i know, this is probably the longest i've gone without a post that consists entirely of photos or even includes photos. i'm still editing, and it's taking awhile. like, i worked on it all day yesterday and i'm just now at new plymouth. i kind of took a lot of them while i was gone. i did to waitomo, as you can see on the right. some pretty photos of people wearing wetsuits, hooray!
when i last left off, the braid brigade (still braidless at this point) were just starting a hike around mt. taranaki. we left the north egmont visitor's center going up on the ram track toward holly hut, which we were told was a three hour hike. we went up what is called the razorback, and across. we had to cross a couple of smaller scree fields, and one larger one (that one was a little nerve wracking, being that i had a pack with about 30 pounds of stuff to make me off balance). it was a nice little hike once we got ourselves adjusted and out of the worst of the heat, up until i took a mis-step and rolled my ankle. yeah, you know, the one i've sprained three times, the last time being not quite six months ago. fortunately it was just a roll and not a sprain, but it was (and is) still pretty tender. we made it to holly hut about four hours after we started, and rejoiced in it's niceness and a meal of dried soup. that was also the beginning of the braid brigade: i asked vicky to braid my hair, and then i braided hers. then she braided leah's. braids all around! except for jack, but we got him later.
the next day was only supposed to be a 5-6 hour hike along the upper track. however, the pyramid route (the upper track) was closed, so we were forced to take the stony river track. it took us past bell falls, which was a nice stop, but added time to our hike for the day. and probably a few river fordings as well. we crossed over to go up the puniho track and that added time as well, because that trail, while small, was severely eroded. we were definitely far behind our estimated time by that point. once we reached the track to go up though, we booked it. we were told it would take us an hour to go up, one to go over, and one down. it took us less time to do that, although by the time we got to kahui hut at the top it was already mid-afternoon and we should have been finished hiking for the day. our destination was waiaua gorge and the decision was made to go on. along with the delays earlier in the day, there was an added detour of forty minutes because a swing bridge was out that we had to go around, so by the time we finished hiking for the day we'd been going for over eleven hours and it was already about nine-ish and the sun was setting. that was an incredibely difficult and frustrating day, and we'd pushed ourselves a lot harder than we'd wanted to.
day three was supposed to be our longest day, with an estimate of eight hours. although because of the day before, we knew it would be longer than that. we started out stiff (or at least i did) and sore heading up the mountain via brames falls track. it was a lot of up, and when we finally made it up the ridge, we headed over underneath a cliff face. as cool as it was to see so far, it was also a long way down. this was also the day that vicky and i felt unwell. we decided it was something water-borne, so at lunch the two of us iodined our water and we both did the next day as well. (it was supposed to be safe for drinking, but you can't always tell. it may not even have been water related but better safe than giardia!) we continued our hiking into an area that was more grassy, but we had three or four gorges to cross. so any up we gained, we had to go down to get across and climb back up again. with four people, and some of them feeling somewhat injured, this adds time. around 5pm, we had a decision to make: we could lose any altitude we made that day by going down to lake dive hut which was signposted as 45 minutes away, or continue to dawson falls which would keep us up but signposted at 2 hours away. feeling as exhausted as we were, we went down. leah and i were hurting with every step down, it took us about two hours. (this was also when leah rolled her ankle--and vicky had done hers the day before. what a group!) we got to lake dive and rested, and had some dinner while enjoying the view of the mountain and the lake. (this was also the night of the guy who it turns out had also stayed at the ducks nuts, just not when i did. but he wouldn't stop talking to me about people there, even when i was blatantly ignoring him to write in my journal. this was also the night of my confession of thinking about axe murderers, and then the midnight groper!)
day four ended up being our last day. the weather was supposed to turn bad, and we were all feeling far from top notch, so we took the lower track to dawson falls were there was a visitor's center. we decided to see how long it took us to go that far, and then take things from there. i just wanted to finish the around the mountain circuit, and screw the summit, while others wanted to summit and not worry about finishing the amc part. so we hiked, reaching the center around 3pm. by this point, leah was in a lot of pain from her ankle. it didn't appear to be a sprain, so it was concluded that she might have a fracture. as a fun end to our hike, it ended up with a call for an ambulance, and myself and her going to the hospital while vicky got her car from the othe visitor's center and jack waited with our bags. it was just a sprain after all, but not a typical one which is why it behaved so differently. we both felt kind of gross and smelly sitting in the waiting room of the nice clean hospital, but were sort of glad that the hike ended as it did. the weather turned bad not long after we left, and stubborn as we were about finishing, we would have been miserably sitting in a hut somewhere up there or hiking in it. so it all turned out okay in the end, as far as the hike is concerned. we made it 3/4 of the way around and we did the best we could.
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