In which Paradise kicks my rear

4 March - 6 March

Paradise is a small town near Queenstown (yeah, means about the same to me: not much), near which are mountains. Into which I went tramping this particular weekend.

We all bussed out to Paradise Friday night and stayed under tent flies in a small campsite by a river. Overnight "Paradise" lived up to its name and promptly began to rain on us. Undeterred we broke up into our groups of about 10 people each and drove out to the beginnings of our groups' tramps. I climbed up Turrett Ridge, which apparently you can get a nice view of by watching the opening sequence of the second Lord of the Rings; a beautiful pan over the mountain range. I don't have a tv, dvd player, or Lord of the Rings DVD here so I haven't checked to see if this is true, but I believe it anyway.

We hiked up through a nice rain-forest-looking bit through a deer path for a while, and through our own path for a while, and then broke out of bush-line (meaning tree-line). This was fun because it meant my legs got stuck by all kinds of prickly bushes. Actually I think it was just 2 kinds of prickly bushes, but same effect. While they were at it they dumped about 5 liters of water and 2 kilos of rocks and leaves into my boots. Then we got above the scrub-line and got to climb up a good amount of scree (read: loose gravel and rocks that slide back 5 steps for every 1 step you take forward, especially when wet). Pressing onward and upward we finally got to the top, turned around, and saw... clouds. Oh well. The hike down was faster, but no less punishing on the scree and prickly bushes. At the bottom we drove back and met up with the other groups at a shelter for food and merriment.

The next day I discovered that New Zealand had kicked my rear end fairly hard and sure, but believe it or not this was overall a hella-fun trip.