Whakatane Camping trip

wow, a lot to say, I don't even know where to start. the camping trip went really well. we ended up getting a late start out (organising five people with hangovers is never easy) and didn't arrive until it was about an hour till dark (the hike to the first cabin claimed to be 3 hours). The guy who sold me the fishing licence said that it would be a good idea to buy a local a pack of beer and ask them to watch the car otherwise it might not run when we got back, so we found an old Maori lady and paid her 40$ to let us park on her property til we got back, which was really sketchy; we were pretty sure that we had paid her to sell off pieces of our car. as we started hiking we realized that the DOC (department of conservation) wasn't too interested in marking the trails and as it was dark enough that we were hiking with headlamps we inevitably missed the a turn in our trail. We doubled back a couple times and ended up in some Maori's pasture chasing his sheep around and catching glimpses of possums in the forest. We finally found the trail and hiked for another half hour before becoming so mixed up with the sheep trails that we decided to stop for the night. we didn't have a tent as we were expecting to sleep in a hut so we just bedded down on the hill under the palm trees, and tried to sleep. This would have been easier if the girls didn't keep hearing things and freaking out. Once dawn came we got up and backtracked till we found the trail - it turned out that we were only on the actual trail for about 5 minutes before missing a turn and following a sheep track for an hour. The trail did turn out to be pretty well marked in the day time and we were able to get to the cabin by midday, stopping only to swim, eat blackberries, rest, eat more blackberries, take pictures, change shoes, swim again, and eat more blackberries. That morning taught me a lot about tramping with girls.

The cabin was really nice, especially after staying the night on the forest floor, and we had a very pleasant evening. I went fishing and caught the only fish of the trip and quite possibly the biggest fish I will ever see. It was a ~30 inch rainbow. We ate it for dinner as selling trout in NZ is illegal and the only way to be able to eat trout here is to catch it yourself. It was delicious. I didn't get another bite for the rest of the trip. I think that someone had fished there before me and pulled them all out, and either he missed the one I got or put it back.

The next day we hiked up to the rapids and spent some time there fishing (again unproductively) and eating and climbing. The girls decided that they wanted to quit the trip early and go back to town to get on the piss (NZ for 'go to the bars and drink beer') so they left us there and the guys messed around some more and then hiked back to the cabin. That night was uneventful and the next morning I fished and we left. There was a wire bridge that we had to cross which turned out to be pretty sweet and we got back to the Maori village as it just started to rain. The girls were nowhere to be seen. By the time they showed up we were completely soaked and slightly annoyed. We got back to town at 10:30 and slept.

It was a great trip.