Flat Hiking Trip To Silver Peaks

My most recent trip was a hiking excursion with my four flatmates. We did an overnight hike to Silver Peaks, which is only about a 20 minute drive from our flat to the start of the trail.

We woke up early Saturday morning (Early meaning 8 am) and started our trek. It took us about 3 ½ hours to hike to Jubilee hut, a tiny hut in the mountains where we were sleeping for the night. We dropped off our packs, grabbed a quick lunch and then went on an off-track hike to find a cave. We had a general idea where it was, but it took us about 2 hours of wading through waist high grass to find it. The cave was really neat, it was right on the mountainside and it had a platform, bench, and shelf built in to it for campers to use. There were a few hunters (they were hunting wild pig, there’s really not much to hunt here in New Zealand) staying in it for the weekend, so we chatted with them for a bit and then made our way back to the hut. Then we made the best dinner EVER, although everything tastes ten times better after a full day of hiking. We had a pasta, ground beef, vegetable stew, and it was so delicious. For dessert we had Tim Tam slams, my new favorite cookie and way to eat it. You take a Tim Tam, which is just a chocolate wafer covered in chocolate, bite off the ends, stick it in warm water and try to suck up the water through the Tim Tam, so it’s like the cookie is your straw. The hot water goes in to the cookie and makes it melt in to gooey chocolatey goodness, which you then pop in your mouth and enjoy. Voila! That is the Tim Tam slam.

The next day we had to make our way back, but the only way back to the car was via the Devil’s Staircase, which was just as brutal as it sounds. It was an incredibly steep trek that went straight up and up and up. My kiwi host Werner, who had never been on a hike as big as this, was less than thrilled to go up the Devil’s staircase, and halfway up he turned to me and said “The next time someone suggests we go hiking remind me to say NO”. But by the end of it I know he was happy to have conquered the Devil’s Staircase.

Overall it was a really fun weekend and all 5 of us made it through in one piece. It was a great flat bonding experience and it made me realize how much I’m going to miss Heather, Sammy and Erin next semester, as I am the only one in the flat who is staying for 2 semesters.

Here are a couple of pictures from the trip: a group picture at Jubilee hut, where we spent the night, a scenic picture of what we were surrounded by as we hiked, and a picture of the hut from a distance, if you look closely you can see it, it's the tiny little house in the midst of the mountains.