Going to a Dawn Parade on ANZAC day is a yearly tradition in our household. This year my Dad decided he was going to Tinui for Anzac day for a change with Sarah and Aunty Bev. (Historical fact: Tinui is where Anzac day and the dawn parade first happened. The township carried a cross up a hill overlooking the town and erected it in remembrance). He said they had a ceremony, morning tea and then a walk up the hill to see the cross. Anyway, it sounded like a new thing to do so I tagged along.
We got there and Dad pointed at the hill and said “That’s what he have to walk up. Can you see the cross?”
I laughed. I thought he was joking. Then I realised he was serious and I was like “dafuq?! That’s a mountain! >:(”
So we did the Anzac ceremony thing they had first and then we started the hike. The hikes a 50-60 minute walk, 3kms up this massive hill (serious, it’s like half a mountain). Selena and I turned it into a Dora adventure (I hope you’re up with your Dora the Explorer references to understand this!):
They organizers were well organised. Before we started we had to sign in to say that if anything happened to us while on the farmers land it was our own fault and they accept no responsibility. Then we were told that there would be quads going up and down shepherding the old and infirm people to the top and that if we were in trouble to wave one down and they could assist.
Off we went along this nice flat path following this stream. Then Dad led us up a not-so-shortcut up this steep bank (to cut out 2 minutes walking time...), and we started our uphill trek.
But the uphill didn’t stop, it just went up and up and up. First it was dusty so whenever a quad drove past you were blinded by the dust, but then the mud started.
And the mud spots were very frequent. If a quad came, you had to quickly move as far away from the mud as possible as the tyres on the quads flicked up the mud and mud spray went everywhere.
Onwards we hiked, Dad and Sarah plow’d ahead, Aunty Bev fell behind and Selena and I were knackered as fuck.
I tried running:
But that was way too difficult and didn’t do that for long. We trodded on, and with each passing of the quads, we grew resentful of the old and infirm.
1.5kms on, we’d trudged up steep tracks, trod through and around mud, had mud sprayed at us and we were fairly parched. Then we saw a quad coming down the hill, on its way to collect more elderly and infirm people and people in stress. So Selena stuck her hands up, and we waved that bastard down!
“You alright?” he asked.
“Yea!” we said.
“Alright...” he replied.
“Can you give us a ride to the top” we asked/pleaded.
We clambered onto the quad and away we went. Up this steep motherfucking path that was coming up:
We got to the top of the path, and Dad and Sarah were waiting there for us. Dad eye-spyed us first, took an elderly mans walking stick off them and tried to prod us off. The driver was well confused, asking him if we were meant to be walking to which Dad replied yes. We were like “no, no, no, no!”, and so the driver (now our getaway driver) sped off and away we went!
About ¾s of the way up some man pointed at his younger son and asked for the quad man to take the child (would’ve been about 6) because he was slowing him down and so the child was handed over and away we sped. The judging looks we were getting from the hikers before the pick-up of the child had changed from judging/you-lazy-buggers to judging/maybe-it's-ok-because-they-have-a-small-child-with-them looks.
We got to the top without any other delays and the cross was shit. Like, well shit. It was tiny and made out of corrugated metal or something...
The view was shit too. All there was to see was the small town of Tanui (think Reperoa ‘cept smaller) and a shit load of countryside.
I got Selena to stand near the small child for a photo:
There was nothing to do up there and space to stand was running out quite quickly. Selena and I found a nice place to sit (wasn’t to thorny/didn’t have a shear drop) and we waited for the rest of our party to arrive. We waited for ever then finally they did arrive.
“You see those two girls down there?” Dad said to everyone around him,
“They came up on the quad!!!”
Then he threw some water at us.
Dad and Sarah came, saw, and then left quite promptly while Selena and I stayed around in the hopes of getting this particular rock to ourselves for some photos (Aunty Bev stayed too but we had no idea where she was and thought she had gone too).
Then we started the 3km trek downwards.
We had to be careful not to slip:
Or lose our shoes in the mud:
Every milestone was cheered:
And we began to wonder why we hadn’t caught up to Aunty Bev. She’s not as speedy as Dad and Sarah and we thought she’d left shortly before us. Then we heard:
“Hello girls!!!”
And Aunty Bev went past us, grinning madly on the back of a quad.
We weren’t without adventures on the way down. We found a bush Maori:
She was pretty fierce:
Jokes, 'twas only me with my brand new walking stick!
There was more mud:
And we considered taking a quad down, but we knew we were past the half-way mark so there wouldn’t be much further to go.
Thank fuck there wasn’t. We were soon on the home stretch. We could see Dad, Sarah and Aunty Bev!
And the terror of Cross Mountain was over. Ain’t gonna be doing that every Anzac Day!
