Australia Day 1 - The Coastal Track

I know it’s long overdue, but I am home at last with some free time, enjoy!

If you ask most kids these days where they would like to travel if they had one granted wish to go anywhere, more often than not they say Australia. There is this kind of fleeting smirk that comes across their faces as they think about it for just a moment, images of kangaroos, koala bears, the vastness of the outback and the imminent danger it fosters. I was one of those kids, and long before I decided to go to New Zealand I was caught up in the all too familiar spirit of Australia housed in Steve Irwin’s voice as he showed off the “beauty” of fifteen-foot crocs and the “gorgeous” snakes that slithered nearby.  At last, after some convincing from some friends of mine and the irresistible $300 round trip online deal, I would finally get my chance to head “down under”.

Interestingly enough, the first day of our adventure started at 4am, covered in face paint and still a little wobbly as Bene, Franzi, Zach and I had taken part in the festivities brought on by the All Blacks winning the rugby world cup the night before. We were about a half kilometer from the Wellington airport and giddy as ever after sleeping (or not sleeping) for about two hours in Bene’s van. After devouring a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we were on our way to pick up our tickets and head off to a wild country with nothing but our backpacks and hopes of surviving whatever we would encounter.

After making it through customs with just a little black face paint still smeared across my cheeks we boarded the plane and I passed out before we even took off. By the time we landed I was fresh as a daisy, aha, right. Already sporting a two-week beard (hardly worthy of being called a beard) and having put just a few hours between free jagger-bombs and baggage claim in the Sydney airport I was looking a little rough. Luckily for us, Bene and Franzi always seem to be on the ball and had us on a train headed to meet Emma and her Australian friend Andrew at his house where we would keep any extra baggage for the week.

The first thing I saw when I got off the train at our stop was a parakeet or some kind of crazy colourful bird perched on a telephone wire. Awesome. When we arrived at Andrews house he gave us the pep talk, which went something like this:

“Almost everything in this country can kill you… but don’t worry… you’ll be fine… maybe... I hope”.

We got the run down on ticks, snakes, spiders etc. Andrew was a seasoned veteran when it came to dealing with the trials and tribulations of the outback. He provided us with a list of things we would need such as radioactive bug-spray, SPF 900 Sunscreen and a contact number should we run into any trouble (not that we would have cell service, but hey, what are the odds we would actually need to use it… right?).

Now that we were all relaxed and comfortable we tiptoed our way out of the house, down the road and nearly broke into tears as we crossed a patch of grass for fear of a snake, spider and tick jumping simultaneously out of nowhere and sending us to our hellishly painful deaths.

            Our first order of business was the grocery store and an outdoor store to get fuel for my camp stove. Unfortunately we could not find the latter and so this greatly limited what we would pick up at the grocery. Pre-cooked noodles, canned pasta sauce, peanut butter, jam, bread, nuts and chocolate. Now if that isn’t featured on the food network as the greatest diet known to man, well… I wouldn’t be surprised.

            We now had groceries, the proper gear (aside from the missing fuel canister), lots of water and the name of the trail we were planning on hiking for the next couple of days. The Coastal Walk was to occupy our eager legs for the next two days, taking us along the eastern coastline of Australia just south of Sydney. Our trip to the trailhead took us on a ferry from Cronulla to Bundeena and then a kilometer of walking along the streets to a sandy trail that led to the coast.

            As we walked through the brush towards the coast, our eyes stayed glued to the ground scanning for snakes and spiders and when we finally looked up towards the horizon the ground cracked away and the ocean stretched to meet the clouds.  This part of the trail was somewhat like a pick-your-own-track kind of deal and so we climbed up and down rock ledges and shuffled between the wiry bushes stopping every so often to marvel at the ephemeral towers of white spray as the waves shaped the coast.

            A short while into the hike we decided it would be a good time to pull out the industrial grade bug spray and coat ourselves in it. Sometime in the near future, I am convinced that I will grow and extra arm or leg as a result of this experience.

            The sun was out and beating down on us but not like I had imagined it would. Expecting to be wringing out my eyebrows every couple of minutes, I was pleasantly surprised to have golden light that met me with the salty breeze of the ocean. As we walked further along the coast the landscape would rise and fall from cliff to beach and back up again. During one particular stop we found ourselves perched on top of what appeared to be a hardened sand wall that dropped vertically a few hundred feet to rocky shoreline. I’ve made sand castles sturdier than the ground we were standing on so what better thing to do than sit along the edge where the cliff crumbles the easiest (gotta get those cool pictures right?).

            Along the trail we came across a few different sights and sounds as far as wildlife goes, the first being these tiny lizards that would dart and skip off the rocks into bushes. As I chased after them I prayed they weren’t leading me to a larger more menacing creature that would more than likely eat me in one bite. In addition to this we heard this thing that sounded like a laser beam but failed to locate it, ever. It was as if the bird that was making the noise was powering up and at the climax of the noise would disappear in a poof and appear somewhere else (peeeeeeEEEEEEE-YEW!). So began the legend of “Laser Larry” who seemed to follow us wherever we went. Keeping Laser Larry company was a “Cat/Lamb Bird” which we so scientifically named after hearing meow/bleat from time to time.

