Wednesday, July 21, 2010

My First Time Tramping!

Last weekend I went on an overnight tramping trip with the tramping club, and it was basically the best thing ever. I absolutely loved it. We went to the Otehake hot pools and it took us about 5 and a half hours to get there from the beginning of the trail, and about 4 hours to get back the next day. We left campus at like 8:45 after waiting around for a while and drove about 2 hours up near Arthur's Pass to the trail. The trail we took to the hot pools was pretty sweet for the most part, and full of lots of different terrain. We walked on grass and normal land for a while up to our first river crossing. I really liked river crossings, even though the water was super cold and it would make my feet numb for a while afterward. They were a lot of fun, and made it seem like a more exciting trip since I'd never done a river crossing before. The deepest it ever got was up to my waist, which wasn't too bad. We walked mostly through like, the rain forest kinda trails on the first day. We stopped at a lake to have lunch and I found it amazing how I could get so hot walking through the trails and take layers off and literally after not even a minute of stopping to have lunch I was freezing again and needed to put my layers back on. After lunch we kept going and I was with a bunch of kiwis who have been in the group for a while and knew what they were doing. However, we still managed to go the wrong way and follow the flood route instead of the path we meant to follow. This made the trip way more exhausting and way more interesting overall. We were on the flood route for probably about half an hour before we regrouped and tried to figure out if we should turn back or keep going. We talked for about 5-10 minutes about what would happen if we kept going or if we turned around and what the best option was. We had to think about how much daylight we had left and how far away from the regular trail we were and how far away from our destination we were, and it was definitely good to experience what happens when something goes wrong on a trip. We decided to go back and ended up following the wrong markers for a while until we found the right ones and got back on track. It was pretty exciting for me since I'd never been in that situation before, and I felt safe enough since I was with people who knew what they were doing and we'd talked about how we had two tents and food in case we didn't make it to where we were going and needed to camp somewhere else, so we were covered. The flood route itself was kinda crazy - it was incredibly steep and was full of tree roots that you had to climb up and down using your hands and feet. It was incredibly exhausting but a lot of fun, but I was really glad to be back on the normal path once we made it back there. After that there were a bunch of river crossings and all of a sudden the hot pools appeared. I expected them to be farther from the freezing cold river, and it still doesn't make much sense to me how these steaming hot pools could be so close to a freezing cold river that flows into it - kinda crazy... it felt so good to finally get into the hot pools after a really tiring day of being cold and wet for the past 5 hours.

I really liked that we got to a place where you can't possibly go unless you hike for 5 hours, and that we were 5 hours away from any sort of civilization. I also liked that we all had went into it knowing we were going to be dirty and smelly and wet and cold and that was just all part of the fun. I felt really at home in the middle of nature far away from everything - it was an awesome feeling. This is something I knew I'd love to do, and I couldn't be happier that I'm here doing it. I'm so excited to go on more tramping trips while I'm here. I loved how incredibly gorgeous the scenery was and how great it felt to know I made it through a 5 and a half hour hike keeping up with a bunch of the kiwis who do this all the time. I loved everything about it =)

Laying in the hot pools and eating dinner and having some drinks and looking up at the clearest sky I've ever seen with the most stars I've ever seen was also pretty incredible. It was awesome to see a whole new pattern of stars that I'd never seen before, and it really made me further realize that I'm on the other side of the world.

The camping part was fun too, but sleeping in the freezing cold wasn't the easiest thing for me. I didn't sleep very well at all but figured that was all part of the experience so I didn't care all that much. The walk back in the morning was even better than the walk there too, since we took the river route and basically just walked along the river for the first half of the hike. It was fun constantly going in and out of the river. It was pretty cold but after going in the first couple times it really didn't even feel that cold anymore. It was also a lot prettier on the way back because we were out in the open and could see the river and the mountains and just everything surrounding us rather than just seeing tree roots as you carefully picked your steps in the forest. The river was also insanely clear and it was soooo pretty. I also liked that we could fill up our water bottles in the river and drink it since it's so clean. I love how clean New Zealand is, it's awesome.
Overall it was an awesome experience and I can't wait to go on more trips and see more of this beautiful country. I think I'm going on a really long day hike with a couple of the kiwi girls from the club this weekend, so hopefully I'll have that to write about next time. =)

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