TEAM XTREME: Otahake Hot Springs

A little out of sequence but better late than never. The long awaited round two. After the success of our (Katie Pie and Em's) new years tramp there was always going to be a round two and what better plan than a relaxing hike in to the Otahake Hot Springs. A long hot soak under the wild stars drinking premium NZ beer. But the best laid plans always go astray and in true team xtreme style as Jono would say it was "poorly executed".

4 pm start always helps to make life a little interesting .... the race against the darkness!!

Determined that we would be sitting in the hotpools by nightfall we pushed on. The first river was a little higher than we expected and with some sloppy foot work by Kate it claimed its first victim in the crossing. Just paying her dues for not visiting the great outdoors for so long. Undetered we continued determined to make the mutiple crossings of the Otahake river rather than take the long arduous flood track. We tackled the first two crossings in true style, believing ourselves triumphant. But as it turned out the river had other ideas and was not about to let two not so tall ladies pass. We attempted to scale the cliff to get past but as we got higher and higher the small trees became rather sparse and we thought better of it especially as it was starting to get dark. So we back tracked and took on the flood track in the dark. Big ups to Katie Pie and her night time navigation but in the end we conceded defeat and pitched our tent precariously against a tree on a rath er steep slope. It seems that camping in the middle of the track has become a bit of a theme of ours trips away together!