Paragliding PG1 Certification

When I arrived in Auckland on Monday the 27th, Reuben (my paragliding coach) picked me up from the airport, and we drove straight to Waiuku for some flying because the weather was good. I made a hand full of solo flights, and a few speed wing flights. Great progression session, but stunted by some rain. Fortunately, it broke briefly for me to make a 500m vert speedfly run. So Awesome getting to take a long flight with my wing.

Weather was rubbish the next few days so I hung out with Alex and Bjorn, went to Cape Reinga, and took care of some last minute stuff around the city.

Today the weather was good again, so I took the ferry over to Devenport where Reuben picked me up and we went up north to Shakespeare Regional Park. Got a stupid amount of flights in and got to soar rather than just glide. The difference, glide is just starting from one point and going down to land. Soaring is where you use thermal lift and wind currents to increase lift and gain altitude. You can get hundreds of meters higher than when you launched if done right.

Here is some footage from today of me soaring. It is cut down a bit, but it was a 10 minute flight in all which completed my NZ PG1 Paragliding Certification. Check it out bro:

Man I love this sport. It is so amazing to be able to experience aspects of God's creation that most don't get to. Using wind, gravity, and human design all together to generate flight and float in the air, totally in control. So amazing. Praise God.

Cape Reinga

On the menu for today: Nothing thanks to rain and wind

Q: What do we do?

A: Spontaneous 6 hour road trip to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of the North Island.

Alex, Bjorn, and I got up at 8am, ran some quick errands, and took off on the 6 hour trip to Cape Reinga in Bjorn's Peugeot.

Pit stop about 2 hours in at a I Site for a map to make sure we got there, then stopped at Paihia in the Bay of Islands. So beautiful.

Next stop was in Waitangi, which is where most of New Zealand's history revolves around. We went to the grounds where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, and checked out the area. Rich in both culture and beauty, most of which is intertwined.

Continuing on, we made it further north, had to pull over for a flock of sheep to be herded down the center of the road in typical NZ style, and made it to the cape around 4pm.

Worth it.

After we got all our sights in, it began to rain. We loaded back up, and made it home by 11pm with a few brief stops on the way.

Great friends, great views, great country. Man God is great.

Move Out and Winterfest

We moved out of the flat, stashed our rubbish at a mate's flat, and headed for Central Otago.

My flatmates all drove to Queenstown with a crew of friends on Wednesday and Thursday. Alex and I decided to hitch hike so there was room in the car for all the gear.

We were dropped off just outside of Dunedin by our mate Dylan, picked up by a taxi driver who gave us a free lift on her way to pick up a client, then picked up by an Israeli soldier who was traveling around NZ for a while. He brought us to Milton where we hopped in with a Saudi Arabian student on his way to Arrowtown. We got out in Cromwell where we then got a lift by an Aussie who works for Treble Cone ski field. He brought us to Wanaka where we got some stuff and hung out for a bit. Then continued on where we watched sunset over Lake Wanaka as we walked out of town. We were picked up by a chick on her way through the Cardrona pass to just before Queenstown, and dropped off there. Then picked up by two girls heading to Winterfest in Queenstown who brought us right to all our mates. Total success and there in time for dinner with everyone.

Left to right:
Back - Matt, Taylor, Noah, Jackie, Kate, Lauren, Laura
Middle - Preston, Ryan, Me, Jess
Front - Abby

Winterfest in Queenstown was nuts. So many people out at the bars, live music, fireworks, ice skating, parades, everything you could ask for as a winter enthusiast. Queenstown is a winter getaway town, but with no snow, everyone is stuck inside just waiting. People come from all over the world to ski and work in Queenstown in the winter, so when there is a festival celebrating winter, they get wild and have a blast. It was so much fun. I said goodbye to Matt, Ryan, Preston, Abby, and Taylor and managed to keep it together. I'm really going to miss them.

Alex and I drove out to Aurthor's Point to crash with a mate of a mate that night. He was an awesome dude and lived in a beautiful spot.We got up and went back into Queenstown the next morning.

All of us met up with Jane Gunn-Lewis, our program director, to have breakfast and say goodbye. Then Alex hitchiked to Cromwell for a charity ball while we went to Snow Park NZ, the Mecca of terrain parks. I chatted up some really nice lady who turned out to be the general manager of all Snow Park. She was originally from Long Island and was excited to talk to a fellow Empire Stater. As you could have guessed, I got her contact info and she is mailing me some SWAG right now. I can't wait to come back again some day and ride there.

