Canterbury Day Hikes

The last few weeks of my life have been occupied by midterm essays and reading, punctuated by weekends passed at farmers' and flea markets, and local day hikes. On my car's first trip outside of the greater Christchurch region, Emily, Tiffany, and I joined a group of students with the Canterbury tramping club (CUTC) to climb Little Mt. Peel in the Peel Forest. Listed as an "easy" 4-6 hour day hike, this mini mountain was hardly an effortless stroll through the bush. It turns out that the CUTC rates walks based on time, not elevation or gradient.

The long, steep, and unrelenting slog up the well worn path was made all the more painful by a mixed blessing of blue skies, unmoving air, and an unseasonably strong autumn sun. Falling into rank within the moderate pace pack, through sweat-stung and squinting eyes I watched the faster climbers disappear into the bush leaving a wake of swinging ferns, spaniards, and mountain grasses.

After 2-3 hours of climbing and taking photos, we joined the nimbler climbers and ate lunch sitting at the base of a wooden tower marking the summit. After food, water, and rest, half of us--a mixture of the speedy and moderates--decided to descend the mountain via an alternate, steeper, and faster route. After about an hour of painful, knee-pounding descent, we lost the track and found ourselves enveloped in darker, damper, and thicker bush. Attempting to follow the least severe contours of the ridge, our minor slips became tumbles, falls, and acrobatic slides down eroded and humus-littered slopes. Making light of our wayward exploration of the bush and our frequent missteps and fumbles, we fell in style. My falls were quite comical and rated highly on our collective scales--standards were based on distance, amount of contortion, use of the environment, and airtime.

With the help of some more experienced trampers, including Alex, whose parents work for the Department of Conservation and has himself worked as a guide, we found our way down the ridge. Once we relocated the track, order was restored and the unruliness of the bush--and ultimately our walk--resolved into the clear-cut footpath of a well marked trail. Because of our detour, we reached the bottom after the other group, but we had more of an adventure and found comradery in our foibles.

My second day hike trip of this month was around Godley Head above Taylor's Mistake, a favorite surf beach south of Christchurch. The trail wound around the peninsula towards the ocean, tucking back into the bay overlooking Lyttleton, a commercial port town. Imagining that the area was larger, we overshot our turn off to return to the trail head and ended up on the Anaconda mountain bike path headed north to Sumner Beach. After talking to a couple of mountain bikers, we realized our mistake, relocated the walking trail and returned to the Taylor's Mistake carpark. Again, our detour wasn't at a loss--a one hour walk became a 5 hour hike through the Port Hills, where we wandered among the endless sheep, watched glider hobbyists launch their aircrafts, and passed by old military outposts and sniper shelters.

Since I'm playing catchup, there'll be more soon on my epic trip to Fiordland National Park in the southwest and our subsequent road trip up the West Coast.







Cheers,

D