As soon as we got to Auckland (a somewhat boring, sprawled city) we bought a local climbing magazine (The Climber) and a guidebook to South Island climbing. We found a park and read them both cover-to-cover immediately.
The next day we wandered around looking for something (anything) to climb.
Finally, for my birthday, we flew to Christchurch, rented a car, quickly learned how to drive on the left side of the road, headed the hell out of the city (NZ cities aren't much to write about) and drove straight to Castle Hill in the Canteburry high country. We camped out at the Craigieburn shelter along with a truly international crowd of climbers. The next morning, we awoke to some rain and snow!!!
We really couldn't sit around despite the rain and snow, so as soon as the weather broke we abandoned the comforts of Craigieburn and headed for the boulder fields. We figured the water would run off the smooth limestone quickly, and given a little wind and sun they would be dry in no time. It kept drizzling, so I ran around like a kid in a candy store checking out the boulders and snapping photos from Spittle Hill looking over at Quantum Field, while Nick read under an overhang.
The scenery was ridiculous, with the fresh snow on the mountains and countless boulders in the meadows... Our persistence paid off, and soon things were dry enough to be climbed! Here's Nick on our first problem at Castle Hill, a high-ballish V1:
In my wandering around I found this boulder and absolutely had to climb it - the problem was called Beautiful Edges (V4) and featured technical climbing with bad (polished) feet and an exciting top crux move... I didn't stick it until the second to last day.
Jay and Nick also tried it a few days later:
Despite the incessant drizzle, we got a lot of climbing in, and even a siesta in the sun:
Don't show this photo to either of our mothers. Nick climbed a problem, where the guidebook advised that easiest way down was "jump off the backside of the boulder".
The next day we awoke to beautiful blue skies. On the way in to the boulder fields (Spittle Hill on the left, Quantum Field straight ahead): 
We warmed up and then headed to the ultra classic Tuppi Master boulder. The sit down start goes at V6, but the variation is V3.
we hooked up with some other climbers that we had met at the campground later that day, and did a number of awesome problems at Quantum Field. I did a V6 called "The Ape" that was custom made for long lanky types, and felt more like a V2, but had really rad moves. We found grades in general to be soft when the problem included long, powerful moves, and super stiff for classic castle hill problems that featured lots of slopers and nonexistent feet with heinous topouts. Who cares about grades anyway... I think there were at most two problems we absolutely didn't like, everything else was super fun. At the end of the day, we went caving! 
After a day of rest to let our fingertips heal, we returned for more... Nick sent this mantle testpiece first go while warming up:
We found the other climbers again - they were working on a really fun V5 called "the element" - here's Nick throwing up to a slopey crimp:
There was a V6 variation that traversed from the right and downclimbed the V5 crux - I tried, but a few more situps will be required before I can do that...
A guy we met at the campground, Chris (who is now sailing around the South Pacific) told us about this gem of a problem... super tricky V5 slab, featuring improbable sloper mantles and smeary heel hooks... awesome, although we didn't manage to top it out:
These types of problems take a lot of brain power, so we were both physically and mentally exhausted and headed to the submarine boulder, where Nick stuck this awesome V4 dyno (I needed some more fast-twitch fibers and perhaps larger cajones):
We found the rest of the crew at the end of the day, and Glenn (super strong climber from Tasmania) insisted that we try these highball V4's on the headlight boulder. We had about 10 spotters and 6 crashpads, so it all seemed trivial... Both problems started with some muscly moves, and ended in the type of pocket slab climbing that makes you want to scream with joy. Here's a photo of Yan topping out on the right headlight:
And a sequence of Nick on the left headlight (again, don't show these to our mothers... it was all perfectly safe, I promise):
The next day we were both pretty tired and in somewhat bad spirits... although we found some quality boulders, like this one (Spittle Hill in the background):
At Quantum field we also found a V7 named Quantum Mechanics, that as a true scientiscian I absolutely had to try... but I didn't get very far:
The icing on the cake came in the evening, when the sun lowered and one of our favorite problems of the whole trip, became climbable... The Dominatrix (sit start goes at V7). This problem is rad from the moment you sit under it to start... because you basically start it upside down! The first move is pulling into a knee bar (my thigh is still bruised), and the crux is standing up from there. You then throw out to a pretty good crimp and either cross or throw to a sloper. There are no photos of this last move because you really want spotters by that point...
Nick initially refused to try it, but a few days later he fired it as well:
By the end of our fourth day of climbing, we needed a few days off... so we headed to the Aoraki (Mt. Cook) region. New Zealand has some burly-looking mountains.
On the drive in:
The next day we hiked up to the Muller Hut. There was some crazy scenery on the way up.
Aoraki:
We drove back up to Castle Hill up the west coast. Lots and lots of rain = rainforest. The waterfalls coming out of the sides of the mountains were countless...
We also visited the Fox glacier along with other hordes of lazy tourists:
We were both elated to be back at castle hill for our last two days of bouldering...
We worked on a classic sloper V4 called "Think Tank" - quite appropriately, since it took the three of us about an hour of scratching out heads before the proper beta was figured out.
We spent quite a bit of time working on a very improbable V7 which involved a long dyno to slopers from bad pockets with bad feet.
On our final day, Nick and I warmed up at quantum field by running around looking for cool pockets... here's Nick talking to one of them:
Nick also bravely attempted the mantle testpiece of Castle Hill - The Unrepeatable, V6 (no, there aren't any holds):
I was saving my energy for a classic V7 - the Phoenix - a ridiculously cool problem on nasty slopers up an overhanging arete. Here's Jean-Baptiste sending it in style, and me flailing:
Jay, Nick and I also went over to an awesome V6 called the Air Below (for a very good reason), but we didn't get photos... it involved a heel-hook crux a good 10 feet or so off the ground... none of us sent it, but we all swore to come back to it someday.
Some parting shots from Castle Hill (Quantum Field):
Nick and I had to head north to make it to our conference on time. We didn't really look into any of the public transport schedules before departing, so this meant that we had to take a 5:45 am ferry to the north island...
We spent a week in Rotorua at the conference, and visited the "Thermal Wonderland" park, which was pretty cool.
This workcation was eXtreme indeed.
Hopefully that wasn't the last time we climbed at Castle Hill... that place is spectacular! Not to mention that the boulders are virtually endless...