World. This is the cute little backpackers (hostel) we stayed in for the night.

YHA Queenstown

After finding our room and dropping our backpacks, we set off into the great wilderness of Queenstown, dense with Asians in down jackets. Our first decision in this town was, obviously, to find as many statues as possible, and sit on them. There are far too many pictures to include here, so check them out on Facebook; we are thinking of opening our own art gallery. The second order of operations was to find food, and boy did we find it. For those of you that have never been to the legendary Fergburger, I encourage you to rethink your life, and find a way to get to Queenstown, New Zealand. It was honestly the best burger I have ever had. Kyle and I did not say a word to each other for a solid ten minutes while we ate, and the only sounds produced were grunts of pleasure and squeals of utter delight. We returned to the backpackers, quite fat and happy.

The next morning was full of more adventures in Queenstown. First, we found this little store called the "OK Gift Shop." Heads up to all humans everywhere, not a good marketing technique. As intrigued as we were about buying simply "OK," souvenirs, we passed the shop by without a second thought.

Next, we took a gondola up the slope behind Queenstown, where we had an amazing view of the city. I decided to pay someone to let me front-flip off a cliff, which was pretty rad, and there will definitely be a video hitting up Facebook soon. Highest adrenaline rush of my life thus far and checked off the bucket list. Skydiving, here I come (But probably not in New Zealand). While we were up over the city, we drove around a cool little luge track. I'm pretty much halfway to the Olympics at this point.

View of Queenstown from the gondola

The Luge track

Thus ended our adventures in Queenstown. After collecting our backpacks and walking a short distance outside the city, we began to look for another ride to hitch. Just 107 miles to go.

Destination: Te Anau

Our second attempt at hitchhiking was not as easy as the first. We stood on the roadside for a long two hours before a local kid offered to take us five minutes further up the road. It was a disappointingly short distance, but it turned out to be just what we needed. He brought us to an intersection where there was more traffic that was definitely heading in the direction of Te Anau. Within five minutes, we were picked up again.

Apples!

This time by a guy named John, who was super awesome. He offered to take us as far as Kingstown, where he and his wife operated a B&B. Along the way, he showed us his favorite apple tree, and we stopped to collect a bagful.

Kingstown Pit Stop

We only waited at the lonely little Kingstown pit stop for about twenty minutes, until we were picked up by a sheep farmer, his wife, and their daughter. They totally pulled over because we bribed them with apples. They were on their way back from Arrowtown, where they had been looking to invest in some land. We learned all about sheep farming and how the rise in the demand of dairy has effected his business. They took us for awhile and then dropped us in the middle of nowhere, but that was fine with us because it was closer to Te Anau!

Our final hitch of the day came from Jamie, who picked us up minutes later. He was a Canadian on vacation in Australia, but had decided to spend a couple days in New Zealand. He was able to take us all the way to Te Anau, where he was staying as well.

The sleepy town of Te Anau

While we were in Te Anau, we met up with Kyle's girlfriend, Rachel, and her family who was visiting New Zealand. We ended up going on a Glowworm tour with them, and then crashing at their accommodations for the night. Unfortunately, I do not have any good pictures of the glowworms because we could not take pictures, but I have included a picture from the Internets that we can just pretend that I took.

Wow, only two days in! Congratulations if you are still reading!

The next part of our adventure was the Kepler Track, which I am going to create a separate post about. Either finish up here first, or hop over there and come back after. I'll be waiting right here.

For those of you that are going to stay, let's continue with the post-Kepler Track Journey.

Upon completing the Kepler Track, we had to hitchhike our way back to Te Anau. After only a few minutes of trying, we were picked up by Joan, a sweet old lady, who wins the award for being the oldest person to give us a ride. She was nice enough to drop us right outside our hostel, where we collapsed in a smelly heap on the floor, and didn't move for a couple decades.

Later that afternoon, I consumed the second best burger I have ever had at the Fat Duck. It had beef, American bacon (Finally), and pulled pork on it, and it was amazing. Moral of the story, New Zealand really knows how to make a good burger.

Check this sucker out.

The next morning it was back to hitchhiking. I know you all are extremely bored at this point, so I am going to make the ride back short, sweet and to the point. We had to travel 400 miles in one day.

Destination: Christchurch.

We arose from our slumber early to make it out on the road just outside of town by 7am. We wanted to make sure that we had every opportunity to be picked up. Turns out, we totally could have slept in longer because we did not get our first ride until 9am. We were picked up by Duncan and Natashia, who were Aussies taking a small break from life and their two young boys. They were on their way back to the Queenstown Airport, so we covered a large distance in one go, which was quite helpful. Three hours later, we arrived at the airport.

Our next rides were two short lifts that helped get us out of the busy Queenstown area. First was from an Indian guy named Raoul, who on Luke's official Creeper Scale from 1-10, was definitely pushing an 11. The second ride was from two nice ladies, who brought us from the terrible location where Raoul had dropped us to Arrowtown.

