Days 30-33: Queenstown, Christchurch, and about every airport in the country of NZ.

What an adventure our 3 days off in New Zealand have been. We left for the Auckland airport at about 5:00am on Thursday morning to catch our 8am flight. Everything was going smoothly until I approached the JetStar ticket counter, only to discover that I had purchased a flight from Auckland to Queenstown on January 29 instead of 26. Fabulous.
After about an hour of panic and discussion with the JetStar service attendant, she gracefully agreed to let me purchase another ticket on the flight. For a meager $400. However, using my suave demeanor and dashing good looks, as I often do, I was able to convince the attendant to drop the 280 service charge and lower the ticket down to $180. So, major crisis somewhat averted, we boarded the plane to head to the south island and adventure capital of New Zealand, Queenstown.

I felt like Frodo

The descent into the town feels a little bit like the introduction of a Man vs. Wild episode. With all of the mountains surrounding us, I was pretty sure we were never going to land, but simply be thrown out of the plane left to parachute our way to the city. However, we finally touched down in one of the most stunning landscapes I have ever been in. You can immediately understand why Peter Jackson picked this particular area in this particular country to provide the massive and impressive landscapes for the Lord of the Rings movies.

 

Kind of a ridiculous place to land a plane

After settling in to our hostel, which was really very nice, the adventures began with a gondola ride up to the top of one of the mountains. Once at the top we participated in some luge cart rides down part of the mountain, which at times convinced me I was going to flip over the edge. That afternoon we settled in a "Cowboys" bar in town and got a little slice of the New Zealand perception of Nashville, cattle skin chairs and giant stuffed grizzlies. I guess in some respects it is not too far off. We got some dinner at a place close by and settled in to the hostel for the night to avoid the rain that had come later in the day.
Day 2 in Queenstown held a few different things for our group. While most of the guys went off to do the 340ft Nevis Bungy jump, I stayed back and did some shopping and exploring (because I am not insane). Even people in Queenstown talk about how crazy someone has to be to do this bungy. Nevertheless, they all made it back in the early afternoon and we all had a massive lunch at FergBurger. After lunch we explored around the gardens and saw more of the ridiculous scenery around the lakes and harbors of Queenstown. Unfortunately we never had time to go take the cruise in to the Fiordland where all of the glaciers are. That night we joined in the Kiwi Pub Crawl to get a feel for the Queenstown night life. This included a bar where everything was made of ice, including seats and glasses. Not exactly my cup of tea, but it was a really fun experience nonetheless.

Reel, Andrew and I were a little chilly

The next morning we left early to ride with a hired driver in a van across the south island into Christchurch. The drive was beautiful, taking us through several more mountain ranges and over some massive glacier lakes. The water from these lakes is an entirely different icy blue than any I had ever seen. Six hours later, we arrived at the Christchurch airport. With no set accommodations and a flight out at 6:40 the next morning, we had made the decision to just stay the night in the international terminal to avoid paying for a room we would only be in for a few hours anyway. Once we stored our luggage in the airport, we headed in to downtown Christchurch. Or at least what we could get to.
Christchurch was devastated last year by two large earthquakes in February and September, and has still yet to make much ground in the way of recovery. The city still experiences small after shocks almost daily (one happened about an hour before we arrived). Because of this, the insurance companies will not release any rebuilding funds, so hardly any repair is taking place. The city center is completely fenced off and patrolled by national guardsmen. The damage is clearly evident by some tall buildings that appear to be leaning and houses that have been partially caved in and evacuated. It was an eerie scene to explore, as hardly anyone was even walking near the area. It almost gave the impression of being in a fallout area.

This house's foundation had shifted so that it began to sag in the middle

This building was definitely leaning a degree or two

The night in the airport was interesting. Considering how I was sleeping, on top of my bag covered by a raincoat on the floor, I really did get some decent sleep. After finally making it to our 4:40am checkin time, we went and laid down on the couches at the gate for an hour and a half before the flight boarded. More spotty sleep followed on the 1.5 hour flight back to Auckland, where we spent another day stuck in an airport. We arrived just after 8am and our flight back to Sydney was not until 3:55. Then it got delayed. So we finally found a restaurant that let us kind of hole up in the corner and sleep/work until our flight finally boarded. See you back in Wesley College in Sydney!

