Tramping Adventures: Kahurangi National Park

For the last several days, we travelled through the Kahurangi National Park with Group C. The National Park runs along the west side of the South Island and is the second largest in all of New Zealand.

For me, the most scenic part of our time tramping (hiking for those not as familiar with the term), was the first day. We spent most of the day lugging our large, heavily packed bags up and down mountains. We tramped along beautiful ridge lines and down into quiet and serene coniferous forest.

We had the pleasure of having Mark, an experienced guide in Kahurangi, along with us on our trip. We were to glad to chat to him and hear his insights about places along the tramp. He pushed us to go farther and inspired us to push hard up hills and down. He was helpful for those who were challenged and gave us motivation to push on. We enjoyed hearing stories from past PD groups, learning to whittle spoons which we subsequently used to eat, and making low-impact fires using no matches or lighters!

On our second to last day, we tramped up to a system of caves. In order to enter the caves, we had to climb a rope ladder set up with climbing gear, and hoist our packs up a ledge using a pulley system. As you might expect - we all started not quite knowing what we were getting ourselves into. The further we got into the caves, the harder it became. At one point the cave became so narrow that we essentially had to get mud all over ourselves or put our pack above our heads. At least half the group got soaked in mud - having to crawl through the narrow passages. It was all laughs and fun and everyone came out with smiles on their faces. We even found some moa bones hidden in the cave - evidence of one of the largest birds now extinct of New Zealand.

During the second half of final day, continuing our mud theme, we discovered a swamp-like meadow. At the recommendation of our instructor, Laurel, we decided to indulge in some muddy sock wrestling. Basically the point of the game is to take the sock off of your opponent without losing your own in the struggle (played with no shoes). Everyone was already muddy, so most people embraced the challenge; we created a ring and let the two wrestlers go after each other's socks.

Our tramping trip was challenging, varied, fulfilling, and beautiful with continuous views of winding trails, unbeaten paths, steep cliffs, and rolling hills. Whether we were in a forest or on top of a massive mountain, we had the sun, each other, and our sense of adventure to keep us going!