Today we worked on getting some things for our trip we had
missed up to now; mainly towels and exchanging our CDN money. How did we manage without towels up to now!
The first stop was the Visitor Centre at the start of the
park where we learned we would be staying at the Pinnacles hut with 2 school
groups. Part of me wanted to turn away
as I knew what I would be in for once up there and the other part didn’t want
to miss out on the opportunity to experience the fabulous hut this is and the
trail system that is highly recommended by fellow trampers (hikers).
The trail could easily be named the 10,000 step track. It is a 6 km hike with about 600m of
elevation gain, it rained almost continuously until the end. There were steps out of wood, rocks and then
others that were cut out of the pumice rock.
One word of caution is “ALTERNATE”, if you don’t alternate you will be
working one leg for most of the journey and then you will be like me, crying to
Tegan, begging her to slow down. Ouch! I almost wanted to give up! It is a very conscious effort to switch your
climbing leg, as the steps are setup so that really only one is worked
continuously.
Tegan managed to keep up
with the high school group that started just ahead of us. She is a machine on a trail. The hut is split up into boy and girl
dorms. We had our supper and Tegan ended
up being a Canadian celebrity with the Kiwi school kids. She even joined into their twister game; she
calls it “Twister Hop Scotch”. She was
then give the controls to call out the spaces to the kids and she giggled at
herself and the evil doings she was delving out to these kids.
The sleep was nasty and it was only due the
excessive noise that continued well after 10pm.
Sheesh, someone slap these children!