Comfy, guys?

Day 29: Piha Beach

Today we took an all day trip to the black sand beach at Piha on the west coast near Auckland. The drive out through the mountains took several hours and gave us some great views from some outlooks along the way. We got to stop at a Maori cultural center in the mountains that had a lot of interesting information on the history of the Maori tribes from that region.
Once we got to the beach, it was easy to see why the refer to it as a black sand beach. It literally looked like we were walking around on oil sands. The sand looked like tar when it got wet. It also got incredibly hot when the sun would shine due to its dark color and high metallic content.
While at the beach we climbed up a large stone structure near the beach called Lion Rock. For some reason we were all barefoot. The top of Lion Rock gave us a great perspective on the mountains around us and the beaches below us. Piha is another beautiful area in the north island of New Zealand.

Seriously. BLACK sand.

Barefoot climbing was a mistake. The steps didn't go all the way to the top.

Channeling my inner R Kelly.

Awesome pizza with delicious ginger ale

Weird awesome coniferous trees all over NZ

 After another great meal at Piha (chicken and artichoke pizza with feta, for dad) we headed back to Auckland to spend the afternoon meeting with professors discussing thesis progress and general classwork issues. It was boring. We ate dinner at the Viaduct Harbor which had some beautiful scenery of the Auckland rivers and harbors. Bedtime came pretty early since we will be rolling out for Queenstown at 445 tomorrow morning. See you on the south island!

Day 28: Unitech

Today we spent much of the morning having a group meeting with members of the Architecture and Construction Management programs at Unitech, another technical university in New Zealand. The professors seemed to have a great passion for teaching others about the built environment, one American professor in particular. He had been a part of building a low impact residency in Arizona that at the time was the highest rated LEED building every built. It attained a nearly perfect score.
However, this professor had several negative things to say about both the LEED and Green Star rating systems, citing that these systems do not rate the performance efficiency of buildings. They are only concerned with the efficient design.

That afternoon we had off, so Jason, Will, Andrew and I all head out to find something to eat. We found a small cafe in an alley downtown Auckland that served some delicious looking brunch. I got a chorizo omelette (it reminded me of Oscar's Taco Shop in Franklin). It was huge and ridiculously good, as most of the food here has been.

Omelette from the cafe

Jason sitting by some flowers

Day 27: The University of Auckland (the other AU)

Today we were invited in to another university to learn about their construction management and sustainability programs. The University of Auckland is the largest college in the country, and also happens to contain the most prestigious program in Construction Management as well as Land Development.

We met with the dean of this college, Suzanne Wilkinson, as well as three of her doctoral students, to learn about their programs. The doctoral students led us around on a campus tour for about an hour after we split up in to groups. It was interesting to talk to someone else performing research in a similar field, albeit at a much higher level, to compare some of our methods and experiences. Our student tour leader, Riza, was just putting the finishing touches on his dissertation after three years of studying cost management of retrofit projects in the Auckland area. Riza, originally from Iran, found our southern American mannerisms and accents pretty entertaining. He also explained he was just happy to see some other faces besides the other doctoral students locked away behind cubicles with him in the doctoral computer lab.

Clock Tower at University of Auckland

After a morning with AU, we took a short break to change in to hiking clothes. Anoop had us headed on what was sure to be another treacherous hike up some giant mountain that was probably featured in Lord of the Rings. After 30 minutes on a bus out of town, we wound up at the foot of One Tree Hill. There is a road that winds up the steep slope that cars and people can walk on for a fairly easy trek to the summit. Of course we wouldn’t take the easy way out under Anoop’s direction.

Instead we found a small gate to prevent sheep from leaving the pastures around the hill, walked in, and climbed on hands and feet up to the top through hefty, fresh piles of sheep excrement. The view at the top was definitely worth it though (at least after washing my hands off).