            While we hiked later into the transition between afternoon and evening the colours of the Australian landscape started to reveal themselves. As if removing a pair of sunglasses at the end of the day the colours came through in true form. All along the coast the rough face of the cliffs jutted out, rusty and weather-beaten, masked in parts by the green stubble of vegetation rugged enough to grow in this part of the world.

            We pressed on further inland as the sun started to go down and stumbled upon this incredible man made pool that was fed by a river. Much like an infinity pool the water dropped over the edges into a series of waterfalls that ran all the way down and out into a canyon disappearing into forest.  We contemplated spending the night at this picturesque location we aptly named Paradise Falls but the ground was too uneven and rocky. Our next consideration was a small beach where no camping was permitted, but I steered the group clear of this option as there was a river crossing that would surely result in us swimming after our gear.

            After much discussion we found a spot just off the coast in a park where all patrons had to be out by 8pm and so we hid our tents as far back on the property as possible behind some brush. We weren’t trying to break the rules, we just had nowhere else to sleep for the night and considering we had seen about four day hikers the entire day, chances were that nobody would be monitoring the area. By the time the tents were set up it was dark and it was dinner time. The five of us all crowded up on top of a boulder around a single pot of cold pre cooked noodles and sauce, each taking a turn to get a spork-full of processed goodness by the light of our headlamps.  It wasn’t exactly gourmet, but by the time we got to the bottom of the pot I was satisfied and soon after, ecstatic, when a big bar of chocolate was revealed like a rabbit from a hat.

            I am certain that the idea of staying up any later never crossed anyone’s mind, as we were all beginning to drift off to sleep beside the empty dinner pot. We all clambered into our tents, ensuring the zippers were closed extra tight so our creepy, crawly, slithery, fanged, poisonous companions wouldn’t make any surprise appearances in the night. All around us crickets chirped, tree frogs burped and the waves went on crashing into the cliffs below our campsite, at last, day one of Oz was in the books. 

Cheers,

Brayden

Rugby, Riptides and Races

Just when I thought I was all caught up with the blog… oh right… there was nearly a month and a half of adventure time between the end of spring break and now.

Well for starters, I have school which has been quite challenging at times with huge evaluations, not like the U.S. where your overall grade tends to be split up into more than just two projects. But even so these things need to be done, that is after all why I am here (need to be reminded of this from time to time, this country has a way of stealing you away from reality). Aside from the daily grind at Massey University I have been having an absolute ball here in New Zealand.

 Shortly after we returned from the Spring Break trip I went with Benen and Graeme to my first Rugby World Cup game in New Plymouth where we watched Ireland put a beating on the U.S.A. This was rather entertaining as most of the American fans strutted around in Captain America outfits and the Irish of course sported the looks of Leprechauns. All in all it was a great time and I mean even if the game had have been boring I had “witty banter” between an Irishman and a Scot, which is a show in itself.

 Not long after this I jumped on the opportunity to go surfing at a place called Castlepoint, which is on the south east coast of the north island (I tried to find a spot to fit ‘west’ in there but couldn’t). Now I had never been surfing before but after a caffeine fueled ride on a four wheeled rollercoaster over New Zealand countryside, I was just feeling fortunate to be alive. Now if you can just take a moment to picture a hardcore surfer dude in your head, just take that image, and multiply by 10, this was our driver. We screamed over hilltops and nearly took flight as the surfboards strapped to the roof started to give us a little lift (this is no way makes sense from a physics standpoint so for those physics students out there, just allow it).  When we arrived at our destination we were parked on a beach in front of a small bay that had a large cliff on the right, a mouth drinking in massive waves from the pacific ocean, and a rocky spine that appeared out of the water two hundred metres from the beach that ran parallel all the way to a lighthouse perched at the its end. Add some sun and blue skies in there, it was going to be a great day.

We donned our wetsuits which were less than flattering and followed our fearless driver into the blue walls that crashed playfully into the shore. For whatever reason none of us first time surfers thought to stay close to shore to catch some of the smaller waves before venturing out to the big ones. This was a mistake. There I was perched up on my board, falling off of it every so often and I wasn’t even moving anywhere, my arms felt like lead, I had cliffs on both my right and left, and every few seconds the water level would rise a few stories as I floated along in the corridor to the pacific. There were a few other surfers out that lived nearby and so I struck up a conversation with one of them who looked to be about forty years old. He told me about the area and then went on to say how he was stoked to see these monster waves out that day. Hmmm this is about the exact time my stomach dropped and I got that feeling that I was in a world of trouble. Mr. Surfer Dude just told me that these waves are 'monsters', by his standards. The most experience I have with waves is on beach beach in land locked Ontario. I was in no way ready for this. The only thing that was comforting me at this time were the seals that were also surfing and playing around in the nearby waves.

