Three ladies and a tramp

'Tramping' is what Kiwi's call 'hiking' and I am excited to say that I went on my first tramp in New Zealand this past Friday with Sophie and her friend Fiona from England, who is here visiting. After a relatively long week with multiple assignments due, I set out Friday afternoon to look for people who were interested in going on a hike. I went by Sophie's flat to ask if she wanted to go hiking, and as I did so, she invited me to go on a hike with her and Fiona to the reservoir. It was a perfect coincidence as the reservoir was where I wanted to go too. The three of us set out for what became a pretty amazing afternoon adventure.

The little stream by the trail

I would guess that the trail to the reservoir is about 20 minutes away, but to be honest, I was enjoying the hike so much that I did not really keep track of time. We first walked alongside a little stream. The trail was covered by a lot of trees with lots of foliage and was rather cool. We then went up a few stairs and had a little walk on a road before connecting to the next trail that took us to the reservoir. The trail seemed to have been cleared recently and was quite a nice and level walk. It became a little steeper right before the reservoir but the extra effort was worth the view when we got there. The water in the reservoir was a nice shade of green and the water was entirely still. There was a narrow wooden board walk that led to a little white house. It was very scenic.

I also introduced the idea of 'planking' to Sophie and Fiona. I then demonstrated on the boardwalk. It was my first plank! 

Since it was still early in the afternoon we decided to wander a bit farther. We followed the trail around the reservoir but we eventually ended up at a road. Instead of going farther we back tracked a bit and went up a side trail to see if we could get to the top of something to see the view. The trail that went up was pretty steep but we stopped multiple times to plank on things. The steep trail was also wet and muddy and I kept on thinking of how I will probably slip and slide the entire way back down. After we passed the really steep section and realized there really wasn't a look out point, we headed to a different trail and ended up on a hill. The hill had amazing view of the city and we could see the reservoir where we had just been. We could even see the new rugby stadium and the water.

The reservoir is the little patch of water in the background

There was a little patch of rocks at the top of the hill and the three of us sat down to rest of a while. We then decided to be even more adventurous and take yet another route to go back. There was a road at the top of the hill and we thought that it would probably be a little more direct and definitely less steep and muddy. We jumped a fence that separated us and the road, only to find a sign on the other side that said:

We did not know what was hazardous about the hill we were on, and the trail leading up to it definitely was not blocked off. Other than the amazing view, there was a large tree, some rocks, and some rabbit droppings on this hill. Nothing seemed to hazardous to us...

As we walked down the road, we saw a nice big tree and we climbed it. The pictures of me on the tree are on Fiona's camera and have not made it my way yet, but above is a picture of Sophie and Fiona on the tree. Next to the tree was another interesting looking tree fixture. This is where I owled for the first time. You can read about owling here. 

As we walked down the road we realized that we did not really know how to get back to the uni because, well, we didn't really know where we were at that point. We saw a man walking his dog and decided to ask for directions. 

Me: Hi, excuse me, where does this road lead to?

Nice man: Where are you trying to go?

Me: Back to the university.

Nice Man: Wow, you guys really walked... 

And so we realized that we were about an hour away from the uni, but the directions he gave was were pretty simple. It was basically to keep on walking on the road until you got there. We had a little conversation with him and found out that he had just returned from a trip to New York City. He was telling us all the places he had been, including Times Square, and "5th street". I had never heard 5th Ave called 5th street, but I thought it sounded really cool.

The road that took us back to the university

After getting back to town, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things so that I could make curry for dinner. Back when I lived in HCA (Haverford College Apartments), my room mate Asha and I would eat a lot of bell peppers. And bell peppers are delicious but are also one of those outrageously expensive vegetables in New Zealand. It took me about a week to realize that without my bell peppers I didn't really know what vegetables to eat so I just started buying whatever vegetables looked the best and were cheapest. The dilemma then became, what do I do with these vegetables? Answer, either curry or strata. As I had just made strata a week ago, I decided to make curry, an boy did I make a whole lot of curry. It was quite delightful though and I have enough to enjoy it for many days. 

All in all, it was a great day with great weather and great adventures. Hiking made me think of those Outdoor adventures back at Westover. Hopefully I'll be able to go on a backpacking trip with the tramping club soon.