Tramping: An In-Depth View of New Zealand's Finest Bushes

Alright! Here it is--the long awaited details of my three days in New Zealand's wilderness. For those of you who don't know, Kiwis call hiking, 'tramping'. It's kind of strange, I'll admit, but that's just the way it is. Hopefully, as you read the details of our trip, you will realize the double meaning of my 'in-depth' view of the bushes. Read on, and enjoy.

Thursday, March 20

I was supposed to be ready to leave by 7am. Experience thus far has taught me that 7 am really means about 8. However, I was ready at 7 and just read good old Eldest. At 8:30, Jacapo came to the door. I threw my bag in the trailer and hopped into the van with my other eleven comrades; Cameron, Tyler, Jacapo, Ramsey, Taylor, Julia, Lisa, Katie, Megan, Janelle and Kathy. I couldn’t help but smile as I smelled incense and noticed Jacapo burning some in the front seat. Of course. The smell blended nicely with his 1920s smooth jazz CD playing in the van. Eventually, I used my iPod to drown that out.

The before picture: Look how clean and happy we all are!

We started our tramp at the Borland Lodge. For about three or four hours we ust walked up a gravel road. It was a nice, warm day and we sweated as we trudged along. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful river and about an hour later, Jacapo and Ramsey stopped the group, pointed up a mountain, and we started climbing. Yeah--straight up a mountain. It was fun mostly. By the time we reached the top, my legs were completely scratched up to my knees. For about two hours probably, we used strong grass and bushes to pull ourselves up the face of the mountain. Literally--the method was: stick both of your arms up, grab tufts of grass, find a good foothold and heave your body up and hope the grass you’re holding is stronger than it looks. When we got to the top, we had to inch along a ridge and up some more bushes and finally--we were at our camp. It was just some random, tall grass at the top of a mountain. We fond a decent spot for our tent and then cooked dinner.

Notice how you can't really see us. That's because, the bushes are so tall and there's no trail!



Our camp site. So...where do you camp? Exactly what I thought. But hey--it worked.


Taylor, Julia, Lisa and I all shared a three-man tent. I was plenty warm, thanks to a sleeping bag of Sue’s (thanks Sue!) but a large mound of grass in the middle of my sleeping area was preventing me from finding sleep. So… I didn’t really sleep. In the morning, we found out that none of us had slept. We should have all had a party. That would have been more fun--and a lot less frustrating.
Our lovely morning faces. We slept pretty poorly...