Second Nature
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‘Kevin and Katrin hail from Germany, but have fallen in love with New Zealand. Two summers in a row they’ve come here. All year long they save up their Euros and anticipate their visit, keeping fit by exercising donkeys in snow-bound Bavarian forests.’ Lee and Sarah take their friends tramping along Robert Ridge to Angelus Hut, in Nelson Lakes National Park. ‘The weather improves after lunch, so we venture out to walk the basin rim. The circuit takes a couple of hours, an enjoyable but slightly hairy scramble across jagged terrain. The ghostly mist creeping around the tops lends an eerie sense of danger, and it’s easy to see how this environment can catch out the unwary. We’re glad to reach the homeward stretch, a steep but sticky scree slope which we gallop down in flying strides. At the lake edge, Lee and I strip down to our smalls for a swim in the frigid lake, but our friends chicken out. New Zealand one, Germany nil.’ |