I wasn’t out there long before the waves slowly eased me towards their capping point without me noticing. All of a sudden Mr. Surfer Dude started paddling like hell towards shore and I started to panic, I got down on my belly started paddling with him not knowing at all what to do. I will never, ever, forget what I saw when I looked back at that moment. A wave roughly the size of a two to three story house was sucking up the water beneath me, hunting me down. I paddled like hell and for a moment I found myself rising quite quickly and for some reason I thought I had drifted over it, wrong. I now found myself atop this blue wall looking down, looking way down, at all of the other surfers. Uh oh. As one more second passed, I then realized I was not up shit creek but rather sitting upon the shittiest wave that ever raged through shit creek. For those of you that watch Trailer Park Boys, I was the captain of the shit liner and she was about to set sail.

 As the wave crested I found myself on the top lip, until it gave way from beneath me and as I clung for dear life to my board, the nose pointed downwards and I dropped through the air about a foot and a half, miraculously still on the face of the wave. At this point, all I could see was blue, it was like the tail end of the biggest rollercoaster drop you have ever been on, you can see where the hill kind of ends but you haven’t looked up yet to see where it goes, and here’s the kicker, I now have to worry about what the hell was coming up from behind me, which lucky for you never happens on a roller coaster. So here I am white knuckled, teeth clenched, eyes all squinty as mist is shooting up from the edges of the board. All I can hear is this big blue monster behind me draining the water from beneath my board, his heavy breathing is roaring in my ears and I am on his tongue, he’s drooling all over me, I look back and see the deep blue cave of his throat as he tries to swallow, and as he bites down I shoot out of his mouth riding off his lower lip and the water expelled from the great bite. At this point, I am shaking like mad with adrenaline, and traveling faster than I think I have ever gone on boat, the board vibrating beneath me as I skimmed over waves, the smaller after-bites of the beast behind me waning as I fly past all of the surfers with a stupid grin on my face half there out of joy for surviving, half there out of sheer terror. But the ride is not over, slowly one by one I catch more waves in front of me and ride them, but not like a surfer, I ride them like I used to ride my boogie board on the waves of Sauble Beach when I was ten. When I finally started to get close to shore I tried standing up for the first time ever on a surf board… a newborn giraffe wearing roller-skates on ice would have looked more coordinated and graceful.

As the day went on I managed to stay up for a few seconds longer each time but man was it tough. It’s also safe to say I didn’t go even half as far out as I did the first time for the remainder of the day. When we tired of surfing, we explored the area a bit and checked out the lighthouse, it was an experience I won’t soon forget. Bene has put together a short clip of this day on his blog, the link to the video is below and the surfing starts at around 4:24. http://vimeo.com/29902449 

Another little event I got up to was a tree planting project at the local Manawatu gorge called Living Legends. Essentially we spent a Saturday morning replanting a massive hillside in the gorge with All Blacks legend Sam Strahan. It was a great precursor to what I would be up to the very next day which was my second Rugby World Cup game, Canada vs. NZ All Blacks.

Now I knew going into the game that we were going to get absolutely crushed but man oh man what a great environment. I went to Wellington with two other Canadian friends and the first thing we did was find a pub before the game. Of course it was a little daunting at first walking into a room that was ‘All Black’ but we were met with friendly jokes as we were dressed in red. I had my Molson Canadian shirt on with a Labatt Blue hat, a Canada scarf and of course the Canada flag pinned to my back. It didn’t take long for us to find the corner of the pub that was full of rowdy east coast Canadians and pretty soon my face was painted with a big maple leaf… along with the insides of my eyelids and my mouth.

When we finally made it to the game the place was packed, and buzzing with excitement. The haka was great as always and the anthems brought the capacity crowd to life. Interestingly enough we scored the first points of the game, at which point the kiwi beside me told me to enjoy it cause they may be the only points we get. He later bought me a beer for each tri Canada scored (2) claiming that if he was at a hockey game in Canada that I would do the same for him. The final score was 79 to 15 but I had a great time and even got my favorite player, Kleeberger to sign my scarf after the game. I felt like a little girl as I hung over the barricade to shake his hand but I mean he’s pretty damn cool, and he has an awesome beard, respect.

After the game we went back to our watering hole (Wellington’s) and chatted it up with All Black’s fans and of course the mountie, beaver, moose and Inuit that were dressed up for the game. Yet another incredible experience here in this amazing country.

As some of you may recall, Graeme and I ran the half marathon in the middle of August with only six days of training. Well… we were at Rosies Pub just before Spring Break watching rugby, and one pint led to another and we came up with another brilliant idea, we were going to run a marathon. Of course we forgot about it for a while and it surfaced from time to time in drunk conversations during spring break but I mean there was no way we were actually going to do it. Until about a week after Spring Break, we were having a conversation at a party and Graeme looked at me and kind of took a serious tone and said, “We should start training for that marathon this week, because its on Oct. 29^th”. I was kind of taken aback at first but said “Ah yes, a grand idea, Sunday the 11^th of September at 4pm, see ya then” That week we found out that the Oct 29^th marathon in Auckland was full so the next available marathon was Oct 9^th cutting three weeks off our already measly seven week training time. You see most people train months in advance, 18 weeks, some people maybe a full year.

