Wildfoods Festival Weekend Wildness

I've been practically non-existent on this thing but can you blame me? I'm in New Zealand!

Anyways, here's a list of stuff that I aim to write about at some point:
-Orientation
-Awkward Week in Dunedin (includes Germans!)
-Classes and Uni
-A List and Explanation of Some Cultural Differences
-Flat Life
-Homesickness and (hopeful) Integration

But for now, I'd like to discuss the memorable weekend I just had, especially since it's fresh in my mind:

Leigh Bullion, bless her soul, invited me to go with her and some of her friends on a road trip to the Wildfoods Festival in Hokatika, on the west coast of NZ. I had to make a decision to skip out on two of my lectures (which doesn't ever happen for me at Cobly unless I'm traveling home), with one of them seemingly important for a paper that I have to turn in before this Friday (it was a Tutorial in which the paper topic was discussed in class). I allowed (yes, allowed) myself to skip when my flatmate Laney said she would tape record the "tut" for me (which I borrowed from a Canadian friend). We left Dunedin at about 4:30, and we drove to Wanaka. In the car was myself, Leigh, Leigh's Kiwi host Olivia, Jur, a girl from Amsterdam, and Jeff, from Maryland. It was utterly spontaneous and it was going to be interesting to see how this group of people was going to interact (Jur and Jeff were completely new to me).

Wanaka is the sleepier version of Queenstown, the adrenaline capital of New Zealand (of the world? AJ Hackett created the bungy jump there). It's absolutely gorgeous, and it's set on the picturesque Lake Wanaka with Mt. Aspiring National Park and the Southern Alps as the backdrop.

Leigh and I grabbed some fish and chips for dinner. Fish and chips are a New Zealand staple that I had yet to try for myself. I found that they like lots and lots of salt on their french fries. =) We met up with the others and desperately tried to find a place to stay for the night, and we ended up checking into Base Hostel just in the nick of time. All 5 of us got to stay in the same room, which was really convenient (I had stayed in a hostel in Te Anau with the Kepler group and there were some other randoms there that probably didn't like the fact that we woke up at 6:30 to get ready to leave for Dunedin).

The next morning, Leigh and I made sure that I was going to be able to get a ticket to actually go to the Festival (as that was the main point of me going, really). In the meantime, Jeff and Jur decided that they wanted to go skydiving, but the only time that was available was at 5 p.m. While the rest of the group was a bit skeptical about the late start time for our drive to Hokatika (we knew it was going to take at least 4 hours), I was able to procure a ticket through the I-site at Hokatika. (By the way, I-sites are incredibly useful for tourists in New Zealand, as they'll book tours, hostels, etc. for free). We had a ton of time to kill, and we decided to take the hour drive to Queenstown. A local told us to take a different road to get there than the one we were planning, saying it was going to be more beautiful and actually take less time. Hell yes!

Queenstown, my friends, is simply majestic. I had seen pictures of Queenstown from my friend Dana, another Colby student studying at Otago, and had absolutely salivated over them. The weather and the scenery did not disappoint. It was beautifully epic, as it is set on a lake carved out by glaciers and situated in the mountains. I had to get more of the town, so Leigh and I took a gondola to the middle of a mountain. It was absolutely great, and I got some beautiful pictures (not yet on facebook, but they'll get there eventually).
Leigh and I luged a little bit, before meeting up with the others to drive back to Wanaka for their skydiving adventure. I didn't end up going skydiving (my mom was grateful for this when I talked to her on the phone today), but I have a friend (Ryan) who is pushing me to go with him. If I have time and the desire, I can assure you it'll happen. But it didn't feel right and I'm trying to budget myself (it would've easily doubled the amount that I would've spent that weekend). Anyways, Leigh loved it and so did Jeff and Jur. We left really late though, and I really think it would've been spectacular scenery. Except it was really dark. And it took us 6+ hours instead of what we thought was going to be 4... so we arrived at our campsite at about 2:30. There had been a lot of partying by the people that had made it there earlier, so the noise kept me up until about 4. I woke up at 8 the next morning to Americans getting ready to go to the festival, so Leigh and I decided to depart without the others (Jur and Olivia are not morning people).

Hokatika, the location of the food festival, wasn't anything spectacular, but they had set up street vendors on the main thoroughfare. I spent a ton of time admiring the greenstone/pounamu/jade nephrite (NZ English/Maori/Scientific versions of the same thing) necklaces. They're really beautiful and they're incredibly special to all residents of NZ. Greenstone is NZ's most precious stone, and considered by the Maori to be a taonga (treasure). The Maori, in fact, would send search parties to the West Coast to find as much pounamu as possible because it could be carved into jewelry but also into weapons and tools (being an incredibly hard stone). There are different carvings that symbolize different things, but it is one of the greatest gifts and displays of love one can give.

To the main event! The Wildfoods festival! I had heard a lot about this festival, from Connie, one of my two Kiwi hosts, that it was an absurd drunkfest with lots of ridiculous things to try. The latter was definitely true and the former was only partially true. The food was absolutely great, and it's definitely stuff that I don't think I'd find anywhere else. I was greeted by the removal of live Huhu grubs (one of the festivals signature dishes) by men chopping deteriorating wood and picking them out individually. I had to try it:
It surprisingly didn't taste like much--the body was very juicy and the head was a bit crunchy. Anyways, on the day I tried a bite of kangaroo, chocolate worm truffle, ostrich pie, whitebait (fish specific to the West Coast), a wild pork bbq sandwich, and rose petal wine. All of it was surprisingly delicious =) I couldn't bring myself to try pig's brain cheese--looking at it made me want to spew. I also now have the best "2 Truths and a Lie" icebreaker game.

The rest of the day was spent at the beach (it was 20 degrees Celsius and sunny), reading about NZ and playing disc with friends from the Dunedin Ultimate team (Lewis and Simon, two awesome Americans).

We left the next day and had to make a long trip back to Dunedin. We went through Arthur's Pass (which connects Christchurch to the West Coast) and we were collectively stunned by the scenery, and we also ended the day with a trip to the Moeraki Boulders. These are enormous spherical stones chilling on a beach in Moeraki. Probably my second favorite beach in New Zealand behind Tunnel Beach in Dunedin (more on that later). New Zealand... Rocks! (FotC, anyone?):
It was a good time, but it was also great to get back home as well. Next up for my adventure in NZ is a tramp on the Routeburn Track, the second Great Walk I will have attempted since being here. I'm a lucky SOB, that's for sure.

Cheers!