Girls' weekend away

 You're probably thinking spas and pedicures but no, we decided for our girls' weekend we would venture out into the wilds of Hawke's Bay (east coast) and rough it for a few days.

Hailey, Erin and I wanted to get out of town and stretch our legs a bit so we found a nice, secluded campground with a hike up to some hot springs nearby. We piled in the car and drove east, from rainy grey towards sunshiney blue skies. We stopped in Napier to get groceries and fresh fish for tacos that night.

Why does everything taste better when you're camping? That night we made grilled fish tacos with slaw and chipotle mayo. Best fish tacos ever. We ate lots so we'd have plenty of stamina for the hike ahead of us the following day. After dinner we busted out some wine and Yahtzee and played until the yawns began. Erin kicked our butts with her supernatural Yahtzee abilities.

Erin, the Yahtzee ringer

 The next morning we woke up, packed some lunch and snacks plus plenty of water and set out on what we thought would be a 4-5 hour hike (blatant foreshadowing).

We ambled along the path, enjoying the scenery and anxious to get down to the river to take a wee dip. 

The path became increasingly steep and difficult and we began to think that we had bitten off more than we could chew. Especially after coming around a corner and seeing these steps:

They had been generously carved out to ease passage down a rugged and steep bit of mountain. They must have gone for 100 meters of so...down, down, down the mountain. Our dismay was in the prospect of having to climb back up The Steps at the end of our hiking day. At any rate, we laughed and powered on. 

 After a couple more hours of traversing forest and mountain, we finally arrived at the Department of Conservation hut where we would stop and have lunch. It was deserted so we had the place to ourselves.

We brought fixin's for huge, delicious sandwiches and sat down to eat them with relish. But the sandflies has other plans. Apparently we were to be their lunch! It became so bad that we had to eat while walking in circles on the porch to keep the sandflies from landing on us. Needless to say we did not linger. 

Another couple of hours and we finally reached the hot springs. They weren't exactly what we had imagined.  

slimy

 But we peeled off our shoes and soaked our tired feet in the springs.

They were a lovely, piping hot temperature and our feet enjoyed it. We decided not to put the rest of our bodies in though.

After a relaxing soak, our feet turned around and carried us the long way back to the camp site. The trail was so rigorous and long that by the time we got to The Steps, we had to crawl up them on all fours, too worn out to climb them in a bipedal fashion.

All in all it was 10 hours of hiking the hardest trail I've ever done. But after the exertion comes the exhausted satisfaction of accomplishing something, no matter how inconsequential, setting out to do something and overcoming the challenge. We had a lazy stretching session back at camp and then fixed veggie burgers for dinner with roasted corn and potato salad.

Retiring early, we slept well and woke up early, eagerly anticipating the day of wine tasting ahead of us. We dragged our sore bones around, packing up and cleaning up and then headed off to wine country.

part of the drive out of the park

Yaaaaay wine tasting!!