Banks Peninsula Day 1

Our first trek! We started in Onuko Bay at these beautiful huts that felt more like Hawaii than New Zealand. We started walking the next morning and climbed 2,000 ft in about an hour. Unfortunately it was completely socked in and we did not get to enjoy the views but the weather gave it a somewhat spooky feeling that was fun. This weather also meant that our shoes were soaked through in the first 10 minutes resulting in an entire day of hiking in drenched shoes... hence the picture of Kyle's foot.
After hitting the summit we descended into a rain forest feeling tree canopy. It had everything from ferns to waterfalls. It was damp but amazing. Everything was so green and we saw about 30 different waterfalls. We had lunch in Flea Bay which was quite cute. After lunch we got a little sidetracked on the wrong path but it resulted in both dolphin and seal spottings! After our thirty minute detour we found ourselves right in the Sound Of Music. If you picture Julie Andrews singing in the mountains you are picturing exactly what we were looking at. The huge fields expanded right along the coast line. We were up on cliffs looking out across beautiful bays. Sheep were grazing in the pastures of the meadows and the purple wild flowers put the finishing touch on it all.

It was a total of 6 hours of hiking, 11 miles, and 3,000 vertical feet that was our day 1. To say the least we started off our trekking with a bang.

Day two coming soon...

This does not even begin to describe Kyle's feet. There was an entire layer of skin attached to his sock as well