As I had no major plans for the weekend, I decided to drop by the Tramping Club meeting on Friday just to see if anything was going on besides the huge group trip of 100+ members to Paradise. Right at the end a girl called out that there was one spot open on a side trip... so I decided I might as well find out more about it. A few hours later I was packed up in a car with three Kiwis on my way to Eldrig Peak ready to break in my new tramping boots bought shortly after the meeting.

We spent the night at a hut that had a fireplace and smelled strongly of woodsmoke. I enjoyed this very much as smoke and camping have always been together in my memories, but Cleo seemed not to enjoy it as much. Breakfast was oatmeal and raisins then we packed up the car and took off to our starting location. George drove around and got lost several times but he seemed to not want any help so we all left him to it. By the time we got to the gravel road that started our track up the sun was already high in the sky. I will not go into details about the hike up because I seemed to have blocked out a lot of it. I was sadly out of shape after my two months or more of traveling and eating delicious food, my only exercise being the short sprints to catch buses or trains. I'm sure I slowed the group down some but luckily Cleo was on my side and didn't mind the extra opportunity for photos and rest while waiting for me to catch up. I had huge blisters on my feet by the time we got to our campsite and it was all I could do not to throw myself down on the ground and thank God I had made it that far.

This was the view I was rewarded with for my efforts and gosh darn, it was totally worth all the pain. This area was well above tree line and above cloud line as well. Later on in the evening the clouds rolled into this valley and seemed to muffle all noise even further, leaving us to gaze across the sea of clouds to the other peaks that broke through... feeling as if we were on the top of the world. It was very unreal and hard to describe, but with stars above and clouds below I felt like I was in... well... another world? Space? Something like that...


These giant boulders were amazing. They looked like they had just fallen out of the sky onto these mountains, or were placed there by some giant. Some of them had holes in the tops that had caught rainwater, which was helpful as the nearest water source was a decent half hour walk away from our campsite.


We decided to make our camp right among the giant boulders with the absolutely stunning views of the mountains and valleys around us. The land dropped off dramatically right behind those boulders in the photo so you couldn't get away from those beautiful views.

George and his homemade bread loaf. It was pretty good bread and the curry he made for dinner on Saturday was delicious! There's nothing like eating warm, spicy food when you're bundled up on the top of a cold mountain.



On Sunday morning, though my muscles were telling me to stay in my sleeping bag and recover for the hike up to Eldrig and back down to the car, I followed Cleo outside in the morning to see the sunrise. The photo above shows our campsite and the mountains behind it bathed in the eerie first light.


Instead of trying to summit the intimidating peak of Mt. Eldrig, Cleo and I soaked up this view from our sufficiently lofty position. It seems like you can never enjoy a beautiful view enough. No matter how long you look at these mountains and valleys, it always feels like you missed something or didn't appreciate it. This is true here because though I think that this photo is nice and captures some brilliant mountain-scape, I know that the actual view from there would not allow itself to be crammed into a 4 by 6 inch rectangle.


There were some very inviting lakes in the leveled off area directly beneath the peak of Mt. Eldrig. The water was absolutely freezing but after gasping for breath after submerging myself, it was pleasant to feel my strained muscles cooling down.



One last shot of Billy at the top of the peak next to Eldrig. The clouds were coming in here and would soon obscure that entire valley beneath us. All in all, this was an intense but entirely satisfying first tramp in New Zealand. It certainly challenged me and I'm happy that I was able to hang on and persevere. I feel ready to tackle *nearly* anything now.