New Zealand Tour Guide: Part II (Dunedin)

Right here in Dunedin there is lots to do.  Jo and her aunt did the Cadbury Tour ($16), a trip on the Taieri Gorge Railway (trips start at $50), a walk up Signal Hill (free), a stroll to see the glow worms in Nicols Creek (free), meandered on St. Clair beach (free), and trekked to Tunnel Beach (free).  They stayed at the Arden Street House which is in a nice spot because it's a very short walk to New World (a grocery store) and the Botanic Garden (there's a free timed 5k park run through the gardens on Saturdays!) .  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to check out Baldwin Street (the world's steepest street) or the St. Clair hot salt water pool. 

On Waitangi Day we drove to Moeraki to see the boulders.  We stopped at Katiki Point on the Moeraki Peninsula first.  I HIGHLY recommend this spot to folks who want to see wildlife.  We saw heaps of seals and two penguins. (Seriously make this place a must-do! We saw so many seals here that when we boated past a seal colony on the Doubtful Sound cruise we didn't get upset by the mad rush of other passengers to see them - our views were way better here!)  Unfortunately, we didn't stop at Fleur's Place for lunch or dinner due to the 20% holiday service charge. (*sad face*)  This restaurant is supposedly fantastic for seafood.

Penguin!

View from Katiki Point Reserve

Fur seals having a yarn

Moeraki Lighthouse

Moeraki Boulders

We walked from the carpark at one end of the beach to the boulders and back.  I can't recall how long it took us, but we had no problem with the distance (probably because we picnicked before walking out to the boulders).

Jo and Mary were super keen to see lots of New Zealand and do lots of walking, so we drove up to Banks Peninsula to start our tour of the south island.  I did most of the driving, but Mary had a few goes at driving on the left side.  I think it was quite the experience for her!  More details (and pictures!) to come.

New Zealand Tour Guide: Part One

Today, I went for a spectacular run along Swampy Ridge.  I started from home, headed up the Pineapple Track, turned towards the Swampy Summit track and then followed signs into the Silverpeaks.  This is the same route that I ran a few weeks ago when the weather was horrible.  I didn't go down Swampy Ridge because the fog was so thick, but today's view was amazing!

Pacific Ocean (center), Otago Peninsula (top right), Swampy Ridge track (foreground)

I was aiming for a 5-hour run as part of my Northburn 50k training. I finished it in 4 hours 20 minutes and felt great at the end. Not too shabby.

So, what did I think about out there all by myself?  Well, I reflected a lot on how my PhD is coming along (I've been here for two years and have one more to go!) and I thought a lot about how fun it was to have my friend Jo and her Aunt Mary in New Zealand. I loved playing Tour Guide for the two of them!  I hope to get pictures up from their visit soon because I'm leading a tramping trip this weekend and I'll want to post photos of that, too.

Before I do that, here's a quick, rough intro to their trip:

Days 1 & 2: Fly from New York to Dunedin, New Zealand
Days 3 - 7: Dunedin
Days 7 - 9: Akaroa (Banks Peninsula)
Days 9 - 10: Christchurch
Days 10 - 13: Mt. Cook
Days 13 - 15: Queenstown
Days 15 - 18: Dunedin

This trip was heavily centered around walking/hiking and I think we saw some really great places/scenery.  We spent 1-5 hours at a go on our walks (some days we had more than one long walk).  Some walks were flat and some were steep hikes with steps.  I would recommend this sort of itinerary for others who want to see a lot of New Zealand's south island on foot, but with some minor tweaks.  I'd cut a day off of Mt. Cook or Queenstown to go to Te Anau.  Fiordland is beautiful and I'm sad that Jo and Mary saw it mostly from the bus as we made our way to Doubtful Sound.

So that's the teaser for the next lot of blog entries. YAY!

I've been living in Dunedin, New Zealand for neary two years and sometimes I still feel like a tourist.  That's not a bad thing, though.  It just means that I haven't seen everything yet and I'm super keen to keep exploring!  Training for the Northburn Station 50k has helped, too, because I've been running around different neighborhoods for a change of scenery on my long runs.  

