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New Zealand's Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk: A #nuventures Tramping Tale

March 23, 2015

NOTICE: The following words must be read in your best Scottish accent.

Now, let’s begin.

Once upon a time in a far away land, there was a little bearded lad. His name was Adam. Now, little lad Adam fell deeply in love and married a lovely princess. Her name was Lindsey. Oh, little lad Adam adored Princess Lindsey and her long brunette locks and Lindsey loved Adam and his burly beard just the same.

It gave them great joy to walk and talk and dream together hand in hand in the forests beneath the canopy of the beech trees. They loved listening to the songs of the birds and to be enclosed in the symphony of the chirping crickets. Little lad Adam and Princess Lindsey even lived in a little old van by the river.

One day they decided to walk around the grand Lake Waikaremoana, known across the land as a Great Walk.

Now, Great Walks were known to be long, distant tramps in faraway lands not for the faint at heart. The great walks lead trampers through beautiful and epic forests, up into the alpine and over mountains, along great rivers and around grand, majestic lakes. These walks and lands are to be respected by all who journey on their paths. The treks are known to be grueling, difficult and even treacherous. Hand in hand, the two were up for the great challenge.

Now, little lad Adam was strong and ripped with burling muscles from head to toe and was known far and wide as the most adventurous lad in the land. For Lindsey, although she was a princess, she was known to sneek on her hiking boots under her gowns and much preferred them to her royal slippers. With the wind to their backs, the two filled their sacks with provisions and strapped on their packs for their several day adventure. Off they went skipping into the forest singing tra-la-la-la!

STOP! Stop! The fairy tale, the accent, it all must end here!

We hiked until our feet were begging to fall off each night. We were tired. We were cranky. We had blisters on top of blisters forming. Thankfully, each bend of the trail brought new spectacular views of Lake Waikaremoana and the surrounding forests. The views were worth every bit of trauma to our feet.

The ugly ducklings settled here. There were tons of black swans!

Exhausted by the final night. Collapsed on the front porch at the hut.

The final morning. Looking forward to crossing this sucker soon!

Once the 46 kilometers were complete, we found our stashed kayak in the bush, blew her up and headed down the stream into the lake to get back to our campervan, Bernie.

It felt like we were back in college being forced to fulfill a torturous team building experiment. We stuffed ourselves and our huge packs into our puny kayak with knees to chins expecting ourselves to paddle across this monstrous lake. The first thirty minutes were fun, adventurous, stunningly beautiful and just lovely.

Then came the next hour of half smiles, beginning to sweat and trying to stay positive. We weren’t even into the main part of the lake, yet.

The next hour was full of desperate searching for the lake’s current (do lakes even have a current?), more resting than rowing, and constantly praying the wind would just blow us to the other side. The phase of complaining and hopeless heads down had begun. It didn't help that the cheap aluminum paddles kept breaking off into the water so we were constantly back tracking and doing circles to rescue them. Adam started having a silent melt down in the back of the boat.

We just were not getting any closer to the shore. We were stuck, (groan), in the same spot, (grunt), of the lake, (whine), and just couldn’t, (wimper), get any closer (sniffle) to land. (blubbering)

This was our view forever. We just couldn't get there!

Adam pulled himself together and led us through our final thirty minutes. Survivor mode, ya’ll. We dug deep and mustered up courage to get to the other side with our new regiment: 20/10’s. Twenty rows and a ten second break, twenty rows, ten second break, twenty rows, ten second break. Count with us now! 1…2…3…4…5…6…7…

YAHOOO!!!

We crossed the huge bugger of a lake in our record time of 3 hours with tears in our eyes, exhausted shoulder muscles and new rippling biceps!

What a mountain top moment! We were on land again!

So happy and relieved to be on the other side!

Now, the adventure wasn’t over just yet. Princess Lindsey had held her composure through the entire three day journey. Until, it came to her battle with the solar camping shower in the car park. The blasted bugger of a daggum bag with a cheap plastic hose got the best of her. Princess Lindsey fulfilled her role perfectly. Every fairy tale’s princess is entitled to her temper tantrum.

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New Zealand's Tongariro Alpine Crossing: A #nuventures Tramping Tale

March 13, 2015

Here it is! Our tramping tale of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing amongst the volcanic giants in Tongariro National Park, New Zealand.

We never imagined to encounter this deeply dry, volcanic and sulphuric landscape in New Zealand. We always think of majestic mountains with beautiful views of the water, streams and oceans beneath. This was a new view of the country!

