Written By Baylor and Jensen
The week of the 6th we left the comfort of the Hart farm and headed for the South Island. The ferry ride was 4h and it mostly consisted of sleeping, eating and playing cards. The landscape around was beautiful and nothing we had ever seen before. After getting off the ferry we meet one of our guides, And The week of the 6th we left the comfort of the Hart farm and headed for the South Island. The ferry ride was 4h and it mostly consisted of sleeping, eating, and playing cards. The landscape around was beautiful and nothing we had ever seen before. After getting off the ferry we meet one of our guides, Andrew. He took us to where we were staying that night and, then left us to ourselves for the rest of the night. After we woke he took us 5 min down the road to the home base of Whenuate It, where we meet our other guide, Joe. With Andrew and Joe, we played some games got our gear ready, and then packed up and left to go caving. We went to a cave system one group went into the mouth of the system and the other group when into the butt of the cave system. Caving. After we got back on the bus and headed for where we would stay the next two nights which was a house in the middle of nowhere near the place we were backpacking and kayaking. While we were there we threw a party on the beach and went running down some sand dunes, got to learn more about Joe and Andrew, and learned what we’re doing the next 7 days. When we left that lovely home we headed to the beginning of the trail and started the hike, the first day was an easy 6k. We got to the campsite after about 2 hours-ish, set up tents, ate the food then feel asleep. We woke up early to get a good start on the 15k we had to do that day, the day was gorgeous, bright, sunny, and a wee bit windy. We saw some amazing sites and some animals most of us had never seen in the wild like seals and penguins. After that strenuous day of hiking, we all decided to set up camp and then collapse.
We woke up at 5 AM to a loud BOOM from the lighting hitting the ground and we got up and started packing the kayaks. Once we realized we don’t know how to pack we played a 30-minute game of Tetris to manage to fit all of our gear. We got our kayaks in the water the rain did not stop and we kept getting wetter and wetter and wetter and the discomfort kept increasing but the morals tried staying high and then the discomfort overcame us and the morals were a little low but we kept pushing and kept pushing until we got to a beautiful lagoon. This lagoon had seals playing in the calm water. We had a little snack break so we could stop the hangryness that was growing upon us. The sun finally started to come out and the day slowly got better. We got to camp and everyone was exhausted but still managed to have a good attitude towards the day. Woke up the next morning and it wasn’t raining so instantly it was a lot better. We stopped at Cleopatra’s pools and It was stunning. There were big boulders everywhere and water flowing all around them creating a natural slide. So instinctively we slid down it even though the water was frigid. Later we kayaked to our new campsite and it was stunning. This was a good day.
On the final day of kayaking, we woke up at 4:30 am and got out on the water by 5:30 am so we could watch the sun slowly come over the horizon. It was amazing. this day we took multiple beach stops to re-energize. At one of these stops, there was a huge rock split right in half and a cave right off the beach. After kayaking for another 13km we made it to the bus and loaded up the kayaks and left.
After a night of some good comfortable sleep it was time to say goodbye to Joe and Andrew. We preformed the Haka for them as a sign of respect and then gave out thanks and final goodbyes.