Graeme and I didn’t want to chicken out and with him already having run a few marathons, his most recent one being about 5 years ago, and me being in decent shape, and the fact that we had done nothing in the way of training since the half marathon on August 14^th, pshhh yeah 42km was just a number. Well, we clocked 44km the first week of training, that’s 2km more than we were going to do for the race.  The second week was a bit better at 81km with a long Saturday run of about 24km. The third week we ran 58km with 30km of that happening on the long Saturday run, this took just over 3hrs so we weren’t exactly flying haha. Finally the week of the race (and the week after a weekend of beers at the Canada vs. NZ game) we tapered off to 33km, bringing us to a grand total of 216km of training (just over 5 marathons).

So with 3 and half weeks of training we showed up at the Wairarapa Country Marathon in Masterton on the brisk morning of Oct. 9^th. I had my Canada flag pinned to my back and Graeme had shaved his beard into a mustache connected to sideburns mess as a way to scare off the competition.  There were over sixty runners in the marathon and this worried me a bit as most of them were tall and skinny and looked as though they had done this before. ‘Oh well’ I thought and off we went at the very back of the pack at the sound of the gun. Now for some unknown reason I thought it would be a great idea to you know, get up near the front of the pack early on, because its not like there’s 42km’s to move around or anything. I found myself in fourth place with two other runners to talk to, both of them had done three or more of these marathons and I thought we were moving at a fairly good pace. By the ten kilometer marker it was just me and the guy who had a friend giving him split times every 5km’s, probably not the best spot for me. I jumped in front of him up for the 10 to 15km marker and as we saw his friend again he popped up beside me and said “that last split may have been a tad fast don’t ya think”. Well hell if I know, this is my first race over 21km, but I just said, “yeah… I suppose it was a ‘tad’ quick”… be cool Brayden.

At 16km my buddy and his friend in the car pulled away and that was the last I thought of 5km pacing for the rest of the race. At the halfway point my friends Ema and Meg were beside the course with signs they had made to cheer me on. When I asked Ema what my split was and she said 1hr 25 something I knew I was in a world of trouble because my half marathon time had been 1hr 27minues and now I still had another 21km to go. By kilometer 28 I started to hurt like I have never hurt before and my mind was messing with me. I was starting to run past the walkers of the 5km and 10km races and it took every fiber of my being to not stop and walk for a few seconds because I knew I wouldn’t be able to start again. By 38km’s I was starting to weave a bit, straying off the road and browning out slightly, I had been pushing it pretty hard and running by myself essentially since the 16km marker. Finally I stopped at the water station at the 40km marker and realized I could barely see or stand. I grabbed a couple of cups of water and started sipping them, stumbling forward, knowing that too much water would be bad but I needed it desperately or I would pass out. It was during this time of a about two hundred meters of walking that I was passed by six or seven other people that had been lingering just behind me. It took all my might to get going again and used the 7^th guy that passed me as a pace maker staying just behind him. I don’t think I have ever felt so happy in my life to see a finish line in fact I wasn’t far from tears as I rounded the last corner to the clapping and cheers of supporters that lined the streets.

After I crossed the finish line, I downed cup after cup of orange coloured sports drink and grabbed a handful of gummie candies that were meant to be for everyone but I may have taken most of them, I then collapsed onto my back, laid the candies on my chest and explained to Ema that this may have been the most irresponsible thing I had done in NZ, more so than buying Golden Bay boxed wine (mentioned in an earlier post).

I have run my fair share of races, done enough weightlifting, and broken enough bones to know what pain feels like. I had never felt pain like this. It was like my muscles were pumping hot tar through my legs (and interestingly enough, I couldn’t walk properly until the following weekend). It turned out I had placed 11^th overall with a time of 3hrs 9minutes 48 seconds which was not bad for a first timer. Graeme on the other hand had the big surprise when he came in at 3hrs 37mins 36 seconds, a half hour better than his previous best time and placing 24^th overall. Now I am not sure how smart it is to train for only three weeks but if Graeme can take a half hour off, it makes sense to me haha.

http://www.times-age.co.nz/news/runners-make-a-marathon-effort/1132984/

Now three weekends ago Graeme, Alex, Bene and I decided to do a hike up to Mangaweka mountain and rather than have you read about it since this is a long enough post as it is, I have made a video about it. http://vimeo.com/30780010

Well I believe I have updated you all on my adventures up until this next Australia series, I hope it will be as interesting and exciting as the last one and with any luck I’ll get a laugh or two out of you. 

Oh! I almost forgot, there's a hedgehog that lives outside my flat. Awesome.

Cheers,

Brayden

Day 8 & 9 - Perilous Piha and Homeward Bound

Family, friends and followers of this blog, I apologize for my absence. It is as if I have invited you all over for a movie and paused it with five minutes to go, only to invite you back a month later to finish it… I do have a few good excuses; the main one being that I live in New Zealand and “island time” has sorely affected my level of urgency. I will however pack in the last of my two days of the Spring Break series into one entry (you will understand why after reading). I hope you have all been well, and perhaps embarked on an adventure of your own that may prompt you to start a blog like this one (though hopefully a little more updated…).  Well, without further adieu I give you Day 8 and Day 9 of the Spring Break Series:

The morning started off around 7:30am with over exaggerated goodbyes, hugs, and fake tears as we said farewell to nearly half of our group. They were all headed back to start studying again (I should have gone with them…) while Benen, Benedicte, Bene, Graeme, Alex, Giso, Danni and I stayed in Piha for one more day to hike the forests that backed the beach.

