Lady and the Tramping Club

Kia ora!

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday last weekend! I felt allllll the love across many different time zones and I couldn't be more thankful! I had an incredible 21st spent on and around the famous Mt. Taranaki! (:   

A Week of R&R: Rings and Rucksacks
After hiking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, Jorgen and I finished watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy last week! I can now say that I fully appreciate the country's landscape and especially drool over Mount Doom like most every other international student in New Zealand. Here's a pic of me and Jorgen to give you an accurate depiction of our friendship!!!

 

I spent the tail end of last week gearing up for my hike up Mt. Taranaki with the VUW Tramping Club. This actually took so much brain power as I was pretty stressed over the possibility of not being prepared for this weekend in the woods. My mom was sure to take Kyle and I on plenty of day hikes when I was younger, Molly/the Lacasse crew and I have scampered our way through several of New Hampshire's 4,000 footers, but I had never encountered any hardcore-overnight-Bear Grylls-like things that were sure to come with Taranaki. I scrambled to buy a cheap but proper backpacking rucksack and puffer jacket before the week's end, and proceeded to borrow most everything else (sleeping bag, gloves, head torch) from my hero and most prized flatmate, Ryan Kveton.     

Before our departure time of 5:30 Friday evening, Tess (my personal backpacking mentor) and I went shopping and copped ourselves some new, matching, on-sale fleeces from Kathmandu (the Patagonia of NZ). We zipped over to the grocery store for some essential snacks (Whittaker's chocolate) and were on our way!  

Tramping All Over the World

Like I mentioned above, my tramping group of nine people met at Uni for 5:30, squeezed ourselves and our belongings into two cars, and were on our way by 6:00! We drove about 5 hours from Wellington stopping at nothing more than a grocery store for dinner and a random cow pasture for stargazing. My car of five people played the most absurd games of 'Would You Rather' and spent the ride discussing the pros and cons of having a second nose in place of your belly button.

We rose before the sun on Saturday morning to eat bowls of oats and get on the trail with an adequate amount of time to summit Mt. Taranaki and make it back to camp before dark. Although we were worried we weren't going to be able to see anything through the thick layer of fog covering the mountain, we tramped on. We made our way through the woods, up some steep scree, and up an even steeper rocky ridge known as the Lizard.

While carefully finding my footing on the Lizard, I met an older man and his wife who couldn't stop praising the view at the summit; this served as great motivation for myself. I talked with them for a bit (a self-justified break) and discovered they were locals of Taranaki. I ended up asking how many times they had summited the mountain before; I was expecting high numbers, but nothing compared to the what they told me. The woman responded to my question first, stating that she climbed Mt. Taranaki, top to bottom, 43 times. I was so impressed! She kind of laughed at my reaction, pointed to her husband, and said "wait until you hear his answer." He looked up at me and said "this is number 826." I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I WAS HEARING. 826!!? At this point I was screaming with excitement just to make sure he knew how incredibly impressive he is! From that interaction onward, whenever it crossed my mind that I wouldn't be able to make it to the top, I just reminded myself that that old man did it not once, not twice, but EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX times.

Not much later, my group and I made it up to the crater entrance! We all quickly threw on our layers to not only protect from the very cold winds, but to also make for an enjoyable time playing in the snow! This was the first time I'd seen New Zealand snow! Leaving our bags in the crater, we clambered up a last set of rocks and climbed to the official summit of Mt. Taranaki. Standing above the clouds and looking down on the breathtaking view of the North Island was so incredible. Difficult to explain, but truly amazing.

We made our way down the mountain, sliding down the same steep scree that we had climbed up just hours before. When I say this scree kicked our butts, I mean it quite literally. This piece of the mountain was far too steep for us to stay on our feet the whole time, so we resorted to sitting and sliding. Boy, did this feel terrible. Our butts and palms of our hands were so unbearably sore come the end, but hey we made it!

After sleeping oh so soundly Saturday night, we woke up on Sunday to tramp along a part of the Pouakai Circuit. Pam, my sweet angel of a flatmate who was also on the trip, had secretly kept a little slice of cake in her pack for me to have for breakfast on the morning of my birthday, so that I did! My personal chorus of eight trampers sang happy birthday as I wished upon the flaming twig that was stuck into the slice of chocolate cake. We all put a nice chunk of frosting into each of our bowls of oatmeal for a bit of extra sweetness that morning. Special thanks to this fine group of people for making my birthday one I'll never forget.

Also! Photo credits to Pam on a majority of these pics! She is one amazing chica!

Pam also photoshopped us into the view that we would've been able to see from the Pouakai Circuit if it wasn't covered in fog and it’s absolutely hilarious. We were ON TOP of that mountain on Saturday!!!

How Many Days Was It Actually My Birthday?

We got back to Wellington Sunday evening and I had never been more excited to take a shower. The next morning was technically still my birthday in the US, soooo Chef Jorgen whipped up some french toast and he, Pam, and I had a sweet little breakfast together. Juliet even surprised me with some Cadbury Mini Eggs (my absolute favorite candy)!!! Got nothing but love for my people.

Lastly, after a week of preparing for midterms, I took myself on a date. I signed up for a 'Guided Glow Worm Walk' through the Botanic Gardens beginning at 8:30pm on Friday the 5th. So, instead of going to the bars, I spent my Friday night walking through the woods with none other than six elderly people, and a mother and her young daughter who were dressed in matching metallic black puffer jackets. All jokes aside, this was my dream hangout. I learned so much about glow worms, including the fact that glow worms aren't worms but flies. The glow worms that we see are actually the larvae of the small flies! Here is a picture of the larvae up close:

That's all I have for this time! As always, thank you so much for reading!