Flashback: Summer

When we got back from our big trip up North, it was straight into summer. The first few weeks were quiet actually, as if we were all winding down from the holidays. With the election going on in the States and the ongoing predictions of a travel bubble with Australia, it was like there wasn’t enough room for anything else. It was a weird and stressful time.

Finally, on the weekend of January 23rd, we kicked into gear and headed for PK Bay for Chloe’s birthday. This time, Fraser came along and it was really great to back by the ocean with him.

Fraser and Andy went down a night before we did and by the time we arrived, they had already been diving and hunting, managing to pull a bunch of paua for dinner and a stag that Fraser had shot while they were out hunting.

We had a charcuterie, the paua, popped champagne on the beach, had a campfire and even witnessed a seal attacking a surfer the next morning (he hit with his surfboard and the seal swam off). Thrilling weekend.

The next weekend, January 30, V and I headed over to Queenstown to ride bikes with our friend Billy at Rude Rock. We loaded up the truck for shuttle laps and took turns driving up and down the mountain, letting those who weren’t driving have long amazing laps down the trails. It was awesome – up until Billy went over-the-bars and broke his collarbone.

We got Billy up and was able to get the truck close enough to the trail that he didn’t have to walk out too far. After an ER visit and an x-ray, it was confirmed – broken collarbone. Billy went home for the night and Vic and I headed to the Sherwood hotel, this cute boho hotel that we had booked for the night and then got ready to go out.

And what an amazing night it was. We started off with dinner at Madam Woo’s, this really cool Malaysian restaurant. From there, we headed to Yonder for a live show. We danced in the streets with a busker band, headed to a club that was packed to the ceiling with people dancing to 2010s music, were hypegirls to a hairdresser that had just decided to start his own business, danced with new friends, got a pie to end off the night and collapsed into bed with our ears still ringing. It was perfect.

The next morning, hungover, we dragged our asses to The Boat Shed, our Queenstown choice night-after brunch location.

The weekend after that, February 6, I was back in Queenstown riding Rude Rock again, this time with a new friend Jen and a couple of her buddies. Again, we shuttled each other and did super long laps – it was glorious. After riding Rude Rock, we headed to Wynyard, on the other side of town and practiced jumping. It was a huge day of riding – one which I paid for with awful referred pain from my shoulder for two days afterwards – totally worth it.

On the Sunday, Jen invited me out to the crag for climbing with her and her friend Elias. I was still having really bad pain in my shoulder from all the riding, so I skipped climbing, but took my camera instead to have a play. It’s been forever since I’ve taken photos and I forgot how much I enjoyed it. Definitely still need some practice, but good to feel the spark again.

I headed home after climbing to a massive potluck dinner, complete with venison that Fraser had shot and popcorn crayfish that him and Andy had caught while they were gone over the weekend. I swear, this has been the summer of good eating.

February 12-14

Fraser had been asking me forever to go out with him to scout a hunting block and I finally agreed. We headed up to Timaru Creek, which was just an hour drive from Wanaka and hiked through about 500 river crossings (there was a learning curve there) and up a short climb to a perfect little camping spot on the saddle. Fraser went for a little walk around to see if he could spot any deer sign while I sat on the peak and drank beer, feeling very at peace to be so above all my problems below.

That night we snuggled into our tiny tent tucked away in the woods and tried to get some sleep. The next morning after another quick walk-around, we hiked back to Wanaka. It felt really good to be back in the mountains again.

The following weekend, Chloe, Dan, Molly and I were all thinking about going to PK Bay again. But the night before leaving, I had a total meltdown and decided that I just needed a weekend to chill. Work had been insane and the pressure of marketing for a tourist town with no tourists was really starting to get to me. It was a valuable lesson in listening to myself, instead of feeling forced to go and do something that I really wasn’t feeling. Dan, Chloe and I ended up staying home and having something of a staycation. We went to the gym, relaxed at the house, made pasta at midnight because we felt like it and tanned on the beach. It was so rejuvenating and it just felt good to let go of all the things I thought I had to do.

