Egmont National Park: Around the Mountain Circuit (well, almost) - Part 2

As you can tell from the title, I ‘almost’ made it around the mountain. Day four was massive, bloody hell it was 14 hours! The reality is, even though we only covered about 10km, the elevation gain was more than what my body could handle. We’re talking 1,300m from Waiaua Gorge Hut to Syme Hut. So yeah, here’s a run down of the day.

Mark and I left the Waiaua Gorge Hut by 7am - there was enough light to start walking the bush track to the Brames Falls junction. The group of eight were heading to Kopuni Lodge, which is a private lodge downhill from the Fantham’s Peak junction. It was just as well as there wouldn’t have been any room at Syme Hut.

The group of four ladies we met at the hut also told us to keep an eye out for wasps. “You’ll know they’re there when they find you.” She wasn’t wrong. We were climbing a typical uphill scramble, the kind that was steep enough that I might as well have been climbing a ladder. I felt a sharp pain on the top of my head, and I’m pretty sure the F-bomb came out of my mouth a few times. I never climbed so fast in my life! Mark was right up behind me and once we got onto a flat section, we bolted. That was the first time I’ve been stung when out tramping.

Egmont National Park: Around the Mountain Circuit (well, almost) - Part 1

We had nothing but clear, blue skies as we sat on Mark’s boot having an early lunch before setting off to Holly Hut. He had made me a beef and egg wrap with Kimchi which was going down a treat - what a good friend he is! After popping into the visitor centre to check the current track and weather conditions, we set off for Holly Hut under the midday sun.

This was our first multi-day tramp together, although we had done a winter Tongariro Alpine Crossing through the Pinoy Adventurers NZ group too. I learned early on that our definition of ‘steep’ is not quite the same. We had the option of taking the usual track or taking a more scenic route via Tahurangi Lodge. I asked if there was much difference in the elevation, especially since we had six days worth of food to carry. “It’s pretty much the same.” No Mark, it really wasn’t, because there was a beast of a gut-buster just before the lodge that he had forgotten about!

Road trip with the Canadian: Hitting the west coast of NZ

My friend Tamizan is a surfer, and this trip came about from a conversation about her wanting to surf some of the famous breaks in New Plymouth. I’m not into surfing, but I do like road trips and hiking. I’ve never been to the West Coast, and people have told me about some nice walks in the region. We were lucky with the weather, even though there was chill in the air (being Winter of course), the sun was out apart from the Monday we headed home.

The only other road trip I’ve done late was with my friend, Jemma, when we checked out the Coromandel on the first day of Spring last year. Torrential rain stalked us for most of that trip, which was the complete opposite of this one.