Tunnel Beach, Taieri Gorge Railway, Highlanders Rugby, and more!

It's been over a week since my last post, and a lot has happened. Hopefully I'm not forgetting anything. These events may or may not be in chronological order, but I suppose you wouldn't know if I was lying, would you? Anyway, here's what I've been up to in the final week of summer:

Tunnel Beach: Tyler, Matt, Sherry, Jane, and I drove about twenty minutes from school through a thick fog to the beginning of the path to Tunnel Beach. We were worried that the view would be spoiled since we couldn't see anything from the top through the fog, but before long it had completely cleared, and it was a beautiful day. We checked out the point, failed at a selfy, and walked down a flight of stairs in a small tunnel to the gorgeous beach. Tyler and I did a bit of bouldering while the others enjoyed the nice weather.

Jane and Sherry

Tyler

Sherry straight chillin

Tyler, Matt, and Jane 

Selfy fail

Club Fair: At the Uni Club Fair, I signed up for:
- Tramping Club (tramping = hiking)
- Uni Rugby League Team (explanation to come later)
- Golf Club
- Rugby Referee Club
- Otago National Political Party (Dunno what that is, but I got a free Red Bull)
- White Water Kayak Club
- Uni Rugby Union Team
- Alhambra Rugby Union Club (these guys play against the Uni team, I haven't decided who I'll join yet, but these guys gave me a free NZ rugby ball!)

I'm also now planning on joining the Ultimate Frisbee Team with Josh (practices twice a week, but I can only make one due to rugby training), and there's even a sliver of a chance that I try out for some basketball club team (shout out to Clay) with Gioia, Matt, Jane, Sherry, and Tyler. We've been playing a decent amount lately, and while I'm still no good, it's a lot of fun. However, I did notch my career high in points in a game with 7 baskets (something like that, who's counting?) in a thrilling 12-10 comeback victory. The next game, I think I went 1-9 shooting. Consistency is one of many things I struggle with in this sport...

Long Beach: Tyler, Josh, Sherry, and I also went back to our favorite spot at Long Beach one afternoon. Josh and Tyler did some more lead climbing, while Sherry and I (later joined by 20 other friends who arrived in a massive van) did some bouldering. We also adventured around at low tide and found a hidden beach where we had heard rumors of penguins! And the rumors were right! Since we had to swim, even at low tide, to get to this beach, I couldn't bring my camera, but sure enough, we saw four little penguins! They were hiding in their nests/fort like things, so we didn't spend too much time hovering over them. Absolutely adorable, probably the size of a rugby ball.

Taieri Gorge Railway: All of the international students were invited on this cool train trip through the Taieri Gorge. I went with Stu, Tyler, Josh, Sherry, and Claire. It was a long trip but with great views. We spotted some mountain goats chillin on the cliffs, and they even shot some LOTR scenes in the surrounding areas.

Claire, Sherry, and myself

After the train ride, we got lunch at an awesome local bar called the Bog, which is apparently a pretty legendary place in Dunedin, been around forever. They have $4 lunches which are delicious.

Later that night we went to the Macklemore concert, which was the bommmmmb. Sherry, Josh, and I weaseled up to the front of the stage, but foolishly forgot our cameras. Regardless, the show was amazing, he played Thrift Shop (x2), Same Love, Gold, Ten Thousand Hours, among others, and ended with And We Danced, one of my personal favorites. Obviously, I danced the whole way home, where we met up with Tyler and Claire. Apparently Tyler met Macklemore after the show and shook his hand. He forgot his camera, too, what a coincidence... Just kidding, we believe him.

The next morning Sherry, Claire, Andrea, and Jane bought a new whip! It's a silver Subaru, real nice and all. Also, breaking news! Our car now has a name: Lolli Caldina. Sometimes we call her Missy C, too, whatever we're feeling.

Highlanders v. Chiefs: We played rugby on a nearby pitch for most of the afternoon before grilling some burgers at Stu's place. Then we suited up, applied the appropriate face paint, and made the five minute walk to the new Forsyth Barr Stadium for the highly anticipated Highlanders Rugby match against the Chiefs.