Our first stop was a small shop that essentially sold meat pies and maps, pretty standard for New Zealand. Graeme was in speaking to the owner while the rest of us dumped the garbage from Jackie Chan into nearby rubbish bins and filled up water bottles at a trailer park across the road. We were starting to develop into fairly efficient road trippers.

Not too long after this Graeme emerged with a plan and we headed towards the trailhead about five minutes away. There were houses all around the trailhead but the second we stepped into the forest we were yet again enveloped in lush green vegetation strung along a single track that led us onward into our adventure. The weather could not have been any better as we were overlooked by clear blue skies and the temperature was warm and light. Every so often along the trail there were checkpoints for us to spray and scrub our boots to stop the spread of kauri tree dieback.

Roughly ten minutes into this hike I ran into the first bit of trouble I have had here in New Zealand. You see everytime I head off to a new country for school or really just a new school in general I manage to get injured. In grade seven it was a fractured tibia, somehow I dodged a bullet at CWDHS, but then it caught up to me at boarding school with a fractured tibia and fibula in Ohio, then Roanoke College with a torn LCL in my knee, and as I shuffled my way across one particularly mossy boulder on this track in New Zealand, I slipped and started sliding towards a running water.

Now… the way I like to tell this story is as follows: There I was in the New Zealand jungle in the middle of a great storm, maybe the greatest in the history of the island (as I mentioned earlier, blue skies and sunny). I had just finished building a storm shelter for the citizens of Piha with nothing but my bare hands. It was starting to get dark and the path was becoming more and more treacherous as the winds blew branches and debris across the trail (it was the morning still, and the trail was quite clear and well marked). Then we came to a river crossing, a set of rapids infested with man eating crocs and blood thirsty piranhas (these don’t live in NZ... and it was a stream). I could hear that there was something following us, most likely a jaguar teamed up with an anaconda (though they make a likely duo, these also do not live in NZ, it was the rest of the group). Knowing full well that this was the only way (I found out later there was clearer crossing further up the stream) I jumped from boulder to boulder as the man eaters thrashed about below me (I skipped and pranced (like a girl with new shoes in the rain) from rock to rock trying not to get my boots wet in the stream). When I reached the other side I was met by a band of villainous monkeys that were armed with poison dart frogs (some gnarled trees with colourful flowers, there are no monkeys or poisonous animals in NZ) and was forced to scramble up a cliff face (boulder) next to the treacherous rapids much like Mufasa (the Lion King) does when he is caught next to the stampede of wildebeest. Just then a gust of wind knocked me from the cliff and I fell in slow motion towards an infinite number of teeth (my own clumsiness caused me to slip on some moss and I began to slide). But just before I reached the open jaws below me, I caught myself on a vine and swung to safety with only a sore finger to show for it all (I caught myself before reaching the stream but at the expense of a few fingers that got caught and twisted in some rocks). I then clicked my boots together three times and the animals disappeared and we continued our hike (I slipped on a rock, slid towards the stream, got my finger caught in a rock on the way down and it is still a little strange looking to this day, but... yeah I like my version better).

Now that I have wasted your precious time, let us continue to the next part of the hike.  With my finger looking like a half assed home improvement job covered in tape, we made our way up a series of trails to a lookout that someone had built in the forest. From the top we could see out over the forest to the endless blue waters that stretched to meet the horizon. From there we made our descent to the beach along winding trails coupled with a few stream crossings (which I made very carefully) and when we emerged from the forest we found ourselves back on the black, shell filled sands of Piha beach beside the  huge Piha lion (see previous post).

We spent an hour or so watching over the black beach and the white capped waves that crashed into it, keeping the lion company before piling back into Jackie Chan and making our way towards Waitomo. This was also the point when Bene left us to meet up with some other friends for the remainder of break. We ended up staying at the oh-so-luxurious Holiday Top 10 campsite, but this tourist run location would not budge with the price and we ended up paying $21 each for the night. This was somewhat frustrating because not only did we have to fork out more money for a campsite that was nowhere near as nice as the previous two locations but finding it was an absolute nightmare. It was well past sundown and Jackie had guzzled just about all of the gas and our GPS took us to a gas station that looked as though it had been out of service for the last decade. The second location brought us to some back alley beside an auto body shop and it wasn’t until we toured around the town on fumes that we found a pump that worked. Benen emerged from the station seconds later with a book of maps and the menacing look of GPS-murder in his eyes. That being said, we took full advantage of our $21 when we finally got to the campsite, with a hot tub, pool, kitchen, internet, and most importantly hot showers.

After a hot shower, a bottle of red wine, a package of couscous and a can of tuna I was set for bed, hoping that the morning would perhaps bring me some good news about the blue sausage that was hanging off of my hand where my middle finger should have been.

The next morning would bring me no such news and stuffing my tent and sleeping bag into their respective stuff sacks became an impossibility. The good news was that it was fairly nice weather and we had discovered a trail that would take us to the famous Waitomo caves. Gizo, Benen, Alex and Dani decided that instead of the caves they would head to a set of boulders to do some rock climbing leaving Graeme, Benedicte and I to the cave walk.

