Mt. Somers

Hello again,

Things are moving along well here in NZ, and this week was pretty busy. I met up with Grandma on Wednesday for lunch and on Thursday for dinner, and it was a lot of fun. She seems to be having a really good time on her trip, as is Lenore. It was so nice to see some family! On Saturday, 4 of my friends and I drove about 1.5 hours across the Canterbury Plains to Staveley village, where we planned to take a trail to the summit of Mt. Somers. There was rain a few days before in Christchurch, which fell as snow on some of the higher peaks in the area. Mt. Somers had some snow patches on it as well, but most of it had already melted. The hike was supposed to be an 8-hour round trip. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the summit because of some bad weather at high elevation, but it was still a really fun hike with some good views. When we were about 45 minutes from the summit we stopped to have lunch and also keep an eye on the changing weather before we made the final push. In the 20+ minutes that we were sitting eating lunch, the temperature probably dropped 5-10 degrees and the wind really picked up. Rain was threatening too, so we decided to just head back down. I think it was a good decision, because we were getting blown around a little bit during our descent, and it was cold enough for us to don winter jackets, gloves, and hats. Once we got down a ways, it was much warmer and the jackets came off. It was really exciting in a way to be turned back by nature. The whole event made me appreciate NZ and the power of nature all the more! In the end, our hike ended up taking about 6 hours, and was a really fun time.

Mt. Somers

On Sunday morning, my friend Katie and I did a 10km "fun-run" in Lincoln village, organized by the local Rotary. It was a lot of fun and a great way to meet some kiwis outside of the university. They had photographers taking pictures at some points, so hopefully I will be able to snag some pictures of me in action in a week or so. My first big academic assignment, a viticulture report, was due on Monday. I spent the rest of my Sunday writing it - it seems that I'm getting to the stage in the semester when the introductions end and assessment finally begins. Bring it.

This week & weekend I will be busy as well. Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, so I plan on heading into Christchurch and walking around the city, meeting some locals, and taking part in the festivities. Hopefully I can get some corned beef & cabbage...and a pint of Guinness to wash it down. It should be a lot of fun! On Thursday I have my first field trip; I'm heading out to Brooksdale Station to look at some soil pits and profiles that have been prepared by a PhD student here at Lincoln. As a class, we will be looking at the influence of slope aspect on the development (pedogenesis) of Allophanic Brown Soils. I'm really excited. I have a busy week academically next week, so I will need to spend a portion of my weekend doing schoolwork, which is fine. Because of that, I'll probably only do a day hike on Saturday, but maybe I'll take off Friday and stay overnight somewhere if the weather is good. In any case, more fun times are ahead!


I hope all is well back home. HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!