We continued through the pass to Wanaka, got some food, drank some beer, and played some pool at a great bar. It was Noah, Lauren, Jackie and I, and we spent our last night together relaxing and enjoying each other. What a way to go out.

We took off, picked up Alex from Cromwell, and headed back to Dunedin. We snuck into our old flat to sleep and shower, then in the morning packed again.

Got some breaky, Noah ran up Baldwin Street to complete a goal, said goodbye to 10 Mac and Wootie...

Then I took Noah, Jackie, and Lauren to the airport. It was sad to say goodbye, but what an absolute blessing to have met all of them. I can't wait for our reuinion this fall.

As for now, goodbye 10 Mac, it's been real. I love you guys.

Finals

Final exams here in New Zealand are a wee different than the US. As I mentioned earlier, papers (courses) consist of only a few graded assignments and a heavily weighted final exam. My exams were worth between 45 and 65% of my overall grade. Also, almost every exam was just a compilation of short and long essays rather than fill in the blank, multiple choice, or other typical styles.

I just finished finals month. Finals ran from June 3rd to June 23. I had exams the 9th, 18th, 21st, and 22nd. They were all quite difficult to prepare for, you could only take them if you had your student ID on you, had to be escorted to the toilet, and could not leave during certain periods if you finished. Very much like the NYS Regents exam setup.

It feels so great to be done!


We have to be out of our flat tomorrow morning, so it's time to pack up and clean up.

Bro Trip

The winter season has not arrived yet, and is officially the worst winter for snow that NZ has had in the past 40 years (according to the Ski Fields). Usually, Kiwis are making turns and shredding pow full on at this point, but instead are locked up in their houses weeping at the complete lack of snow, or just drinking a lot of beer instead. I brought my ski's with me expecting to have been skiing the past 3 weeks I was here almost every day (Researching when the snow fell and seeing a consistency for 40 years made be fairly certain it would be here), but that failed worse than Charlie Sheen. Not winning.



This week my mate Alex and I went on a quest for snow. The northern end of the Southern Alps has the most quantity of ski fields, but the warmer temperatures. We followed webcams all week, and saw that was where the little bit of snow was. We had a week long break between exams, so we figured while we had time we should at least go hike up to the high elevations and make even a single turn to say we went skiing in NZ (although Alex is blessed enough to be sticking around until August with the SFC crew at Mt. Hutt to shred, so it was more for me). Also, the only two places we had not been yet were through Aurthor's Pass and Lewis Pass, so we packed up Wootie and headed north!

Day 1
We started it off with a bang in Timaru. Alex's friend Lydia is studying at the Aoraki Polytech there for Outdoor Education. She took us rock climbing for free with some other friends of hers. Tons of fun. After, we went to an open field with some nice wind, and I showed everyone how to control a canopy. They LOVED it.

We continued on to Christchurch where we met up with the SFC boys to chat and drop off some stuff, hit up a flying fox and a gnarly as slide at midnight, then went to Ilam to crash with Jaisah and Ben for the night.



Day 2
We got up at 6:30am, made some food, and drove to New Brighton Beach in the dark. Christchurch is still very destroyed from the earthquakes. If you hadn't heard, Christchurch was hit with a second and third earthquake of over 6 on the Richter scale on June 10th. More damage was done, and more streets and buildings were closed. We navigated through the mess to the coast, and watched the sunrise. Thanks to the ash cloud from the Chilean volcanic eruption, the sunrise was mad choice. We watched it rise:

Alex did his thing:

Continuing on, we made it to Castle Hill where Alex did his thing again:

Drove up to Porter's and Cheeseman ski fields with no avail. Saw snow on both, and on every other one but all the access roads were gated near the tops. The other ski fields are hike access only. Skiing in NZ is much different than the US. All the fields have long, unkept access roads to the alpine zone. It never snows in the lower elevations, only on the peaks. So you have to drive up windy as roads for about 35-50 mins to the zones, then hike in about 30-50 mins to the tow lines. There are some "Resorts" that you can drive to the base and park, then ride a lift, but even the big one's only have 3 or 4 lifts max. These are only around the Southern Lakes area because that's where the tourists/crowds are. The volume of people are less, and the area of ski-able terrain is also less. Kiwis envy US skiing. But, pow days here are quite epic.

We kept going until we reached Aurthor's Pass:

Stopped to get a shot of Devil's Punchbowl, then continued on.

Finally, we made it to the West Coast. Quick pit-stop at the Pancake Rocks for Alex (I had seen them with the family) and onto Westport. On our way, we hit up a rad as beach for the sunset completing one goal:

• East Coast sunrise to West Coast sunset in a day.

