rtw with lucy

The Hike

Yesterday we took a boat ride in Milford Sound and it was magnificent. But you’ve seen the pictures.

After we left Milford Sound, we decided that we would stop at the first trail we could find, despite the fact that we’d not managed to get info on any of them. We were very close to the world famous Milford Trail, the one that takes about a week to hike, that you have to register for about a year in advance, then pay a lot of money to do. We didn’t do that.

We stopped at one called Grave-Talbot Trail. After we piled out of the car and started up the trail we knew we were in trouble because it headed straight up–a vertical 5 feet. The girls were losing heart. I wanted to check it out at least, so up we clambered up in the mud. Then we were confronted by a lake. It was right in the middle of the trail. I still wanted to go on, so we sidled around that and right into a peat bog. The whole trail was like that, though it did seem as if stepping stones were placed conveniently in our reach, and it was a challenge to keep our feet dry, but we almost succeeded. Actually it was a lot of fun to work out how to place our feet next, and how to keep dry, and though it would have been fun to say, “to heck with it”, and get our feet wet anyway, it was more challenging to try to stay clean. The best part was getting up and down the climbs and the drops, and everything was so green. There was not one thing that was not green. Even the trunks of the trees were covered with moss, as were all the big boulders. There must have been 150 different kinds of moss, and anything that wasn’t moss was a fern.

When we got back to the car, my pants were muddy and wet up to the ankles and I was not ready to quit. It was the best hike of my life, though certainly the most difficult. In conversation with a lady from NZ that evening, I discovered that the Milford track is much worse, as there are sections of trail where you have to wade in water up to your waist. Maybe next time and without the kids. Stephanie

Well, I have to say that I did not enjoy it very much.
I saw the 5 foot climb, and immediately despaired. We said, “are you sure you want to do this mom????” “Yes” was the answer. I groaned.
“But we are going to get all wet and muddy!!!!” I cried.
Mom didn’t care.
“It’ll be beautiful” she said.
Well, we started in on our hike, and every available surface was full of mud and water.
I think I nearly fell in 20 times. Well, we were hiking (or sidling) for a while, and we came to a 6 foot drop. “ I think this would be a good place to stop” protested my sister. And I joined in with her.
“Well, lets just go a bit farther” said mom.
I started protesting quite loudly then.
(Erin didn’t say anything, But I knew she was agreeing with me)
“Well, you guys are just a bunch of wimps” argued my mother,”I’m going to keep going”.
Well we had to go with her.
We were walking for a while ( me protesting all the way) when mom said “OK, (sigh) I guess we can turn back now.”
Under my breath I gave a great big sigh of relief.
I did get my foot all wet on the way back, but besides that, it was uneventful.
I survived it, and for that we went out and got ice cream later on.

-Lucy S.

Yesterday we took The Hike to end all hikes. It started out with a muddy wall, which we were supposed to climb with the help of a mossy tree vine. The “track” was a half dried (or half wet) stream bed. Now I know what wading boots are for.
The whole trail was an obstacle course, and we were the rats(who apparently hate water). We had to find numerous other “options” around small lakes, and do a little bit of accidental wading.
Hopping across slippery rocks and tree trunks was fun, until someone fell into the boggy water we were trying to avoid,which we all did in turn.
Vast parts of the trail were under water, so we had to fight our way through tree ferns, vertical and horizontal moss carpeting, and dripping tree branches. Sometimes we hopped from one slippery moss-encrusted rock to another, or did balancing acts across tree trunks. All of the above offered the quirky plan B of falling in muddy water if you stepped in the wrong place. Mom found this terribly exciting.
I don’t think I’m ready for the Milford Track yet, as it’s supposed to be worse.
-Erin Sappington ————————————————————— I saw the trailhead and thought-surely this must be the wrong way? A steep climb up over rocks,roots and moss which then led into- you guessed it; moss,rocks,roots and water. Water everywhere. The trail was in reality a creek that had been given the name of a walking trail. It looked like something out of Jurassic park. Ferns everywhere- I kept waiting for giant dragonflies to scoop me up and carry me off into some lair so I could be eaten at their leisure. But all kidding aside the temperate rain forest was (wet)- and slippery and not nearly as warm as a Florida waterpark in summer. We climbed up and over rain soaked spongy moss, fought off clouds of sand flies, slipped and fell into bogs up to our necks- Oops, I mean ankles, and then started the trail. I will never forget those famous words spoken throughout our tramp-Daaddd! when are we turning back? I kept saying -in a few minutes, in a few minutes-(I wish I had a tape recorder) for as many times as I said this. Then finally the glorious time when I said- Okay kids, you have suffered enough- lets turn back. Erin and Lucy would have fallen to their knees but we would have probably lost them in the bog- so they just screamed- Thank God! They actually thought the hike was cool and so did I, but we had to keep up our whining so as to not have their mother think we really liked it. Gene

We learned long ago that it is unnecessary to plan exotic vacations. We learned to let them happen. Planned exotic vacations can become very expensive. We learned that all we need to do is plop ourselves down someplace where we would be “at risk,” and something will probably happen. It may be the unexpected, the unconventional, the odd, the rare, the grotesque, the bizarre, or the exotic. Part of the trick is to be perceptive and detect the grotesque, the bizarre or the exotic and be equal to the opportunity. It is somewhat like learning to see the beauty of the desert. Henry Troyer from “Tales from Paths Less Trodden”.

It’s the dryest, flattest, hottest, most infertile and climactically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life–a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Oz has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. Bill Bryson

Shove off from the shore
and set the ship’s sails
The seven seas shudder with
squalls and strong gales
And six sailors shout, their
shrill and sharp wails
of “sails-ho southwards
The Spanish Main hails!”
tongue twister from Pirates Ho special display at Sydney Maritime Museum

Everything is risky. If you’re looking for absolute safety, you chose the wrong species. You can stay home in bed–but that may make you one of the half-million Americans who require emergency room treatment each year for injuries sustained while falling out of bed. You can cover your windows-but that may make you one of the ten people a year who accidentally hang themselves on the cords of their venetian blinds. You can hide your money in a mattress–but that may make you one of tens of thousands of the people who go to the emergency room each year because of wounds caused by handling money–everything from paper cuts to (for the wealthy), hernias. John Ortberg from “If You Want to Walk on Water You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat”

This much is true though: I see the world as a series of clues that somehow explain the universe. Pachyderms and narwhals, talipot trees and insect-eating plants, flightless birds and boa constrictors–all are a part of some cryptic message that needs to be deciphered if we are to encounter its wholeness.
James Cowan from “A Mapmaker’s Dream-the meditations of Fra Mauro, cartographer to the court of Venice”

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