In 2011, I was dating a girl named Belle. As well as being a thoroughly loving and patient person (as one needs to be when you date me), she also had the (somewhat unfortunate when you date me) quality of throwing herself headlong into any sort of stupidity I suggested. To that end, we headed to New Zealand with the idea of travelling the country, doing awesome shit and me taking her hiking in a ludicrously beautiful part of the South Island named St Arnaud.
Arriving in St Arnaud, we stayed a day and readied our gear. It was a relatively short hike; 3 days. Roughly 22km total but with a significant amount of uphill for someone who is not used to walking uphill with a big-ass backpack. We set off for the short first day in the rain, knowing fully that there were several river crossings that might be swollen (sorry for not telling you Belle...you looked scared enough) and we might have to turn back. So begins the hike that almost killed both of us a few times... each. The start looked like this:
BUT...it was a short day so no worries. We ended up getting to the river crossings just as they were receding instead of gushing like a desperate person in a bathroom (or behind a church, I won't judge) who has just guzzled 6L of water. No harm done.
YAY FOR NOT DROWNING!
The next day, however, had 1600m of ascent (which I did not tell Belle about). It was climbing up stuff like this:
Before that, I would attempt to kill us via drowning once more with just a 'little' river crossing.
It was not little. It was fast and deeper than a short guy would prefer (I barely top 157cm, which works great for dressing as a leprechaun on St Patrick's day...not for much else). Arriving at the river and steeling my nerves as much to comfort myself as well as Belle, we unholstered the downstream shoulder harness on our bags and started to walk across, me half a step in front to block the current. It was fine until it got impossibly deep (shoulder-deep and FAST) 3/4 of the way across and I started to lose my footing. All from this calm looking little river:
So, we backed out. Literally backwards. We walked downstream towards a footbridge, crossed and did the 1600m vertical climb to an amazing hut called 'Angelus' where we spent the night and then woke up to a weather report of 100km/h winds, 20m visability and a strong advisory to not be anywhere that is high up. We were very high up.
You know how yesterday was bad? Well...its about to get much worse.
We went higher. Clever.
Walking along a ridge with a luducrously strong wind of between 80 and 100km/h and attempting to duck behind rocks to avoid being blown off of a 500m high cliff is enough to rattle anyone. Visability eventually looked like this:
There was actually no other option because the torrential downpour overnight was akin to god drinking 30 pints and letting loose in a bar bathroom, which left all of the surrounding rivers swollen and uncrossable. Sometimes we crawled, sometimes we scampered, sometimes one of the party would glare at the other with a look that be described as a mix between 'are we going to die?' 'WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU GOT ME IN TO?' And 'If we don't die, I'm going to kill you'.
So that was fun and I was thankful that it took a full 3 pants-shitting hours to finally make it to clear skies. It might have actually been more fun to fellate a curling iron. Maybe not, but its a close contest.
To her great credit, Belle only despised my existence for the remainder of the day and then resumed being thankful to be alive while dating a completely balls-out moron. Ladies, feel free to message me should you wish to date someone who is as exceptionally mad in real life as he is clever on paper.
BUT...it was a short day so no worries. We ended up getting to the river crossings just as they were receding instead of gushing like a desperate person in a bathroom (or behind a church, I won't judge) who has just guzzled 6L of water. No harm done.
The next day, however, had 1600m of ascent (which I did not tell Belle about). It was climbing up stuff like this:
It was not little. It was fast and deeper than a short guy would prefer (I barely top 157cm, which works great for dressing as a leprechaun on St Patrick's day...not for much else). Arriving at the river and steeling my nerves as much to comfort myself as well as Belle, we unholstered the downstream shoulder harness on our bags and started to walk across, me half a step in front to block the current. It was fine until it got impossibly deep (shoulder-deep and FAST) 3/4 of the way across and I started to lose my footing. All from this calm looking little river:
You know how yesterday was bad? Well...its about to get much worse.
We went higher. Clever.
Walking along a ridge with a luducrously strong wind of between 80 and 100km/h and attempting to duck behind rocks to avoid being blown off of a 500m high cliff is enough to rattle anyone. Visability eventually looked like this:
So that was fun and I was thankful that it took a full 3 pants-shitting hours to finally make it to clear skies. It might have actually been more fun to fellate a curling iron. Maybe not, but its a close contest.
To her great credit, Belle only despised my existence for the remainder of the day and then resumed being thankful to be alive while dating a completely balls-out moron. Ladies, feel free to message me should you wish to date someone who is as exceptionally mad in real life as he is clever on paper.
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