The hike to the caves was pretty sad, it followed the fences of farmer’s fields all the way to the park area. Perhaps this is just me being spoiled by the beautiful scenery of the previous eight days but I mean this was flat out unimpressive. Just as we arrived at the park it started to rain which didn’t help things because it had been beautiful earlier in the morning but no matter, we were going to see some of these caves rain or shine. All of the biggest caves had locked gates at their entrances with signs demanding tickets and a booked guide but we did manage to see some caves that were a little more broke-college-road-tripper friendly.

Like giant auditoriums, ceilings of caves rose above us as we walked through seemingly dull stone archways our voices of surprise and wonder echoing all around us. Other caves housed sections rivers that passed through them along the worn riverbeds and down into ravines at the other end.  It did not take us long to work our way through the Ruakuni Bushwalk and its accompanying caves. I am glad we didn’t have tickets to the actual caves because my first caving experience through the Piripiri caves earlier this year and the glow worms in the abandoned gold mine have some great memories tied to them. I think a guided tour through caves that have locks and gates in front of them would have left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

We ended up being picked up in the middle of a farmers field just before a thunderstorm hit on our way back to meet the rest of our group.  It was really starting to feel like the last day of our adventure. That afternoon as we started to drive home I fell asleep in the passenger seat for the first time during the entire nine day trip. Perhaps it was the fact that Benen had plugged his phone in instead of my computer but man I crashed, zero battery life, terminated, exhausted, empty, you name it.  I woke up somewhere near the town of Taupo where we dropped Benen off at a bus station so he could return to his sisters. The weather had changed back to being sunny and my god, Lake Taupo was gorgeous. If we had had another day I think Taupo would have been a good place to be.  The lake sprawled out at the base of the mountains was fitting because the peaks were so impressive they deserved to see themselves. 

Our drive through this portion of the country was incredible as we passed a series of volcanoes and mountains, Pihanga, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe all looking down on us with their snowy faces. As we passed by I tried to snap shots out of the van window but it simply wasn’t working out so we pulled over took some time to document this short but short but significant portion of our journey. The landscape was quite strange in this area because it was so desolate, a tundra with little tumbleweed looking bushes everywhere. But as we drove further and further south towards Palmerston North those rolling green hills started to come back and the little towns that boasted whatever they could came with them (Taihape - Gumboot Capital of the World, Te Kuiti -  Sheep Shearing Capital of the World etc).

After driving through a fiery sunset, one final song brought the speakers of Jackie Chan back to life as we rolled up Atawhai Hill,

Hakuna Matata!

What a wonderful phrase

Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze

It means no worries for the rest of your days

It's our problem-free philosophy

Hakuna Matata!

Thank you all for reading! I apologize for the breaks between entries and disparity in writing styles, some days are better than others. I am very excited to tell you all that there is another series coming up that talks about my week long trip to Australia! Before we get to that there will be a short (hopefully) entry to fill you all in on what happened during the month or two between this Spring Break series and the upcoming Australia series.

Cheers,

Brayden

Day 7 - Coast to Coast

Tree planting, the rugby world cup and school are to blame this time. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... DAY 7! (I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but in my defense this was one hell of a day).

I thrashed around blindly in an attempt to locate the screaming banshee that was my phone alarm at 5am, not that there are many spots in a two-person tent for it to hide.  At last I got a hold of it and the backlit screen confirmed my greatest fears… it was time to wake up. There are only a few people I know who can truly say that they wake up at 5am, I believe society refers to them as insomniacs.

Ah wonderful, now that I was stumbling about the campground I was to fulfill my duty of waking the rest of the troop and boy was that ever a mistake. As I went from tent to tent waking up my friends I could feel their eyes stabbing me through their tents, not that I blame them. Our departure time was set at 5:30am and I’ll be damned if we were going to leave a minute later on my watch, I was going to see my sunrise on time. I watched as all eleven zombies (Alex chose to use his brain and sleep in) piled stiffly into the vans and off we went to Cathedral Cove.

            The drive was only ten minutes but because a couple of the girls had slept in the van that night/morning, the windows were all fogged up making the ‘short drive’ I referred to earlier seem like we were driving through an endless cloud of doom the entire way there. I mean we would have defogged the windows or whatever but none of us could read Chinese in order to operate Jackie Chan’s climate control.

When we arrived in the parking lot nothing was said, because not a single person’s brain was awake enough to do anything other than breathe. It was still completely black at 5:45 am and we could not see a damn thing without our headlamps. We used these to light up the trail signs to Cathedral Cove, a 30 minute hike from the parking lot. When I read this my heart skipped a beat and the gears in my brain began to turn, albeit rather slowly; I was going to have to pick up the pace if I wanted to get to the cove for the very start of the sunrise. Using the stream of light from my headlamp I started off at a brisk pace, following the directions of each sign as I went. With a thermal, a long sleeve shirt and my sweater on, I was starting to get a little warm and with this increasing warmth I started to wake up.

