Mount Somers

Getting into the swing of things around the lodge was pretty easy. It was actually a great deal I had going. Way better than I had first preconceived upon arriving in New Zealand. Not having to worry about paying for room and board is a huge relief, and the work I was doing was stuff I don’t really mind doing at all. I've become sort of the “lodge handyman” in a sense. I've painted a few rooms and patched a few holes in the walls and if something breaks, I fix it. Best of all, I don’t work past noon, and usually it’s around 11am when I get off, so I get about eleven hours of sunlight to do all sorts of outdoor activities. Methven alone has quite a bit to see, but drive no more than thirty minutes in any direction and you will find yourself in some of the most amazing places.

The weather here is quite fickle due to the fact that New Zealand is comprised of two main islands. They are large, no doubt, but even so, their size does affect the weather here. One day it could be completely sunny and hot, and by night you could have clouds rolling in and have rain all of the next day. I like it though. It’s keeps things new and exciting. Lately we have been having three or four days of really nice, hot weather, and then it seems to give us a break with a chilly day. Keep it interesting I think. One day in particular was overcast and cloudy, but Ray, Melissa and John (some friends and co-workers of mine) were determined to summit Mount Somers, which stands at nearly 6,000ft.

Driving out, we could barely see the base of the mountain through the thick cloud cover, but deterred we were not due to our excitement of our new adventure. Locking the car up and getting a good stretch in, we began our ascent, hiking along a roughly inclined trail through mud and slippery topography. At first everything was damp and wet with effervescent greens exploding with color against the rich browns of the soil and tree trunks that encompassed us in a living habitat, home to beautiful birds and small animals. It was nice to find out that there is virtually nothing harmful in NZ. There are no wolves or bears or poisonous plants, spiders or snakes. So we could go just about anywhere on or off the trail and not have to worry about being attacked, stung or bitten by anything.

Upward we went, until the scenery then instantly changed right before us as we came out from the forest into a grass plain. We were below the clouds, so we could just barely see the town of Methven below through the mist. Again, the terrain changed to high brush, which lasted only a kilometer or so until we hit the grasslands and rock. At this point the clouds had overtaken us. We were right in the middle of them, able to see only about twenty yards ahead of us. Melissa and John decided to head back. We had been hiking for over three hours already and were starting to get pretty tired. Ray was determined to make it to the top however, so I joined him as we continued through the clouds and as we crossed the plant line on the shale and loose rocks, we emerged through the clouds into beaming sunshine and beautiful blue skies. We were appalled at what was before us. We stopped and admired our 360 degree views of our surrounding mountain ranges with the sea of white, billowy clouds making the softest blanket over the farmlands and town that lay below. It was incredible; it was like we had reached the heavens and were looking down at all its glory. The clouds were so perfect that it looked as though you could step right onto them and walk across to the next mountain.

Stumbling over rocks, we tried to focus on reaching the summit as we had to force ourselves to keep our eyes off the beautiful view and on the wobbly rocks and movable terrain under our feet. The last hour or so was straight up as we joined the hawks that perched so elegantly on enormous boulders, looking out at the sea of white; seemingly admiring the same view we had. Tired and out of breath, we had made it to the top and boy was it worth it. Ray offering me a kiwi at the summit was the perfect treat as we sat there, looking out at several different mountain ranges and an endless field of white, reaching all the way to the distant ocean, which we could just barely see with a squint of the eye.

As we walked around the summit, we noticed a beacon directing North, South, East and West with arrows and text declaring the different names of mountains around us and how tall they were. In the center, below the compass was what looked to be some sort of mailbox. Opening it up we found a book in which various travelers had written in. Of course we had to do the same, scribbling our names, where we were from and a few comments on there. I decided to write down a phrase that an old friend of mine used to say all the time that has pertained to me quite a bit this past year. After doing so, we sealed the book back up and dropped it in the weather-guarded compartment and began heading back down the trail that took us a little over four hours to ascend. The kiwi’s we had eaten gave us a bit of energy and so we decided to see how fast we could get down the mountain. Probably not the best idea in the damp conditions as we entered back into the ocean of white, but none the less, we had a ton of fun doing it as we jumped from boulder to boulder, over large declining landscape and back into the dense, green forest where we had to slow down to due how slippery it had become.

Making it back to the car in one piece was a relief, and as I got in the car, I really began to feel how tiring that six and a half hour hike was because next thing I knew I was out like a light, dreaming about sheep and kiwis.