The Crossing spans the length of the active volcano Mount Tongariro and runs next to another active cone Mount Ngauruhoe, famously known as Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings. It's pretty intimidating in person, too!

In all honesty, the day was bizarre! We felt like we were in lines at Disney World or Ikea, only on a volcano. The hike was a slow, single file line of thousands of trampers navigating the Crossing one after another. We were a tiny pair in what seemed like four thousand. We had to stay strategic, though, to remain ahead of hundreds of teenage girls on their adventure camp's culminating trip. Ah! It was a hilariously different hiking in nature experience with the girls' blasting speakers following us for the climb. " Too hot... too hot...'Cause Uptown Funk gon' give it to you. Saturday night and we in the spot. Don't believe me just watch!" Ow!

Beautiful day for a hike! Mount Doom showing it's composite-cone-self above.

What?! We ran into our friend Alister who we met a month earlier on the Pinnacles hike. This country is a small world!

The smell of sulphur permeated the air. Nausea building...

Going up and up in a world of desolate rocks!

The looming Mt. Doom was working the camera all day!

What I imagine the moon like- dry, dusty, lifeless.

Can't stop staring. It was like finally looking at the volcano we saw in our school books.

Hit a saddle and could see the other side of the mountain.

View at the summit looking back at all the steps we'd covered.

Away we go skiing down! The blue lakes were just stunning!

The view looking back at the volcano. Looks like the top blew right off!

See the dark black area? Recent lava flow... crazy! Right?

Made it to the other side of the mountain with no eruptions in sight! All down hill from here.

The volcanoes are still steaming. An eruption could happen any time.... but not today! Thankfully!

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A Week on a New Zealand Sheep Farm: Captured at the Laundrette

March 6, 2015

Captured at the launderette, I tell ya. I walked out of the laundrette angry for wasting our money and time on washing and drying our clothes for them to still not be clean. Jipped! Stomping out of the launderette with my brows scrunched, I thought, “Oh, geez. Who's Adam talking to now?” There was an enthusiastic, white haired man talking to Adam next to our van. I wasn’t quite in the mood, so I went to the opposite side to listen in from the driver's window. From the first moment of exchanging hellos, my mood transformed and David immediately felt like family.

David was drawn to strike up conversation with Adam, because he was eying our camper van, Bernie. David and his wife had traveled Europe in a refurbished ambulance (awesome!) and he was eager to reminisce and share stories.

“Oh, you could have done your laundry for free at our house. Come on home and stay with us.” Well, if you read one of our latest posts Just Say Yes, you know exactly what our response was. With a request like that, we were zipping down country roads following David and Nancy to their sheep farm!

Turns out, we had just been dreaming, praying and brainstorming how we could get to Alaska for five months to be a part of Calypso Farm's training program to learn everything from planting, harvesting, caring for farm animals, wool processing, wood carving, paper making, and metal work. Doesn't it sound amazing? This new farming pursuit started with a wish to learn how to knit and weave, but then became an excited curiosity to learn about every stage of making wool. I didn’t just want to know how to knit. I wanted to know the whole gambit of wool from raising sheep, farming, to sheering, to making the wool, to knitting wool products. Hey, let’s learn it all!

Well, God had something else in mind and answered our prayers immediately in the most random way, as usual. Turns out, we didn’t need to spend five months in Alaska to learn our interests and capacities in farming. We figured it out in just a week with David and Nancy. Boy, did they take us to school in all the subjects of life!

BB, their pet sheep. She loved her morning milk!

Now, hold your horses. The school bell hasn’t rung yet.

To get a feel, each day's main events were tea, tea time, and the biscuits (cookies) to go with the tea! Here's a general schedule of each day. Anything that wasn't tea, well, you do as much as you can before the next tea. We just thought this lifestyle was grand! We loved it!

Tea Schedule:

8 am: Brekkie
10:30 am: Tea
12:00 pm: Dinner
3:30 pm: Tea
5:30 pm: Tea

Each tea time would consist of David telling stories, reciting joke after joke and ragging on us like any granddad would. The times I was fast enough to throw a joke back at David, he would throw one right back at me. We never got ahead of him. Gee, he was quick. Nancy continually gave David the eye, with a, “Stop darling,” and nailed him under the table in the shins. The continuous joke over the week was we were always shocked David still had shins after all these years. Celebrating fifty years of marriage, the two hug one another and say, “I love you” often. After tea, David would retire to the organ, Nancy would follow suit and begin playing and singing the old hymn, "He Walks With Me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own..." We still have the song running through our heads!

