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Published: March 18th 2009
On the way to Cass
We passed this place. It looked familiar and, in fact, sources say this was where bits of LotR and Narnia was filmed.***I wrote this in Harihari, but didn't publish it because it wouldn't let me upload pictures***
Once again, we're in the middle of nowhere, but instead of beautiful mountains and scenery, we're in this scrubby field. There's a few sheep and chickens wandering around. At least we have laundry and internet here, though.
Continuing from where I left off...
From ChCh, our group traveled to the Cass Field Station and stayed at University of Canterbury's base there. This was really in the middle of nowhere, with a train running through the valley. This meant no internet. The station had a wooden deck covered pit for food scraps. The laundry machine broke the first day, but the drying room dried pretty well. Cass was a real log-cabiny place w/ cement floors in the bunkrooms and wooden floors in the main room with the fireplace. Unfortunately, the last people who stayed here left it a mess and we spent our first hours here cleaning it out and washing every scrap of plate and pot.
We did some hikes around the area (4 hour hikes up the mountain), mapped out Castle Basin, and went through the limestone caves in the dark. The day
Cave Entrance
It was about 30 ft in diameter. The water wasn't that cold, but it did get up above my waist a few times. before we left Reichert held the Sculpture on the Run class. I stacked a bunch of iron railroad links in a fashion similar to a card-house. It took me about 2 1/2 hours, maybe three and I used most of what was available. These things weighed about 18 lbs each. It was a nice workout.
On our way out, we stopped at a place called Pancake rocks where they had these fantastic rock formations. The weather was poor, so we had our geology lecture under the eves of the tourist shop while it was raining. It stopped just in time for us to run through the paths on the coast.
West Point was another University of Canterbury station. This one was only 5 years old or so. Carpeted, nice rooms, stainless steel kitchen, etc. However, still no internet and no laundry. Some people started re-wearing clothes (one of the guys was on his third wearing. Ew!). This place was really nice until I woke up in the middle of the first night and smelled a dead something in the eves. I did not sleep well.
The day we went on our glow worm cave tour, it was frightfully hurricane-like
Cass Field Station
It's there. This was the top of our 4 hr hike and we had a great view of the place. outside. We originally were going to do underground rafting and floating on the river, but the bad weather meant we had to do the walking tour. A short train ride through Jurassic Park (I kept anticipating dinosaurs =p) in the rain, and we were on a wooden path that went to a suspension bridge over the swollen river. Then it was trekking in the mud and up 120 steps to the cave. I am glad I borrowed the provided wet-shoes! The cave was massive with some neat formations. We went all the through to the other entrance where the rain was creating a waterfall. Next was the glow worms. They're the coolest little bugs! They're cannibalistic so when the female lays all her eggs, the babies eat each other until they are strong enough to go their own way. There was always a few inches between the worms. Yes, they are star-like and yes, they do provide just enough light to see by.
Leaving West Point was a boring boring day. Dr. B. took us to the jankiest run down museum I've ever had the misery of going to. All the information was 20-45 yrs outdated. This place was called
Luxury
My room at Cass was really LOL Coaltown and I still don't know why they had antique organs and sewing machines in there. The mannequins were so creepy! Even the "walk through a coal mine" felt poorly done. This museum must be the shame of the town.
That brings me to Harihari! This is not quite in the middle of nowhere in that the "town" is a 15 minute walk away. This consists of a bar/restaurant/hotel building, 2 shops, some houses, and a tiny market. The place is -another- University of Canterbury station, this time looking like a green corrugated metal barn. The inside has lovely wooden floors, nice bunkbed rooms upstairs, a WASHER and a DRYER and INTERNET. There is only one downside to this place and that's the necessity of boiling our drinking water. So far, water in New Zealand has been fantastic right out of the tap, but there appears to have been some contamination in the lines that the city council has warned everyone about.
At this stop, we went to the Franz Josef glacier. The hike there was pretty cool; through the glacial valley, and up through woods on a steep grade where all these little streams had to be stepped
RxR sculpture
These felt heavy after the 50th one and I didn't want to lift any more after the 80th. over. The glacier itself was magnificent and I even drank some water from it (The Taku Lodge in Alaska served better glacier water though 😉.
Tonight the professors are taking us out to have some "wild" food since we didn't make it to the official Wild Food Festival of New Zealand. They're taking us to the restaurant in town to try whitebait, venison, and pumpkin. I really wanted to try the Huhu grubs at the festival tho. =/
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Kathy E
non-member comment
Adventure Galore!
Well you will certainly appreciate your bed and Mom's good food once you get home, I'll bet! Your commentary has been great to read. I loved seeing the photos of the caves. The Glaciers were beautiful too. The accommodations - not so much!