Tramping is the Kiwi term for hiking. You don't "hike". You go "tramping". Fun fact.
This past weekend, I spent some time with the tramping club out in the Waitakere Ranges about an hour east of Auckland. It was quite...tropical. Or at least more tropical of an environment than any other I've been in.
Here are some highlights:
I took the longest route to the tramping club's hut. Along the way, the group and I had to tramp through some streams.
At some point, the water was up to our knees. Not wanting to get my boots absolutely soaking wet, I hiked for the next hour or so in my Jesus jandals (Kiwi for sandals; Jesus jandals because they're the jandals from the Christian Student Life group on campus).
There was a portion of the stream that was too deep for us to wade through. We eventually climbed up through bushes and went around the deep section.
It was a bit of an impromptu trail blazin' of a climb. We weren't sure if we were going the right direction a couple of times. The view at the top was well worth it, though.
We found a small waterfall/pond area. We had no idea how deep it was, but our adventurous leader jumped in anyways.
With about 3-4 hours left to the hut, the weather completely turned around and started pouring rain on us. It was quite a slog to the hut.
After some hooligans at the hut during the night, we packed up and headed out towards Piha Beach.
The bugs here in New Zealand -- I believe cicadas -- are really, really loud.
We fell off route and missed passing by a waterfall on our way to Piha Beach, whoops.
In the end, though, it didn't matter because I got some fush 'n' chups (yup, you read that right) along the way.
Oh, and because Piha Beach was freakin' amazing.
With school now in full swing, it was quite a solid weekend getaway.