fairy tuff

So today we did our first real hike in New Zealand. We went to Fairy Falls – literally on the back porch of Carey Park’s grounds. It was gorgeous (fyi – I think I’m going to be typing that word A LOT here...). We started out a little late on the hike – probably around 4ish, so it was a race against the clock. The hike was muddy – uber muddy. So my new hiking boots took a beating. Don’t they look hard core?

Around 40 minutes into the hike we came upon the falls… so big! So lovely! They were really incredible… it was a 5 tiered waterfall with pools at the bottom of each… and we had to cross 3 of them. Yep –jumping from rock to rock, we made it. Again – hard core.

After the falls we thought it would all be down hill since we climbed what seemed like thousands of man mad stairs to get to the top… but no… it kept going up, up, and up. I could feel the glutes screaming by ½ way! We made it back to the car just before sunset… perfect timing.

Mind you, this whole hike we saw NO ONE. Not one car when parking, not one soul on the trail, no litter, no noise aside from nature, no nothing. It was so great. Such a different feel than many of the state trails we’ve been on. Obviously, in true Dunlop style, we forgot to bring our camera… of course… but if we don’t make it back to Fairy Falls, we’ll for sure be doing many other “wet hikes” as Josh calls them, so hopefully we’ll have more photos in the future.

Currently, we’re staying at Carey Park. After talking with Kelly Burch, we think we may call this our home base for awhile. He’s given us the opportunity to make our own schedule (3 days this week, off the next, full time the week after, etc, etc) so we can focus on traveling. Pretty amazing. Josh and I have truly been blessed on this adventure of ours with incredible people popping into our lives along the way.