Welcome To The Jungle

I haven't hit the bushes in more than a year, and out of nowhere in the span of two weeks I hit 'em twice. This last one was particularly interesting. Fully intent on giving their hardest to tackle the hardest a New Zealand tame-level jungle can give, four guys toughed the cold Saturday morning and went back to the jungle trek they conquered in three hours the week before: Waitakere Ranges. This is their story and the lessons I learned from it, served side by side.

First up: Sometimes the one bridge connecting you to your jungle can be blocked, but there's always a side door. And it may sound like cheating, but most likely it's actually harder than the original path. As we found out. The side trek was all the way up and down from the start. I was mentally prepared for the worst, and I had done the last leg of the previous week on a sprint, so I was in a good shape inside and out. Two others weren't so lucky. Whereas the previous week we started with a good 10-15mins of flat land to warm up, this time we hit ups and downs straight out, and it took out some breaths early. But therein lies lesson number two: if at first it's overwhelming, don't worry, you'll get used to it before you know it.

After what must be the longest fifteen minutes we've experienced in a while, we came to our designated intersection, where we saw the blocked path to the original bridge. From there we climbed the steep path that we descended on our way back the previous week. It hurt my knees going down that slope the previous week, so I was under no illusion that I could ascend it without trouble. We took it slow, but because we came upon it so soon from the start it still hurt us quite a bit. Up the top we got to the "Experienced" sign that would mark our gateway to our challenge. Three seniors with complete equipment and a map were sitting by the side of the path, studying the map. That was my ominous sign. If you see people with better equipment than you moving more carefully than you, in anything, I think it's a good time to start thinking a bit. But hey, I thought, we came for the challenge, so challenge we shall. And disappointed we were not.

The path straightaway went down in very steep slopes, considerably bigger steps than we've encountered before, narrower paths that took thinking to navigate around, and the lay of the land changed drastically like an overgrown rollercoaster of earth and vegetation. We went I think about 15-20mins like that until we hit the end of the path. Because we anticipated a challenge, we charged ahead to what looked like parts of the bush that people have passed by before. You can tell we've watched too many war movies and cheap thrillers involving jungles and stuff. We looked for signs of paths. We found ribbons tied on trees and followed that. I became suspicious when one such ribbon had some sort of trap under it. It was a rodent-type trap, as far as I could recognize, so I thought the ribbons were definitely not there to mark human treks. But we pushed onward anyway, sideways and under, taking in as many signs as possible. Quite some time later we hit a snag. It was impassable to city people like us, anyway. We hit a wall of greens, trees and bushes, so thick that we couldn't tell whether the next step would be land or a freefall. We heard the sound of waterfall in the background, so we knew a false step around there somewhere could lead to a very unfunny situation. After about half an hour, we decided to retreat back to where we last lost the path.

Lesson number three, then: save your game often. The problem is, real life doesn't have save points. In that case, at least take careful note of your steps if you're about to go down unknown paths. After some trials and errors, which thankfully didn't take very long, we found our last checkpoint when we saw the three seniors up the hill. Lesson number four: It helps if there are other people around. No man is an island. There is no shame in asking directions from those who got better equipment and a map. They pointed out the true signs of the paths, metal squares on trees, and thus the missing narrow path that we were looking for, almost hidden between two trees. Lesson five: Before you attempt something crazy, first you might wanna look around carefully for a more sensible solution. Needless to say, that half an hour of wandering around off the proper path was the highlight of the trip for me.

From that point on, it was more crazy ascends and descends, and a few river crossings. Now, every single time we were gonna cross a river, the sky would clear up. And then once we were all stuck in the middle, trying to figure out our next steps and not get our shoes wet, the sky would open and pour like crazy. Every single time. We had something like four crossings, and it happened at every single crossing. Eventhough we didn't stop and pray for protection before we left, but I'm sure we had protection. Under that confidence, I'll just say that this mystery is just further proof that God have an awesome sense of humour.

An hour or so later we came to the end of our experienced path and came upon the normal paths again. Lesson six: Once you've tasted the awesome bit, the normal bits will feel boring. It's a good break, but a good break can only keep you alive so much. Once you've recovered, you'll miss the challenges again. What was hard before became flat this time around.

We then came back to our first intersection, the blocked path that led to our broken bridge. There's a small river there that we've never crossed before. We thought, it was still early, just about two hours since we started, so hey, why not go for a little detour and cross this one too. As with the previous rivers, the whole mystery rain stuff did its thing again. Only this time that wasn't the only surprise we were to get. About ten paces after the river, we came upon a clearing, that turned out to be right beside our carpark. We didn't even notice there was an opening in the bush there when we went pass on our way in. Our adventure ended in a very anti-climactic way.

The final lesson, then, is this: What the eye has not seen, what the ear has not heard, what the mind has never thought of, that's what God has in store for us. We had no idea that the bridge would be closed. We never thought that there is another way to get in there, much less to get out. And most of all, we knew it was gonna be a challenge but we never thought we'd get lost in a tame-level trek. Arrogance can kill you, one of these days. Overall, it's been fun. Blessed are the people living in New Zealand that love the outdoors, for plenty are their fodder. We decided that we should do it again two weeks before Hills. I hope we'll get to do it for real, on another trek somewhere. Nature is one amazing creation, and I intend to enjoy it while I can.