There is a distinct sound when your shoe gets stuck in gooey mud and is painstakingly wrenched from the vice like grip of the watery clay that makes me smile...which is very good, because there was a lot of that during my hike through the Waharau National Park in Hunua this weekend. Before departing on Friday to drive the hour and a half outside of Auckland I was vaguely aware of the fact that it was supposed to rain. By the time I arrived at the little campsite there were rumors flying around that a storm was coming in that was the worst this part of New Zealand had seen in decades. Radar scans with big menacing, ominous looking red dots and scans were passed around and words like "gale forces", "extremely high winds", "outdoor activities discouraged", and "downpour" were uttered more than once. It became very clear to me the difference between Kiwi trekking (known as 'tramping') and trekking in the US:

-If I were in the US, the response to this forecast probably would have been to cancel the trek, go drive to the nearest movie theatre, or go back early...

-In New Zealand, the conversation of what to do went something like this:

"Do you all still want to give it a go?"

Collectively "yeah, definitly, sounds sweet, mate!"

"Alright, let's get going"

On our way to the park my car (Tony, the driver, Jenny, Tom (all three Kiwis), me, and D (from Malaysia)) encountered quite a lot of opossums; which apparently have been eating the New Zealand countryside for decades now and are not welcomed by Kiwis.After thirty minutes of driving (the park is located about 1.5 hours Southeast of Auckland) we nearly hit a opossum which stopped in the headlights and stared for a solid five seconds before running off the road.Tom yelled "nah man, you got to hit those!" Tony was a little bit reluctant and while discussing the opossums we came upon another one....this one not as keen to keep its life as the other one.It was pitch black out and with the curving back roads it was impossible to swerve out of the way and…well, as Tom then chuckled and said "Oh, good on ya, mate! One down!"

Once we arrived and got all set up (no tents this time, but some nice shelters, which was great considering the amount of rain that we got) we did a Burma trail. Basically, a Burma trail is someone goes out ahead of time and ties a rope all around a forest (around trees, through mud, anywhere) and then you are blindfolded and you follow the rope through the trees until the end. It sounds kind of odd and unnecessary and why-would-you-ever-walk-through-mud-blindfolded? Well, it is wicked fun. I had to feel my way through the forest, not knowing where I was stepping, and not knowing when someone was going to jump out of nowhere and scare the hell out of me...which happened quite often. I wish the one we did was longer, but as it was, it was awesome.

On Saturday we got up, saw that it was raining, and went tramping anyway. I am so glad that we did. You can be told about New Zealand, you can see pictures of it, and you can read about it, but nothing can really describe it. The forests, more like jungles, that we trekked through were so vibrant. I have never seen such a lush and thick forest, it just...breathed. The rain, harder at some times than others, was a backdrop for all the other noises that came from every direction. It looked like something I had read out of a book, the drapped vines and dripping leaves that almost engulf the pathway. It is amazing just how green things are here. I didn't even know that plants could BE that green, but there they are.

The best part/worst part was the lactic acid build up we all got from the hills. There were an endless supply of hills, with no plataus in between. I would trudge up one hill and see it turn a corner above me and think "oh, wonderful, it must even out", only to find that as I turned it continued going up....after that happend three or four times in a row I started to resign to the fact that I was going to be climbing for a while. It was made slightly harder by the fact that the ground was made up of this bright orange slippery clay material that glooped and globbed and mushed with every step. GOOD stuff. :) We would all get very hot and warm as we climbed and it is remarkable how quickly we all cooled off the second we stopped to take a break (which were few and far between thank goodness). Within seconds your hands go numb, and you start to huddle into yourself to keep in the warmth. Your sweat starts to stick to your clothes and all of a sudden it doesnt matter if you have a waterproof jaket, you are wet anyway.

Thankfully we all made it back okay and the rain really never got that bad, neither did the wind. We huddle close to the fire and got up the next morning and journeyed back to Auckland (still in the rain). It was so good to get out of the city for a weekend; there were some beautiful landscapes that would have been probably a bit more incredible if the sun had been shining...but still...with the rain there is still a sense of majesty that I can't describe. It is more a feeling than something that can be captured in a photograph...the dripping of the rain off of my jacket, the squish of my shoes, the hazy feel to the sky, the fact that everything seemed SO alive. John Mayer was right, "you have to overcome trying to fit the world inside a picture frame", sometimes you just have to see it yourself. This time I did. :)