Climbing and Sand Flies

Last Tuesday night was a wine tasting on campus provided by Goldie Vineyards. It turns out that the University of Auckland owns the vineyard on the nearby Waiheke island and that is part of the reason that the university can offer wine science courses and majors. It was very fun and informative and we got to taste 6 different wines for free from the vineyard. Yay free good wine! We started with a sauvignon blanc, then had a chardonnay, a merlot cabernet mix, a pinot noir, then had a syrah, and finally finished with a cabernet sauvignon. Each one was totally different than the one before it. It was a cool experience that the campus can serve alcohol like that. Which also lets me mention that the University has a bar, called Shadows, on campus in a building right in the middle of the quad. Wow, things here keep surprising me.

Anyways, the rest of the week was the usual until the weekends climbing trip. This past weekend was the Orientation trip for AURAC. We arrived to a campground at about 9:30PM on Friday. And after my previous week's dilemmas - see last week's post - with having my stuff in a different vehicle, I must say, that I was very happy to keep everything in the car safely stowed in the trunk. After arriving to our destination I pitched my tent and everyone hung out as we waited for the cars to arrive.

Saturday morning we were awoken by the club's membership VP playing horrible music at the ungodly hour of 6:30AM - way before sunrise. While waking up early was not the most fun, it did provide me the opportunity to photograph the sunrise over the lake that we had camped adjacently to. The music continued for at least 20 minutes until everyone was awake, we all ate a quick breakfast, packed up the tents, and repacked the cars and made our way towards the climbing crag.

The Wharepapa area is essentially a large area of private plots of land. The large number of climbing areas in the area are almost entirely located on these properties, but luckily the property owners allow climbers to utilize them for free. AURAC tradition has its O-Trip at Froggatt Edge. The crag is on private land, cow property in fact, and is made up of volcanic rock. So, while the grass and stream made the area very comfortable and relaxing, we had to stay wary to avoid the masses of cow crap that was everywhere. Somehow the cows find ways up the steepest hills to the tops of the climbs and the stuff really was everywhere.

Upon our arrival to Froggatt, I and several others lead easy warm up climbs and set up a top rope anchors on them so that the 50 people on the trip could climb after they were taught how to belay. Like the local Malibu crag back home, this volcanic rock is equally sharp and pockety. Ouch. We spent the day climbing, and I wondered off with some of my friends who had climbed before to do our own thing occasionally. At the end of the day, we packed up and headed to Jones' Landing to camp on another even prettier lake. About 10m away from the lake shore was a little island with a rope swing on it. So of course, everyone changed into togs and went for an evening swim before the barbecue and slacklining began.

The evening concluded with everyone hanging out and fighting off the sandflies. They are the most annoying little bugs ever. Their bites itch worse and longer than mosquito's do but hanging out was good fun. I woke up and went outside of the tent in the middle of the night, after everyone had gone to bed so no headlamps were on and I guess the moon had set because it was no longer out, and the clouds were gone. And wow, it was gorgeous. So many stars, Orion's belt, the Southern Cross and plenty more that I don't know. But you could even see the think denseness that makes a band across the sky to mark the Milky Way. It was all amazing and gorgeous, and I'm sad my tripod did not come on the trip so I couldn't photograph it. After getting lost in the stars I went back into the warmth of my sleeping bag and fell asleep to be awoken at a better hour by natural daylight. 

Sunday was another day of climbing at Froggatt and enjoying the beauty of the New Zealand outdoors before heading back to Auckland in the evening. The trip was a ton of fun and I'm super keen to go climbing with some of the local Kiwi climbers who know the areas. I think the lasting impression, at least right now is the near two dozen sand fly bites that are pesteringly itchy as I write this post.