{"id":7811,"date":"2017-04-10T23:36:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T03:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=7811"},"modified":"2019-07-17T14:04:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T14:04:13","slug":"another-weekend-another-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2017\/04\/10\/another-weekend-another-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Another weekend, another adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every trip here in New Zealand is full of amazing views\u00a0and landscapes. \u00a0Last week, I visited the Cadbury chocolate factory which is located in central Dunedin, just a half hour walk from my flat. \u00a0The food at the Cadbury cafe was out of this world, and their chocolate bars were discounted compared to the grocery store prices (so of course I bought 4). \u00a0The “iced coffee” in New Zealand is a thick concoction of milk and ice cream and coffee, generally with whipped cream and chocolate on top. \u00a0Crazy stuff. \u00a0Pictured below is an iced mocha coffee and some giant chocolate pastry, and also me being happy because of all my Cadbury chocolate. \u00a0I like to think that eating veggies and hummus sometimes balances out all this chocolate.<\/p>\n

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This weekend I went with a few friends and did the Copland Track, which is a gorgeous 36km tramp in Westland Tai Poutini National Park. \u00a0Although my feet died and I got a few blisters, it was a stunning hike. \u00a0The Copland River is ridiculously blue and you can drink right out of the river. \u00a0Hands down the freshest, best tasting water I’ve ever had.<\/p>\n

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The track had several one-person suspension bridges which moved a lot while crossing them, which was slightly frightening. \u00a0Pictured below is me crossing a bridge while carrying a giant pack filled with what felt like my body weight in clothes and food.<\/p>\n

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After hours of hiking uphill to the Welcome Flat Hut and campsites, we relaxed in some natural hot pools and watched the sunset. \u00a0The friendly Warden Nick informed me that the hot pools are actually not from volcanic activity, like many are. \u00a0Instead, a nearby fault line heats up the water which runs downhill into these pools. \u00a0The water flowing\u00a0into the pools is orange\u00a0due to minerals and so hot that it’s painful to dip a foot in (which I did several times). \u00a0The mud at the bottom of the hot pools is squishy and bright green… weird.<\/p>\n

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The clouds mostly cleared up in the morning, revealing a beautiful view of the “jagged peaks” as Warden Nick says. \u00a0Supposedly you can see Mount Cook but all the mountains kinda looked the same to me so I have no clue which one it was.<\/p>\n

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The best part about New Zealand road trips is the gorgeous views. \u00a0Even though the track was over 6 hours away from Dunedin, I never got tired of looking out the window. \u00a0The landscapes are so diverse and this entire country is beautiful beyond words. \u00a0Pictured below is Lake Hawea, the moon, and Fantail Falls.<\/p>\n

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After two pretty intense days of hiking the Copland Track, we went to Wanaka for the day. \u00a0After putting band aids on my blisters, I hiked up Mount Iron, which is an easy tramp providing 360\u00ba views of Wanaka. \u00a0Afterwards we went to Boa Boa Burger, which has some crazy humongous burgers. \u00a0I got one with falafel, onion rings, lettuce, tomato, some sauces.. who even knows what else was on it. \u00a0The sunset over Lake Wanaka was also absolutely stunning. \u00a0Wanaka never ceases to amaze.<\/p>\n

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On the way home, I finally tried real fruit ice cream, which is a New Zealand specialty blending together ice cream and frozen fruit – delicious. \u00a0All in all, another great weekend in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

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Every trip here in New Zealand is full of amazing views\u00a0and landscapes. \u00a0Last week, I visited the Cadbury chocolate factory which is located in central Dunedin, just a half hour walk from my flat. \u00a0The food at the Cadbury cafe was out of this world, and their chocolate bars were discounted compared to the grocery…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":464,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-otago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/464"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15340,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7811\/revisions\/15340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}