Josh and Stu

Forsyth Barr Stadium 

The game was a total blast. All the Otago students buy tickets in the student section, called the Zoo. We got there pretty early, so we were in about the 8th row (for only $15 bucks, including a free drink, not bad!). The atmosphere was nuts. From the kick off to the final whistle, nobody in the Zoo sat down; we stood on our seats the entire match. It turned out to be a very exciting, high scoring game. Unfortunately, the Highlanders were pretty sloppy and made a few crucial errors at the end that cost them the game. The final score was 41-27 Chiefs. Regardless, we had a blast. Stu (another rugger from Occidental in CA) and I had been looking forward to this arguably more than anything in NZ, and our expectations were met.

Also, probably the highlight of the game was when Gioia was randomly selected to try a drop goal on the field at half time. First of all, I should note that whenever the other team made a mistake (fairly often) or when the refs made a call that wasn't in our favor, the Zoo began the chant, "You f%$ked up! You f!&ked up!" which was pretty entertaining. Anyways, Gioia had never drop kicked before, and I can tell you that it's not an easy thing to do, so he missed preeeeeeetty badly. The crowd, naturally, followed with their famous chant. It was hilarious.

Gioia, in the white hat, preparing to kick

The Zoo also tried its own rendition of the Harlem Shake. It's already gotten over 45,000 views on YouTube.. check it out.... and here it is again from my perspective: 

After the game, Tyler, Josh, Sherry, Claire, and I went to Josh's, played Settlers, and ordered pizza.

The next morning, I met Sherry and Andrea at the local farmer's market. I bought some carrots, (including this cool guy, who is now more of a pet and less of a snack), plums, apples, a nice red flower for my room, and a delicious chocolate almond croissant.

Then we met up with some people from our program and took a bus to St. Clair beach for surf lessons! It was a pretty overcast, chilly morning, so we weren't terribly excited, but as soon as we got there the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful day. We got our wetsuits, boarded up (not sure if that's actually something surfers say, but whatever), got a quick lesson from a Vikings supporting Canadian with super long blonde flow who referred to me as 'Minnesota' all day, and hit the water. We were mostly trying to hit the waves after they had broken but were still surf-able. Nearly everyone got up once or twice, if even just for a few seconds, and everyone had a blast. We got coffee after, stopped for fish and chips, and took the bus back to Uni.

Sherry, Stu, Madison, and I bought tickets to the Warriors game that night, which is the New Zealand Rugby League team. It was the first ever rugby league game at the Forsythh Barr Stadium, as well as the first ever live rugby league game that I had watched. We sat in the Zoo again, and got front row seats this time. It turned out that we actually knew fewer of the rules than we thought we did, so we spent most of the game trying to figure out some of the weird rules. Here are some of the biggest differences from rugby union (if you aren't a rugby fan, you probably won't understand this):

1. No rucking: when a tackle is made, the player gets up, rolls the ball behind him, and his teammate plays it from there.

2. Teams get six downs per possession, so it's a turnover after that. They kick every time on their last possession, no matter how close they are to the try zone.

3. Uncontested scrums.

4. Uncontested line outs (slightly different, but this is the general idea)

5. Tries are four points, conversions are worth two.

6. Penalty kicks are worth two points.

7. Drop goals are worth one point.

8. The restarts are a football-style kickoff, off a tee, usually as far as they can kick.

That's the basic idea anyways. It's amazingly similar to football. We came to the conclusion that we didn't like it nearly as much as rugby union, but we also agreed that it is a more physical sport, and the tackling is amazing. Since you don't have to worry about losing a ruck, you can run less in control to get the extra yard or two. Most guys tackle high first so the player can't offload, too, so it's all about gang tackling.

Anyways, we played the Brisbane Broncos, an Australian team who were a much better team than the Warriors. The Broncos scored five, yes five (5), tries in the first half. All five tries went to video review, and all five were disallowed. A few just barely stepped out of bounds, one or two was knocked on, etc. It was crazy. The Zoo loved it, though, and their chants continued after each one. Somehow, we were up 2-0 at the end of the first half. They took the lead with a legitimate try in the second half, but we ended up scoring a few big tries near the end and won 16-10.

Okay, that was a crazy long post, so that's all for now. Until next time. 

<3