Bushball

This past weekend, I went on the Tramping Club trip to Bushball, an expedition of 60 hikers to the Aspiring Hut in Mount Aspring National Park.  I'm not sure if pictures can really do it justice, but still, a picture is worth a thousand words....

 Campfire the first night

After a long five hour drive there with a few stops at pubs along the way, we crashed the first night in the Rasberry Carpark at the base of the trail.  Even though it was dark, the light from the moon was just enough to show what a beautiful place we were in.  And the sunrise the next morning was even more breathtaking.  After some porridge and tea, we set off!  It was quite weird to see so many fellow trampers along the path.  We took a lot of breaks along the way to take photos, eat snacks, and toss around a frisbee.  Although its only supposed to be a 2-2.5 hour tramp, we spread it out over a good 4-5 hours.  The tramp was incredibly beautiful - tussock fields, with huge majestic mountains rising straight up, and a raging river running through.  We saw a lot of sheep and cattle along the trail for the first part as well, as part of the area is leased to a farmer.  After dropping our stuff off at the hut, we did another 2-hr roundtrip tramp to the Pearl Flats, which was equally stunning.  

 Sunrise over the mountains

What a view!

:) 

 This is real life.

Pearl flats

Aspiring Hut

The hut was so much bigger and modern than I had expected.  There were two bunkrooms, holding about 40 people, and a full kitchen and dining area, though usually there is no electricity (we brought a generator).  With so many people and a fire raging, we managed to get it quite warm in there.  I was actually too hot with my sleeping bag unzipped!  That night, we made a full dinner of curry pumpkin soup, pasta, and caramel slice, and had a full cooked breakfast in the morning as well.  Not so bad for tramping!  

On Sunday we woke up to a bit of rain and clouds, so after cleaning up the hut, we hiked straight out.  Without any stops, the way back only took 2 hours, and then we just had another 5 hour drive home.  It was really an amazing weekend, full of wonderful scenery and meeting lots of new friends.  Although I think I prefer tramping in a wee bit smaller of a group, my first tramp here in New Zealand has just made me more excited for many more adventures to come.