Joaquin used to work in the prison before my time, but left when he got a job in town. He still hangs out with the inmates a lot, and he has one of the best things a friend can have in a foreign country - a car. Joaquin had heard about a hiking trail about an hour away from Napier where you hike in, sleep in a hut, and wake up in time for a beautiful sunrise. The trail is cleverly called the Sunrise Track. I love hiking, and have only used my hiking shoes once since I've been here. I was definitely down.
Joaquin, Kat, Gaston, and myself took off from Napier around four, and headed into the country. It's been really nice basing myself in one place and recharging my travel energies, but I didn't realize how much I missed the New Zealand countryside. After two months, I still can't get over how beautiful the rolling green hills are with the small white dots of sheep grazing everywhere as the road curves around the small valleys throughout the countryside. It's constantly stunning.
We arrived at the trail head at six, and prepared to climb a mountain. Well actually that was mostly me. When I read a description of the hike, I read a fun, easy 3 hour hike made for families and casual hikers. I'm not sure where my brain was when I knew I was going to watch the sunrise, but I wasn't quite expecting three hours of walking straight uphill.
The trail started on grassy farmland and was quite wide and flat. Shortly after, we left the farms and entered reserveland, where it actually felt like we were on a trail. The vegetation was fantastic and kept changing the higher we went up. I know this is the same as in the Rockies, but I've spent so much of my time there and am so familiar with the vegetation that I don't really notice when we move out of different temperate zones. It's sad to think that New Zealand used to be covered in forest and it was humans that cleared it all out to become a massive farmland today, but at the same time I wouldn't be here, enjoying this hike if it were any other way.
Three hour hikes uphill are good, in the way that they teach me just how out of shape my short little beer and butter loving body is. I feel like I walk more in Napier than at home in Edmonton since I don't have a car, but prison life has proven to be a lethargic one - surprise surprise. At least I did it though! Slow and steady wins the race. We arrived at the top in just under 3 hours, and thankfully there were still bunks available in the hut. The hut itself is gorgeous. It's made out of very solid wood, and has triple decker bunk beds. There is a large kitchen/dining area with gas stoves (although you need to bring in your own pots) and partly purified water. For only 15 dollars a night, New Zealand has definitely got its priorities in order.
The wind that we had heard in the trees the whole way up was unleashed on us at the hut since we were finally at the top of the mountain. We wanted to have a look around before we turned in for the night, as the hut doesn't have electricity and we didn't really feel like entertaining each other by flashlight. Standing in front of the hut, the building sheltered us from the more intense winds, but Gaston said he wanted to see sunset too, so we climbed to the top of the top of the mountain. The best way I can describe what happened next was that the wind made love to us. We started climbing and thought it was funny that the wind could make us lose our balance if we weren't paying attention. The further we climbed, the more intense the wind got to the point that it was easiest to sit and shuffle your way up hill. At a certain point, I recklessly ran further up, and Joaquin intelligently went back to the hut. Gaston followed me, and caught up when I was laying against a ridge. I was half paralyzed there by wind, half by laughter. My tight sweater with the elastic band at the base was lifting up in the wind. The snot was flying out of my nose and I couldn't stop it. I was half afraid that my contacts were going to be ripped out of my eyes. It had to be 100 km/hour winds. It almost reminded me of skydiving. Gaston and I sat there laughing for minute, trying to talk to eachother but having our voices ripped away by the wind. This is your brain on drugs? Nope. This is your brain on wind. I wanted to go higher and get even more intense, but I motioned to Gaston for his opinion first - up or down?
DOWN!!!
So, with one sane person in the party, we started down the dangerous trek back to the hut. On a normal day, we wouldn't have batted an eye, but as it was, we were seriously worried about being blown off. It was fine until we reached a two meter stretch without any lip of land to hold on to. Gaston scurried across first, and then I half crawled, half ran over to the other side. It was at this point that I finally started to notice my hands taking on the same colour and feel as the worst frost bite days of an Edmonton winter. I'm glad Gaston was paying attention and made us go down, because I was oblivious. We slid down the rest of the hill on our butts, and made it back to the hut with uncontrollable giggles.
I'm now laying in my third level bunk, typing this out on my iPod. I only brought it so I could avoid the bad snorers in a mixed dorm, but I'm glad I was able to write this down when it was so fresh. When I was little, my family would camp in Waterton National Park where the winds seemed like they might push over the tent trailer in the middle of the night. The hut, as solid as it is, is still creaking and shifting in the wind and I'm very happy that I'm inside, snug as a bug in a rug.
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