Follow the Journey

 

No pranks this day, unfortunately. I think the 1st snuck up on all of us… In the morning we left Nelson for Takaka. During our drive through the mountains we had some truely amazing views. We got into Takaka in the early afternoon. Our hostel in Takaka was certainly the smallest and I’d say the nicest we’ve stayed at thusfar. That night we watched Space Jam and all hung around the hostel.

 

 

Woke up early and left the Hostel for Golden Bay Kayaks. When we arrived we had a crash course from Tony (the owner) on sea kayaking. He had 6 double kayaks and 1 single person kayak for us. The pairs for our first day of kayaking were: Lauren + I, Jake + Scott, Brooke + Grant, Joe + Walker, Brendan + Brad, Olivia + Cat, and Hannah in the single. That first day we had calm seas and a sunny day. We took our time getting over to the camp site. Lauren and I spent some time kayaking with a pair of seals as well as watching the sea birds. When we finally got to the beach we’d be camping on we were helped ashore by a Kiwi named Ricky; Ricky ended up helping us quite a bit over the next day. The group and Ricky enjoyed some nice and incredibly sandy quesadillas for dinner. We all camped on the beach that night in tents that Tony had given us, with the exception of Brad and Myself. We made shelters out of drift wood and tarps that had also been loaned to us by Tony. It was windy all through the night and started raining at about 4 am. However, we all stayed dry so it was a great night.

 

 

We woke up at about 8 in the rain and wind. The day was increadibly overcast.  With much help from Ricky we packed up and departed from the beach. Because of the conditions we switched some of the groups around a bit (Brooke + Grant, Jake + Scott, Joe + Hannah, Walker + Lauren, Brendan + Olivia, and I went in the single). Due to the already poor conditions as well as the forcast for the day we didn’t take time to lollygag, we headed straight back to Tony’s. We had rain, wind and swells that were probably 3-4 feet on the way back. We all got back without any major issues. Tony being the chill guy that he was allowed all 13 of us to rinse off in his house before we left. Outside of Tony’s house one of our vans died. Then out of the blue came Ricky once again to save us. He randomly dropped by Golden Bay Kayaks to drop off a bedroll that we’d left on the beach and found us there with a dead car battery. He gave us a jump and saw us off again. Later that day we met up with him in Takaka and treated him to a meal at a cafe there.  We had a fairly long drive to Punakaiki where we spent that night.

 

 

Woke up and left our hostel in Punakaiki. On our way to Hamner springs we stopped and did a few short hikes one of which was to see the Pancake rocks. We had a pretty long drive to Hamner. We didnt do much that night other than cook a meal using only diced tomatoes and chicken broth. Brad, Hannah and I made it marginally edible. That night for desert we had cake that after an hour and a half of cooking was still mostly batter. Apart from the time in the kitchen it was a very nice hostel to crash at.

 

Free Travel Day 5

 

Woke up early, per usual, and left the hostel at 10. We walked around in Hamner killing time for a bit before the entire group met up and went to the Hamner Springs. Hamner Springs was made up of a collection of thermal pools. I think we all enjoyed ourselves for the few hours that we were there. In the mid afternoon we left Hamner and drove to Christchurch. Not much to say about Christchurch, it was hit with a few very strong earthquakes over the past decade so alot of it’s closed. Stayed at the YMCA there, it was very nice… more like a hotel than a hostel.

 

 

Spent the day in Christchurch…

 

 

Woke up at 3 am… for our 7 am flight to Sydney. We took a train from the airport to Sydney and then after only about an hour left on another train to New Castle. We were picked up by Steve of the CVA and were driven to where we’d be spending the night. Didn’t do much other than hang around the house (owned by the CVA) that night.

 

 

For our time with CVA the group was split up into two smaller groups. So I only can recount the experiences my group (Grant, Joe, Cat, Hannah, Jake, Brendan and I) had. Our CVA taskmaster was named Alleria, she was awsome and very chill to work with. We spent the week working about 2 hours or so outside of New Castle. During our time there we were planting native plants along a waterway for the benefit of wildlife and to prevent erosion. My group ended up finishing our 5 days of work in about 3. We spent our nights at a campsite about an hour from the sites that we were working on. As far as amenities go all our cabin had were bunk beds. Durning the week we cooked almost exclusively on a grill (had kangaroo twice), which was great. Every night we had bonfires where we’d usually eat and socialize. Overall a great week.  

 

-Ben Theeman