Alex did his thing a third time:

We got some food, and headed back east. It was dark so we couldn't really take it the scenery, but we still we there and no matter what NZ is always epic. We cruised through Lewis Pass past Hanmer Springs and back to Christchurch around 9:30pm. Quick McDonalds stop for some wifi and coffee, then back to Ilam for the night.


Day 3
Another early morning. 6:00am wake up, breakfast, petrol, then off to Methven and Mt. Hutt for a last chance at snow:

We drove to Mt. Hutt with perfect timing to catch sunrise. It was epic: Top of the world at that elevation looking out over the plains of Southern Canterbury and seeing the sun come up over Bank's Peninsula.

The next move was probably my stupidest...wait, it definitely was my stupidest. For those of you who haven't been following me, I recently got into paragliding and speedflying/speedriding. I bought my own setup, and have been using it cautiously as I trained to be able to do it on a large scale. I have become very proficient at handling the canopy from all my kiting and ground practice, so I wanted to try it in the air at a small elevation (much smaller than when I learned to paraglide). So we were at the top of a small hill taking photos, and when we went down I decided to fly off. It was a great location with moderate wind. I geared up, assessed the situation, and decided to go for it. Kite opened well so I launched it but, being inexperienced I didn't commit to the takeoff. I still managed to get lift, make a turn or two, but did not have the lift I needed to land in such a short time. I came down a little fast and didn't apply enough brake, and caught the top of a small ditch on my way down which tripped me up. I fell pretty hard and bashed up my knee. I was fine, got right up and packed the glider, but then checked out my knee. I had a nice gash right down to the bone and it was bleeding a wee bit. I covered it up and was ready to head down to get it stitched up, but couldn't get myself to go down when we were 2 mins from the snow. So we went all the way up, I geared up with the tele setup, made three turns and a switch up, then headed to Methven to get fixed.




We found a small medical centre open when I got some taken care of by a super cute Kiwi intern nurse then stitched up by the doc. Thanks to socialized health care, 4 hours for a 30min job and $19 later we were out and on our way.

Lydia and her friend left a rope in our car so we had to drop it off on the way through. Then decided to hit up Waimate and the Elephants rocks. It took longer than expected, but it was beautiful out. Alex did his thing once again, then headed to Dunedin.

Absolutely God ordained trip of fellowship and seeing his country. Alex is and will be one of my best mates both in bro and in Christ. Trip was rawsome, hellarad, awesome, sweet as, choice, or however you want to say it.


I'm going to miss this place...


p.s. We took video of everything including documenting the trip. When the edit is together I will re-post it.

The Dirty South

One day road trip to the lower part of the South Island. 3, 2, 1, go!

Noah, Ryan, and I road tripped to Invercargill to finish of the South Island traveling. We drove through Gore, rode a random flying fox in a playground

Made it to Invercargill to check out town

Then to Bluff to look at Stewart Island and see some wildlife

This is what a Tui bird sounds like

Then we continued up to Manapouri to catch sunset over Fjordland

Ran out of petrol somewhere in there, just enough in the reserve to get us to Te Anau to a petrol station

Then made it home in time to catch the crew for the evening. Success!

Aoraki: Take 3!

I spent this weekend hanging out at the house. The flat went to Milford Sound with Wootie for the weekend, but I had already been there so I stuck around. Abby and I broed it out on Friday together, then Saturday Alex and I rented bikes and cruised around Dunedin all day. Sunday came around, I hit up Grace Bible church and decided to join some friends on a trip to Mt. Cook for the third time!

We loaded a rental van Sunday night, cruised to Mt. Cook, and camped at White Horse. A few booked a hostel, two slept in the van, and others tented out in the Hooker Valley. Alex and I slept in a tent, the night was in-tents (Yes, Frank Buehler is my Grandfather...).

The next morning, we got up to a foggy, overcast valley (which set up an epic unveiling later on) where Alex and I made pancakes on a methylated spirits burner with Pure Maple Syrup from Mayfield, NY for everyone. They were quite impressed by the syrup.

We began the Hooker Track which walks up the Hooker Valley (Where the Minas Tirith was located in Lord of the Rings) all the way to the Hooker Glacier.

Some solid weather and a cool track was the highlight until the clouds lifted. A few of the mates with me had not seen Mt. Cook or the area in the daytime or at all. Let's just say their jaws dropped when they saw the 2,000 km + peaks plastered with glaciers directly above us.

The rest of the tramp was filled with cool photos, video, and great fellowship. We finally made it to the Hooker Glacier, snagged some pictures, and got out just as it started to get real windy and cold.

It was a fun weekend of fellowship, laughter, and friendship!