Adventure 1- Castle Hill and Carroll Hut

This was an amazing first weekend out! It started out as a total sh*t show at first. We had to hike down the highway with all our bags and a giant crash pad to find the rental place since we over shot it on the bus only to find out that our car reservation got messed up. Luckily the guy at the rental place was really nice. He took us to another rental place that had a car for us and we even paid a few dollars less than we were going to originally. We got the 8 seater van, picked everyone up, stuffed all the luggage in the car and began our journey. After an hour or so of anticipation I finally got to Castle Hill- a mecca for climbers such as myself. It was completely amazing! The climbing was insane and the sights were beautiful. We played around there for about 3 hours until we decided to find somewhere to camp. We ended up finding a free place to camp, hiked about a half mile to get there and set up camp in the dark-that was interesting.

The night was freezing! I woke up so many times unfortunately. The morning led to a beautiful sunrise, we packed up camp and headed down. We stopped at a nice little cafe and I had my first New Zealand meat pie....MMMMMM it was yummy.  after that we continued on to our next destination. We finally found the trail head and began our 3500 ft climb straight up a mountain pretty much. Ive never hiked a trail that was so steep! It took 2.5 hours and we finally reached our destination (Carroll's Hut). We relaxed, ate, and then went further up the mountain and explered the valley some. It was really cool cause we were hiking in a cloud the whole time, it was so foggy. My hair even got wet and curly again- no need for a shower ha! After we came back to the hut for dinner and relaxation. All 8 of us slept on the top bunk (meant for 5) because another group joined us in the hut. We all just hung out and talked on the top bunk until bed and had a blast doing so. There were so many funny quotes form that night.

Sunday we hiked down, it was a lot easier than we expected and no injuries (THANK GOD!). we drove back to the rental place, returned the car and caught the bus back. Everyone ate so much when we got back and just laid around the rest of the day. Everyone is sore and exhausted but it was well worth it.  So many good memories and pictures taken.