Of Wild and Wonder

Party: Conor Vaessen and Scott Van Heerden Like any other trip you’d do: Research  Scott and myself during type I fun Read trip reports  Plan  Execute On some trips things happen : Timing of trip plan fails… On the rare occasion during a trip : Continuous failure of trip timing… On our trip : Timing absolutely out the window Butterfly Buttress, 500m of grade 14 climbing, a day of fun! After a lot of debating whether to pursue Butterfly Buttress or Weta Prowl, Butterfly seemed like a good first alpine rock route for both Scott and myself, potentially having a slightly shorter approach. It’d be a solid choice but our ambitious planning was a little off for first timers.  After I’d sent only a dozen or so trad routes but practising trad anchors all the time whilst socialising at Long Beach we decided to pull the trigger on Butterfly Buttress just before Easter. Waiting for a good weather window, we polished up on rescue techniques and s...

Party: Madeleine Whittaker, Torea Scott Fyfe, Shar Mathias, Poppy Mitchell and Darius Mortimer-Webster OUTC was gearing up for their first club trip of the year - Paradise.  This year I was going to be leading a day trip up Mt. Erebus. Thursday - started feeling a bit ergh. Friday   - decided it's just a cold. She'll be right....shivering uncontrollably in the van driving over. Just a cold I told myself. I was determined that I'd feel better in the morning - with a weather forecast like that, ain't nobody got time for being sick. Saturday I have mixed memories of Saturday. There were beautiful lakes and beautiful mountains. The sky was blue, oh so very blue. And there were wonderful people. Valley of the Trolls (Maddy Whittaker)  Somnus (Maddy Whittaker)  Descending from Mt. Erebus down to Lake Wilson, the Darrans behind (Maddy Whittaker)  Lake Wilson made for beautiful swimming (Maddy Whittaker)  The rest is like a d...

Party: Rowan Cox, Lottie Armstrong, Imogen van Pierce, Liam Pyott, Maddy Whittaker, Torea Scott Fyfe, Olivia Truax, Erin Houlihan, Lucas Zeller, Cara Lembo It had been two days since I'd finished my 1400km walk of the South Island. I'd been back in civilsation for what I decided was two days too many. It started as a casual conversation with Liam.  Liam: "Want to go climb something?" Me: "Most definitely....what about Aspiring?" Liam: "Yeah sounds good." Somewhere in the two days between that conversation happening and us driving to Rowan's in Wanaka, the trip changed from a two-person climb to a full-scale OUTC cluster. Lottie and Imogen were driving from Christchurch and Erin, Cara, Lucas and Olivia materialised from somewhere. We got up early to drive out to Raspberry Flat in order to avoid the road blocks that we'd been notified would be going up at 6am for the Wanaka Challenge. However, they were up at 4am! We politely r...

Party: Max Olsen, Rowan Cox, Michael Norman, Torea Scott Fyfe, Maddy Whittaker, Aidan Braid, Jackie Hazelhurst The beginning. Quietly now Paddle over the calm water of the sound Surrounded by this incredibility Of mountains shooting straight up to the sky With mist scarves and waterfalls Hundreds of metres above us. Sun, of the early morning kind. Podocarp forest illuminated Such colours of green. Rimu trees, Red rata flowers. So much birdsong of tui and kaka and seabirds. I love my life - I love this place - Here we start our adventure. Beginning: two people share a kmart aquanaut (Maddy Whittaker)  On arrival on a small island: A kayak guide paddles up beside me “Where are you headed?” “Mt Ada” “Can you see it from here” “Dunno” “You know this is an island...” “Oh cool!” “...There are no mountains on it...” “No. Nice forest though.” It’s ok, helpful kayak guide. We are just walking along the river up its shores. We’re not as hopeless as all...

My route - 1400km long The summer I became slightly feral In the summer of 2018-2019, I spent 77 days walking the length of the South Island (1400km), with my journey mainly based around walking the South Island section of the Te Araroa trail northbound. About half of these days were spent on the TA and the other half were spent doing tramps and climbs along the way (essentially used the TA as a pathway to all these places in different national parks which I had wanted to explore). People keep asking me how my trip changed me - who did I become? The answer to that is hiker trash. I became hiker trash. Hiker Trash is a term used to affectionately describe hikers who have sunk to a lower standard of living. Nowhere is it more apparent than in a group of thru-hikers who have been living on the trails for months. However becoming a piece of hiker trash is not an exclusive process. Here is your one stop guide to essentially becoming homeless and not giving a damn: There are thre...