Written by Brent Kramer and Adaobi Onunkwo

Breakfast in Mistletoe Bay was at 7am and we soon caught a water taxi to Torea Bay, where we started our 15-mile hike on the Queen Charlotte Track to our next stop. We set up camp for the night at the appropriately-named Camp Bay, a Department of Conservation wilderness campsite in Endeavour Inlet. Many of us were surprised that we had made it through the highly anticipated, highly feared, six hour bike ride. We ate a camp dinner and talked about the long day as a group. We then all went to bed with anticipation for the day ahead.

The next day we started with a sea-kayak training session, which included time on land and time on the water. The wind was howling, the air was stiff, and the sky was crying; a hot soup lunch hit the spot for all of us.  After lunch we paddled three hours to our next overnight stop, the cabins at Endeavour Resort at the head of Endeavour Inlet. It took us quite awhile to make it to the resort because of strong head wind. There were some very strong gusts along the way so we hugged the banks of the sounds and slowly made it there. We had a great barbeque dinner prepared for us by our guides, and we sat by the heater and watched a movie.

The fourth day we went from Endeavour Resort to Cannibal Cove, approximately10 miles (6 hours to complete) depending on conditions. We got an early start for this day and had a beautiful day. It wasn’t windy and the sun even came out towards the end of our paddle. Fortunately, we found that there were no cannibals at Cannibal Cove but there was an awesome Department of Conservation wilderness campsite where we all set up tents, and built a campfire to cook our dinner. The fire was right on the beach and the tents weren’t too far from the beach. This campsite was most of the students’ favorite place out of all of the places we slept. There were very big trees there that provided shelter and opportunities for us to climb them.  After our dinner we made hot chocolate and cooked marshmallows on the fire. Soon after eating our desert though the tide came in and put our campfire out. So it was off to bed for us after looking at the picturesque, star-filled night sky.

The fifth day we went from Cannibal Cove to Resolution Bay. We kayaked out to a predator free island sanctuary, Motuara island and climbed the path that wrapped around the island to the top. We could see the Kaikoura mountain ranges to the south in the distance, and we could see the North Island and Kapiti to the north. We were surrounded by water and the Marlborough sounds also so it made for a great view. We then jumped off of the jetty into the water to refresh us and for fun. We kayaked for another hour or so to Ship cove. Right before we got to where we would dock and unload the kayaks. We saw a pod of about 8 dolphins and we paddled towards them and the dolphins swam between all of our kayaks and played

around by us for a while. We then had to say good-bye to our kayaks. We walked for another hour over to Resolution Bay cabins where we stayed for our last night. This resort sat right on the water up a tall ridge. This was officially the last night of our trip in the Marlborough Sounds so we ate very well (like we did basically every night anyways). This night we ate steak that you could cut easily with a fork and we reflected on the previous four days.

The next morning we caught a water taxi back to Picton where we got on the ferry back to the North Island. Once back in Whanganui, we started work on our “Presentation of Learning,” which was scheduled for 2 days later. It is a presentation from all of the students about the many things we learned and discovered about ourselves throughout the program.

On May 3rd we had the Presentation of Learning. It was breathtaking to look into the audience and see familiar faces; families that have shared their homes with us, internship supervisors who provided guidance, and the warm faces of professors that have shared their breath of knowledge.

The goal of our presentation was to articulate the pieces of our experience that stood  out to us, pieces of our experience that we plan to take back with us. The presentation started with a song (led by Hanna) we were taught at the start of our semester by Nigel Brooke.  Every student spoke for about four minutes on average, exploring classes attended, trips taken, and memories shared. It was apparent that people really appreciated hearing about our discoveries and what we learned during our four months here is New Zealand.

We had our final supper, sinking our teeth into succulent bacon wrapped venison. What made the meal even more special is the fact that the deer we all enjoyed was shot by our very own Brent Michael Kramer.

On our final night together, we had our final reflection period led by Ashley Hedrick and Bailey Heinzen. It was wonderful to hear about the many memories and feelings acquired throughout the trip – even more special to hear the moments that people will take back with them.