Coming back 'down to earth' after the holiday of a lifetime can sometimes be a little daunting. Sparing a thought for the millions around the world not given that opportunity can make the transition a lot easier. Having said that, I would go back into the bush in a heartbeat.
My husband Ed and I planned and trained to walk the Heaphy Track for a few months prior to our early March departure. I hoped tramping in the Kawekas and beyond would be ample practise for what lay ahead - I needn't have worried. But packing to get ready was a small headache.
Filling tramping packs and travel bags made my head spin as we were holidaying for the weekend in Wellington on the way there and almost a week either side of the tramp in Golden Bay and then down the West Coast.
I may have over-thought the whole thing, measuring out and labelling daily rations of this, that and the other, spare items of clothing for the 'just in cases', medications for before, during and after.
Also, not wanting to let one pesky sandfly through the zip, I had packed my new Shewee, a small plastic apparatus used to enable the female anatomy to perform as her male counterpart does with ease. Nothing on the instructions about kneeling in a tent. It didn't work.
Booking sites along the trail had been completed pre departure — or so we thought. What with Ed snoring like a chainsaw half the night and me either wide awake or weeing (somewhere) the other half, we had booked into tent sites out of consideration for other hut dwellers.
Camp site at Aorere Shelter.
At the very last minute, as our car was about to pick us up in Golden Bay and take us to the start of the track, Ed checked the weather forecast and we came to an 'agreement', we should hedge our bets and book huts as well.
Gone are the 'good old days' when you just sling a pack on your back and rock up to a hut and take what you get. Now there are wardens patrolling up and down the tracks who need proof you have booked "and your confirmation code is not enough" — you need a print out.
With no printer at hand we crossed our fingers that the one slither of reception supposedly available on the track would prove we had booked and paid — in our case, twice.
But no matter how hard and high we waved those phones from the seat halfway up the mountain which had a laminated sign saying "this is the last chance for any internet access so make sure you have a screenshot to prove you've booked", nothing was coming through.
It was the end of the first day, where we had climbed gently from Brown Hut to Aorere Shelter, after spending the previous week exploring this beautiful area - from the vast sand dunes and rocky outcrops of Wharariki and Cape Farewell (what a time to be on a bus tour when there's a tsunami warning), the deep aqua blue and crystal clear pools of the sacred Te Waikoropupu Springs and the climb up to peer down into the seemingly bottomless pit of Harwood's Hole.
A steady incline on day one.
We gave up on the phone fiasco and pitched our tent between rain showers. A billy was boiled under the nearby open sided shelter while I huddled out of the drizzle (preferable to the heat and sandflies I concluded) and smiled to myself - we had climbed the first part of the Heaphy Track, had walked through beautiful forests, leapt across streams and drank from waterfalls.
We had a soggy roof over our heads, small streams of water now flowing past the tent thanks to Ed's handiwork with a trowel, a welcoming long drop in the corner, plenty of dehydrated food and an over-friendly weka for company.
What more could a girl want?
Maybe a sly slug on something hidden in the toe of my spare socks.
