We spent the final leg of our trip in Hanmer, which is famous for commercial hot pools but we skipped those because we did them a few months ago. This was our final night of having nowhere to stay and looking for some random spot that might potentially be legal, so we headed out into the woods to scope out the trailhead for our hike the next day. We found a picnic area by a river that didn’t have a no camping sign so we settled in there. It was our only night of rain on the whole trip but wasn’t even bad – New Zealand weather’s got nothing on Seattle, it’s like paradise here!
The next day we headed out for our hike, which was a 6-hour day trip up to the top of Mt. Isobel, 1300m/4300ft. At this point we were all so burnt out on hiking that it was a very good thing this is probably the easiest hike out of everything we did. We climbed up through the woods for a while and then emerged onto a hill covered in snow and bushes, which was absolutely miserable to climb up because no matter where you went you sunk in up to your knees. After that it was just a rocky scramble along the ridge to the top, no big deal! The funniest part of this hike is that halfway up we saw a very familiar face – the same Irish lady we had met on Mt. Fyffe! This was convenient because she could take another summit picture of all of us, but it was so windy she just took a quick shot and then ran back down.
Hanmer is the city below
The top end of the miserable snowy bushy hill climb
The summit is the one on the right, it's higher than the one on the left but doesn't look like it from this angle
View from the top in the other direction from Hanmer - New Zealand, why you have so many pretty mountains everywhere?
Summit marker
Us at the top, haha. I am clearly not ready, also trying not to fall over from the gale-force winds, which you can see in the camera strap that got whipped into the picture
After our hike we headed back to our makeshift campsite where we’d left our tents out to dry in the sun. As we pulled into the parking area we saw, to our horror, a Department of Conservation truck and we all instantly assumed we hadn’t been allowed to camp there and were about to get slapped with a huge fine. Upon closer look, though, the truck was empty and there was no one in sight. We packed up our tents at lightning speed in case a ranger had just went into the woods to pee or something and was coming back soon to get us in trouble. We successfully made our escape – 4 successful nights of camping in random places without getting in trouble!
Our original plan was to camp somewhere random one last night and then spend the day in Akaroa, but Christchurch was literally on the way and we were all so tired everyone agreed we’d rather just head home, get clean, and do a day trip the next day. The shower I had was the best of my life – I’d only had one in 12 days, personal record! Camping is great because you so appreciate all the comforts of home when you get back like soap and head and a warm bed. We made it out of our awesome sleep to drive over to Akaroa but the weather was bad and we were all so tired that we just checked out the town, did the scenic drive, and came back home and called our trip finished.
Us and our crazy amount of stuff, unloading back in Chch
Here is the evidence that we went to Akaroa
Overall break was such a blast! It just made me that much more excited to do more outdoor stuff and see the vast majority of New Zealand that I have yet to get to. At this point I’m over halfway done with school here and it’s starting to get a little scary about fitting everything in, but everything I see will be great and I’m having the time of my life.
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