ignite23 Days 1-3

After waking up early (6:30am, the horror!), I had breakfast, finished packing my bags, and headed out to the car with my parents for the hour and a half drive into Christchurch (from Okains Bay). 

Waiting to leave Riccarton Racecourse

After a stop at Couplands for morning tea, we headed over to Riccarton Racecourse for me to sign in for the Venture (ignite23). Completing the sign-in, we headed out to the expedition zone, where I put my bags with the rest of the people on the expedition, before my parents headed back out on their way. 

All of the Venturers gathered at 12pm at the Grand Stand to attend the Opening Ceremony, before heading to stand in our expedition groups and being introduced to the expedition leader (Laurence), our Unit Leaders and the rest of our Unit's. I was placed in Unit 2004, with Patch (Andrew) as my Unit Leader.

After waiting around for several hours, we headed off on our expedition - driving over to the West Coast, with petrol stops and a stop at Cave Stream Cave for caving. One of the enjoyable parts of the driving was when Laurence's van pulled over to wait for others to catch up, but instead of waiting with him, we shot past and kept on driving till Cave Stream, being the first van to arrive and get ready to begin the caving!

Traversing a steep rocky path down to the cave outlet (entrance of the cave), we followed Laurence into the cave and began the trek upriver through the cave. While there were some hard bits (including having to climb up through several powerful rapids, and bend down to get under a big rock), we eventually made it to the cave inlet (exit of the cave) - not before a ladder climb and ledge crawl though! Overall, a very rewarding activity before the driving began again.

By the time we arrived at the campsite, we were a good 3 hours behind schedule, and had to setup tents in the dark before heading across the road to the community hall for dinner (spaghetti bollenaise with a salad). After the caving and a good 4+ hours of driving, we were all tired and headed to bed.

Waking up in the morning with a refreshing 6 and a half hours of sleep (Yay!), I headed over to the hall for breakfast (just cereal with fruit salad), I packed my lunch and met up with my unit at the minivan at 8am. 

Then on the road again - first stop Hokitika, for the kiwi sanctuary and exploring Hokitika. My unit was among the 4 chosen to go inside the kiwi sanctuary first, so we followed Laurence and headed in. My two favourite activites from the kiwi sanctuary were surprising not kiwis, but the interactive kids area (fishing for lobsters in a pond, I caught lobsters 3 times!), and the eel feeding, which I got to feed a few pieces of meat to the eels. After looking at the kiwi (soooooo cute running around!), I had a quick look around Hokitika before meeting back at the Van's.

Following on from the stop in Hokitika, we headed to the Treetop Walk. Amazing scenery there of the trees, and being able to hear the birds, but when there are so many Venturers doing it all at once, the bridges do start to wobble a bit! It featured a tower which I think is a good 20+ meters in the air.

Moving on to the road again for a drive down to Franz Josef to see the glaciers, we stopped in the township to let out the people doing the scenic flight, before continuing on up to the glacier. Walking up to the main lookout, the view of the glacier was hidden by clouds, but by the time the James (another Unit Leader) and I headed up the other path towards the Pinnacle Rock lookout, the clouds had begun to clear and after a 15 minute wait, we were able to take spectacular views of the glacier.

We split into two groups at the bottom of the glacier, those who wanted to go to Hari Hari hot pools and those who wanted to go back to camp. Most of my unit wanted to go, so we grabbed a few extra people who wanted to come, and set off with Patch driving. On the way, Patch showed off his amazing driving skills, heading over bumps with speed, and swerving the car to keep us on our toes!

The experience of the hot pools was weird, but enjoyable, with the hot pools simply being a section of the river which hot water flowed up from, and us having to build some walls to prevent cold water from coming in. On the way back, the van I came in filled up, so had to travel in another van, which luckily meant sitting in the front so getting good photos of the sky.

Followed by a late dinner at 10:30pm, before being told that we'd need to be up even earlier at 5:30am the following morning to keep on time for the next day, I headed off to bed.

Early morning wakeup by Laurence followed by breakfast meant that I was able to take some photos of the campsite and local area while the sun was still rising. We jumped in our minivan by 7am, and headed out towards Buller Gorge.

One of the thrills of the drive, was when we passed the van in front after they pulled into a petrol station to refuel - a smart move we didn't realize until later on when we got down to 17km of fuel left in the tank with the nearest petrol station a good 15km away.

Being the first group to get to Buller Gorge, meant that my unit (not me as still recovering from my accident 😭) were among the first to get to go on the jet boating. I waited up the top with the bags and took the chance to take some photos while they went on the jetboat, and met up with them again once they had finished.

After the jet boating, I had some food before my unit was called up to do the zipline. After being told that the impact at the end was not large, I decided to do the zipline, which ended up being lots of fun (even if only for around 15 seconds).

Patch headed off with another van (both running low on gas) to fill up, while I took the time to talk to James about some of the features of his camera (and take a few photos of it to try and get the hang of the focusing), and to chill out. Crossing back over the swing bridge a third time wasn't that fun, especially when it's wobbling around and you're having to pass someone.

We stopped in Reefton on the way back for a toilet break, though some people must have surely misheard, because it turned into a 20 minute stop so some people could get donuts, ice cream and have a gaze around town. As we were sitting back in the bus waiting for Patch to get back, Ben just started talking to a random person there who looked like Patch from behind, which we all found hilarious. 

Heading back at around 2pm, we made it back to camp around 4pm, to wait for Laurence to arrive and give us (first 4 units) directions to paintball. Paintball ended up being on a farm (owned by one of the men who had been doing meals for us), though I decided to sit it out (hard firing pellets, and who'd really want bruises anyway), but I'm sure I was good at moral support. One funny memory happened as we left, when Olympie decided that she wanted to race the van down a stretch of the road, only for Patch to gun it and shoot past her, leaving her to jump in the van behind us to catch back up.

Dinner was burgers that night (early too at 7pm), with ice cream and jelly for dessert, before chilling out for several hours while waiting for the 4wd group to arrive. As we were about to depart for the farm again (10ish), the 4wd group arrived, so Laurence gave them instructions and off we all went!

We made it to the farm just before they lit the bonfire (a well over 3 meter high and wide pile of dry wood), with the flames reaching a good 20 meters high when the fire was at its peak. All the venturers had formed a circle around the fire, but as it grew, we all stepped backwards and backwards out of the heat. I took the time to talk to James, Tim, and to take some photos of the bonfire.

Starting at 11pm (the man incharge thought it would take an hour to get through them all), they started firing the fireworks at a reasonable rate, though ran out at around 11:35pm. I did try to capture some photos of the fireworks, and ended up taking what must have been 100+ photos, with only the odd few capturing anything good.

After taking the time to edit some photos and talk to James about photos, it came time for the big moment, the final minute of 2022. Gathering around in a circle around the fire, we counted down the last 10 seconds as a group, before celebrating for a bit, before Laurence started to send us back to the minivans. Off to bed once we got back, with the promise of a longer night's sleep (a good 7 hours for me!).