"The road goes ever on and on..." ~J.R.R. Tolkien

On film site hunting, seals, and other miscellaneous topics... 

Hi guys!

Fun fact to start off this post.

And please remember pictures are not properly aligned with text. I take way too many pictures for the amount of writing I have to share. I apologize for this confusion, should it cause any.

View from the opposite side of Mount Vic.

If you click on a picture, it'll show it to you big! And since all the pictures that I'm posting are massive, they'll all show up humongous—even if the one I include in the blog is small. And if you aren't interested in reading the ramblings that I write and just want to scroll through the pictures (I understand!), at the bottom, you can see all of them and click on which you want to go to, or just click on the photo to go on to the next one. So just in case anyone wanted to see those pictures of my feet in HUGE... have at it. My feet are great. I know.

View while walking along the water...

Friday I planned to go out to Somes Island. It's in the middle of the bay, and it takes around 15 minutes to get there. However, due to feeling slightly ill, I slept in and then went to breakfast with a friend before missing the ferry I wanted to be on. Instead, to quell my sense of adventure, I walked along the water in one direction until my street turned into a highway without sidewalks, then I turned around and walked the other way along the water. I saw many many skateboarders, even more kids on scooters, and I dunked my feet in the water when I needed a break. By the time got back to my flat, my feet hurt. I got on google maps and calculated how far I'd walked. Approximately 13.7 km or 8.5 miles. I took a ton of pictures, and then all I wanted was a massage. My feet doth pain me.

Loved the designs on this building, but it's way out past town.

Yesterday, the international students plus some other people went out to a place called Red Rocks to see the seals. Apparently they named it red rocks because it is volcanic rock from underwater volcanic eruptions, which gives it a “distinct” red color. To me they didn't appear strikingly red, and the photos barely show a tinge. It was beautiful though. There were hills everywhere, which was lovely, and it was sunny and warm.

Cool rugby statue: Disrespect, lack of discipline, selfishness, drugs, cheating,
racism, individualism. Says "les contre" on the plaque.

We only walked a few miles, and it was significantly downhill. My feet are still exhausted from walking around on Friday, and now they are doubly exhausted. I will not go out to Somes Island tomorrow. I can barely walk to the grocery store, which I desperately need to do. The seals there are called fur seals. They reside there between May and October, and they are the unwanted bachelors of the seal population. Rejected by their females and out-fought by their males, these seals are typically less aggressive due to the lack of females and young. Nevertheless, they do recommend that you maintain distance between yourself and the seals.

Taken from a dock in Wellington of the South Island? 99.9% certainty of this.

The most interesting difference (and by that I mean, the one fact my brain deemed interesting enough to retain) between traditional seals and fur seals is that traditional seals do not have ears, while fur seals do. Interesting. They were quite cute, despite their immenseness.

Such cuties.

Adorbbbs. These seals also use their tail fins to move themselves, unlike other seals. Cool as.

From my walk along the water. Aaand the shoes come off.

BBQ chicken pizza made for my flat! Nommmm

In case anyone is curious how I'm eating, I'll fill you in. My flat is engaging in what we refer to as “flat cooking.” Each night, one of us cooks, and two nights we fend for ourselves. I was slightly skeptical of whether or not I would want to participate in it at first, but so far it has been pretty great. This week we had spaghetti Bolognese, chicken fried rice with pineapple and veggies, chicken curry with green beans and peas, vegetarian stir-fry with fresh made bread, and barbecue pizza and mini pizza pies. 

Only one pan, so these were made in muffin tins.

After the first week of this, we sat down and remarked that we ate together every night that week—probably more than many families do. 

Currently in my possession is granola—or muesli as these kiwis call it. So it is nice that I'll always have dinner, because right now the rest of my shelves are a bit scant. I need to hit the grocery store soon, but right now I do take comfort that I'll be fed tomorrow even if I don't feel up to trekking out to the store.

I love waterrr. Is so greatttttt <3

One more fun thing I did this weekend—went swimming...again. This time it was school sanctioned, and with many more people. They called it “The Plunge” and we had to sign away our lives in order to jump. (Off a ten-fifteen foot plank from the dock.) More than twenty people jumped in, and the docks and bridges around us were littered with onlookers with hot chocolate and warm towels.

From Red Rocks. That water was freezing, and there wasn't sand. Just billions of teeny rocks.

That was a joke. They just had cameras.

No silly costumes for me; I can barely afford clothes here. XD

I was a bit nervous about getting in at first because so many people here are sick and I've been fighting it off for more than a week, but I got down there and decided to do it anyways. It was invigorating, and we all went out for pizza afterward—once I got out of my suit and got warm. Glenn, who filmed the last swim we did filmed again, as well as my flatmate, Jay. They compiled into this video: CLICK HERE!! I jump in around 2:50, right after my friend John. If you listen carefully, I'm pretty certain you can hear me scream.

That island is Somes, the one I want to visit. From the hike to Red Rocks.

I got into another adventure last week as well. I went back to Mount Vic with one of my friends and we went Lord of the Rings site hunting again. This time we caught a bit of a break. There was a movie tour there. One of the $150 per day tour groups that I will not be joining. Finding them gave us a break to figure out how the map worked, and we found a few concrete definite filming sites.

They put the tree in themselves, so it isn't there anymore. But I'm sitting right where they sat when they hid from the Nazgul! Awesome as.

I was elated.

"Shortcut to what?" "Mushrooms!" 

Fear not. I will be back with more pictures and more spots.

That space to the right is called Devil's Gate.

View towards Wellington from Devil's Gate

Those mountains in the distance are the South Island. 100% certainty of this fact.

Finally, bit of housekeeping. “Blogkeeping,” if you will.

Beautiful mountains. So lovely.

If anyone remembers the story I told from the first blog post about The Box Brigade, or if you don't remember, it's at the bottom of the page here. My brother corrected me that the people, who I referred to as Chinese, were most likely Vietnamese. Check out the story if you haven't already! But the family is probably Vietnamese, not Chinese. I apologize for this error.

View of the coast from the hike to Red Rocks.

 It's been a great week. Today I need to go grocery shop and hit the bank for some cash. I should probably get out of bed and eat something, but right now I'm enjoying being lazy since tomorrow I have four or so classes.


Thanks for reading. You guys are the bees knees.