Otehake Springs

Hey everyone!

Rachel and I finally went on an adventure with the Tramping Club (CUTC) this past weekend! She took a bunch of pictures, whereas I got to our starting point and realized my camera was dead. Epic fail.

Three other kids from our Butler group came on the trip too—Jasmine, Dale and Nora. Jas had never been tramping before, but Dale and Nora are fairly experienced, so we were in good hands. There were about forty people in all. We rode in vans for about two hours Saturday morning and then started off on our hike to Otehake Springs, natural hot pools in Arthur’s Pass National Park. Brian, the trip leader, said that the trip would be fairly easy. Brian lied. It was actually quite pleasant at first, since we were walking on a gravel road. But soon enough it was time to cross the river, which we did a number of times (sixty-five thousand, at a conservative estimate) over the next day and a half. It wasn’t so bad when the water was just up to our ankles or knees, but a few times it came past my ribs. Short people shouldn’t go river-crossing, or hiking in general. We tramped for a while through dense woods mainly consisting, from my angle, of tree roots, mud and thorns. In retrospect, though, the woods were the least taxing part of the whole hike. The incline became really steep by the end of the day, and being 5’2” on a hill like that pretty much necessitates climbing on your hands and knees, so I was sure that by the end of the trip my knees would look like Hannibal Lector got ahold of them. They’re not really so bad, but I now have a serious new appreciation for level ground. Dale had brought river-crossing poles, and he took pity on me and lent me one for the rest of the tramp. It was great, like having a third leg. The high point of the day was definitely when a girl came up to me and said, “I haven’t met you yet, but I just wanted to tell you that I think you look like Rachel McAdams.” I replied, “I haven’t met you yet, but I love you.” For those of you who are cultural holdouts and haven’t seen Wedding Crashers, Rachel McAdams is a beautiful actress whom I apparently resemble when I’m wearing ill-fitting clothes, no makeup, and a lot of sweat and dirt. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to make that a regular thing. Anyway, we finished our hike to the hot pools in the dark—poor Rachel had to cross the river in the dark—but the upside was that we got to use our sweet head lamps. Those things are so wonderful. Rach and I are like little kids at Christmas with our headlamps.

After climbing up to our campsite, we pitched our tents in the dark and then a lot of people changed into bathing suits and hopped into the hot pools. Being from the South, Rach and I are not quite that hardcore when it comes to the cold, so we decided not to strip down outside on a winter night in New Zealand. But we did sit around with our feet in the pools for a few hours and helped some of the guys put away the wine they had brought. Dale brought a bottle of Villa Maria, because he’s awesome. Some of the Kiwis had brought an iPod and speakers, and I think they played the entire works of the Chili Peppers. Afterward it was snuggle time in the tents. We had borrowed a CUTC tent for the four of us girls, which turned out to barely fit three of us, so I begged a spot in a tent with one of the group leaders, Monique. There were eventually five of us in her three-man tent. We had two Americans join us, Luke and Julia; Luke told me that he doesn’t usually sleep with a girl on the first date, but it was so cold that he would make an exception. After we were all cozy in the tent, some guy came straight from the hot pools in his swim trunks and hopped in next to Monique, so we were mighty cramped. I think I slept for maybe an hour or two. Julia actually left in the middle of the night and slept outside rather than endure our snuggle fest. Rachel said her tent was pretty cramped too, but that she slept well anyway.

Sunday morning, Brian told us we were taking the “easy way” back home. I think I already mentioned that Brian is a liar, yeah? Well, I suppose this way was, technically, easier. It was fairly flat, and anything would be better than climbing back up Saturday’s hill from hell. We basically just followed the river home, which meant crossing from side to side to find the best place for walking when your two choices are wet rocks and dry rocks. Let me tell you something about rocks. Big rocks are okay to walk on; leapfrogging on them is actually fun and a fairly quick way to travel. Little gravelly rocks are fine too. But medium-size rocks are impossible, because they aren’t stable enough to really walk on, so you have to walk between them, and after a few hours your feet are threatening mutiny. I was really thankful that my hiking boots came up so high, or I’m sure I would have twisted an ankle. I said a lot of bad words to those rocks. We sometimes came upon grass, and I was more thankful to see grass than I ever have been in my life. We walked for a while on mossy, rocky ground that looked just like the landscape in that scene in The Two Towers where Sam is cooking rabbits and then he and Frodo get captured by Faramir. (I am such a Lord of the Rings dork, I admit it.) In fact, you’re probably thinking, at least we got to see some beautiful scenery, right? False. The only scenery I saw was the rocks I was walking on. I scrutinized the heck out of those rocks, lest I fall again and do some more damage to my knees. No, actually, it was beautiful out there. Although the rocks put me in mind of Mordor more than anything else, we were tramping around the Southern Alps, where Peter Jackson filmed a fair amount of movies scenes, including the ones in Edoras and Pelennor Fields. They filmed most of the movies on the North Island, actually. And I promise I don’t just know this stuff off the top of my head. I’m not Leslie Venable : ) I just found a sweet website with a map of NZ and you can click on locations and it tells you which LOTR scenes were filmed there: http://www.filmnz.com/middleearth/locations/index.html. You know you want to check it out.

The Sunday hike was a little scary because we were walking on a rocky road for hours, and we weren’t sure that we were going the right way. Every so often, we’d hear a rustle and Brian would lope out of the woods, as if he’d just Apparated from a Red Bull factory, and say, “How’s it going?” Then he would disappear again. There was another experienced tramper named Sam bringing up the rear, but we were mostly just betting on the fact that the road would bring us back home. When we started seeing cow patties, we got excited, because cows = farms = people = civilization. And sure enough, we caught up to the rest of the group, and from there it was a quick walk back to the vans. Of course, there was a deep river crossing first, and I’m pretty sure that’s where I lost Mom’s gloves. Oops. (I’ll buy you some nice Merino ones for Christmas!) But then we drove to a café at Arthur’s Pass a little ways down the road and to warm up and reconvene, and two hours later we were home. The ride home was fun because a) I was sitting down and b) Sam put on a station that played American classic rock, and he and I had a discussion about how women should not be involved in rock music, ever, when “Barracuda” came on. Sorry, Mom. Also, I dozed off at one point and woke up to the Bohemian Rhapsody—not so much Freddie Mercury as the entire van going, “MOMMAAAA! OOOOOOOH!” in about three different keys. When we got back, we had showers and then Nora made the five of us dinner. I love Nora. She is wonderful.

So, to sum up, a few hours into Sunday’s tramp, Jas and I had the following exchange:
Me: “How do you like tramping?”
Jas: “It’s awesome. It’s the greatest experience of my life. So fantastic, in fact, that I will probably never do it again.”
I was feeling really crummy after the hike, like I’m the worst tramper in NZ (probably true), but Dale said it was more intense than even he was expecting, so I felt better. I’m alive, after all, and now that I can feel all my extremities again, I’m starting to forget how horrible it was. Rachel did a lot better than I did, because she’s the Little Engine That Could, whereas I was always last and I’m thinking of officially changing my name to The Caboose. I mean, I like nature as much as the next guy—unless the next guy is Bear Grylls—but I think day tramps may be the best way for me to go. I’m quite attached to civilization. Except tramping means I might get to use my head lamp, which makes it pretty darned worth it.

lots of love-
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Carie and Rachel