Mt. Aspiring National Park, NZ
[fgallery id=7 w=450 h=385 t=0 title=”Mount Aspiring Descent”]
After a week of enjoying the excellent company and stunning views provided by living on a mountain surrounded by glaciers and waterfalls from, most importantly, behind the protective barrier of a New Zealand hut, the day finally came for us to depart. Unfortunately no one decided to tell the rain.
Now seems an opportune moment to discuss a little saying, a philosophy if you will, that we’ve found is said down here when things get a little tough:
“Take a teaspoon of concrete and harden up!”
With that little nugget of Kiwi wisdom we depart our shelter and remember that “Kiwi Moderate” cliff face we crawled up a few days ago?
Now it’s a waterfall…and our only way down:
Once we reached the base of the mountain we remembered it was at the end before, and the beginning now, of an 8 hour hike. Additionally, the rain of the past week did spectacular things to the waterfalls, and the trail integrity…
After what promised to be a difficult tramp but ended up being actually quite a fun adventure we finally made it back to the city of Wanaka where we cleaned our gear, slept in dry beds and took stock of our (many) casualties…
As one of our friends famously says, “Good times were had by all, very few people were injured. Well done all.”
The constant downpour of rain made the trek back far different than the trek up, which was stunning in a far less damp way.
Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures. If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!
I thought you must be in a pretty bad hail storm as well from the audio, but nobody was running or covering their heads, so I figured it must the sound of rain on the plastic bag you probably had the camera in. CGI in some hail stones and show that you’re “hard as” too.
No CGI, we’re all natural here dude!