A Weekend to Remember

Classes: We started looking a J.S. Bach in my Music class this week, lets hope it will continue to get a little more exciting.  In Neurophysiology lab on Monday, we stimulated a rat nerve and were able to calculate the conduction velocity, threshold, and refractory period (super exciting for all my science geek friends out there!).  I have been going frequently to the $3 lunches that the student association runs; they give you a ton of food, it is vegetarian and delicious.  Another archery lesson on Friday, it was a lot of fun, but I was not on my game that night. I was very tired.

On another note, this past weekend was amazing! A couple of friends (Cat and Colyer) and I rented a car (sorry to my parents for driving) and went down to Curio Bay, which is a couple hours south of Dunedin.  On the way to the bay, we stopped at a place called Purakaunui Falls, a fantastic waterfall.  It was spectacular.

We took a little bit of a detour back to the main road, thanks to my directions, but it was well worth some of the views.  We arrived at Curio Bay to the campgrounds were the surfing hire was. He was not there. He was out at the beach giving a lesson so we decided to have some lunch until he came back and walk down the beach.  An hour later, when the lesson was supposed to be over, we still could not find the guy who ran the small surf shop.  So we decided to just walk down the beach more, then we saw the Dolphins! They are so little and we saw so many playing around in the waves. We decided that we did not care how cold the water was we were going in to them! It was well worth it because the dolphins were not too scared and we were able to get within a few feet of a few! I did not get pictures of the dolphins, because I did not want to risk my camera's life.  After swimming and then warming up in the bright sun, we went exploring on the rocks.  Over by the rocks I saw many interesting things including a few starfish and a rotting seal carcass (I was not expecting it and it creeped me out! - not fun and a little smelly).  We got a milkshake after this expedition on the rocks and headed to the petrified forest to hopefully see a yellow-eyed penguin. And we did! As soon as a women from the department of conservation came by saying that sightings have been a little scarce lately because it is molting season, there one pops up on the rocks.  Thanks to Colyer's binoculars we were able to get a great view of the penguin waddling and hopping on the rocks towards his home.  After watching the penguin we headed back to Dunedin, with a couple of scenic stops on the way. I went back to Colyer and Cat's flat to watch a little Pirates of the Caribbean, but we were all extremely tired and only made it an hour in before calling it quits. 

Sunday's adventures started at about 9:30am and a new friend Mackenzie joined us.  We started off the day by going a little further north of Dunedin to the Moeraki Boulders.  These boulders are awesome and I had a lot of fun climbing them.  It was a little too populated for my liking, but I am glad we went there.  We then stopped at Shag Point on the way back into Dunedin, to hopefully see some more of these boulders, but the tide was a little too high by the time we got there. But there were so many seals!

After Shag Point we went back to our flats to make lunch before heading back out.  This time we went to the Peninsula to the Royal Albatross Center. We were a little worried we would not see an Albatross because be were not going to pay to go on a tour, but as soon as I parked the car, one flew right overhead! But of course none of us had our cameras ready yet, so we had to stay longer until we saw a few more. After we saw enough Albatross we headed to Allan's Beach where we were hoping to see some little Blue Penguins to make a perfect ending to a great weekend.  We did not see Blue Penguins however, but it was still fun to explore a beach I have not been to yet. Then Colyer and I went to return the rental car and walked all the way back to our flats, good thing it was a nice night out! And that was my SPECTACULAR weekend! I won't be posting until after mid-semester break, where I will tell you all about my 5-day tramp on the Heaphy Track and Horseback riding in Queenstown!

Showing some Denison Love <3