This past weekend I took a solo trip up the Pineapple Track and ventured over to the Silverpeaks.  Normally, I head up the track on beautiful days like this: 

But, it was a cold, wet, windy, foggy day.

I had planned out a 5 hour walk/run, but decided to be sensible when I saw the fog covering the road to Swampy Ridge track.  The Silverpeaks has a reputation for catching trampers off guard and a number of rescues have been made in the area.

I ran/walked for just about four hours and encountered three people in the sub par conditions - all female. Yeah, girl power!  

My baby ultra marathon training has taken me further out of town, too.  Recently, Will and I took a short ride to the Outram Glen to Lee Stream trail head.  It was a slippery trail with plenty of spots that were too steep to safely run, but at the confluence of the Lee Stream and Taieri River we were rewarded with a beautiful sight - the river banks were covered with all sorts of wildflowers!

Racemans track in the Silver Stream Valley.  I'll have to bring my camera the next time I go there - the area that was taken out by a landslide 10 years ago is impressive to see! The section of wiped out trees is quite wide and has cleared the way for some neat views.

Next week, my friend Jo is coming from home for a visit and we're planning on doing a 5k in the Dunedin Botanic Garden for setting off to explore the south island.  I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to share from her visit!

Ain't nothing but a rain thang

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!  The weather has been so meh lately. *sad face*

I recently returned from holidaying on the north island, but there's not too much to report.  Our plans for Somes Island and the Tongariro Alpine Crossing were canceled and I spent a rainy/thundery afternoon tramping to Powell Hut.

There was one fine day in the Wairarapa, though, and so Will and I left Masterton to go checkout Castelpoint.

Castle Rock 

Other highlights of my north island trip include lots of beers at the Malthouse (the Mata Volcano was particularly delish), a pint of ParrotDog's Bitter Bitch at Bin 44 in Wellington, and spending lots of quality time with a fantastic New Zealand family.

Now that I'm back in Dunedin, my attention will be turned back to thesis-ing, working my research assistant gigs, training for the 50k at Northburn, and planning for visitors!! YES, MORE VISITORS!!!!  I have a friend from Binghamton coming to New Zealand in less than a month and a college friend from Salem coming in April. SO EXCITED!

A great walk around the Kepler Track

I present to you....

My most recent tramping trip on the Kepler Track!

Day one: Walk to Luxmore Hut from the control gates.

Side trip to Luxmore Cave.

Each visitor needs two sources of light... head torches and iPhones don't exactly cut it!

Day two: BEAUTIFUL weather as we set off on the walk to Iris Burn hut.

On top of the world...can you spot the trampers?

Hello, Lake Te Anau!  View from Mt Luxmore.

The road ahead....

Glorious, glorious mountains.

I love feeling so small when tramping... 

The world is big and beautiful and I'm lucky to see these little corners of it.

Lakes + mountains = awesomeness, like whoa

Once upon a time, I sat with my dad on the top of a mountain in the Adirondacks crying because being up so high scared me.   Imagine all that I would have missed out on if he didn't teach me how to harden up?! Thank you, Dad! I've been hiking around New Zealand's south island for nearly two years and I always wish that he could be here to experience this with me. 

A friend yells, "Come on in, the water's fine!"

Hands down my favorite part of the track.

FIRST KEA SIGHTING!

It looks cute, but it is capable of stealing and/or destroying belongings!

Yes, this is part of the same track!

The sandflies were a little outrageous at Iris Burn hut, so no pictures of the hut... just the valley it sits in.

Passed Moturau hut on day three as we walked from Irish Burn back to the car (30k).  

It's got one helluva view of the lake!  

Kepler was a GREAT track to walk on, but Routeburn is still my fav.  I'll get a chance to tramp up on the north island next week. Yahoooooo!

Kepler Track Part I: Dropping my camera in a bottomless pit of poo

If you were anywhere in Te Anau this past weekend, you probably heard a very loud Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! being screamed from a long drop on the Kepler Track.  

A friend from the States was visiting New Zealand and we reunited to hike across one of New Zealand's Great Walks.  Mirjam and I met a few years ago through triathlon and crossed the finish line at the same Ironman Lake Placid race.  Clearly, we are two tough chicks and, clearly, we can take on anything. Right?

