Chch Earthquake

This morning at 4:27, I thought I heard someone pounding on my front door. It freaked me out in my sleep; Bryce was gone and I was reluctant to wake up and deal with it. All of a sudden my bed moved. For a split second I thought someone was in my room, but luckily the rationale part of my kicked in and I realized it was an earthquake. The pounding I had heard was really the doors rattling. I sat bolt up right for a minute or two; listening to the rattling slowly die down after about 20 seconds. I uneasily went back to sleep.

At 6:30AM, Bryce's cell phone rang. Jeez, busy morning! It was an unfamiliar voice in an American accent, which confused the heck out of me-- no one ever uses our cell phone for calls, we just get texts. I heard a male voice ask, without saying hi or announcing himself, "Is Bryce there?" Since I was home alone, I was reluctant to say, "No," but didn't really have a choice. Unexpected calls at night when you're all alone are scary. I asked "Who is this?" and was told it was his step brother, who we haven't heard from in years.

Woke up a few hours later to see that a friend was asking over e-mail if I was ok; I checked the news and was shocked to see there was an earthquake in Christchuch.

Off I went to hang out with Josien and Laura to hike up Colonial Knob in Porirua.


We could see the South Island pretty clearly.


Haircut in Porirua and then we girls headed to the 50% off ice breaker sale. The guy behind the counter found out I was from Seattle and said, "Oh that's where this stuff was made." Aaggh!? This is supposed to be NZ stuff! Apparently it's NZ merino though-- Oh wells at least with the 50% off the price I got it for is roughly what I would've bought it for in WA.

Fell asleep watching Mama Mia (chick flick while Bryce is gone!) Man Pierce Brosnan is the worst singer!!

Mt. Taranaki

After work on Friday we drove to Stratford-- a 6 hour drive (normally 4 hours; traffic and a nice long dinner at cafe slowed us down a bit). On Saturday we started our hike up Mt. Taranaki with the objective to climb as high as we could.

Getting to the top is very do-able (for most). Mt. Taranaki is probably the steepest mountain I've ever been on. When trails in New Zealand encounter a steep area, they goes straight up the hill instead of "switchbacking" (going back and forth) up the mountain. Along with the steep slope of the trail, loose rock (called "scree") near the top of Taranaki made it really difficult to walk up and down. Part of the mountain was so steep that steps going straight up were installed-- there must have been 500 steps in a row to walk up-- with no hand rail. Walking down I had to work hard to quell hysterics and force myself to only look one step ahead of me. I really had no idea that I was afraid of heights until I moved to New Zealand.

Bryce could have made it to the top, but I had to make us stop because climbing on the scree was so difficult. I waited at a pretty (and steep) vantage point to watch a glider and the views for about 40 minutes, while Bryce climbed even higher. It was a gorgeous day.

Mt. Taranaki is even beautiful when viewed up close-- really close.

Near the base of the mountain. Some parts of NZ are so gorgeous I spontaneously start humming the Jurassic Park theme song.

Hiking in NZ is wonderful-- no wild animals to be scared of! There are wild boars I suppose, but it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that there's wild pigs out there.

You can easily see in this picture where the boundary for the park lies. In the distance Mt. Ruapehu (where we ski) can be seen.