One Tree Hill

So original

The night had a trip to the top of Sky Tower in downtown Auckland in store. We met around 8:30 to get a view of the sun setting over the Waitkere Mountain range as well as a great glimpse of the city from above by night. The tower is definitely similar to the Space Needle in Seattle, but definitely with more viewing decks. It also features a deck that you can jump off of. I did not participate in this activity.

Sky Tower

Leaning against the glass in Sky Tower...as close as I'll come to bungy jumping

Glass floor at the top of Sky Tower

Day 26: Maori Museum

We headed back in the late morning for a tour of the Maori museum near the war memorial. The museum tour included a fascinating display from local performers of some of the native songs and dances from the island culture. Our favorite was the “Haka” that is performed as a dance to provide energy and intimidation before a conflict took place. The Haka is still used in modern day New Zealand sports, including New Zealand All Blacks rugby games. The entire team, which includes many Maori players, performs the ritual before every game to intimidate the other team as well as energize the audience.

It is very surprising, coming from America, how much the native culture influences the feel of the city here. From my understanding, there was a great deal of opposition to assimilation efforts by Europeans during colonization, leading to a very prominent Maori culture still here today. Many signs and brochures around the city are written in both English and traditional Maori languages. It is very different from the way the westerners simply forced Native Americans to become “civilized” and join our society.

Maori Mask

The rest of the day was taken off to get some work done, as well as catch up on a little sleep we have been dearly missing. Four weeks of travel around Australasia has finally started to take its toll on our group, evidenced by lots of yawning and dozing off on our frequent 3-4 minute bus rides.

Day 25: Travel day to Auckland

Today we left Melbourne to embark on a three and a half hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand. Auckland is located on the northern island of New Zealand and is the largest city in the country, although it is not the capital (Wellington, also in the north island is the capital). Auckland is two time zones ahead of Melbourne and Sydney, putting me at a grand total of nineteen hours ahead of Central Time back in America. I’m nearly a full day ahead of you guys reading this blog! (This is assuming you live in the beautiful areas of middle Tennessee, western Kentucky, or eastern Alabama, 99.9% of my readership.)

Upon our arrival it was already nearly 5 o’clock in Auckland which did not leave a wealth of time to get any real exploration done. We checked in to our new hotel, the Waldorf Hotel (not quite the Waldorf-Astoria) located in northern Auckland. The hotel is even a step up from our past three, providing a tasty free breakfast of Muesli and fresh peaches every morning, as well as a balcony and two bedrooms.

After checking in we headed to the War Memorial site a few blocks from our hotel. There is a museum of New Zealand culture at this site, including many exhibits from the native Maori culture that we will see tomorrow.

Giant Tree

Maori Museum

After a brief exploration around the park the memorial is in, we headed to a strip of restaurants on Karangahape street (any thoughts on that pronunciation?) and settled on a kebab dinner from a local Turkish restaurant.

Day 24: Last day in Melbourne

For our last day in Melbourne we had a few different structural sites to visit. The first was the Southern Cross train station in Melbourne. The station is known for its radical roof design and massive roof structure. The use of beams that curve in both directions make this design unique. It supports a massive membrane roof through the use of digitally modeled roof members.

The second visit was to the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This is a structure in Melbourne that has been a focal point for many years. It has held numerous different types of sporting events, including Olympic Games as well as Cricket, American Football, Soccer, and even an air show in the early 1900's.

Southern Cross Station

Melbourne Cricket Ground

Our tour was provided by an elderly member of the volunteer tour leaders, and his long time experience in the Cricket Ground was highly interesting to all of us. He explained the different levels of expansion in the stadium's history as well as an overview of the entire stadium layout.

Lastly, we went to the Melbourne Theater for a viewing of the Australian play "The Summer of the 17th Doll." The show was very interesting, giving us a glimpse in to life in Melbourne in the 1930's. The play had several hilarious characters and lines, but ultimately ended in tragedy.