Quite a bit has been happening the past couple of days, all of which are positive.
First off, my latest hiking adventure, one that took me about to the part of NZ that I've been dreaming about. It first started off a couple weeks ago when I was helping Cam out on his boat with a pick up, and then while we were driving along, I saw a mountain that I wanted to hike, and he told me that there's a hike going the whole way. So, I just kept on waiting until I found the opportunity to get my ass out there. A couple of days ago, I met a guy in the kitchen, and we started talking, and then we started to talk about the hike, and how I wanted to do it. He was super keen on it, so I then told him I would do it with him. The next day we got our stuff together, and went over to Russel to sort out our D.O.C. (Department of Conservation) fees to walk the trek. It cost us 42 NZD which included the right to sleep in the hut, which was quite a surprise, but we were hoping it was going to be worth it. The starting point was over at Rawhiti (pronounced Rafiti), track was 29km long, and expected time to walk the whole thing was about 8hrs. I hadn't done this kind of hike for quite some time, so I was pretty stoked about it. We set off towards the starting point, and start talking about random things, like guys do, and when we finally find the spot, we find a parking spot, and start our trek. We were parked about 1km away from the starting point, so we would have 30km to walk in total. Not a problem, we were hard asses! It was pretty tough at first because we didn't stretch, but we warmed up pretty quickly (it was about 25 degrees outside) and when we got to our first resting spot, we were absolutely speachless! The view was amazing! It's one of those moments in your life that your happy to be alive. I tried to the best of my abilities to take a good photo of the moment, but it just doesn't cut it. From that point on, things only got tougher, and better. The heat was grueling, along with the quad killing up and down hills that we had to conquer. I was worried about my left knee, but it held out, and we were kicking major ass. We kept a schedule of hiking for a hour, and then resting 5 minutes, which helped out a lot, and made sure we weren't resting too much for too long. And on one of our stops, we found a creek with tree hanging over, something that I had to climb! I did and got a photo of it, but the Auto-Focus wasn't on, so it's a bit blurry :( But I saw a fresh water eel in the creek which was pretty cool mind you. All of this work this doesn't sound all too great, but the views we got as a reward were so worth the effort and trouble that we put in. It's just one of those things you have to be there for. On the final hill we had to trek up, I was dead tired, and collapsed while going up it, but I sucked it in, and pull through. On our final descent, we were greeted with yet another amazing view: our hut. It took us 5hours 30minutes to walk 30km: Sweet! Once we got down there, we dropped off our gear, said hi to the other guests, we got in our swim gear and headed down to the water for a nice cool down. And wow! It was perfect! I felt super refreshed when I got out, and felt like I could do it all over again. Except for one thing: my left knee crapped out. I don't know why, I think it was due to the extreme temperature change, but my left knee all of a sudden just died on me. It wasn't too painful, but it wasn't comfortable. End up limping my way back up the hill to start making some dinner. At that point we realize we didn't bring enough food, but we rationed all our food to make sure we had some tomorrow aswell. One of the other guests there also busted her knee, so she wanted to know how much it would cost to taxi them back to Rawhiti. I tell her about Cam, and she asks me to contact him. I then find out that Cam is coming out anyway, so I organize it so he brings some food with him for Andy and I. Boo-yah! We were really happy at that point, and ate a bit more of our food to make sure we were properly fed and rested. Before we went to bed we got to see a moon rise, and we then decided to wake up for a sun rise. I volunteered to be the alarm clock for the occassion, so I set my alarm clock, crawled into my little silk liner for my sleeping bag, went to bed on mattress (for the first time in over a month).
The alarm clock wakes me up, and then I get up and start slapping Andy around to get him out of bed. Once he was up, we start kitting up to get ready to see an amazing sun rise. And mind you, it was better than we expected. The night before we were scouting spots were to watch it from, and we found the perfect one! Right on the cliff, only miles and miles of sea infront of us. It was absolutely beautiful! After taking several photos, and eating some breakfast, meeting Cam for our food pick-up, we start making our way back to the car. At first it was pretty grueling because we didn't stretch, but after making it over the first half of the up hill, we do a nice stretch on a platform over looking the ocean and cabin. Yet again, fooking-amazing!