Our party of four began its first day of a three-day tramping trip.  After a short walk through the bush it was time to take a break, so we stopped at the first shelter for a snack and to use the "bathroom".   But, the sandflies in the toilet were so bad that other people refused to use it.  Wimps.  I wasn't about to let a few tiny bloodsucking insects stop me from doing my business.

So, I walked over to the long drop and opened the door, saw the the flies, and took a step in.  

Now, there wouldn't be a story if I had taken a moment to check my pockets before I walked in.  See, for some reason I thought it was a great idea to put my camera and a muesli bar in the front pocket of my jacket and not pull up the zipper.  But, since checking my pockets isn't part of my usual bathroom protocol I didn't think anything of it.

As I leaned over to inspect the condition of the toilet seat (hey, I have no problem sharing tight quarters with sandflies, but I refused to put my butt on a wet toilet seat) both items on my pocket slid out and bounced off the toilet seat.  One item landed on the floor and the other landed in a pit of poo. 

WHY DIDN'T THE MUESLI BAR LAND IN THE POO?!!!

After I screamed, I tried to think quickly and rationally about the situation.  That's when I emerged from the loo, grabbed the closest long stick and returned to the scene without a word to three other people standing there in utter confusion. 

I shoved a stick roughly the size of the length of my arm into the brown muck and fished around for my camera.  I wasn't too sure how I'd get my camera out with the stick and I wasn't sure what I would do after I got the camera out with the stick...maybe get it to the lake, drop it in the water and rinse it off??  

Truth be told, I was kind of relieved that I couldn't find the camera (the stick didn't reach the bottom of the pit, boy it's deep!); and, I was kind of relieved that the camera didn't float because, in all honesty, it was probably going to require help getting it out and there wasn't much space for two adults to fit in there with at least four arm's length sticks.

I emailed the Department of Conservation in Te Anau when I got back to civilization to let them know what happened (I worried that rubbish would clog something up, mess with bacteria breaking the "matter" down, etc).

Sara: 

Hi, I just wanted to let someone know that I dropped my camera in the toilet at Brod Bay this past weekend... I tried to fish it out with a stick, but... I couldn't find it. 

DOC: 

Hello, thank you for your email. I am very sorry that happened! Thank you for letting us know. The toilets usually only get emptied once a season so I fear your camera may be lost. 

I made sure to reply that I did not want it back!  

Thankfully, I had a backup camera.  I'll post pictures from the other camera later soon!  

The Americans are coming!

I'm just a couple months shy of celebrating two years of living in New Zealand! Time has flown by and there's a lot of work left to do for my PhD.  Lately, I've been prepping to run focus groups with Maori and Pacific Island women, writing a bit here and there in my thesis chapters and gearing up for our website development so that I can run a feasibility study later in 2014.  On the side, I'm revising a manuscript that didn't hack it for a public health journal and working as a research assistant on two projects (measuring length/weight for babies in our Baby Lead Introduction to Solids Study and getting survey materials mailed out for a study on economic shock and resiliency of small New Zealand towns).

It's beautiful days like the one that we had today that make it soooo hard to stay inside and do all the work, though.  I'm hopeful that the weather continues to stay this nice as I'm having my first visitor from the U.S. coming for a visit!!  We'll be tramping on the Kepler track and I could just burst from excitement!

Since it's just about summer time in Dunedin, I'm also hoping for more frequent tramping adventures, which means I'll update the blog a little more regularly.  I'm pretty sure folks would find that more interesting than reading about my recent experience running focus groups with mid-age New Zealand women to get their opinions on our intervention or my days spent stuffing hundreds of survey packets to mail to residents of some small towns in New Zealand. =)

October weekend wanderings

This past week, I had a meeting with a primary investigator on a study that I'm helping with.  I said, "You know, it's not that I don't want to do everything that I'm trying to do; It's just that there aren't enough hours in the day!"  She could relate.  

In October, I had days where I was in one office at 9am to get work done for a study and then I'd walk over to my office for the rest of the day and into the night....and into the early hours of the morning.  My crazy long days were mostly the result of running focus groups - they are so time consuming!  

