Christchurch

March 27
Christchurch

Today was my last visit to Christchurch and I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do for weeks now…more mountain climbing. And after our rehearsal at 11 that’s exactly what I did, got off the ship and headed for the highest point I could find. I managed to bring a friend along, Tina, who was supposed to go skydiving (as was I had it not been for my rehearsal) but had the trip cancelled due to high winds. I knew Tina was into fairly extreme hiking so I was happy to bring her along.
Be got into the city at 2:00 (long rehearsal) and needed to be back on board at 5, meaning I wanted to be at the shuttle around 4:30 just to be safe, 4:40 at the latest. We immediately set off through the city to find the trail that took us up the mountain, found it, and began our trek.
The first part was nice, it was a fairly rigorous climb, but we had a marked trail and a good idea as to where we were going. The first stop when we got to the top was at the Gondola, situated at one of the peaks overlooking both our port city of Lyttleton and the main city of Christchurch. We spent some time looking around there before heading off to the highest peak, the next one over from where we were.
The trail around this point was taking us in a different direction, and being the extreme hikers that we are, made our own way through the grasses and rocks till we reached the top, which we soon found to be easily accessible by road. At this point it was 3:30, we had taken all of our pictures and I was planning our route back, one that we would have to accomplish in the next hour. I wasn’t too worried because going down is always faster, so Tina and I kept pushing on in the original direction hoping to find another path down the mountain, and having spotted some resemblance of a trail much further below, we figured that we’d fight our way down to it and then follow that down to the city – wrong idea.
Anyway, we saw the path below us, found the best place to jump a fence and began making our own way down the side of the mountain to the trail. Our own way was fairly simple till the slope increased and the friendly vegetation turned to a species of thorn bush ten times more deadly than anything I’ve seen in Chicago. Undeterred we pushed (carefully) our way through, slowly approaching the trail we figured we could reach. It got ugly when, with time running out, we’d made it too far down to turn around and go back but were faced with a series of 10-15 foot drops all covered with this hideous thorn bush. But as I said, we couldn’t turn back, and with some debate over the least masochistic route through the brush we pushed forward down the rocks, through brush taller than me, and over the thorns of death.
Well, we made it, not without our fair share of scratches and cuts, but we made it! It was now approaching 4:00 and I was starting to get worried, and unsure about whether or not the trail we were on would take us to the city, we started running with the slope. The trail, however (as I later figured out), was part of the 2 km crater rim hiking trail, and we were running towards the wrong side of those 2 km. We figured out our error relatively quickly, but at this point it was 4:00, we’re in the middle of some mountain, not positive exactly how to get down, and at T-minus 30 minutes till our shuttle left. Time to get moving.
From this point on we ran, or moved as fast as our already tired legs could carry us, and followed this gorgeous trail through the forests and under the rock structures, allowing no time to stop and admire anything that we were running past. Furthermore, the trail was narrow, rocky, and anything but straight, allowing ample opportunity to twist an ankle, trip, or just flat out fall into the brush, but we didn’t have time to heed these dangers and ran relentlessly toward the only path we knew would take us back to the city.
After 35 minutes of semi-constant running through the winding, rocky trails, running at barely controllable speeds during the decent, and continuing the run through the paved city streets which offered no escape from the constant slope we’d been fighting, we did in fact return to the shuttle drop off point, boarded, and were back on the ship with 10 minutes to spare.
35 minutes might not seem that far, but when you’re stuck in thorn bushes on top of a mountain unsure of the route back to the city, the distance looks unfathomable. I was slightly nervous that we weren’t going to make it, one of the few times during these contracts that I’ve been legitimately worried about returning, and the added danger of a sprained ankle wasn’t in our favor. But we made it, it was as much excitement as I was willing to handle, and my legs have hurt for three days since the run.
So there’s my extreme hiking experience, not recommended for the faint of heart, but one that (so long as you make the deadline) is totally worth every step. Thanks for reading!