And... more tramping!

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the blog one day later than normal. No worries, I am still alive. It was close this weekend, but I survived so it's al fine ;) No just kidding, I will tell you all about it later.

The week strated off as normal, just class and the gym. I had lots of projects due this week, so I spend monday afternoon working on those. In the evening there was a dinner with the food club, wine club and hunting club. This meant that we could come to the dining hall and cook with the meat the hunting club shot. It was awesome, because I was making dessert, in the dining hall kitchen. Which meant baking heaven!! They just had a small room with all baking equipment so I locked myself up there and could use whatever I wanted! Then we had dinner with all the people who had cooked and a glass of wine from the wine club. The food turned out great!
On tuesday I did not feel well so I missed my first two classes to sleep it off a little. Of course I could not resist going to the gym so I went and I actually felt a lot better after. I had a negotiation workshop the whole afternoon and a beer tasting in the evening. I still felt sick, but I really wanted to go and because there are no parents to tell me I cannot do that because I did not go to school, I went ;P Was a lot of fun, but probably not the best decision ever..
So on wednesday I did not feel better.. I had a field trip in the morning, to a nursery nearby. It was fun to look around and see the passion for the company of the owner. But I felt bad and I had projects to write. So I spend the afternoon trying to finish those, but my brains were not cooperative. So I ate lots of oranges and soup and went to bed early. Yeah, I even skipped the gym that day..
After the good night sleep, I still did not feel much better so I decided I should stay in bed a bit longer. I had a big hiking trip planned the weekend, so I realised I needed to rest for it not to get worse. I went to my lectures, did not go to the gym, finished my projects and went to bed.
Yes! Finally, I felt better on friday! I was so relieved, because this meant I could go this weekend. I still decided I should take it easy, so I went to school and finished my last project for the week. Then I packed some stuff for the weekend, cooked dinner for the weekend, cleaned up my room a little and went to zumba. After zumba there were club awards, wchich meant the most popular/fun/active etc etc clubs were awarded. This was fun and afterwards we went to the bar on campus for a beer. Then I went to bed early to get the last rest before my trip.

There was a field trip day on monday, so that means all lectures are canceled and I had an extra day weekend. That is why I decided to go to lake Taylor and lake Sumner. I had seen them on the map and since I will not be travelling there after the semester I thought it was cool to check them out now. After a two and a half hour drive we parked the car and started walking. The first part was grit road, but the surroundings were so beautiful! Mountains, sheep, cows and trees everywhere! We arrived at lake Taylor at the expected time and the road turned into a 4WD road. The lake was gorgeous and we were hiking through meadows in a bowl of mountains, it was fantastic! So after about seven hours hiking we arrived at the hut. We had heard that there were hotsprings close, so we decided to try and find them. It was getting dark wo after an hour, we were strolling through the forest in the dark. No hotsprings to be found.. So we decided to go back and go to bed, exhausted after the in total 9 hours walking! That night the summer time started so the clock went one hour forward (so the coming month there will be an 11 hour time difference with The Netherlands). We woke up slow, thinking we would have the whole day so we should be fine. We started the hike with an awesome swingbridge and the went into the forest. Still a bit tired from the previous day we did not go very fast. We were supposed to be at our halfway point after four hours, but we arrived after six hours. The walk was gorgeous though, I was definitely enjoying it a lot! But it did mean we had only four hours till dark and the hardest part was still to come. We had to keep going. The track went past a cute small lake and ended up at the rocky beach of lake Sumner. Well, this is doable, we thought. But the track went into the forest and there had been a storm in the beginning of this year, so a lot of trees had fallen over the track. There also were a lot of steep climbs and downs and the track was very narrow. At one point we lost the track and went climbing across a bed of fallen rocks to pick up the track. The lake was right underneath us and we hold on to some roots, so luckily we did not fall. We also crossed a stream with not enough rocks so got wet feet. The night was approaching so we really wanted to get back on the beach, so we could set up camp there if we really could not make it to the hut. However, the hill was too steep, so we just hoped the track was going back to the beach. Just when it became too dark to keep on going in the forest, we came on the beach. The hut was still far, but it was full moon and we could move pretty quick on the beach. We decided to keep on going and after one and a half hour we finally arrived at the hut. I loved it, it really was an adventure and the walk, mountains and lake was so beautiful. Even at night it is amazing to walk underneath the stars in the middle of nowhere! Who can say they did that?! Our bodies were quite sore from the 11(!!) hours of hiking that day, so we went straight to bed. It was really cold at night, so man we were glad we were not spending the night on the beach without shelter! Monday morning we only had a two and a half hour walk left to the car, so we walked through the frozen meadows in the morning sun. It was stunning. Then we drove back home, and I think I will sleep very very well tonight in my own warm bed!

So yes, maybe I should have planned it more careful and checked out the track and times better. Maybe I should not be walking out in the darm without knowing where I am going, Maybe, just maybe, I should not do tracks for 'people with experience in backcountry hiking' when I only did two short backpacker trips in my life. But well, we made it, and it was absolutely awesome!

Thanks for reading again! And don't worry about me, because as you can see, I can handle anything ;)

See you soon! Love you all!