Mount Oxford Tramp

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to join a group of students going to Mount Oxford for a tramp (what kiwis call a hike). Tramping is pretty big here and a lot of people do multi-day tramps, but I thought starting with one you can do in a day would be a good introduction to tramping. They told us it would be a 6-8 hour tramp and when I looked it up online it said it was easy/medium- a great place to start, right?

Beginning the tramp- we would end up at the top of the mountain behind the hills you can see in the background

Pretty soon into the tramp I realized it was going to be more difficult than I had been expecting. The trail was pretty steep and there were not many flat areas to give your legs a break, so the hike up the mountain was quite strenuous. On the way up, I was walking with a couple other people that were new to tramping and we were able to take our time when we needed to rest. The good thing was that the weather was beautiful and it was sunny with a nice cool breeze. A couple times that I didn’t know if I could go any further, I stopped and looked out at the landscape and the surrounding mountains and farmland. It was so beautiful and calming!

Looking up at the mountains

View on the way up

Finally, around 4 hours into the tramp, we reached the peak of Mount Oxford. The elevation we had reached was 1364 meters. It was an amazing feeling to finally reach the top after such a long and difficult tramp up. We all stopped to eat lunch and enjoy the views.

To get down the mountain, you could either go back the way we had come or continue around the loop that would go by a waterfall and end up where we had started. Continuing on the loop would be longer, but I figured if I had already made it this far I might as well go all in and finish it. We started down the trail and pretty soon it began getting very steep again. There were lots of loose rocks and dirt which made it hard to not slip and fall. Going down was difficult as well, but in a different way. Now my muscles were really working and I could feel my legs shaking if I stopped walking. After a couple more hours of tramping, we came to the junction where we could go slightly out of our way to get to Ryde Falls. We walked for about another hour to get to a beautiful triple waterfall. Some people in the group got in the water but said it was really cold, so I refrained from getting wet, especially since I didn’t want my shoes to be very wet for the rest of the walk.

After sitting by the Ryde Falls for a bit, we got back on the trail and continued our tramp. At this point the signs said it was about 45 minutes back to the main trail and then another 2 hours and 30 minutes to the place where we had parked. I could feel the muscles in my legs getting tighter and the steep up and down of the last portion of the tramp was pretty difficult as well.

We ended up returning back to our cars about 9 hours after we had started. I was excited to sit down and rest in the car on the way back to campus. I looked at my phone to see how far and how many steps it said I had taken. It said I had taken almost 41,000 steps, gone 17.3 miles, and went up and down the equivalent of almost 350 flights of stairs. After getting back on campus I was so happy to get back to my room, shower, and eat dinner. My whole body was sore and it hurt to walk and stand up (now, four days later, I still am a little bit sore). However, I was super happy that I got to experience my first tramp in New Zealand and am excited to do more this semester! The views are so worth the work and tramping is the best way to see all the amazing natural features that New Zealand has to offer.