MAC Mag 06
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Fiordland Rulz!<br />
The Routeburn and Caples Tramps continued to provide the highlight of the<br />
Level 2 Outdoor Pursuits Programme as they always do. Staff, students and<br />
instructors spending quality time together in a stunning setting where the outside<br />
world doesn’t intrude is magic.<br />
The challenges of completing a 5 – 7 hour day of alpine terrain, cooking hearty<br />
and tasty meals, trying to sleep in a hut full of people who seem to lose their<br />
inhibitions in a crowd as well as making funny noises at night, learning about<br />
the New Zealand bush (thank you Simon King), how not to cross a bog (thank<br />
you Joss), what not to pack (Jack T and Doddy), the magic of hypnosis (thanks<br />
Siobhan) and never to completely trust a hosteller (eh, Rocky) are just some of<br />
the memorable moments.<br />
On this year’s Routeburn tramp our group went from Queenstown to Milford.<br />
It was good, a lot of walking. There was a good view of the lake on the top:<br />
reasonable sized, sparkling and calm. There was beautiful weather and a bit<br />
of ice on the way over the pass. The last day was drizzling but it didn’t make us<br />
miss out on much. The weather progressively got more and more miserable;<br />
well, it drizzled anyway. A short day of walking but a long drive afterwards back<br />
from The Divide. The bunks were quite interesting because they were big wide<br />
mattresses, so four people were crammed like sardines in a tin on one huge<br />
bed. When we met up with another crew we heard stories about rocks in<br />
Thomas Brash’s bag and he hadn’t noticed until he was told. The food wasn’t<br />
that great because there was a lot of burning going on.<br />
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