On Thursday, for example, our focus group ended just before 7pm. Then, Olivia and I went up to my office to make revisions to the module to present in Friday's focus group.  Then, I transcribed the discussion from the focus group.  By the time I finished up a few more things it was nearly 3am.  As I walked to my flat I wasn't alone - plenty of students were stumbling home after a night at the bars.  I was stumbling along with them, but that was from the sleep deprivation.  

I thought I was really overtired when I saw a 6-food tall white rabbit walk across the corner of Great King Street and St. David... head hung low, floppy ears dangling to the side... such a strange sight!  But, it was Halloween and there were others dressed up in costumes, but that rabbit was the most surreal. Ha!

Yet, October wasn't all work and no play.  Recently, friends and I took a hike up the Pineapple Track to Flagstaff.

Otago Peninsula, Otago Harbour and the city of Dunedin below.  I've been living in Dunedin for a year and eight months already - just another year and four months to go!

Last weekend, Will and I took a hike to Jubilee Hut in the Silverpeaks.  The original plan was to hike the Gillespie Pass Circuit, but the forecast called for snow and I didn't have enough time to organize  gear.  The Department of Conservation gave Will a few suggestions, but we'd have to drive up to 4 hours away and so it made more sense to stay local.

Not a bad day for a hike, eh?

At the 10-bunk hut there were already about 30 people and we knew more were on the way because we passed them on the way in.  So, we hiked back out (just under 20k, 12 miles, round trip).

I wasn't complaining - the views were pretty awesome!

This past Monday was a holiday and so for Labour Day we took a stroll to Purakanui beach.

 

This is a beach that I hadn't been to before.  It was great to be in a spot that wasn't busy with lots of people.

Further down the beach we found a spiffy tunnel to explore!

Photo credit: Will Styles

November will be busy, but the weather is getting nice and so I'll have to work hard during the week to keep those weekends freed up for tramping... it'll be good training for my 50k race coming up in March.

Focused on Weight Gain Prevention

Let me take a moment to stop, take a deep breath, and thank heavens that October is over!  My life has been crazed, but in a good way.

I've spent long hours developing content for a weight gain prevention program (using work by Evan Forman,  Jennifer Taitz, Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel, Rick Kausman, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch for inspiration) and testing it in focus groups (17 focus groups x 1-2 hours each!).  On top of thesis work I've been juggling my research assistant duties for three (!) separate projects - Motivational Interviewing and Treatment (MInT), Baby-Lead Introduction to Solids Study (BLISS), and a qualitative study of community capacity in Mataura, New Zealand.  Phwew!

The chaos was kicked off after a local paper ran this little article to help us recruit women for focus groups:

The Star, October 2013

To participate in focus groups, women had to be between the ages of 40-50 (inclusive), have issues with non-hungry/emotional eating (we used Tracy Tylka's  Intuitive Eating Scale - 2013 version), and have a BMI greater than 27.

Our goal was to have feedback from eight women for each of the 11 modules.  I had no problem filling in our focus group schedule (basically, Monday-Friday at 5pm).  Nearly 40 women contacted me to participate in focus groups - one woman said that she was almost in tears because she was so happy that someone was addressing the emotional side of eating behavior!

Overall, they really enjoyed the content that we presented - just minor tweaks here and there when I wasn't "kiwi enough" with my descriptions and instructions (meaning, I needed to use gentler/friendlier language).  At first, women were caught off guard by our mindfulness exercises, but we all worked together to get the language in guided activities acceptable by the majority of participants.

Intervention teaser: mindfully eating a raisin (an adapted Jon Kabat Zinn activity) was an absolute hit as was letting negative thoughts float away on leaves on a stream (an adapted Russ Harris activity)!

I still need to test our paper-based mockups of the website with Māori and Pacific Islander women and then I'll send our materials off to three experts for review (one is an expert in women's health and has a background in Māori health, another researches intuitive eating and the other applies Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to weight loss interventions).  Once that's all done I will send the content to a web developer to get everything on a prototype that I can test in December/January.  A beta version of the website will hopefully be up about five months post-prototype and then I'll have a website to test in a feasibility study (late 2014).  I'm sooooo excited that this is coming together!

