Into The Wild 2

You might as well call me Rachel Supertramp. Well...not quite I guess, but I came pretty close to having a similar experience to Chris "Supertramp" McCandless, but for one night instead of a few months.

It all began on a beautiful Sunday morning. Jeff and I left the apartment at 11 in the morning to catch the thirty minute bus to Island Bay. When we got there, we sat in a beautiful park to wait for Jenny to meet us. After a few texts exchanged with Jenny, she finally found her way to the park we were sunbathing at. We walked down a Cape Cod-like path that lead to the beach, and began our forty-five minute walk to the Marine Reserve. The perfect weather made for a beautiful walk along the ocean.

When we finally arrived at the Reserve, we stopped for a quick snack and bathroom break (I, like my dad [sorry dad] can never turn down a bathroom!). We then began our hour and a half walk on the sand, that soon became rocks, that changed back to sand, and then a stream, and finally back to sand. We stopped often for pictures and random adventurous climbs on tall rocks sporadically placed along the shoreline. We knew we were close to where the seals were when the rocks changed from grey to red. The excitement of Red Rocks didn't end there. We walked for five more minutes. We ventured out onto the rocks that were stranded in the ocean, and found seals!

The seals were awesome. Smelly, but awesome. They were extremely lazy, probably equal to Mr. Bojangles and Latka, but moved occasionally to find a warmer rock. It was really interesting to see because Red Rocks is where all of the reject male seals go in the winter. I even got to see some man on man action...big fight over a rock. That must have been some rock. After a while of photographing them, we took our well deserved lunch break.

We were all very happy with our successful journey, but little did we know it was nowhere near over. Some of us *cough Jenny and Jeff cough* were still hungry for more adventure. We walked a little ways back up the beach and discovered an area with a map and some trails. What a great idea, some thought, to start a hike at 3 in the afternoon. I was strongly considering walking on the beach alone and meeting them at the end because I was still feeling a bit weak from my cold. After some convincing, the next thing I knew I was half way up a mountain. The trail we were taking was supposed to take us up a few peaks, and down an old quarry. It was only supposed to take thirty minutes longer than walking on the beach. Then again, a lot of things were supposed to happen.

The first mountain was massive, or so we thought. Getting up was a mission because the ground was all rubble and slipping underneath our feet with every step. After a lot of concentration and some pictures, we looked up to discover a family with a small child. We thought, psh, if a little boy can do it, it can't be so difficult. Boy were we wrong.

When we finally reached the top of the first peak, we sat down feeling accomplished. We though, yes! We did it! Now all we have to do, is walk down this, and we will be back on the beach. Nope...not even close. While we were sitting, resting on the grassy mountain top, a few hikers and a guide passed us by. We asked the guide if we were close to the quarry and he said, and I quote, "You are a few minutes away, its not so bad!" We were excited as ever to continue.

Six mountain peaks and two hours later, we were nowhere near the beach, nonetheless the quarry. It was 5 in the evening, and I was starting to become concerned that we were not going to get out of the mountains before dark. We had no food, a limited supply of water, no warm clothes, and no flashlight. We were still joking around about finding a killer seal on the top of one of the mountains, but that joke was slowly becoming dull. The thought of anything killer on the top of the next mountain was becoming a legitimate concern, especially the killer dark. Now, I know that it seems as if I might be over reacting, but I was seriously freaking out.

We decided to go a little further into the mountains. We couldn't really tell if we were going in the right direction or not because it was so foggy, that we could barely see the next mountain peak. As we were walking down a final hill, we were laughing about how much it would suck to have to walk up it. This grassy mountain was the steepest one yet. When we got to the bottom, our knees were killing us, but we had no choice but to keep searching. We looked for the stream that we thought lead back out to the ocean, but it turned out that it just winded through the valleys and let out somewhere unknown. Even if we wanted to follow it out, we couldn't because the bush was way too thick.

We were standing in a valley for five minutes. Jenny and Jeff wanted to continue on the journey to the quarry that wasn't there, and I was a mess. After much convincing, I finally talked them into backtracking. We knew that the path back was only two hours, that would get us down to the beach at 7, just as nightfall approached. Continuing might take fifteen more minutes, or another four hours.

When we started to walk up the huge grassy mountain that we were saying would suck to walk up, I started to not be able to breathe. I had to stop walking every two minutes to catch my breath and hold back my tears. I didn't do so successfully, because I ended up crying for most of the hike up that freaking grassy mountain. Jenny and Jeff did a great job of comforting me, despite my freak out. I had an amazing turn around though, when we finally reached the top of a familiar mountain. The fog had finally cleared, and we were able to once again, see the ocean, something that has never been so beautiful to me in my life. We called Angela, the director of Live New Zealand, just so someone was aware of our situation just in case we didn't make it down before sunset. Fortunately, the walk down took only an hour and a half, and was pretty easy! I only almost fell twice, and they were both down the first rocky mountain. They were even real falls because my butt never touched the ground! Woooooh!

We made it down to the beach just as the sun was beginning to set. We walked forty-five minutes up the beach back to the entrance of the reserve. We also checked out a map, and if we hadn't turned back, we would have kept walking for four more hours until we would have reached a road that was not in the mountains. Disaster.

Hunger stricken, we walked into downtown Island Bay and snacked on some Pringles in a movie theater. We caught the bus to Cuba Street, and had Thai-styled fast food. We were so tired and sore, that we couldn't even manage to walk the few blocks back home, so we took the bus. I have never been so happy to get back to our apartment...ever.

So that was my seal adventure. Never again.

Saturday was a less adventurous day. I took a walk with some friends down to the beach because it was beautiful. We saw a few car accidents (two) and walked back home. Friday night was pretty quiet too. Jenny came over and we walked around for a while. I was still feeling sick so it was an early night.

Anyways, moral of the story. Never start a hike at three in the afternoon with no water or warm clothes or food or maps or flashlights or brains.

Please, no more adventures to come?


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