Skiing and Dunedin

Between finals and last minute trips its been a busy past week. Last Wednesday my friends and I took a trip to Mt. Hutt to go skiing. We found a package deal with transport, lift ticket, and rentals. It was about an hour and a half drive. Once we got to the mountain the drive was beautiful/scary. The roads weren't paved and there were no guard rails. We probably gained at least 5,000 ft in the last 20 minutes alone. 

The mountain had only been open about a week so the snow wasn't the greatest and about half the mountain had not been opened yet. But we had a great day. It was fun to be on snow!

This past weekend I went to Dunedin to visit old friends and partake in a "farm day" trip. It took about 7 hours by bus to head Dunedin, which is south down the coast. I was able to bunk with friends and had a great time catching up with the Australearn group that I spent the first week in New Zealand with. It was surprising how much colder it is in Dunedin compared to Christchurch. Don't let these photos fool you, it was cold!

We were lucky to spend Saturday at our friend's father-in-law's farm. It was about an hour and a half from central Dunedin and very remote. The views were spectacular - so many rolling hills. 

We got a chance to experience a working sheep farm. Alf (the owner of the farm) showed us how he uses his herding dogs to bring the sheep in. Afterwards we tried drafting (in the picture below). It involves sorting the sheep based on the color of their ear tags. We had to move different panels to open different shoots to sort the sheep. Alf made it look really easy, but in reality it was surprisingly hard. The sheep moved really fast and it was difficult for me to react in time. 

Later that evening, Josh (Alf's son) showed us how to shear a sheep. He was really good and did it quickly and precisely. I had a couple of successful swipes with the razor. It's difficult. You are constantly moving the sheep to reach different areas of the body. Surprisingly they behave pretty well and lie there like a rag doll. 

The next day we had a chance to explore more of Dunedin. Below is Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. It was steep.. they have to put stairs on the side. 

After lunch we explored the botanical gardens. They were expansive and quite impressive. My favorite part was feeding the ducks. There were tons and they gave us a free bag of duck food. The ducks were swarming us. They were quite hungry!