This weekend I went on the first overnight trip of the trimester with the university tramping club (tramping means hiking/backpacking in New Zealand). We drove about an hour north of Wellington to the Tararua Forest Park, and then walked about six hours each way to and from our campsite. Actually, walked is an understatement. A better description of what we did would be jumping over creeks, trudging through mud, climbing over fallen trees, and scaling the side of cliffs. The trail was not very well maintained, to say the least. Despite this however, it was actually a really cool trip and definitely a fun social experience. On the trip we celebrated "Mid-Winter Christmas"as there was a gift exchange and some people wore Santa hats and other festive costumes. Of course kiwis still celebrate Christmas in December, but this was a fun excuse to be festive during their winter months like we Northern-hemisphere folk do.
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| Setting off! |
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| We lucked out with really awesome weather the first day. Sunny, but not too hot. |
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| Looking up. |
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| All the ferns in New Zealand make you feel like you're in some sort of prehistoric version of earth. |
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| Gotta love them suspension bridges. |
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| We accidentally took a really sketchy detour off the trail and ended up having to basically clamber down this steep as hill, basically holding on for our lives by tree roots. The fact that I was able to let go and take a photo at this point shows that this is not nearly the steepest part of the "trail" here. |
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| Obligatory cloud photo. |
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| Double dose of the sunset we watched after finishing the hike and waiting for the rest of the group to arrive back. |