In between teas, David led us through lessons.

Lesson 1: Rounding 'em Up!

The most efficient way to round up sheep is in the morning when they are fresh, but the most important ingredient is with your trusty sheep dog, Jazz. What a girl! She would hear David’s holler, “Round da bout! Round da bout, Jazz!” and would jump over fence after fence to get to the sheep and round 'em up!

Jazz, the black dot out there, working the sheep.

Lesson 2: Counting Sheep

No, not in your sleep. We found counting sheep to be a skill of experts. Adam and I needed more than one week of practice. Let’s just say, Adam and I both failed the task over and over. Turns out counting chaos is difficult and David couldn’t trust either Adam or I to get the job done, especially when I claimed 47 and Adam would claim 51. Thank you for grace, David!

Lesson 3: The Works

A part of sheep farming is sending sheep to the works (aka butcher). Jazz would round 'em up into the race. Then, the man from the works would evaluate each sheep by feeling their ribs. If you can feel the ribs, they aren’t ready and need more time to feed in the paddocks. If you can’t feel the ribs, they are ready and marked to head to the works. Did you know that the meat lamb is from young sheep, the lambs? The meat mutton is from adult sheep. Learn somethin' new every day, I tell ya.

See the sheep way down there, jumping over the fence? She knows she's going to the works and she wants outta there!

Lesson 4: Jack of All Trades

Sheep farmers are truly Jacks of All Trades. You gotta be able to do everything from building sheds and fences, be artificial breeding experts, know how to shear sheep, be a pro at ear piercing for tagging, be an accountant to track production, have investing skills, and be environmentalists to care for the environment and the land you have. Oh, these are just a few skills to have in your tool belt as a sheep farmer. Don't forget the #8 Wire!

On our way to work on the fence after tea!

Driving the four wheeler with a homemade top for the winter and rainy weather. Gotta have that #8 wire!

Field Trip: Making Homemade Jelly

On a trip to recycle, we met a neighbor Angie. Did we find gold! We were invited onto Angie and Gary’s dairy farm the next day to make homemade jelly of fruit, flowers, and rose petals all from her edible garden! Now this gets us pumped about permaculture! We were lucky enough to taste our first glasses of real, unpasteurized milk, too. Delicious and just like a milkshake.

My bucket of flowers and fruit from Angie's garden.

This is awesome! Meet Guy and For from Israel!

Draining the liquid from the skins of the fruit and petals.

And we finished the jar in less than a week! Thank you Angie!

Adventuring 'round the dairy farm with Gary and his pup!

Hiking to Chrissie's Hut... Gary's hunting lodge.

Lesson 5: Shearing Sheep

Let's just say it's an advanced dance with the sheep and 35 blows should do it and she's back through the gate but naked:)

Almost got to shear a sheep and be shed hands. We'll take seeing the best shearers in the world instead!

Lesson 6: Not Chickens, Hens!

How many times did we hear that? Ha! “They aren’t chickens, they are hens! Chickens are the chicks and hens are the hens." Okay, okay. Collecting the fresh eggs each day became a favorite task. Did you know farm fresh eggs don’t need to be refrigerated?

Nancy and David sell dozens of their farm fresh eggs each week to raise money for missionary children living around the world. Their commitment to praying for and supporting the children was remarkable.

Lesson 7: Love

Nancy and David became family within the week and through their immediate care, love, and hospitality, they have modeled a new way we want to host in the future. “We’re just us.” “This is us.” These phrases rang through our ears all week from David. Nancy and David opened their home to us spontaneously and have hosted 600 travelers from Israel over the last six years that are traveling New Zealand and need a night’s stay in Invercargill. They get a call, “Tonight? Tomorrow? Yes! Come on over!” Whatever the status of their home and whatever they are up to, their guests just jump right in as a part of the family and are included in every part of the day. Guy and Dor quickly became family, too!

Picking out the sheep's tag colors for their earrings in the wool shed.

After the week, our exam was to debrief and reflect on the overload of information we received. Now, we dream of the future days of getting up and jumping in our gum boots to go out to the hen house to collect fresh eggs. We have dreams of fruit trees and veggie gardens we can grow and harvest. We came away with an amazement of God’s love, His timing, and being able to meet His family on the other side of the world and immediately feel at home. We know we will look back and this week will be one of the most memorable experiences we have had throughout our nuventures. Thank you Nancy and David!