While we were walking, we decided to make a pit stop over at Deep Water Cove, which was so nice. We got down there, ate our lunch, and took a nice cool dip in the ocean to lower our core temperature and just hang out. Ended up me hiding under my serong, and falling asleep, and Andy also took a quick power nap. Noice!
This time the hike wasn't so hard, but a bit hard with my gimpy knee. Ended up pulling off the hike (minus the nap at DWC) in the same amount of time: 5hrs 30min. We reckoned it was because the up hills weren't as steep and that we ate most of our food.
When we got back to the car, we took another dip in the ocean, and started driving into Paihia. Make a pit stop at the local ice cream shop, and head on over to Woolworths to stock up on our feast for the night: homemade burger paddy's. Without going into all the details, the feast was superb, and hit the spot!
We then went out that night just for a quick beer, and check out the scene in town. Nothing too intense. I just had one beer, and then we went back at around 23.30 because Cam and I had some boat work to do early in the morning.
Andy and I parted ways, and we both said we'd meet up for a road trip down to the south island. Something I hope will happen. I mean that we two can road trip together, cause he's a really cool guy.
Anyway, that was about a week ago, and since then I've been hanging out on the boat, caught my first crey, and also dived on the Cantebury (a naval ship that was sunk about 15 weeks ago). And now I'm working at the hostel, which is pretty sweet. I get to do some work that gives me some cash. Nothing too significant, but it will allow me to keep my expenses down to maybe zero. It's not too bad when you think about it. And my room mate here is the weirdest guy ever! In really cool weird way. He's just so spaced out all the time (and he doesn't do drugs, from what I can tell), I'm seriously looking forward to doing this work :D
That's all I really have to say right now guys, I know I suck at keeping this page up dated, will try a bit harder, now that I have free internet, I'll try and keep it more up-to-date.
But here are some pictures, enjoy!
The alarm clock wakes me up, and then I get up and start slapping Andy around to get him out of bed. Once he was up, we start kitting up to get ready to see an amazing sun rise. And mind you, it was better than we expected. The night before we were scouting spots were to watch it from, and we found the perfect one! Right on the cliff, only miles and miles of sea infront of us. It was absolutely beautiful! After taking several photos, and eating some breakfast, meeting Cam for our food pick-up, we start making our way back to the car. At first it was pretty grueling because we didn't stretch, but after making it over the first half of the up hill, we do a nice stretch on a platform over looking the ocean and cabin. Yet again, fooking-amazing!
While we were walking, we decided to make a pit stop over at Deep Water Cove, which was so nice. We got down there, ate our lunch, and took a nice cool dip in the ocean to lower our core temperature and just hang out. Ended up me hiding under my serong, and falling asleep, and Andy also took a quick power nap. Noice!
This time the hike wasn't so hard, but a bit hard with my gimpy knee. Ended up pulling off the hike (minus the nap at DWC) in the same amount of time: 5hrs 30min. We reckoned it was because the up hills weren't as steep and that we ate most of our food.
When we got back to the car, we took another dip in the ocean, and started driving into Paihia. Make a pit stop at the local ice cream shop, and head on over to Woolworths to stock up on our feast for the night: homemade burger paddy's. Without going into all the details, the feast was superb, and hit the spot!
We then went out that night just for a quick beer, and check out the scene in town. Nothing too intense. I just had one beer, and then we went back at around 23.30 because Cam and I had some boat work to do early in the morning.
Andy and I parted ways, and we both said we'd meet up for a road trip down to the south island. Something I hope will happen. I mean that we two can road trip together, cause he's a really cool guy.
Anyway, that was about a week ago, and since then I've been hanging out on the boat, caught my first crey, and also dived on the Cantebury (a naval ship that was sunk about 15 weeks ago). And now I'm working at the hostel, which is pretty sweet. I get to do some work that gives me some cash. Nothing too significant, but it will allow me to keep my expenses down to maybe zero. It's not too bad when you think about it. And my room mate here is the weirdest guy ever! In really cool weird way. He's just so spaced out all the time (and he doesn't do drugs, from what I can tell), I'm seriously looking forward to doing this work :D
That's all I really have to say right now guys, I know I suck at keeping this page up dated, will try a bit harder, now that I have free internet, I'll try and keep it more up-to-date.
But here are some pictures, enjoy!
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