I've just been on a tramp with three other intrepid girls over the weekend. The plan was to walk from Cannan Downs to Castle Rock Hut, then head out through Holyoakes Clearing to Tinline and Marahau.
I've been on one tramp before, with my friend Debs, and we did the Abel Tasman from Totaranui to Marahau. That was quite an adventure on its own, but this was a whole new level of "what have I signed myself up for!"
I love walking, I do a lot of it but walking and tramping (or hiking) are two very different things. For a start, you have the weight of a pack on your back (10.7kgs). Jen, Brenda and Cara, my walk buddies are far more experienced than I am. So I had to rely on them for ideas of what to pack. I packed light (sleeping back, pillowcase with my clothes in it, breakfast materials, lunches for two days, lots of snacks. Plenty of water.
I even brought new boots which I wore in before I went on this tramp.
Saturday was an overcast day, and we arranged to pick up the girls from the Marahau carpark, so that we had some way of getting home. Mr H borrowed a ute so that we could drive up to Cannan Downs where we set off on our adventure. The first part was fine, it was quite a modest track, but you could clearly see where you needed to go.
Things went downhill, once we got to the uphill...
You see there's a very steep section where we had to climb up basically 1100m.
Which is hard on a body that is going through perimenopause.
There were a lot of stops and starts, and I have to give credit to the ladies for their patience with me. We left about 10 and got to Moa Point hut for lunch. After lunch it wasn't too bad, just a bit of bush crashing as we had to navigate between orange arrow markers. Sometimes there weren't easy to see, but we were often scrambling over rocks, around trunks, through bush and swampy bits, trying to see where the marker was. At 4pm, I stumbled out of the bush to Castle Rock Hut. The others all looked cool calm and collected, while I was covered in sweat and in a bit of pain in my knees from climbing uphill. This is the part of the track that they'd all done before. 
After having the hut heated up and maintained at 100 degrees Celsius (Jen loves a fire), at about 11pm, I ended up sleeping outside on the deck for a couple of hours, without a mattress. For someone who gets power surges at night, a hot room was not conducive to sleep. But a cross-county Weka communication at some ungodly hour of the morning had me back inside a now, much cooler hut in order to finish off my sleep. I swear I spent more time awake than asleep, but my fitbit told me I'd had 7 hours sleep. Obviously, I can trick it into thinking I'm sleeping by slowing down my breathing.
The next day arrived, Jen was up first, having taken a sleeping pill (and me wishing I had!) at about 7am. We got up, had breakfast, tidied up, repacked our packs, and headed off about 9:45am to Holyoakes clearing.
By now, my feet were sore - mostly because I forgot to trim my toenails before I left, so every downhill section was agony. We trudged (or I should say, they walked, I trudged) through what felt like Amazon rain forest, once again searching for the elusive orange triangles, which had me wondering if the person who made the track had a weird sense of humour. The track was there, but it was often no wider that the 20cm wide. And a lot of it was covered in tree roots, or rocks.
I'd completely lost my sense of humour by the time we reached Holyoakes Clearing but was pleased to have to eat something. That was at 1345 - what was supposed to be approximately 3 hours, took us four - mostly because of me.
I'm not sure what time we set off again, but time was of no relevance by the time now. The track from here down to Marahau, because it was DOWN, was at least a track, even if it was steep and mostly water courses if it rained. Going uphill, my knees hurt.
Going downhill, put pressure on my hips and toes, hence the now bruised toes. It was very intense, and by about 1530, I was in tears. I couldn't handle the pain much more, but I kept pushing because I knew that Tinline was coming up...except it was the longest bloody walk ever. It felt way longer than the 2.5 hours it should have taken, but by them, time didn't exist. The pain did. And lots of it.
The 50 minutes to Marahau took me about an hour, because I was hobbling by this stage, and would have looked the part for an old, crippled lady in some fantasy movie. I was so pleased when I got to the car and could take my pack off and sit down. I had to message my beloved Mr H to ask him to help me get out of the car when we arrived at my place. He did (God bless that man) and he helped me inside. He'd even filled the bath for me, which I ungraciously entered and stayed for about 45 minutes.
I knew I wasn't fit, but this showed me how unfit I really am when it comes to scrambling around. If I didn't have a 10kg pack on, things might have been different, but I needed everything in the pack, because we didn't know what the weather would be like. I'm fit for walking on flat ground, and maybe I need to up my game and start doing some hill walking.
Fortunately, I had today off. My muscles aren't too sore, because I do a lot at the gym. It's my joints. My knees, and hips are just agony, and I'm struggling to walk around like a normal person, and I think my feet will just revolt if I even think about putting shoes on, so that will make it interesting going to work tomorrow.
But I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, and I did it, even if there were a lot of unnecessary tears. I'm proud of myself for doing something different.
And now I understand why Sir Edmond Hilary uttered the immortal words after conquering Everest -"We knocked the bastard off."