i feel like jello

wow!- what a day. A friend of mine, Darragh, who's working on his PhD here (originally from South Africa) called me on Thursday and asked me to come along on this tramp (hike) in Lewis Pass this weekend. The conversation started with him asking if I was actually a member of the Tramping Club and commented that he hadn't seen me at the past few meetings. I am indeed a paying member of the club, but after a few long drawn out meetings of people doing a show-and-tell of their tramping pictures in detail (total overkill), and since I wasn't going on any of the trips anyway, I stopped attending meetings.



But, after some convincing and a little arm twisting, I ended up going to Lewis Pass today with 5 others to hike/tramp to Lake Daniels. This weekend is "hut bagging" in Lewis Pass for the tramping club, meaning that several groups were going out to try and "bag" (aka visit) all of the DOC (dept. of conservation) huts in the area. Right, so we had two huts on our mission. We started off from ChCh at 7am and found out that the sunrise was well worth getting up for. Unfortunately I don't have a picture (driving and photography aren't really compatible) but trust me, it was stunning. We arrived at the trail head around 9:45am and set off just around 10am. We knew that we had a long day ahead and that our daylight was limited, sunrise is around 7:45am and sunset is just after 5pm (damn winter) so the pace was set pretty fast from the get-go. The trail was well-maintained and not too taxing, although there was a fair bit of mud to navigate through and some slippery roots. The path went up a valley next to a beautiful river (it looked like someone had put blue food colouring in it!) to Lake Daniels. The lake was pretty, very tranquil and calm and extremely shallow. We ate lunch at the hut there and then set off to find the second hut on our list, somewhere in the next valley on the other side of the lake.

This is where things got a little interesting...we didn't really have a path and our map (c. 1987) said that there was a 4-wheel drive track that led to the next hut. Not so much! After some 90min of pseudo bush-bashing we find out that there's a reason the hut isn't marked on the new maps...it's private and is located in a field of cows surrounded by an electric fence. I think great, we see the hut, we'll take a picture, mark it down. Oh no. We hop the fence and start trekking through the cow field/bog/marsh. We make it to the hut and take a group photo to prove that we accomplished our mission.

Approaching the second hut (and cow field). Note the (electric) fence.

Tramping through the cow field.

Cows!

On the way back, we were all commenting on how despite all the mud, we had all kept our feet dry. Ha, well at least most of us had. Somehow in the last hour of the walk I ended up misjudging two mud holes and soaked not one, but both feet in about a foot of mud. Cold, wet, dirty, mud. I think my legs were screaming at me by then. They're not used to such abuse.

Leaves, and my poor foot around km25. This was right before I got it stuck in the mud.

So..some 7.5hrs, 36km (22miles) later we arrived back at the car park. We made it just before dusk and overall had a great day. We stopped in Hamner Springs for a quick dinner- my juicy cheeseburger and chips were certainly satisfying.

I'm off to bed for what promises to be a long deep sleep. Monday is the Queen's Birthday holiday here so yay for no lectures! This upcoming week is the last week of the term (yikes) and I have my first exam, in Abnormal Psychology, on Thursday. Then it's a week for study week, which I definitely need and I have 3 more exams before June 27.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world...I bet it's warmer there than it is here!

just to prove I was there!

cheers-

s.