As the excitement of making it to the Cove first overtook me I started to jog, and then run, backpack bouncing and the white light of my headlamp dancing dizzyingly before me. Tree roots tried to trip me as I ran but I was focused now, my vision clear ahead, my clothes clung damply to my skin and the sweat of determination started to drip down the side of my face. Finally I could feel the trail starting to descend steeply and with one final turn to a set of steps I stood there at the top of them, looked around and thought to myself, please, please be clear enough to see the sun.

 As I stepped off the bottom step onto a sandy beach the still air of the forest left me and I felt a light breeze on my face. The sky was lighter now and the silhouette of all things invisible in the night began to reveal themselves. A large cliff face ran along the beach to my right while the aptly named Cathedral Cove opened up on my left, its mouth open wide in an everlasting breath. I suppose if I was stuck in the Cove’s position I too would have left my jaw in the sand, a lifelong state of disbelief at the beauty of Mercury Bay as it ebbed and flowed before me. Statuesque rocks riddled the shoreline, wading giants turned to stone; arrested by the view before them. As I neared the cliff face that ran along the back of the beach I noticed that there was a ledge a few feet high that someone or something had made especially for my sunrise viewing session. I crawled up into the small overhang, laid my bag down beside me and allowed the waves to whisper into my ears.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the group to join me down at the beach and then up into the luxurious cliff seating for our much anticipated show. As the sky grew lighter clouds began to appear, drifting from right to left across the area where I thought the sun should be appearing soon. This disheartened me somewhat as I was hoping to see a clear burst of light being birthed from its watery bed; instead, I now thought I would be witnessing an anticlimactic increase in light like the end of a movie in a theatre. Regardless of these thoughts I was here and I was happy to be on a beach with my friends minutes from daybreak.  Many of them were exploring the shores, taking photos of the rocks, gulls and cloudy horizon as it primped and prepared itself for the arrival of the sun. 

At last around 6:40am we started to see some action. The clouds were still there but the sky was starting to change from blue and grey to a golden hue. Slowly, like the fighting embers of a forgotten fire, an orange heat rose from the depths of Mercury Bay and my eyes beheld a wealth of rich colour that began to grow, overtaking the clouds. The sun then reared its regal head ever so slightly and a mane of golden light spilled through the floorboards of heaven; in an instant all that I could see was painted in gold and I sat amongst riches that rivaled even the greatest of fortunes. I became a part of the treasured landscape that cradled me in its arms and nothing but the soothing sound of the ocean occupied my thoughts. (Precisely one second after the sun peaked through the clouds Benen chimed in “annnd cue the dolphins…”)

I sat there for a long time on that rock ledge. Long after my friends left to explore the other side of the cove, long after the gulls came and went in their endless search for food, I sat there listening to the waves and I sat there in peace.  There are very few times when I have experienced this kind of tranquility but one thing for certain is that it has always made itself present through nature.  I was quite sad to see that moment come to an end but there were people to meet, places to see and that was just the adventure of it all.

On our way back to the parking lot I was again met with beautiful outlooks that I had passed by in the darkness and atop one grassy knoll in particular a ewe and her two lambs watched us in curiosity. I wondered if they knew how lucky they were to dine before such a magnificent view on a daily basis.

When we got back to our campsite we packed up our gear as fast as we could and got back on the road, headed for Auckland. Danni’s dad has a house in the city and so her and Giso had planned on taking a few days off to relax and tour the city. For whatever reason whether it was simply a coincidence or a side effect from the lack of sleep, as we approached Auckland, Graeme and I both became ill; our stomachs started to bother us and brutal headaches started to set in as if the city itself was poisoning us. Being surrounded by buildings, towers, mazes of overpasses and cars flying every which way was dizzying and a shock to our senses.  When we finally found the house we kicked the happy couple out of the door and sped off towards the nearest safe haven of trees. We took sanctuary at the feet of the Waitakere Ranges on the west coast of New Zealand alongside the Tasman Sea. Our car and Bene’s car waited for Ross to show up and when they did we sent Benen, Ross and Zach off with the vehicles to meet us at the other end of the trail roughly three hours later. The rest of the group started off towards the trailhead that would welcome us to part of the Hilary Track.

I can honestly say without a single seed of doubt that this was the muddiest track I have ever even seen in my entire life. The trail was like a big waterslide with high walls on both sides and a corridor of mud down the middle. Going uphill felt as though we were walking up an icy treadmill and downhill was even worse because the only way to stop yourself was to grab hold of trees as you whizzed by them or to just wipe out entirely and hope that gravity and friction teamed up to save your life.  Amazingly nobody got hurt but the number of close calls was startling; if I had not played hockey for the majority of my life I doubt I would have come out of the forest in as good a condition as I did.

When we did emerge from the slippery slopes of sludge and slime we found ourselves in a scene from Jurassic Park. I kid you not, we had green mountains huddled around us with wild prehistoric plants hanging off vines and crawling through the ferns, the only thing missing were the actual dinosaurs and I’m pretty sure they were just taking an afternoon nap somewhere in the bushes.  After taking a few photos of this magical landscape we pressed on until we came upon a stream where the trail seemed to end, until we looked at the other side, so cool! I have hiked all over the world but this was the first time I would actually walk through a respectably deep stream to get to the next part of the trail. For the entire trip we had been calling Franzi “The Deer” because no matter the slippery conditions or muddiness of it all she never seemed to get dirty, until finally her title met its demise at the stream and she got the bottom of her pant legs a little wet. On the other side of the stream we kept walking through weeds that were twice as tall as I was and came to an opening that led to a beach on the Tasman Sea. Had we given ourselves a little more time we would have stayed and enjoyed the beach but we still had a fair bit of hiking to do and the cars would be waiting to pick us up at the end of the trail.

