07 – jan 25: whole day at national park

waking up

after staying up late with the expectations that the weather would not cooperate, of course the weather cooperated and oleg had the dubious pleasure of witnessing what an enraged sleepy person can say in the first moments of the day. after a few uncomfortable moments (i think mostly for me as i was alone in the room at the time), and a breakfast of yet more french toast, we departed on a 2 hour return hike through the mountains, titled teranaki falls, as those are the waterfalls that we’d have the pleasure of seeing. besides generally enjoying mountains and wanting to hike a little, another cool thing about this mountain in particular is that it was playing the role of mordor in LOTR. can you recognize it? :D

hiking

the preparation for the hike deserves a specific mention on its own as we weren’t sure how fast the weather could turn, and how difficult the hike would end up being. thus i packed the following things:

backpack with:

• small light tripod (oleg’s)
• advil
• long sleeve shirt
• sweater
• scarf (that could multifunction as many other things)
• glasses + container for contacts prefilled with the solution for storage (in case i had to store one or both)
• compass + thermometer (that my dad gave me before i left)
• spare socks

what i ended up using out of the backpack?

i guess that was better then having to use any of the other stuff, that would imply problems. the sun was shining, and the dark rainy clouds of yesterday have moved away to open up a whole world of warmth, and pleasant trails. my running shoes were totally unsuited for hiking in general, but thankfully it was an easy trail and thus we had no problems.

weather and the rest of the day

amazingly enough we got perfectly lucky with the weather. as we were completing the hike, the rain started, and as we left the park to drive back to the hostel, the clouds parted just enough to show the beautiful peak of the snow covered ruapehu (which was used in LOTR for the snowy mountains scene) right as we arrived to the hostel. perfect!

of course after that piece of luck we didn’t care about the weather anymore, thus it started pouring down and being generally windy and cold. i was feeling kind of sick, so the day was spent inside, enjoying my computer, quiet time, and hot tea.