February 26-28

Well, the big day was almost upon us. On March 1, Fraser would turn the big 2-5. And to celebrate over the weekend, we headed to Queenstown for a big night out.

We had booked the Sherwood a few weeks before because there was a Fleetwood Mac cover band playing there that night. I had bought tickets for Fraser and I weeks in advance, but for a few of our group, they had forgotten and the show was sold out. I was pretty upset at first, but we decided to roll the dice, go anyway and see if we could get door sales.

When we got there, the venue told us that the show was completely sold out and there would be no more sales. We were all pretty bummed, but Chloe, ever the swindler actually messaged the band on Instagram, tracked down their manager at the venue and then managed to get enough tickets from him to get into the show! I swear, I don’t know how that girl works her magic the way she does.

It was SUCH a good night. We started out the night with pizza in town and then forced the Kiwis to try caesars at a cocktail bar that actually had them (they hated them). We watched buskers along the waterfront, then we headed back to the hotel for the show.

The show was unbearably hot, but we danced the night away anyway. At 11pm, just as the show was winding down, we all got a notification on our phones that NZ was going back into Level 2 at 6am the next day because there had been an outbreak in Auckland again. Well, then that meant this was our last night to party in a crowded space for the next little while!

After the show, we headed into town, got Money Shots at one of our favourite bars, laughed until we peed at Fraser, Molly and Hayden riding the bull at Cowboy’s and got teapot cocktails at World Bar. It wasn’t until Fraser and Dan had to break up a fight on the waterfront that we all decided town was getting too hectic and decided to call it a night. So we got our pies and headed back to the hotel.

March 5-7

This weekend, Hannah and Hayden had to start moving out of their old house with Fraser and into their new house. So Fraser and I spent that Saturday helping them move. At the time, it was so sad. For Hannah and Hayden to not live with Fraser anymore and to not see them every time I stayed overnight with him kind of felt like the end of an era.

On the Sunday, we got a bit of a break in the weather, so Fraser, Andy and I went 4x4ing down along the West Coast in an area that Fraser wanted to scope for hunting. We ended up finding this little hut in a beautiful field filled with blackberries and the boys went to town foraging. On the way back, we stopped at a roadside waterfall that I hadn’t seen before, even though I’ve driven that road tons of times.

March 11-13

And then Molly’s birthday rolled around. The forecast was looking amazing for the weekend and I think we were all hoping that Molly would want to go into the mountains. Instead, she picked the ocean. At first, I was a little disappointed, but it turned out to be a really nice getaway, despite the tons of sandflies. Cave exploring, ocean skinnydips, s’mores and tents on the beach; these are a few of my favourite things.

March 18-20

When Jen told me that she had never done Mueller Hut, I jumped at the chance – this one had been on my bucket list forever. We invited along Jen’s friend Fi, and the three of us headed off to Mt. Cook for the night to hike up to Mueller Hut.

Hooooly, it was everything I expected and more. The hike was a grind, but luckily it only took us about three hours to get to the top. The views were absolutely insane and the distant rumblings of glaciers falling made me feel so small. We got the most incredible sunset and drank tea under the stars obnoxiously singing Shania Twain. There were too many laughs to count on this trip and I got down off the mountain, knees screaming, calves shaking, but so satisfied to have pushed myself again.

The day Sunday after Mueller, Jen and friends invited me along to the Ripe Food and Wine Festival in Wanaka. It was a total spur-of-the-moment decision, but we managed to track down secondhand tickets, got a little dressed up and headed out for the day. It actually worked out well that all my girlfriends were away doing their own things for the weekend – it was very refreshing to hang with a new group of girls, get to know everyone and kind of escape from the same ol’ of my gang.