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New Zealand's Whanganui River Journey Great Walk: It'll Strengthen Your Relationship

February 8, 2015

"Well, we went down yonder on the Whanganui, never knew how much that muddy water would mean to us!" The Whanganui Journey is considered a Great Walk in New Zealand and traveling the river is the only way to see Whangnanui National Park. Heck yeah! We couldn’t miss out on this new type of adventure!

Most folks hire a Canadian Canoe and all the gear, but since we have our inflatable kayak we decided to save some dollars and kayak down the river. Only after a few hours, we realized the reason for the canoes and began looking longingly at all of the canoes that passed us. Our kayak has a wide, flat bottom causing tons of drag and making us take. for. ever. to get down the river. No rain in awhile meant the water was low and the current was slow. Other canoeists would just look at us curiously (we were the only “different” ones in an inflatable kayak), make small talk for the few moments it took them to effortlessly pass us, and would continue on. With constant paddling and no help from the river, we quickly realized the physical meaning of team work. We had no choice but to work together. To paddle separately was a waste of precious energy and wasn’t worth much as we had to paddle the 56 miles down the Whanganui.

True professional rowers, Ingrid and Berend from the Netherlands. They put us to shame:)

Just to share the stats, the first day we kayaked from 10:30 am to 7:00 pm! After 8 hours of kayaking, morale was low and I was tired and cranky. Where was this stinking campsite?!? Then, BAM! Ah! Ah! Something was stinging me! I went flailing all over the kayak and screamed for Adam to get it off me. “Lindsey, stop it. It’s just a splinter.” Had I been rubbing up on trees for the last 8 hours? I don’t think so! We had been in the middle of a river for the last 8 hours! With no help from Adam, I flailed around some more with screaming and crying. I knew something had stung me and through some adreniline flexing magic, I had thrown the wasps body from inside the back of my shirt to the front of the kayak. What a stinkin' bugger! The so called "splinter" was a daggum stinger! Geez, Adam!

Well, with exhaustion and shock, my flood gates opened and I had a complete meltdown. I just cried and cried and cried and cried even more. “I just want to go home. And, we don’t even have a home to go to!” We were in the middle of nowhere, on a river, with no way out except to keep paddling down the freaking river! We had two more days to go and I was thinking, “What have I gotten myself into.” While I was crying and moaning, the ridiculously slow moving current of the Whanganui brought us in sight of our campground along the river. Those green and yellow DOC signs became our best friends on that river. A sign of hope, a sign of progress and a sign of home for the night!

Well daggum, doesn’t that always happen. You have your meltdown and moment of giving up just right before you arrive at your destination. That’s where the quote comes from, “Never give up on a hike,” because you are probably 5 minutes from the best part.

Well, day one ended with exhaustion and a messy dinner with knocked over tea (our dessert for the day). This day was the worst and it was done. From there, the journey only got better. Day two we went less miles and kayaked from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Better! Adam found us a beautiful slot canyon at our lunch stop only after escaping the grasps of a monster spider and prehistoric eel.

Our evening was spent in a traditional ceremony with local Maori where they welcomed us onto their land with an introduction to their culture, their origins, who they are and enriched the speech with songs. Each of the guests that had canoed past us on the river were also invited. The men were given a wooden spear to designate who was speaking and who he was introducing. To enrich Adam’s introduction of the Nuberns, we chose to sing, “Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee, never knew how much that muddy water meant to me” for everyone. Needless to say, we received a standing ovation. Bah! Not really! The ceremony was an incredible international experience with Canadians, French, Dutch, Germans, Kiwis, Maoris, and the Americans all singing to one another of songs of home. What a night! To get us even more out of our comfort zone, once the guests introduce themselves, the Maori’s welcome the guests onto their land. To confirm the welcoming, everyone lines up and the hosts and the guests all touch foreheads and noses and breath in each others' spirits. What an intimate tradition to really get comfortable with one another!

Day 3 came and I didn’t want to get off the river. The last day of a long journey gave me fresh eyes and I loved it on the water. Not to mention, our arms were looking pretty ripped! The river gave us an incredible last morning with every bend covered in mist and the white cliffs and bright green bush slowly coming into view as the mist lifted from the sun’s heat. It was gorgeous! Our biggest rapids on the river came the last day and with Adam’s expert steering skills, we made it through each rapid without capsizing. The canoeists couldn't boast the same:)

Our new Canadian friends way ahead of us.

"The Whanganui, the Whanganui... the Whanganui, the Whanganui" became our chant along the river in the boat with just Adam, myself, the water, the birds and the sky out in the middle of nowhere.