Our next big adventure….we set off towards Arthur’s Pass (which is a stunning drive through the Southern Alps) The road construction through this pass was quite the engineering feat in 1864 by Arthur Dudley Dobson he was a man well ahead of his years! It was only recently in the last 6 years that the road was rebuilt to allow larger trucks and construct actual two way bridges rather than the traditional one way bridges that you get! (which are quite freaky) okay enough with the history lesson! I saw my first Kea (Mountain Parrot, which is the largest alpine parrot) I guess they are quite the nuisance, and are too smart and strong for their own good. Supposedly, up on the ski fields, they will rip the rubber away from your window shield (or wind screen as they call it here) so that when you drive away your whole window will fall in on you! They also rip your window wipers right off…and steal small children (ha, just wanted to see if you were awake…or if you were sleeping through the biology lesson) Okay on with our adventure…it always seems to be an adventure before we even get to the start of our planned adventure…of course I am always notorious for being late but Steve… is a staller…so the two of us make quite the pair trying to get anywhere!! Of course there is always things to do, people to see before we leave and of course we have to stop by the local shop for the very much needed meat pie(not individual…oh no..much cheaper to buy the family size!!) before you go on a hike. So we finally got to the trail head, we actually parked Steve’s truck at a farm house for $5 a night, which worked out quite nice!!We started out on our tramp and the first thing we had was a river crossing, quite a big river (Otira River) and very cold! We then headed toward the bush hoping to find the little orange markers that would send us on our way! It was quite an interesting hike: beautiful scenery, my first swing bridge, and about 12 river crossings! Some of the river crossings were very swift moving water we had to link up and hold on to each others packs to get across safely. We made it to Lake Karapataka, which is a neat little lake formed by a rock slide which blocked a river once in its day creating a lake. Once we were in the gully that we needed to be in we basically followed our nose…..we had several more river crossings depending on the terrain up the river and all for what you may ask….how about all natural hot springs!! It was GREAT!! There was a little island, which we camped on and to the left of the island was very hot thermal hot springs!! We spent a couple of hours digging and creating a pool for ourselves so that we were able to enjoy them all night long! It was awesome!!
The next day, we explored the river for a bit, but was distracted by a very cool little beach area where we decided to sun tan….then it was back to camp to create even better pools for ourselves…..The only really annoying little bugs they have here, are sand flies…they are awful! They bite without making any noise and they are sooooo itchy!! They seem like little blonde girls! So I have a few bite marks (and when I say few…I mean a lot!) even though I wore plenty of bug spray!! In this trip I saw a real live possum, a wiker (flightless NZ bird), a Tui (very cool song bird…quite rare) and of course the Kea (which if you remember from above is an alpine parrot). The trip back was great as well, we took a bit of a different route back to the truck but made it back safe and sound! All in all, great trip, beautiful weather and had a great time!
1 comment:
Bode this is awesome! I especially loved the picture of Steve doing a face plant in a hole....and you with the little sheep! What an adventure...the pictures are unbelievably beautiful - it's amazing how dramatic the weather seems to change based on where you are at, etc. No snow here in Ottawa, it looks like we'll be having a frosty Christmas but that's about it! Hope you are keeping well :)
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