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Published: January 4th 2011
Our first introduction into back country hiking (called tramping here) was quite the experience and a different beast all together then back home. We started right away with wading through a waist high river, setting the tone for the rest of the track (trail). Day one was a beautiful walk up a valley to the edge of a pass we would cross the next morning, little did we know that was the easy part of the trip. We had been told that day two was a route, meaning no defined trail to follow, but didn't realize how tough it would be. Basically, we knew we had to follow the river, but had to just bash our way through the woods and terrain to make that happen. This process turned into a exhausting 13 hour day to finally reach a clearing flat enough to camp for the night. Nick had taken a couple of nasty spills coming down the pass, which took it's toll in blisters and severe pain. Hours into day three, we could see with Nick's injuries that the initial plan was going to have to be changed. Originally, we were to continue over two more passes which would lead back to the starting point and more importantly the cars we arrived in, but this wasn't going to happen. So, Nick, Barry, and myself broke off from the rest of our group and took a different track to a giant and amazing mountain lake where we took a high speed water taxi across the water to a camp on the other side. We spent the night there in our tents, hiding from the thousands of sand flies (more on that below). From there, the plan was to hitchhike to a nearby town and then catch a bus back to Christchurch. After a good 30 mins on the highway with no success hitch hiking, amazingly the very bus we needed drove by and stopped, which took us all the way back (five hours) to Christchurch where we rendezvous with everyone else later that day. If this was a little hard to follow I'm sorry, as it was obviously madness to experience; nonetheless is was a hell of a way to kick off our tramping adventures.
Now I seem to recall Eric on one of his blogs being inspired to write a haiku poem (which Chad later joined), and I felt I could honor that here with my own. I wrote this in my tent watching the bugs swarm outside for hours.
Regarding Sand Flies:
God I hate sand flies,
I wish they would all just die,
And be in hell now.
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Tess
non-member comment
Sand Flies
Did I ever tell you about the sand flies in New Zealand? Or that you should maybe spend the extra money once you get there to buy SF repellant? Oh WAIT.... I did... nanny nanny boo boo. I kinda don't feel sorry for you! Cheers mate! Tess