Mt Fyffe

Morena Koutou!!!
Sorry for the delay in this post. My computer crapped out when I tried to upload all of my pictures from this past weekend. Macs and NZ don't really mix well :(

Anyway! Let me recap this really adventurous weekend. So me and 9 close friends rented a van and headed back up to Kaikoura (no tsunami this time!) for a tramp up Mt. Fyffe. We decided to make it a 2-day event because we heard Mt. Fyffe took a while to get to the summit. On Friday we waited for everyone to get done with classes and got on the road at around 6:30 to get to Kaikoura around 8:45ish. On the road there was a lot of "Hey Cow!" and "Big Booty." Oh, don't worry, I'm bringing this back to Beantown :)

Once in Kaikoura we found a campgroup close to the place we camped the first time, Paia Point, still across from railroad tracks and angry sheep. But also directly on the beach. It was picturesque and gorgeous. We set up our tents (Frank) and Kelsey, Geoff, and I tried to visualize how all three of us would fit in a 2-person...epic snuggles, eh? Then we all bundled up and walked the 20 feet to the beach and stood around and gazed upwards. The most beautiful stars I've ever seen. (Except for maybe in Lincoln, VT) It was partially cloudy, so every once in a while there'd be intense coverage but then a wind would blow and a smattering of stars would appear. You could see Orion doing his cartwheel and the Southern Cross. I made up some constellations b/c I have no idea what I'm looking at, haha. "The onion ring!" was my favorite :)


We crawled into bed kinda late and there was a light rainfall during the night. I, of course, was freezing and woke up with my hair soaking wet from the condensation of the tent. Yuck. Anyway, we got up early and the camp grounds dude had put a note on our van reminding us to pay $10/person. Damnit! We thought we had outsmarted them again...Grrrr...Oh well.
We got to Kaikoura to get a little map of Mt. Fyffe to figure out the best possible way up and down the mountain. Of course, it was just a 5 year old drawing totally not-to-scale....but that was good for us...:-\

Once we got to the carpark, we got our gear together and started the hike. I remembered my inhaler this time, but it didn't help at all. It was a 35 degree incline for miles and miles. No muddy path, no switchbacks, no trees. Gravel road straight up. Hey, that's not hiking. I was hurting badly. I hadn't had a filling breakfast either, so I was just a whole lotta mess. Stephen, the nicest human in the entire world, was being super sweet and trying to distract me. So we played 20 questions and "3-letter animal names!" Then I got into it better and started playing along. "There are 9 countries with 4-letter names! Go!" or "There are 7 -stans...go!" (1st one: Chad, Mali, Peru, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Togo, Laos, Fiji. 2nd one: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan) Nerd alert!

We got to the adorable hut and it seemed like it was just going to be us. There were 4 bunk beds, a wood fireplace, and an outhouse. Oh, and water that tasted like smoked bacon. Yuuuuck! We dropped our packs and grabbed extra layers and hiked the summit. We saw that there was snow at the top of a lot of the peaks and yep! Mt. Fyffe had snow at the top, too! Not a lot, mind you, but enough to quench your thirst from the nasty bacon water. Liz and I leisurely walked up the summit and took some amazing shots. On one side there was a perfect view of the Kaikoura peninsula, and on the other side there were beautiful snow-capped mountains. I got a second wind on this part of the hike. I would skip ahead and stop and call down to Liz and say, "It's totally worth it! The view is great! Come look!" It got super windy near the top (around 1500m) and at one point it was blowing so strong that I just outstretched my arms and leaned a little into it and let the noise of the wind drown out my heavy breathing. I pictured the wind blowing away all my muscle aches, lactic acid build-up, and all my worries about making it to the top...and any other residual worries I carry with me. It was heaven. Chilly, breezy, beautiful views. Just gorgeous.

Liz and I were the last to reach the top, but whatever, I set me own pace on this one. It was great. All 10 of us decided to take some hilarious pictures. Jumping, posing, 10-person pyramids!!!! Yeah that was a difficult one. Our athletic, nimble Kelsey had to climb up nine people to get to the top. It was great.

I was so happy at the top, and on the tramp down I wasn't even tired. My muscles ached, but it was a good, productive ache. Ah, so much fun. Back at the hut we saw that 3 people had joined our party and put their stuff next to ours in the hut. No biggie, we had a ton of tents to use. We ate our dinner, bonded with the three random people, played some cards, watched an AMAZING sunset against a backdrop of snowy mountains, star gazed for a bit, then passed the eff outttttt. I hadn't slept so hard in my life. Zzzzzzzzzz. But, the wood stove was kept on and the doors/windows were closed against the crazy wind. It became a sauna. I was on the top bunk and found myself sprawled out in 1/4 of the clothes I started with. I was sweating so much and I got stuck to the industrial-strength plastic mattress on the bunk. Super super yuck. It got better once Jon opened the windows and doors.

