Paul woke up very surprised to see me at the end of the bed out of the sleeping bag. He tried to ask me what I was doing, but I was mumbling that I had a sleepless night, so he slipped me in the sleeping bag, and let me sleep in! I did not sleep for long since the bunk house was full of noise as people were departing for the morning. So I got up and walked into the kitchen, everyone was in the kitchen, it felt hot and i felt to tired to talk, so I went out on the deck and tried to wake up. Paul brought me some coffee and breakfast and we ate it out on the deck amazed that the sun was shining!
Around 10:30am we started our day two hike, I put on my sun hat, and everyone else put on sunscreen and we started to climb immediately. I snapped out of my tired funk and quickly got my hiking legs warmed up and led the way. We had one small snow crossing before we rounded the ridge that lead us to the submit. It was nice up top and the guys got creative with their photo posses. Ben and Justin started to roll up there shorts really short so Paul and Jeff joined in! I'm not sure why Kasey and I did not leave them there at the top, but we stuck around and harassed them. We could see the trail ahead that we had another large climb before we reached the first of two shelters and bathrooms along the ridge before we dropped to Iris Burn campsite for the night. It was such a cool trail to be on top of a ridge and see down two valleys in the sunshine with little wind, blue lakes below and the moutain sides were so steep we felt like we were on mountain goat trails!
We were almost to the second shelter when we took our lunch break and still had not seen a Kea. I was getting nervous that we would not see one, they live high in the mountains and passes and soon we would start to drop off the mountain and follow a ridge down into the valley to camp. Luckily when we rounded the corner to the final high emergency shelter Kasey spotted one hoping under the shelter. Two people were having lunch so the Kea was keeping a close eye on them. We got our cameras out and discovered there were two hanging out at the shelter! They were careful around us and were only interested in you if you had food. Jeff crouched on the ground and pretended to have some thing in his hand, the Kea came right up to him, took a look, but realized he had been fooled so he lost interest. We then started down the trail feeling happy and really excited that we had seen our Kea! Acouple hundred feet down the ridge we had all stopped of some reason, Jeff, Kasey, and I were in the front and as we were looking back at Paul, Ben, and Justin I see another Kea take off from the up by the shelter and fly down by us, I yell at Paul to have get the camera out and get a picture then I crouched incase the guy was actually coming after me. The Kea flew down on some rocks right infront of me and started hopping down them towards me, it was really cool, but I started to get nervous that he was getting close. Jeff tried to trick him again with food, and when the Kea struck out a second time he took off and flew straight down the mountain!
It was really cool.
After more hiking down the ridge we climbed another 10min off the trail to a look out, again the photos went haywire as the guys took off their shirts and rolled up their shorts! I realized how tan Paul is, Ben, Justin, and Jeff were glowing they were so white! The views were again incredible and of new valley that we had not seen for most of the day, once we had soaked it all in and with shirts and packs back on we descended quickly. The switch backs were very steep and and our quads were feeling the burn, I kept a close eye out for signs of the slip that the hut warden had told us about, and Paul and Jeff spotted two kakariki parakeet's which are hard to see because they stick to the tree canopy's.
Paul spotted a Kea in a tree hanging upside down picking berry's from the end of some hard to reach branches, they are such cool birds, we all stopped and watched him hop and climb through the trees! After a few more steep corners we came to a sign that said "watch for falling rocks", could this be the slip? We looked up and see that the side of the mountain has fallen and there are rocks around us but it looked old?…We continue around a corner I see fresh dirt piled up and after a small curve we followed a trail on packed rocks enclosed in chain link fence, I say "I think this is it, but the guys say no they warden said there would be a sign" Well I gave Kasey space as she crossed, but Paul was right behind me and the rest right behind Paul, this had been secured and we came across a huge clearing further down where you could see the 10-20 foot crown of the slip above with huge rocks sticking out , we all quietly and very quickly crossed this section! Thank goodness we were all safe and no ground fell from under or above us. Right after that we hit the hut safely. There were only 10 campsites, but there was a large field that people put there tents up in. This would not do for Paul, he recruited Justin and they walked aways from the campsite and found a really cool spot along the river away from everyone, the water supply, and toilet. I was not trying to be the bad guy, but you can't just camp where ever you want to and I knew the warden would not go looking for us away from the camp, or if he heard us and came to find us he might tell us we had to move. So having no patience over listening the all the "reasoning we should just do it, or should we go ask the warden" I went to go ask the Warden. Paul came with me to the warden hut and we asked if we could camp along the river, he said he would have to see the spot before he could give us his answer, so Paul led the way and I stayed back with our friends, about 5min later Paul came back with no pack and his thumbs up in the air. Durning the walk with the warden to the requested camp site found out the warden has only been in NZ for six months and was a cabinet maker from Ireland but does this when it is slow. This is the only reason we were able to camp by the river. While Paul was off charming the warden, Ben came across a little goose that seemed to have lost his mama. The little guy was walking from campsite to campsite looking for mom, he was cute.
Once our tents were set up we realized that there were billions of sandfly's around, I jumped in our tent to get out of them, change my clothes and took a nap. I hear that Ben spotted the parents of the goose in the river by our tents and they were calling for their baby. Ben being a softy goes to see if he can get the goose to follow him to it's parents. By the time I changed my clothes and got comfortable to doze off I heard our group cheering on Ben. He got the goose to follow him by dragging a stick through the sand and a french hippie walking behind the goose to keep it moving forward. With all that effort and team work the baby made it to it's parents and floated down stream with them (probably right back to the place we found him!)
As I was napping the guys did a polar bear jump into the river, I guess it was freezing but they said it still felt good. Once they had some dry clothes back on they decided some warm dinner was in order. Paul woke me up and said Ben and Justin were hosting dinner in there tent. Paul huddled outside swarmed by billions of evil sandfly's and boiled our water and soaked our ramon noodles, these are the times were are grateful for 2min dinners! All six of us squeezed into a three man tent! At first we sat three on one side and three on the other, but soon our legs needed to stretch out so we all stretched our legs out into the middle. Thank goodness we had another bag of wine to make this tight situation laughable! Soon Kasey was falling asleep and went back to her tent, I was left with the guys and I was the only one with wine left in my mug, so the negotiating began! I kept drinking the wine while I was promised the have my pack carried out tomorrow, and some chocolate! I said I would share if I had some chocolate, so Ben grabbed the chocolate bar, I had half and decided to share, but by the time the negotiation was over I did not have much left, I was the clear winner of this round! With no more wine and not much chocolate we all went to bed in our own tents.
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