Advertisement
Published: June 25th 2010
Hello again everyone, long time no update I know. We’re still waiting on the pruning to start up here in Tauranga. In the time we’ve been waiting we’ve gone on a few nice hikes that were only a short drive from the city. The first was to a long path called the Aongatete Loop where we had a nice if hilly walk through forest. There was a little confusion about where the path actually went, as there were a few water crossings without bridges (slippery moss covered stones were there though!) and a few portions of path that were hidden by fallen trees, but we got to were we’d planned to be in the end.
Timo and I went ahead at an unclear water crossing (unclear because half the stones you were supposed to walk on were covered by a fallen tree) and climbed up a slippery clay bank on the other side to try and find the path. After about 5 minutes of looking for the path in the wrong direction, we turned back to where we crossed and saw the trail marker pointing the other way. Oh well, once Anika and Kerstin crossed over, we followed the now
Cheaters!
I was lucky enough to make the hop skip and jump over WITH my shoes on!well defined path up to the high point in the track and cruised the rest of the way back.
About a week later, we went to Wairere Falls (there sure seem to be a lot of falls in this country huh?). The falls are 134m high which means we had to climb 134m to get to the lookout point at the top. It’s 3 days later and my legs are still sore thinking about it. The trail was a great workout what with it’s almost continual uphill nature. We decided to take the untended "Old Moari Trail" back down which was a little like a mudslide with markers, but we all made it to the bottom with relatively few major bumps or bruises. All in all it was a fantastic view that was worth the effort to get up and back down.
I’ve picked up a German to English dictionary and a German grammar book, I figured that since I’m going to be spending some time with fluent speaker I might as well try to learn a thing or 2. I don’t know enough to carry out a conversation or anything, but I can understand where half the
conversations are going when English isn’t being spoken. Kerstin has helped quite a bit since she has a degree in German linguistics as she was a magazine editor back home. It’s kind of funny to think of all the different accents I hear now, Anika, Kerstin, and Timo all come from different places in Germany, but I don’t really remember the difference when I was backpacking there with Cass. Maybe it’s just because I get to compare them against one another on a daily basis.
That’s it for now though, talk at you later!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.113s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0715s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Cass Hussmann
non-member comment
I'm jealous that looks like an awesome hike. Might need to add New Zealand to the list of place's I want to go to but never will.