Tramper girl

I mentioned a couple of months ago that I intended to take each of the kids for an overnight tramping trip sometime this summer. With summer slipping away, I'd only managed to get Naomi up Mt Pirongia a few weeks ago. So we planned to head out to the Kaimais at the next suitable weekend, for me to take Joanna to Waitawheta Hut and Mel to camp with the other two at Dickey Flat. This weekend suited us, and the weather had been looking mostly OK, so we decided to go, even though the weather forecast had worsened. Joanna and I were dropped off around 11am and we started the 9km walk up the old tramway (that carried huge Kauri logs out until the mid 1920s). It was drizzling pretty much the whole way, but we stayed dry enough and warm enough under our raincoats that it didn't really worry us. Joanna walked the whole way except for where I had to carry her across the river - it was way, way too deep and fast for her to even consider trying to walk herself. We arrived at the hut after about 5 hours walking (it's rated as a 3 hour walk, so I don't think Joanna was doing too bad to do it in that time!). Someone had got the fire going in the hut so it was nice and warm inside. We relaxed for a while and then had some dinner. Joanna was in bed at about 6:30 and slept perfectly until just before 7am when she woke up needing the toilet! After consuming loads of porridge, we headed back down the track in pretty persistent rain and found that the river level had risen an appreciable amount overnight. The river crossings were deeper and faster than yesterday, but we managed to get across safely enough - a friendly tramper gave us a hand to make sure we didn't get in trouble! I ended up carrying Joanna some of the way - she was a little tired by this time.

All up, it was actually a really enjoyable trip, even if it was raining the whole time. Joanna had heaps of fun and stayed plenty warm enough (those two are definitely related!). Photos up at flickr as usual.

(And compare this to 2 years ago with Ben: photos of that trip here)