Life is Swell is Kiwiland

During the last week or so, I had been waiting for something really exciting to happen before I wrote a new post. While I didn't summit any glaciers or swim with dolphins, everything's been quite good here.

Classes started last week. For a moment I thought it might be nice to be in classes again, though after the first nice day I had to stay inside doing schoolwork, I thought differently. Fortunately, my class schedule doesn't seem like it will be too demanding, so hopefully there will still be plenty of time for climbing and other adventures during the week.

On that note, this past weekend, Peter took me to this awesome climbing crag in Christchurch called the Cave. It looks a lot like the Red River Gorge with its seriously overhung walls, only it's about half as tall as the Red. The Cave has some of the hardest climbing in NZ. The easiest climb is a 25 which is equivalent to about a 5.12a at home. So there isn't really any warm-up routes unless you climb 13's or 14's.

Check it out: http://mojozone.co.nz/climbing-location/the-cave.

Needless to say, I got pretty worked at the Cave. Luckily, it's only about a 20-25 minute drive from campus, so I'm going to try and make it there at least once a week.

I've been able to meet a bunch of local climbers, mainly people who go to UC and are part of the climbing club. A couple of us did some serious bonding the other night when we had a go at Peter's new "squeeze box." Peter needed a coffee table, so he decided to build one and make it a squeeze box as well. He defines a squeeze box as, "a box that you twist your way in and out of the helps practice getting out of cramped spaces, like when you're caving."

I was a bit skeptical at first as I was unable to visualize what this thing looked like. Turns out I was quite adept at twisting myself through the squeeze box.

Some of my friends weren't so lucky.

Matt can't believe that he's stuck. My other friend got stuck in the box for nearly an hour. One of the rules of the squeeze box is that if you get stuck, you have to stay in it until sunrise when someone will dismantle the box. So he was pretty worried there for a bit.

I think it's homework time for me now, I hope everyone is well at home.

I just posted some more pictures to my Picasa page, so check it out.