It Starts with Passing Wind and Ends with A Workout Circuit in Eurotrunks

Tuesday, May 15th:

We were awoken that morning, at the Port Williams Hut, by the roaring flocculent of a 15 year old sleeping across the room. Beats and alarm clock I suppose. The sun was just coming up; the sky turning from black to grey to blue. We had wanted an earlier start on the day to be sure that we would make the ferry back to Bluff (the southernmost town on the South Island) at 3:00 pm.

The second day turned out to be even better than the first. As we hiked the clouds began to lift, the sun came out and the tide was lower—allowing s us to walk on beach. We had gotten an early enough start and hiked the trail quickly enough the day before that we took our time. We took several stops on different beaches to watch waves crash against rocks, birds float in the surf hunting for tiny sea creatures, fluffy white clouds roll across the sky and the tide gradually make its way up the beach. We saw not another person along the trail the entire day; the beaches were all ours and we reveled in the beauty of our surrounding and the remoteness of our location.

We finished the trail sometime around noon with the hour and a half walk back to town still ahead of us. We had hoped, probably unreasonably, that there might have been someone in the parking lot who could offer a ride—there wasn’t. Still, we only ended up walking for about a half hour until a construction worked invited us into the back of his flatbed pickup on his way to lunch. We were quite glad not to have to walk the 5 kilometers back along the road.

We made it with plenty of time for the ferry, enough that we grabbed some lunch, visited Joe and Andy and planned where we would go next. We boarded the ferry around 3 pm and braced ourselves for another gut wrencher. This one turned out to be worse. I still can picture the seven year old boy sitting across from us crying with an actually green face. I have never seen a shade like that on a human before.

When we got back to our car, we immediately started driving for the Catlins. The Catlins lie along the Southern coast of the South Island and offer home to penguin and seal colonies. We drove in at night to a charming hostel where a polite man named Duane showed us where we could cook, watch movies, shower, ect. We had a great dinner then turned in early, being still tired from the hike (and maybe the ferry trip) that day.

Wednesday, May 16th:

We woke up and realized that the hostel we had stayed at sat directly adjacent to a beautiful bay called Surat Bay. Once again, driving into places late at night can offer a spectacular surprise. The other thing that we were surprised by was gale force winds. I noticed several birds walking along the ground, refusing to fly because of the strength of the wind. We decided that we would head back to Christchurch quickly that morning and try to spend some time with everyone there.

We got back around 5 pm and exchanged stories with my roommates who had had adventures of their own. We decided to go out for dinner that night, and after we had shared stories and pictures we headed downtown. We ate at Chris and mine's favorite restaurant, Honey Pot. They have these amazing open faced sandwiches that I won’t even begin to try and describe. Only those of you coming here will realize the glory of Honey Pot. Sorry about it.

When we came back to the Flat something come over Chris, Brianne and myself and all of the sudden we looked like Richard Simmons meet NZ tramper meet Eurotrunk models. It was great. We paraded around Ilam Villages pretending to be on a workout circuit and left most people wondering how we could be like that sober. Very fun.