The last weekend of March, I helped Hannah, Hayden and Fraser do a final clean-up of their old house, moved Fraser’s things into a storage unit (he was going away hunting for a few weeks and wouldn’t have a house until he got back) and then celebrated Hannah and Hayden’s baby shower; only six weeks left!

And then that brings us to this Easter weekend. Vic and I took the Wednesday, Thursday off last week and headed into the mountains for a three-day hike through Gillespie Pass. I was suuper intimidated heading into this hike. I had never done a multiday and I wondered if I was going to fit enough to do it. Only one way to find out…

Day 1, we drove the hour out to Makarora and caught a jetboat across the river down to the trailhead. I had never been on a jetboat before and kind of thought that they were an over-rated tourist trap. I was totally wrong. What a way to wake up right before a hike.

From there, we started the 20km into the bush towards the first hut. The first day of hiking was actually pretty cruisey, with a few grunty sections of forest stairmaster. Just enough to get tired, but not enough to kill you. When we arrived at Young Hut at 3pm, we felt somewhat accomplished for the day and cracked into our mini charcuterie board.

The next day, we took our time getting up in the morning, had some oatmeal for breakfast and then packed up to head off on the next seven hours of our journey. We knew that the second day was going to be the hardest – we had read that we’d start off walking through the forest up the bushline, where we’d come out into a beautiful alpine bowl looking up at Mt. Awful (real name), before taking on a steep scramble to the top of the mountain. After that, we’d encounter a long downhill into Siberia Valley, before finishing with an hour walk through the valley to Siberia Hut.

The directions we were given were pretty bang on. The Mt. Awful bowl was gorgeous and the towering mountains around us made us feel like we were in Modor. The scramble up to the peak took us about three hours and it was big and steep. A little exposed and scary at times, but it felt like a good work-out. Then the down – I hate the downs more than the ups. It’s so hard on your body to go down that steeply for so long and just as I was getting over it, we reached the bottom and jumped in the river for a quick skinny dip to cool off.

When we got dressed again, we continued through the lush and golden Siberia Valley before finally happening across Siberia Hut – we had made it.

Our hutmates that night were awesome and in a weird way, made me a little homesick. There was a father there with his adult daughter who had done the same pass that we had and were on their way to do another adventure later that week together. Then there was a father with his two twin ten year olds – I couldn’t believe that they had been out there doing the hike as well. Seeing the smaller kids made me reminiscence about all the adventures our family did when we were younger and I wondered if we were ever the kids that the adults looked at disbelieving that we were doing what we were. I was also jealous of the adult daughter and her father – often I think about how much I wish I could share these experiences and this life with my family, and laugh to myself thinking about the parts that they would love and equally the parts that they would hate.

We bid our time reading books and playing card games, eating our dehydrated dinners and then heading off to bed early, exhausted from the big day. The next morning, it was pouring rain, but the sound of the water on the roof of the hut was so soothing. We again had a slow time getting up and tried to wait out the rain stopping. When it didn’t look promising, we donned rain jackets and put covers over our backpacks and began the two hour hike out to the mouth of the river where the jetboat would pick us up to take us back to civilization in Makarora.

We hopped back on the jetboat at 1:30pm and got an awesome 30min ride out with a few stops along the way for fact-sharing and some spins in the boat. By the time we got back to the car, I was burnt out and very ready for a nap and some fresh band-aids for my blisters. But what an adventure. In a weird way, doing a multi-day hike was almost even easier than a daytrip. There was no rush, nowhere to be and I didn’t feel like we had to move quickly. We could just enjoy being the mountains, stop and take in the views and get to the hut whenever we wanted. I really loved it and am looking forward to the next one that I get to do.

Alright, well that wraps up the last six months. I am feeling vaguely accomplished having gotten this done over the last three days. I’ll say that I’ll hopefully write again in two months, but at this point who knows. It’s anyone’s guess.

You check out my video wrap-up of the summer here. Remember to hit those arrows to see the whole thing.

• JB