New Zealand - Mountain Treck. National Park

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Couldn’t sleep at all last night. I had Pete snoring beneath me! I even tried using my dream application on my ipod and it was still hopeless. I must have drifted off eventually though because I heard my alarm go off and wanted to cry. It’s far too early to function. Getting up at 6am is not something that I have ever had to do in my life and I was not enjoying doing it today, especially just to go on a fucking walk. I hate long walks SO much.. And I hate having to pay for them more, $30 what the HELL. To be fair it was optional but I can’t not do it and miss the experience when everyone else was. Basically this is a 8 hour ‘walk’ up a famous mountain in Taupo where Lord of the rings was filmed or something. To be fair I don’t hike much being a city girl so I thought I may as well give it a go for experience purposes. Yeah I soon regretted that. So everyone was like Zombies on the bus.. ;I don’t know how anyone found the energy to climb up that humongous bastard today. I’m just being bitter right now because I can still feel the pain in my legs but most likely my blog tomorrow will be more positive about it.. But for now I will continue to broadcast my negativity!

So after a 2 hour drive we reach our stop and greeted by the guy who arranges all the hikes. He basically tells us it’s super dangerous and we may not be able to do the whole thing because it’s super windy and freezing and there’s clouds all over the summit of the mountain top. However he says we can start the walk and there’s a guy up there who will tell us if we have to turn around and go back. So.. I really regret not bringing my thermal hoodie with me to NZ. It was so heavy I left it with Zoe.. As I had no idea I would be doing stuff like this here! So this meant I had to rent a $10 thermal hoodie, yay. Great.. More money un-needingly spent!. It did come in handy though as it was ridiculously freezing. I borrowed Cougars raincoat too. I also had the option of renting some walking boots but I thought nahhh my trainers are strong enough.. Ha! I should really never listen to my own advice, ever. So I was basically under the impression that this walk would literally be a walk, a nice gentle stroll over some mountains. Well not gentle.. It’s 19km and 8 hours long, but still.. Naïve huh? Yeah, for sure. At first it began fine, it was all level and we wandered through some fields and went past some streams. Then we reached the bottom of the mountain we’re actually climbing.. And there were stairs all the way upto the top. Okay so imagine walking up about an hours worth of steep stairs. Me and Louise were naturally the slackers at the back.. I got to the point where I started CRAWLING up the stairs I was that out of breath. Steffi started calling me Gollum, I guess it was appropriate due to the LOTR scenery surrounding us. Anyway so eventually after these multiple neverending stairs we reach the crater of the mountain. Now that bit was lovely! A hugeeeee flat platform.. Got some lovely photos as we were starting to reach the clouds now. Anyway then the climbing began again. This wasn’t walking, this was clambering up the side of one of the steepest mountains I had ever encountered in my life.. With slippery trainers on. I was lost between trying to catch my breath, attempting to actually use my legs as they had lost all feeling, and trying not to slip and fall all the way back down the mountain and crush myself to death. It was NOT a pleasurable experience. It got so bad to the point that I cried. I literally collapsed in a heap and declared I cannot go on and cried my eyes out. Everyone was very nice and helped me along the way but I still felt like shit. Then to top it off I go and pull every muscle in my inner right thigh possible, groin included. So every time I stepped forward I had a shooting pain up my inner leg. It really was beyond horrific and I couldn’t believe I still had another 4 hours to go! So after a lot of men help me and stabilize me, we reach the summit of the mountain. It was absolutely freezing so we couldn’t stick around long so we immediately began our descent. There wasn’t much to see anyway as we were way above the clouds. So I thought that going down would be easier, HAAAAAAA. MISTAKE! It was so steep all of us were literally sliding and falling on our asses every few seconds. Lovely Scott grabbed hold of my arm and guided me all the way down until we reached the safe area, omg it was terrifying. I know it wasn’t just me because even the lads were scared as it was so windy, anyone could easily have died up there today if they were blown over just that little too hard. So due to sliding on a load of rocks, they decided to make a home in my shoe. My trainers were completely jam packed with shit loads of rocks and pebbles making it very uncomfortable to walk, fortunately though we stopped a bit further down at 2 very pretty lakes. At this point we had lost half our team and had to carry on until we found them sat by another lake. We had some lunch for about 15 mins and then were on our way aagain! So I thought the climbing was over but then we had to go back up over the crater again, what a fucking piss take. I was past the point of sanity and ready to explode with anger at how much I was hating this journey.. But then the descent began. AAAAAAH it was lovely! I walked along down the mountain with Liam and Louise and got some great views. THAT bit of the descent was nice, but then it started getting hardcore. It was pretty steep down and this meant using all my leg muscles again to stay upright.

But I kept on going. I was so determined to finish this thing if it kills me. There is no way I’m going to go through hell and back up that mountain and not finish it off. So I walked and walked for another 3 hours. The end bit was the worst. Me and Louise walking through shit loads of trees downwards and it just seemed like we were not getting anywhere.. But then we saw 3 posts and realised we had reached the end.

HALLELULJAH MUCH?! I THINK SO!!!!

Everyone congratulated me as I think they could tell I had not enjoyed it in the slightest. Then our bus man arrived and greeted us with a beer each.. Nice!! Made our way back to the hostel, I jumped straight in the shower I was SO minging! Our hostel is the best one so far, without a doubt! The beds actually have decent mattresses and there’s a spa and a full restaurant and everything. We had some awesome $10 meal deals for Stray, a gorgeous Mexican chicken wrap with rice.. And then happy hour began! Got straight on it without hesitation. Celebratory drinks definitely needed. Everyone was feeling pretty good about accomplishing it, not me though, I still feel shit. I am proud I managed it but I definitely without a doubt would NOT do it again! Anyway after some drinkypoos I have come to bed to attempt to rest my still very sore legs and I know it’s only gonna get worse tomorrow. I probably won’t be able to walk! Off to Wellington tomorrow, hopefully gonna be meeting up with a mate who lives there! Back tomorrow kiddies.

Night xxxx

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