On wednesday morning, we were rather slow to start the track. Zion got pissed, and consquently we hurried up and left some food behind - not that we bought too much to begin with. The problem with doing a track with Israelis that are relatively fresh out of the army (1.5 years) is that they are too bloody cocky. Or, as Zion best put it: "we were soldiers in the Israeli army"... Oh well, so they think that ketchup, tuna, and bread is enough for food. Anyway, lack of experience in tracks, along with some "healthy" Israeli stupidity and cocckiness made the trip not very satisfying from a coolinary perspective (and I shall say no more about this matter).
The track itself was very nice. The first day was the more difficult day, as it involved climbing up quite a bit. I went ahead, and left the two stooges behind (they were too slow, and I was still upset about the morning..). Anyway, at the hut I met 5 more Israelis, 4 in one group and one solitary. There were also 2 German girls, a Dutch girl, a local guy, an American couple, and a bunch of other folks.
The second day was the most attractive one in terms of views, as we were walking on the ridge. The huts were we stayes, were quite fancy for tracks - they have toilets and also cookers! Talks about 5 star tracking (or tramping as the locals seem to call it for whatever strange reason).
The hut was next to a freezing cold river, which didn't seem to bother Zion that much, he still went in for a shower. Oooh, it was so bloody cold, I couldn't even keep my hand in.
There's this Israeli card game called "Yaniv" (pretty nice, not too complicated). Apparently, it is very popular in Israel, but neither I nor one of the Israeli girls knew how to play. So it was quite amuzing to have the American couple teach us how to play it..
The third day wasn't very exciting, just bush walking for some14km or so to the next hut, which we learned (after the fact) wasn't necessary. Anyway, it still pretty cool, as it was next to a lake (that has one of those Mauri names that I can never remember). The lake was not as cold as the river from the day before (still cold though), so this time I dived in... We had a bit of a fire on the shore - pretty cool. There was some kind of a chimney that we used to keep the fire localized. I've never seen something like that before.
The fourth day was very short. Just walked a frew km to Rainbow Reach, which is a place where one can get a bus back to town. I got up early to get the bus and then drove back to pick the rest of the group. We had another Israeli join us for the day - his name is Ran. Apparently, he studied math for his Masters and did some Algebraic Geometry. It was quite itneresting talking to him, although I can't say that I know much about what he did...
The remainder of the day was a little strange. We got the "Pizza after the track" thing, which was decent (surprisingly, since Kiwis aren't very good when it comes to pizza's). Later in the evening, we had some free pool at the backpacker with a bunch of local girls that work at the backpacker for the most part. They drank an incredible amount of beer (one of them consumed about 2 dozen bottles on her own and she was pretty small too!). It was quite funny... Finally, we met a few more Israelis, and Zion and Arik went with them to the pub, where apparently things were rather amusing. As for myself - I stayed with the pool...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment