Tramping in Fiordland

So this past weekend I went tramping at Cascade Creek in Fiordland (which is about 5 hours outside of Dunedin). We chose a group of 10 people that was going on a "medium" trail. I thought "medium" meant difficulty level of the track...for example steep inclines and long walking times. "Medium" actually means there is no trail...they call it a trail because other people have walked there before, but we had no paths and walked through bushes, rivers, rocks, up cliffs, and through every type of terrain you could imagine. Although it was A LOT crazier than I expected it was absolutely AMAZING! It was a fantastic experience and definitely one of the most intense weekends of my life. I took lots of beautiful pictures that I will hopefully post soon.

I'll give you a quick summary of the weekend:

On Friday we left Dunedin and drove to a campsite at the beginning of our trail. We slept under a tent fly, which is similar to a tent except it only has walls on two sides so a lot of wind can get in. In the morning we got up, packed our bags and started on our trip. We followed Cascade Creek up an incline and crossed it many times to find the best terrain to walk on, which made us quite wet (especially our feet). We didn't entirely know where we were going so we had to kind of guess the spot where we had to leave the river and start heading up the mountain throught the forest. One of the girls in my groups at one point stepped on a log that broke and she ended up falling and hitting the side of her face on a rock and chipping her tooth. The rest of us survived without injury, other than many scrapes and bruises on our arms and legs.
Eventually we found where we were supposed to go and headed up the mountain past the tree line. There we had to trek through lots of thick bush and grass up some pretty steep inclines (and remember we have heavy backpacks on carrying all our clothing, food, camping gear, etc.) One of the coolest things was that the water in New Zealand is really clear and clean so it is completely safe to fill up your water in the streams (which we did all the time). On Saturday night we found a relatively flat space to camp in the mountain range. It got really cold really fast though. I luckily squished into a two person tent with three people which ended up being warmer than the tent fly, but I had to wear all of the clothing I brought including two layers of socks, two layers of pants, three shirts, my rain jacket, gloves, and a hat in my sleeping bag. It was literally freezing. People who slept in the tent fly had ice falling on their faces in the middle of the night and when we woke up their was frost on everything. The worst was having to build up the courage to use mother nature's toilet in the freezing cold and having to put on our wet boots which had frozen overnight. Quite the experience.
On Sunday we continued to go up one of the mountains to go back around another way, but we ended up having to go up one mountain, reaching its summit, then back down the other side, then right back up another mountain and then head down the other side of it. It was a lot of work but very rewarding! The views were absolutely stunning and we got to walk right along the ridge of the mountain. The worst part, however, was definitely heading down the mountain. It was SO steep, and the were so many bushes, and it was quite slippery as well. It was definitely very hard on the knees. Just when I thought I needed a break we got to a scree (a creek bed or basically a huge stream of rocks where water would slide down when it rains). Although it's pretty dangerous we pretty much had no other option other than to slide down the rocks to the bottom and into the range of the tree line. It was scary but actually fun and easier than hiking down through the bushes. From there it was hiking down through the trees and mud and steep terrain until we reached the road. By the time we reached the road my legs were giving away and I could barely stand up. Truthfully I still can't really walk up or downstairs.
We were all dirty and smelly and tired and sore but in high spirits. It definitely felt like we hade accomplished a lot (and our leader admitted that he would classify our track as a "hard +" trail rather than the "medium" they originally described.

Overall it was definitely an amazing weekend and an truly awesome New Zealand experience. I definitely want to do more hiking trips although maybe not quite as intense as this one. In many ways we were lucky though. The weather was amazing - clear skies and no rain in an area that is known to have lots of rain. And no one got too hurt. In one of the other groups they had to call a helicopter to come get them because one of the leaders fell into a gully.

Alright, so maybe that wasn't that much of a summary but it was definitely a huge weekend. Today Sarah made us a flat dinner mexican style with enchiladas, refried beans, rice, and guacamole, which was delicious! And we've already decided on a roadtrip next weekend to Queenstown! Wow.