We did not have to wait in Arrowtown long before we were picked up by a weird man named Lockey. His family runs an off-road ATV Lord of the Rings tour business, which some absolutely AWESOME. He told us about the time that he met Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, and Sean Bean in person. However, he has never read the books.... or even seen the movies. Apparently, they are not interesting enough to keep him awake. Ok Guy. He was gracious enough to leave us in the middle of nowhere, and probably most desert-like area in New Zealand.

We were rescued from certain skin cancer doom by a older gentleman named Graham. He owns a lodge in Otago, right in the middle of a popular multi-day bike route. This is an example of a good business to own; as long as it is not called the "OK Bike Lodge."

Whew! Hanging in there? You should go congratulate yourself with more popcorn.

Two more rides to go! We were next picked up by a Spanish couple named Habbie and Ilana, who were in New Zealand on their honeymoon. It first, it was really weird because they offered to take us quite far, all the way to Tekapo, and we did not want to intrude on their time. We showed them were to get a sweet picture of Mount Cook, and they insisted on taking a picture with us. At that point, we knew that we were not intruding, and we enjoyed hanging out with them for a couple hours.

Habbie and Ilana

When they dropped us off in Tekapo, it was 5:40pm, and the sun was beginning to set. We had a couple minutes to snag a ride, or we would be spending the night on the side of the road. As twilight slowly rolled in, our hopes slowly disappeared....until... a car slowed down and stopped beside us. Enter Doug, with the most clutch ride we had gotten all day, and he drove us the rest of the way to Christchurch. Now, this ride should have taken us about three hours, but it turns out, Doug is a drag racer, and he got us home in two hours, easy. Apparently, he is also a DJ, and has set up staging for Lady Gaga's shows before. In short, it was by far the funnest ride we had received, hurling along the highway at high speeds, jamming to Eminem, with some random half Maori, half Scottish guy we had just met. Humans are awesome.

Well guys, thats all for now!

Thanks for reading, and if you haven't read the Kepler Track post yet, feel free to head over there!

Cheers,

Luke out.

Kepler Track

Hey Guys!
If you are coming over from the "Journey into the Southlands" Post, welcome to the next part of the adventure, if not, go check out that first!

We woke up early on the 17th of April, in the year 2016, to prepare a glorious feast of French Toast before hitting the trails. It is common knowledge that French Toast is the ultimate food for any activity.

Our first day took us up onto the ridge-line. We stopped at Luxmore Hut in the afternoon to make dinner, and then went further up the trail to set up the tent, where we couldn't be found. It dropped well below freezing that night, and we ended up wearing pretty much every layer that we own. We had spectacular views of both the sunset and sunrise from our site.

The next morning, we got to explore some awesome caves near the hut. We wanted to follow them to end, but after about 30 minutes, decided that they probably went on forever. So we returned to the surface and set off across the ridge-line to Iris Burn Campground. We had gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains for most of the day, especially from the summit of Mount Luxmore. We were feeling pretty adventurous, and decided to go off the track to climb the summit ridge from the opposite side. It was a fun side route, and we snapped some gorgeous shots of the peak. Towards the end of the day, we descended off the ridge-line into a beautiful valley to stay the night. At Iris Burn, we met several other hikers who were also camping along the Kepler Track. There was an Israeli girl and a French couple that we got to know over a late night campfire.

The next morning took us through the valley to a lake, where we set up camp on the beach. We thought it was going to be a nice relaxing evening after a freezing cold swim, but everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Unfortunately, not really; we got attacked by something worse. EVERY SINGLE mosquito in New Zealand decided to sneak under the rain fly and spend the night on top of the tent with us. We managed to fall asleep to the melodious sound of super hangry mosquitoes, but the real adventure came the next morning, when we had to figure out how to escape the tent without being eaten alive. Ever seen the Mummy? Pick any gruesome bug scene from that, and that's what we thought would be our best case scenario.

I know you dying of anticipation to see if we escaped alive or not; well we certainly didn't die!

The final day of our trip was a short five hour walk out of the woods to the highway, where we would continue our hitchhiking adventures.

Check out the pictures!

The Adventure Begins

Lake Te Anau

Luxmore Hut

Dope Campsite #1

Poor Little Guy forgot how to Live

Incoming Sunset

The track that normal people follow is waaaay down there

The view of the summit from our bushwhacking route

I dunno why I look so pained, but yay summit picture!

Following the ridge

We passed this lady about 3 times, but she never passed us. We decided that she must be the Spirit of the Mountain

A shortcut to Mushrooms!

Dope Campsite #2

The birds are called Kea, and they are the most mischievous bird I have ever seen. They would go around pulling the soles out of boots, and I'm pretty sure they would pull out my soul too if they got the chance.