In the interests of keeping this thread alive:
Remote Places in New Zealand
Between the age of about 12 and 24 I spent many years in the New Zealand backcountry.
Locally we call it tramping; (the North American word is backpacking, in the UK hiking.) The other unique aspect that may not be clear is that NZ has a tradition of "open" huts, ie anyone can use them, and most folk will ensure they are left in the same or better condition than they when they arrived.
A night or two holed up in one of these modest little shelters during a honking wet westerly storm, raging at its rudely interupted path around the Southern Ocean is an experience never forgotten. Listen to the wind howl and rain rattle, adrift in a wilderness, just several friends cocooned in this aged womb, warm drinks, a crappy old paperback, a stagger into the cold darkness for a pee, a one pot stew brim full of calories cooked slowly over a sputtering primus. The map is peered at in the candle light, options tossed about, weather, food, time, enthusiasm all mixed up with leadership and trust. If it is early in the trip, there will be jokes and stories, one ups and put downs. A longer trip has longer companionable silences, best savoured in the pitch black storm howl, deep in the night, deeper in thought.
This little website is my current little "nostalgia shot". Most of the spots are so remote that I've only been to three of them, and most will see at the most two or three parties a year. When stuck in some god-forsaken pumping station at the very least I have some great memories to call on.