McLean Falls

Last Saturday, Will and I took the scenic route to Invercargill.  I had my hopes set on seeing the Cathedral Caves, but the access road is closed until November. Grrr.  So, instead we stopped at Kaka Point and McLean Falls.

It was a lovely day to be out and wandering around.

When is the last time that you saw a sign with a picture of a smiling skull warning you of danger?  (Possums are a terrible nuisance in New Zealand, by the way.)

The ~15 minute walk to McLean Falls was pleasant (with the exception of a few sandflies).  I would put this detour on my top picks for things to do/places to see in this part of New Zealand!

The weather turned as we headed back to the carpark and so we weren't able to stop for more sightseeing.  But, on Sunday we got out and took a small trip to Riverton... home of the Southland Marathon starting line.  I was quite happy just strolling around the beach out there and admiring the sky.

This weekend I'm returning to the Pineapple Track for a mini hike in preparation for my first totally-planned-all-by-myself tramping trip next week!!  It'll be Labour Day weekend in New Zealand and I decided I'd spend it on a challenging yet rewarding 58k (36 miles) circuit that may include a jet boat trip to the track access.  Cool, huh?! I'm STOKED!

Blood Money

Last weekend was the most miserable I've been since I moved to New Zealand.  To earn some extra cash I joined a study that is looking at the bioavailability of a medication.  Unfortunately, I am a needle-phobe and the study required 18 blood samples per weekend (plus extra trips to the clinic for lab work during the week).  It wasn't exactly the ideal way to make a quick buck, but there aren't many options for making money around here.

See, this past July I struggled to make my student loan and income from the research assistant gig stretch.  It was pretty stressful and a smidge embarrassing to have money worries as bad as they were.  So, this semester I've been hellbent on making sure I make the student loan stretch farther without sacrificing what I really love to do - tramping.  I find that a weekend hike is the best bang-for-your-buck around since it combines sightseeing, mental therapy and physical activity on a really affordable budget (~$50 covers petrol and food costs which are the big expenses since I have a Department of Conservation hut pass).  I can't give that up.

I asked around for ways of bringing in income which didn't involve high heels and a stripper pole (I'm not very coordinated and I am accident prone).  Someone mentioned a local company that recruits volunteers for drug trials and so I looked into it.  I figured a couple hundred dollars in exchange for giving up two weekends was as good of a deal as I'd get - that is, if I could handle a cannula in my forearm for two 24-hour periods and "bleeds"starting at 15 minute intervals.

From 8pm Friday through 8am Sunday this is where I spent most of my time:

The first weekend I was a mental milkshake.  The stress of the discomfort from the needle in my arm and the soreness that accompanied 18 blood draws had me on edge...

All the vials to fill over 24 hours:

I went through waves of nausea after each blood sample was taken.  Then I'd think how unfair it is...  I helped someone through graduate school (he had student loans, but we also had my income and it was more than just the money - he had me there to support him, talk to him about tough days, celebrate the accomplishments), but now I'm having to do it on my own... Thinking that I'm selling myself to research because I need money that bad.  That's when the water works would start.  I'd try not to get too worked up because crying would trigger a mild headache.

Just before midnight on the first Saturday, I was fighting the urge to go home - surely it wasn't a good idea for me to continue if I was getting so upset?!  Yeah, I was a little dramatic that weekend.

To keep me from quitting the study, I'd just think about the money and how good it'd feel to see my bank account statement after I was paid.  It was really difficult to believe it would be worth it, but somehow I managed to stick it out.

Thankfully, I have the memory of a goldfish - by Thursday I had forgotten how traumatic I thought my previous weekend had been and how sore my arm was on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  I walked into the clinic this past Friday night feeling ready for the weekend ahead.

The cannula made my arm pretty sore since it was in the same spot as last time, but I managed to stay much calmer this time around.

In fact, I only cried 3 times instead of the previous weekend's grand total of 18 times! (I honestly wasn't the only one complaining about a sore arm this weekend, but I just happened to be the only one who cried over it).

The experience got me thinking about taking a look at available scholarships (free money would be sooo much nicer!), but I'm pretty limited to what I can apply for since I'm not a New Zealand resident.  Thus, I have a feeling that I'll be doing another study like this in the future.

Unless I win the lottery.