Upwards and onwards we went through the mud and the dinosaur stomping grounds until at last we arrived at a parking lot. Unfortunately nobody knew if it was the right one or not because our map didn’t correspond with the trail sign at the entrance to the parking lot. Regardless, we stopped for a much needed break during which I of course wolfed down some peanut butter and jelly wraps as the others looked on in horror and disgust. I still cant figure out how nearly none of them have dined on this delicacy. After a few minutes of holding up our phones with the hopes of a signal magically appearing, Graeme returned from a house across the street with the news that it would be a half hour walk along the road to our proper meeting spot. With that news we packed up our snacks and started walking down the mountain along the road.

The weather was perfect so there were no complaints about spending more time outside and the concrete under our feet nearly gave us land sickness after the slipping and sliding we had been doing all afternoon. Fifteen minutes into our walk a familiar grey van came careening around the corner and with it Benen’s laughter at the sorry sight of ten mud balls slogging along the road. There was only room to pile eight of us into the van so Graeme and I agreed to wait, or rather run down the road because we were rid of our packs and… crazed idiots I suppose? There we were at a full run down the winding single lane road wondering how long our knees would support us before they disintegrated. Thoughts like these occupied my mind until we came barreling around one particular corner and all of a sudden it was if we were hit by a wall. The mountains parted to the side and like a big green carpet, a view unrolled itself all the way to the sea, and the low lying sun put its spotlight directly onto our muddied faces as if we were entering some climactic theatrical scene in which two masochistic simpletons frolic down a mountainside. We slowed down for a short while to soak in the view before continuing on down the mountain where we turned down a ride from Ross who had come to pick us up, bad idea.  When Graeme and I finally got to the bottom we realized that we had no idea where we were going or where to meet the rest of the group and so we were relieved when Ross returned to pick our dumb asses up.

It turns out we had stopped only a few minutes short of our campsite, essentially flat ground along a stream with an outhouse and a small shelter but it looked like a palace to me. It was starting to get dark and so we decided to head to nearby Piha Beach to see if we could catch the sunset. By the time we got to the beach the sun hovered just about the clouds on the horizon, turning everything on shore into a silhouette. It was kind of strange seeing these sharp shadows that had peeled themselves from the ground, especially when they were on the black sand of the west coast beach. A few members of the group went for a quick dip in the sea but for once I couldn’t be bothered, I was shivering in the wind as it was. I chose instead to stand up on a wooden lookout that was nestled in the dunes and take it all in, wave after wave on the shore, shade after shade of blue and purple floating into the night sky to meet the stars. A large rock formation called Lion Rock sat in the middle of the beach looking out to sea. Named precisely for its appearance, the rock was the shape of a lion lying down with its paws in front of it, guarding the land from the threats of the sea. It was such a strange sight to see and I half expected him to yawn, stretch his legs out, swish his tail around and let out a terrific roar. It would do no such thing though, and as the sun disappeared so did everything else. Sunrise on the east coast and sunset on the west coast in the same day, not bad New Zealand.

When we returned to camp we cooked up some dinner and welcomed a guest that came in the form of a chocolate lab that I named Hershey after a friends dog. It was quite entertaining to watch him disappear into the night only to hear the shriek of one of the girls a few seconds later when they felt the brush of fur and wet nose on their hands.  When I finished eating I went down to the stream to wash my pots and pans where I was met with yet another surprise. As I rinsed the couscous and tuna from my pan I noticed something quite long and tube-like that seemed to be stunned by the light of my headlamp. Fresh water eels, two of them each about a foot long squirmed around in the water, their grimacing faces and dead eyes looking on as if I was the dullest thing they’d ever seen. I cannot say the same for myself as I nearly cried out when I first saw them and went running back to the shelter to tell the others of my discovery. They were still there when we returned but three smaller ones had joined them, prompting me to think, “hmmm, I’m going to go ahead and rinse off my pans with some drinking water”.

After another few hours of storytelling about world travels, worst jobs ever, college stories and such we retired to bed; for some of the group this was the last night of travel while others like me had one last night left in the woods. As I put my head down on my pillow made from a bunched up sweatshirt and my lovely thermals I heard something I had never been treated to before while camping; to my right I heard the stream trickling past while to my left the distant sound of crashing waves could be heard from the Tasman Sea (luckily I went to the bathroom before I went to bed), and with that thought day seven came to a close.

Thanks again for reading, I apologize for the overuse of metaphors in some spots (or all) I just get way too excited rewriting these stories and feel that in order to do even a little justice to the actual thing they need to be exaggerated to epic proportion. I am working on being a little more consistent with posting these blogs but life tends to get in the way. Hope all is well on your end!

Cheers,

Brayden