Where have you been to:-
Why not tell us about your hiking trips of even better add some of those awsome pics of the places you have been. Or tell of the places you would love to go or plan to go, I know it is a dream of mine to go to Fiordland here in New Zealand, just love all those mosses and lichens that grow beneath those giant pungas that can grow to 30 mitres or so. Don't you just love the smell of the sweet earth when it has just rained and how everything sparkles like the tiny leaves from the Honey dew bush and beech trees, my favourite is the Black beech (Northogufus Solandri) that has that black sooty moss all over the trunks, every now and again there is a hair like substance that comes out from the black moss with a drop of honey dew on the end which gives off a sweet scent. This i came across on Mt Oxford near Rangiora in the South island, the whole forest is just Black beech and Honey dew bush and hardly any other type of bush, just like in Arthurs pass is the Mountain beech with more silvery like trunks which is just what the whole forest is made of giving off this fairy like look, there are many tramping trips and huts set up there.
Just like how i love the bush i'm sure there are people who find the same beauty in the open, dry and rocky planes that stretch out for miles, we would love to hear how you see it through your experiences.
Also has anyone had to be rescued after either getting lost or a fall, there must be some close calls, i know a friend of mine andI nearly had to be rescued after getting lost in Mt Oxford and to really feel like your lost in the thick bush is a scary experience, but we just made our way out as it was getting dark. I also heard of someone having to stay overnight on a cable cart because the main steel rope snapped and the poor girl was hanging over the river for the night, if that wasn't bad enough it also was raining at the time, sounds unbelievable, well just read Bush woman by Sigrid Crump, she tells stories of tramping trips here in NZ like no other, she just about lived in the bush!
Telling of these great times just about takes you right back there again which makes me feel like doing another tramp to Rapid creek where also I have to cross a river on a cable cart, but have done a couple of times before. Its a short but beautiful tramp starting with some boulder hopping and then straight onto the track where the Fantails are there to greet me and even land on my bare feet, there the track is making its way through the thick forest of giant trees and pungas with minature waterfalls that i replenish my water bottle and let the water also run through my dreads when i'm hot from abit of climbing hear and there. Sometimes the track dissapears completely and i have to become intensly consciouse of where to go next but somehow i find they way as i hear the call of a Bell bird which i remember from a time before, not much longer and there is the river that is so rapid as i weave through boulders the size of houses and up to the cable cart, then its time to trust in a higher power and just let go and fly like a flying fox to the middle of the river way below me, then its time to pull all my weight and the weight of my backpack up to the other side, once i'm on the other side i breath a sigh of relief as its the hardest thing the last few mitres of rope, sometimes i nearly can't make it! 5 more minutes of tramping through the trail and there is the tiny hut that has bunks for 4 and a fire place, a tiny stream runs behind it where i can get all the purest fresh water i could wish for.