South Island Shin-dig

We spent the large majority of our time in the Arthur's Pass area, which is close to some pretty spectacular mountaineering and a scant half hour drive from the bouldering mecca of Castle Hill. The weather made planning anything in advance tough, so we would head to the Department of Conservation (DOC) day by day to find out avalanche conditions and the weather forecast.

We um... stayed here most days, at an enclosed shelter in town

We spent a couple of days closer to Castle Hill at the Cragieburn hut. NZ has a plethora of back country huts and shelters for the wilderness enthusiast. This possum was chilling when we arrived the first night.


This is how much leg room Owen's car had with Kristin, Owen, Ingrid, Inga, myself and all our gear.

We were lucky to have Stephanie, Stephan and Tom and their Mitsubishi van to cart around our stuff. Here's a picture of Stephanie and Stephan on a rest day around noon (Note: not early risers on rest days)

Keas are beautiful, playful, intelligent, and a pain in the arse when they go for your boot liner or destroy your windshield wiper blades. Tourists feed them because they are cute, and they use all the fuel from these high energy meals to destroy things when they would otherwise be out searching for food. Tents, ropes, and even dirty socks are not safe. That said, they are funny to watch. When a new camper van pulls up, a squadron swoops in and immediately begins to inspect the sunroof for weaknesses. They wrestle with each other when there is nothing to destroy as well. When we dried clothes off after rainy days, someone was given 'kea watch' duty.

A really cool church for alpinists in Arthur's Pass. The window faces the high peaks with a view of a gorgeous waterfall.

On a rainy day we amused ourselves on this slackline for a bit.

Some beautiful clouds on our way to Christchurch

More clouds with some dude in the way