Bronze Tramp 2012

On Friday I set off on my Bronze tramp. My bag weighed a ton but I was still jittering with anticipation, or was it from the cold...? 

We took a bus to the wharf where we boarded a ferry to Rangitoto Island. From there, the groups set off one by one on the routes they wanted. Most groups didn't have a teacher or year 12 leader and my group was one of them. My group consisted of Daisy, Anh, Sue, Julie, Lucy, Sam and I. We navigate our way through the route pretty well, we caught up with another group and decided to stick together. Then together, we passed another group. We were also going the longest route possible so we were making pretty good time. 

We took a long break once we were at the summit of Rangitoto and had lunch and replenish our energy.  Then we made our way over to Motutapu Island. We took the long way to Home Bay by going via Administration Bay. 

It was just as we were leaving Administration Bay, that we got chased by cows. I know how that sounds, I mean, who gets chase by cows? Apparently, my group can tick that of our bucket list. We were climbing a very steep hill at the time and once we were at the top, we decided to sit down for a rest. The cows came over for a look and some members decided to get a closer look. I was perfectly fine just minding my own business and sitting with Julie and Anh when I turned around to find the ones who went too close screaming and running our way. I started running too and I swear it was the scariest moment of my life. 

We were lucky because Happy appeared out of nowhere and came running and shouting which startled the cows long enough of everyone to grab their packs quickly and change routes. We were forced to take the long way round from Admin Bay to Home Bay. The sun was starting to set and all our efforts put into our good start was wasted. We were hungry, tired and found a new hate for cows. It puts me to peace to know that those cows will soon be beef patties (their lady/man bites were cut off and Sam told me that means they're for beefing). 

We made it to camp and surprisingly before a couple of other groups, whom got chased by cows too. SS helped set up my group's tents for us because he's such a gentleman, well it may have had something to do with me being the group but you know, doesn't make the gesture less gentlemanly. As SS, Sam and Daisy sorted the tents, the other girls and I prepared dinner. Since the weather grow colder now, the sun set a lot quicker too, forcing us to cook in torch light.

As the night closed in, we were free to do as we pleased and when I say the security was loose, I mean it was loose as a moose *ba dum tss*. It worked out for our benefits.

When the night died down and everyone was in their designated tents, my group turned up the chit chat and laughed about the most stupid things ever. I ended up sharing my sleeping bag with Anh because my feet was unbelievable cold and Anh's sleeping bag didn't make it pass her chest and so we decided to compromise. I kept tugging my feet under her legs for the first few hours and once I was warm enough I tried getting my own space but it turns out, Anh's a clinger. 

We woke up to find our bottles of water to be refrigerated. Quickly we brushed our teeth while squatting half turning into a popsicle. Anh and I got started on the pancakes and later Sue and Julie took over while the rest of us took down the tents. 

Making our way back to the wharf on Rangitoto, we took the shortest route because we covered the long ones yesterday. Daisy was afraid we would arrive at our destination to early and beckoned us to walk slowly. No one in my group could slow down despite being tired and so instead, we took many unnecessary breaks (if my judgement is correct it would have been around every 50 meters or so). Once we were at the wharf, some groups had already arrived a few minutes before us. We had about 1 to 2 hours to wait for our ferry and so I caught a few moment of shut eyes on SS's lap. I woke up to find his jumper blanketing me because I was stubborn and didn't think to pack long pants. I sleep on him again on the ferry, my pillow theory has so far proven to be correct (I wrote in a post a few months back). 

I had a blast, minus the angry cows. Arriving back to Ormiston was such bittersweet. On one hand, I didn't want it to end, on the other hand, showering

.