New Zealand - Woman vs. Wild

But before I say who won that battle...

I'm staying at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in far north NZ. The farm has been passed down for five generations and is surrounded by rolling hills and cows in the dell. I literally woke up this morning to mooing - I opened my eyes and the cows had decided to chew their cud outside my room. The owner's husband is Stefano - a fantastic Italian chef who makes our meals to order from scratch. Last night was pizza, tonight was handcut pasta. I won't mention the platter of tri-berry pancakes he served me this morning for fear of sounding like this pig in our yard - whose cousin I munched for breakfast.





It's a warm and wonderful place and wish I was staying longer than two nights.

View during meals at the farm -






Today I hiked for five hours. Literally put one foot in front of the other for that length of time. I decided to hike to a cliff that's called the Duke's Nose. This is the Duke far in the distance - after 1.5 hours I came up on this view and was like holy crap - that's still really far!








About an hour in I was up to my ankles in swampy marsh - my cute silver addidas now a lovely shade of mud. I waded through creeks, jumped over rocks and hung on to branches for dear life. This is the trail - I felt like I was Kate in an episode of Lost!








I must have missed the week in Bluebirds when I was five years old when they taught about the importance of the buddy system! In all five hours I did not see one other person. It was peaceful; I used the time to think, pray and sing aloud with my iPod (the only non-peaceful part was when I started thinking about how it would be a good place for an axe murderer to hang out). After 2.5 hours I got to nearly the top - only to summit you have to rock climb up a very steep chain.








There was no turning back so up I went and when I made it to the top I had my own little Rocky moment! And the view made it worth it!








Now getting back down the chain was when the momentary panic set in and I considered sending my Dad an emergency beacon with my GPS coordinates! It was a strenuous and liberating day - I had no idea how tough I could be. So in this episode of Woman vs Wild, woman won.











- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Kahoe, Far North NZ