Over the hills and far away
Life is good people. With the exception of Thursday, we spent the last seven days hiking, and it was awesome. On Monday we started the Abel Tasman Coast Track, which is classified as a Great Walk. There were lotsa people there, as it is peak season right now, but the camping sites we picked weren't that busy and it was still amazing to see all the little bays with clear blue water. We went for a little swim on our day out, which was just the refreshment we needed that day. It was superhot!
Then on Thursday we chilled and left for Mt. Arthur on Friday afternoon with Clint, whom we met working as apple thinners. He's from Wellington originally. Now this hike, or tramp as it is called over here (yes, it's okay to giggle a little), was completely different. It took us up to 1795m at the top of Mt Arthur and traversed alpine and subalpine vegetation and a karst landscape. If you wanna know what that is, you'll have to look it up, cause let's be honest here, only weirdos know that kinda stuff. I would love to tell you about the great views from the top of Mt. Arthur, but it was covered in clouds when we got up there. Luckily, the last bit of the ascent forks of the rest of the track, and we didn't have to carry our packs up there. Anyway, we went up there on Saturday, as it was too late on Friday and we just camped by the Mt. Arthur Hut because it was too windy for our tent to be set up anywhere else. We tried though.
After the Arthur summit we went up and down a ridge leading to Gordon's Pyramid, and from there down to Salisbury Lodge, not without going through a muddy forest. Now, hiking tracks in New Zealand are classified by the difficulty, from Path over Walking Track and Tramping Track to Tramping Route. The way from Mt. Arhtur to Salisbury via the pyrasmid was classified as a route and I gotta say, it was hella steep in parts, and quite strenuous, but in the end it was well worth it. As I mentioned before, we didn't get a lot of good views (Thank you very much, Mr and Mrs Cloud), but sitting on top of that mountain with just white all around you and hardly a sound to be heard, you feel completely shut off from the rest of the world. It was pretty amazing.
From Salisbury we took an easier way back to where we started and stayed at the most amazing hut/shelter I have ever seen. It was basically a hut that used an overhanging rock as its roof and a wall, and there was a swing seat and fire pit outside. We'll probably post a picture at one point. The other two nights we stayed in our tent. Monday we went back out and treated ourselves to some tasty Thai food. So all in all a great week and now my hour is almost up and I"m outa here.