The plan was to get up at 5ish to climb the summit again to see the sunrise at the top of the mountain. Heeeelll no. My legs were on fire when I woke up. I tried walking maybe 100m and I just collapsed. Awesome, legs, thanks for that. I was the embarrassment again. Sweet Nicole walked back with me and she, Liz and I watched the sunrise on our own. I'm sorry, but we had an amazing view ourselves. We walked out to a point and had front row seats to the "gawjus" sunrise. It was a cloudy day (per usual) and the sun bounced off the clouds in really interesting ways. The sky was pink and red and orange, and there were some interesting black-ish clouds that looked out of place. I said it looked like God was doing a watercolor painting and had some charcoal on his fingers and accidentally smudged the painting.
Then we looked behind us. The mountains looked like they were on fire. The sun was reflected off the snow and pink clouds were enveloping the peaks. Totally volcanoes! It was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. There were long, white, clouds, the namesake of NZ in Maori (Aotearoa=land of the long white cloud). Then the long, white clouds became long, pink clouds...Ah! So pretty. My pictures dont do it justice at all.

A few hours later the sunrise summit crew came back and we all had breakfast then got our gear together and started to hike down the mountain. We took a different path (thank goodness!) which lead us down a ridge of a mountain. Eep, kinda scary, but gorgeous, and exactly what I had hoped for. Then we got to a place and Geoff and Nick called out that they had seen a wild boar. SOOO COOOL! But...really kinda scary. If there hadn't been 3 billion of us with giant packs, the boar could've easily taken us. Eep. Anyway, good thing for traveling in Mongolian Hoards all the time. We tramped through the woods and saw some adorably curious fan tails (birds) that loved Liz's Muesli, haha. After a happy, soggy tramp down we heard water and knew we were close to the river we were gonna follow back to the car. We reached the river, dumped our bacon fire water and refilled it with the coolest, clearest water. Aaaah so refreshing. Then we tossed our shoes off and walked through the river to get to a rocky landing for lunch. After munching on some 2-day old soggy PB&Js we kept going and this is when the fun started. We had to jump across rocks over fast-moving river water and scale some rocks to get around an impassible river, then just trudge through the river (shoes and all) to get to a path again. Path is relative also, more like jumping rocks. I was the happiest I think I've been so far on a hike. It was like hidden exercise. I played a game with myself. I'd scope out some rocks and say, "Left foot there, right foot there. 3 points if you get it without stopping, 10 if you get it without stopping and skipping that rock there." I was in my own little zone. When we had to cross, no hesitation, just hunker down all the weight of my body and my pack into my legs and trudge through. Thankfully Stephen and Nick were there if you lost your footing and needed a strong boy to fall on. The sensation of walking through a river with boots on was incredible too. If you ignore the painful rocks in your shoes, it was quite pleasant. The water was cool on my aching feet and the force of the river was a good challenge and resistance against my shaking legs. Then you got out of the water with sloshing feet and soaked shorts, but still, so happy.
We crossed the river about 10ish times. At one point, I was walking with Emily and I shook myself out of my introspection and said, "Do you smell cow?" Then we knew we were getting close to the farms we passed on the way in. No longer were there smells of trees and dirt, no more sounds of fan tails happily chirping in the forest, it was now cow smells and river sounds. Then we found some bullet casings (dont wanna know....there really isn't any big game in NZ...wild boars maybe?) Then we saw a dude with 2 adorably, happy, wet dogs fishing in the river.
We crossed the river one last time and followed the gravel road to the path we drove down to get to the car park.

It felt so so so amazing to take off my nast-tastic shoes and put on some jandals. My poor toesies were torn up and the rocks from the river had cut my ankles badly, but still so happy. Smelly, aching, sore, but productive and proud. It had taken us about 2.5 hours to get up Mt. Fyffe the day before, but going down, it had taken us about 5 hours...Eep.

We drove the twoish hours back to ChCh and I passed out in the car on the way home. Kelsey and I went to Captain Ben's the Chinese Fish and Chips joint near campus (Oh, that's no lie...that actually is an amazing combination. Cheeseburger and spring rolls, don't knock it till you try it!) That night I took the happiest shower of my life and then passed out.

Ah. Mazing. Weekend.













Kelsey and Me


JUMPING!










Sunrise






here comes the sun!


Beginning of THE river :)





Monday and Tuesday were fine, just going through the motions of class. I was an uber nerd in my Te Reo class. I haven't lost my teacher's pet side from Elementary School...oh god. I'm still THAT girl.
But last night, Cody and I made Sushi with his roommates!!!!!! So much fun! They had bought salmon, avocados, cucumbers, and carrots. When I reached their flat Cody was making sticky rice and prepping the sushi. Never in my life have I seen boys willingly prep food so meticulously....How awesome, eh? I've always been really curious about making sushi but always thought it was too difficult and too much hassle, but not at all! It was amazing. Raw salmon? Not so bad actually. And if I do say so myself, I'm a pretty stellar sushi roller :) Mine was prettiest, but then when I went to cut it, it got mutilated, boooo....That was Cody's job. It needed a lefty's touch.

Anyway! So. Pretty good weekend and week so far. I'm still an uber nerd, but I love it. People make fun of me for coming to NZ to study and I get really defensive b/c, damnit! I like learning! Bite my butt!!!

Haha, whoa, I'll calm down.

Kisses and aroha to everyone! xoxo

G