All posts tagged: hiking

The tramp part two

Day Four – Tutuwai Hut to Kaitoke and the track end The evening of day three, we realised we had a problem. We had scheduled our pickup at the trail end for 1pm on day four. While this was easily achievable based on DOC’s estimation of a 4.5 hour hike, our track record wasn’t looking good for making the pickup on time. So we set our alarms for 6am – before dawn. Ouch. So, after bashing round the dark hut at zero dark thirty in the morning making porridge and getting our stuff together, we set off at first light. Unlike the 3rd days hiking, the last days track became not exactly easy very quickly as it wound along the bluffs above the river. Sometimes the track barely scraped the cliff edges, and at other times it dropped quickly down into ravines with streams at the bottom that we needed to ford, and then climbed up steep scrambles of hillsides. It was beautiful, but hard, hard work, and we were all tired out from our …

The Dreamstress goes camping

As of yesterday, I’m out of town for a few days, braving the wilds of New Zealand with the Naiad, Shell, a guy, and a pack on my back. Fear not though.  While I am struggling uphill, and struggling over a fire and bandaging blisters, the blog will be on autopilot.  So you still get to enjoy pretty historical goodness. And when I come back, you can enjoy pretty natural photography goodness!  

Camping

The Naiad and I, along with Shell, the Sewphist, and another friend, are all going camping. Camping is good exercise.  Even if you don’t do anything but lounge around the campsite and roast marshmallows, you still have to wrangle all your gear into place, pack your bag, and figure out how to put up your tent.  And boy, do those things take energy. First, there are the sleeping bags.  This is mine: When I bought it it came all nicely wrapped in its own personal little bag.  Once freed from that bag, no amount of effort on the part of Mr D and myself (working together) could ever convince it to return to those confines. It has all sorts of weird drawstrings and pockets.  Is it supposed to wrap into itself and fasten with those?  Ack! After wrestling with it for an hour on my own in an attempt to get it in a bag twice the size of the one it came in for this trip, I gave up and got creative. Courtesy of …