The night I spent as a Cave-woman

The past 24 hours have been quite the adventure. I set out with 9 of my friends to go camping at Long Beach, a place not too far (or so we thought) from Dunedin, where we heard there were beautiful caves that could be slept in. So we packed up and left yesterday, Friday morning, for the bus to Port Chalmers, and from there we intended to hike to Long Beach and set up camp there for the night.

Well, we took the bus to Port Chalmers and then saw no sign of a hiking trail. We found a sign directing towards Long Beach, but figured we should probably ask for directions. We went to the Port Chalmers library where a lovely librarian lady gave us directions to Long Beach and said if we walked along the road it should take us a couple of hours.

So we set out! But after carefully looking at the map and reading signs we realized our destination was a good 12 kilometers away, along a winding and steep road. Thus, hiking would take us probably about 6 hours at the least, with all the stuff that we were carrying. So we decided to hitchhike, which in New Zealand is legal and safe (As long as you are not dumb about it, meaning I would still never do it by myself). And about 5 minutes in to this hitchhike plan a man with a pick up truck pulls up and picks all 10 of us up! It was insanely lucky! So my friend A.J. hopped in the front, and the rest of us hopped in the bed of the truck. Now this probably all sounds terrifying and dangerous, but this is not America. The guy was on his way past Long Beach, and he drove really slow and carefully, so we were perfectly fine. After riding in this truck for about 25 minutes we realized we were crazy for thinking we were going to try to hike this road.

Then we arrived at Long Beach, and had the whole day to enjoy it! We played Ultimate Frisbee, swam in the ocean, and chatted with our cave neighbors who were also camped out for the night. Then we had a bonfire and roasted hot dogs and vegetables and listened to a guy playing guitar around the fire. It was a hippe/caveman experience, and it was awesome.

This morning we woke up to watch the sunrise over the ocean, which was insanely gorgeous. As we sat there enjoying the serenity of dawn, a man walking down the beach came up to tell us there was a Tsunami warning (As a result of the earthquake in Chile), and it was supposed to hit around 9 a.m. Well, that got us up and moving. We left the beach and climbed up the first hill of the road, and decided to sit and watch the Tsunami, because it wasn’t supposed to be that big. But then it just wasn’t coming and we thought we better get a move on, and conveniently a guy headed to Dunedin drove by and stopped, and asked us if we needed help. My two flatmates, my friend, and myself hopped in the car and he gave us a ride back to Dunedin, where he was headed anyway. Again, it sounds sketchy, but taking rides from people happens all the time on the South Island, and I was in a group so it was perfectly fine. The rest of our group also hitchhiked back rather easily, some got a ride all the way to Dunedin, but the rest got a ride to the bus station in Port Chalmers, which was enough to get them home.
It was overall a most interesting and fun experience, and I think the Tsunami warning this morning greatly aided our chances of getting a ride back from Long Beach. Next time we will have to investigate our hiking trail a little better, but it all worked out well in the end.

PS I would add pictures, but the picture uploader is not working! More to come once this thing cooperates.