This trip for our Land, Journeys, and Ethics paper was to the Craigieburn Range about an hour or so west of Christchurch (city where I am located). We started out by the two leaders (Alan and Kevin) dividing us into groups for travel throughout the weekend. It was there that our group got the name "Tommy and the Girls" because there was three girls and myself (Diana, Sarah, MC). Just throwing it out there that I didn't come up the name.
Dark was settling in and our objective was to navigate through the dark in the beech forest to our campsite within our groups with just our bearing on the compass guiding us. Kiwi's and New Zealanders call the woods "the bush" and when you go into the bush, it's thick A.F.!!! We navigated following another group part of the way through the dark beech forest. I led majority of the way with MC in the back checking our position as often as I did. Sarah and Diana gave input equally as much as everyone else did. There were many stumbles and trips along the way with nothing but the bearing of a compass, a mark on a map, and torches (headlamps) to guide us. One thing that was for certain is that our camp was along/near the river so as long as we hugged that we were okay. At one point we were traveling along this ravene and an opening appeared and you could see the glimmer from the moon. One person traveled up to check it out but didn't see out camp. We continued down and was eventually cut off by the river. Something told us we went too far and we went back to that opening, this time going up over the hill to find our camp site! We were rewarded that night with Tim Tams (New Zealand's version of a twix essentially). Tim Tam Daniel!!!
In the morning we awoke to a beautiful double rainbow. We gathered what we needed for the day and were able to leave behind what we didn't need at camp. Our group broke off and what we did next was special. Being in untouched and raw New Zealand away from civilization and human contamination we were able to drink directly from the stream without a filter!!! This to me was amazing! Now there are only a few places in the world where you could do this comfortably and not get sick.......parts of Alaska and the northern territories in Canada (NWT,Yukon, etc), Iceland, Siberia, and maybe certain places in the Scandinavian countries. After that moment of bliss we trudged on. We preceded to climb a pretty steep hill again following a bearing to our next meeting point. Upon climbing we heard a scream and lots of commotion. It honestly sounded like something from the Hunger Games. We continued on and came to the top and found out what it was. Another group stumbled upon a bees nest!!! One girl got stung nearly 20x by ground wasps. Poor girl.....lets just say she was uncomfortable for the rest of the trip. We all met at the top and regrouped. Next on our agenda is scree running!!! For those you who don't know what this is you will have to watch the video. We got part way down the hill and Elodie Jacobson gave a presentation on Porter's Ski Hill. After this we broke up into two groups. One group went the easier route and was accompanied by Alan while the other group (along with me) climbed a couple more monstrous hills with Kevin. The next hill we climbed was not fun and when we reached the summit we ate lunch and discussed features on the map. The next thing that happened was kind of unexpected. Kevin turned himself into a stuntman. He faked a fall but we didn't know that at first. We all rushed to his attention trying our best to consider our best options. He finally come to and told us it was just a stunt. We discussed valuable options and what we should do in this situation. Although depending on severity, the best option is to build a shelter for wounded using whatever we can (a bivvy shelter is the best option if one is available) while one person calls in a helicopter by using a plb (personal locator becon) or running all the way back to the vehicles to gain cellular service. Transporting a person via limping him/her all the way down the mountain is not really a viable option. They could sustain more injury or possibly injury someone else. Afterwards we moved on and had to cross a minny river and traverse along side a steep hill with lots of tussock to hold onto for support but there was these plants called Spaniards/speargrass that would cut through anything including steel. Okay not steel but could cut through leather or carhart if enough force was exerted. We kept moving on and did another scree run to the bottom of the hill where a river ran through a small beech patch. It was there that we got to slide down the hillside on out asses because the rain made it slippery. Very fun!!! I then gave a presentation that was also on Porter's Ski Hill. It went pretty well and I was awarded a really good grade with little marks. The only thing was I was tired and a bit run down so my presence was less than normal and I could have not relied on my notes so much. I did a lot of things well with, handouts, information, structure, and gave my audience a good visualization of the ethical controversy. Basically what happened is an Australian company called Blackfish bought out Porter Heights Ski resort, renamed it Porter's, and redeveloped the area making lots of additions. Back to our day we moved on and went back to our campsite. Everyone made dinner and I had Coq Au Vin from a gourmet backpackers package. For a freeze dried meal it was delicious and it also came with a side of mashed potatoes. Yum!!! A little later we started a fire down by the river and told stories. Kevin told a interesting story about a man and his dog that was killed by a logging truck and how he was able to get to heaven. We then talked about bungy jumping and how some of us had done it and some of us were going to (was up and coming for me in queenstown). We all settled in for bed and I slept like a log.
The next day we awoke, had breakfast (well I actually had dessert for breakfast thanks to another one of my instant meals), and packed up everything. We once more were given three locations on map that had to traverse to using a map and compass. You do this by aligning the point of where you are and where you are going along side of the compass. You then align north on the compass with the gridlines on the map. Your next step is to take the compass of the map and because you are taking it off the map you need to account for declination. In New Zealand it is 22 degrees so you would subtract 22 from what your compass was showing. We traversed to our spots and met as a group for another presentation. Our next objective was to head back to the vans as an entire squad. As we pushed through the ever so thick beech forest again we came out to a series of rivers. One led through kinda of a rock cavern and through a valley with rock faces on either side. It was a matter of picking which side of the river you wanted to walk on to be able to cover the most ground without getting wet (which I managed to do :)). We had to cross over one more hill and then saw the vans insight in a big open field with mountains surrounding us and the road just next to us. A sense of accomplishment came over me as this opened up a new world of backpacking to me.
Was a double rainbow at one point here
Yes we ran down this!!!
Made it to the Vans!!!
Tommy
ReplyDeleteI is so.. cool wrote very well
Love Mom and Dad