For a natural science major, I kinda hate going outside. Nature is great and all and I want to help conserve it, but just so other people can enjoy it. Me? No, I’m good thanks. Trying to quit, actually.
Another issue is that my degree is full of what I refer to as the Outdoor Folk. I do not understand the Outdoor Folk and frankly, I am afraid of them. You know the type: MacPac, hiking boots, beanies, geometric tattoos in obscure places, and lots of khaki. I work with a couple of Outdoor Folk, and when one of them convinced me to let them take me on a wilderness adventure for Content™, I agreed. I’m often encouraged to go touch grass, but funnily enough, this gives me hives, and I used to purposefully give myself a grass rash to get out of PE. Sorry, mum. Anyway, I figured I could squeeze 21 years’ worth of outside experience into one weekend, and macrodose the shit out of that Vitamin D so that I could then retreat to my nice dark lair for another decade or so.
Unfortunately, it seemed I had once again bit off more than I can chew (and that’s saying something, cause I have a weirdly big mouth.) So I got in touch with outdoorsman Will, who’s kinda like if you gave a bush survival guide legs and an ego. He kitted me out with tramping gear and a health and safety briefing that I selectively ignored. The location? A surprise, at the mercy of tramp god Will. At last, this goth vers was ready to goth versus wild this bitch.
Saturday
7:00am
I’d set my alarm early so that I’d have enough time to do my hair and makeup and finish packing to meet for pickup at 9am. I sleep through my alarm. And my backups.
9:23am
I’m awakened to a “Dude, where the fuck are you?” call from Arlo, fellow Critic gimp and my photographer-slash-accomplice for the tramp. Apparently Will and Gemma, our chirpy ride, have been waiting outside Willowbank Dairy for the last half hour. That’s what they get for trusting a goth. They drop Arlo off to come corral me, a mission not unlike herding cats, or one big, feral, chronically tired cat. I stayed up until 1am choosing outfits the night before. I don’t care that we’re going to the literal wilderness – I need to look fuckable at all times. What if the Moehau (NZ Bigfoot) is real and wants to take me as his bride? Absolutely cannot look mid for him.
10:00am
Arlo helps me do up my chain harness, and after one last fit check (yup, Moehau-worthy) I finally submit to being dragged to the car. Despite this being my idea in the first place, I feel like I’m being kidnapped. Gemma sits at the wheel and is far too bubbly for this early in the morning. It’s basically the crack of dawn, for fuck’s sake. Will lugs my pack into the car, because I’ve already refused to lift it as well as offloaded as much of my water onto Arlo as possible. “Oh, this is going to be good,” says Will, concerningly.
10:30am
I fumigate the car with hairspray as I start to tease up my death hawk, only huffing it a little, as a treat. We stop off at New World, because the Outdoor Folks forgot to buy dinner, and apparently I have ten minutes to shop. “Surprise number one!” says Will. I didn’t have time to do my makeup, and I’m still working on my hair, which currently looks like if Robert Smith had been in a band called ‘The Disease’ instead. I spend $50 on salami, and contemplate death (either mine or Will’s, doesn’t matter). A child points at me from across the carpark. Back in the car, Gemma asks when I was last in nature. “No comment,” I say, a little huffily.
11:30am
Surprise two: we’re going to Silver Peaks. It sounds like a “mature” porn category, and is not appealing in the slightest. This is also revealed after Will and Gemma tried to convince us that we were going on an alpine tramp instead of a bush one. I briefly had gotten excited at the prospect of being a landmark mountain corpse, only to have the dream ripped away, much like the frozen flesh of a mountain corpse would be, actually.
12:00pm
I HAVE BEEN SWINDLED, BLINDSIDED, AND BACKSTABBED!!! I was promised an easy 2km tramp, but because Will is a dingus and forgot to check if there’s a locked gate or not, it’s going to be 7km! Fuck this, we’re gonna end up in Christchurch! Gemma drops us off, leaving me, Arlo, and Will for the tramp. This changes the game to one Outdoor Person against two Critic gimps, meaning that we could probably team up and eat Will if needed. I’m reluctantly buckled into my pack like a child being strapped into a deathly rollercoaster, and as we set off it is already apparent that I’m far too short to ride.
12:30pm
I just finished my Boss coffee, the first meal of the day. I’m wearing a sports bra filled with my vape, my phone (freshly charged to record these half-hourly voice memos), and a lot of boob sweat. I got to use Will’s folding saw to cut down a stick to use as a tramping pole thing. I am already feeling maternal about my stick, even though Arlo is carrying it because I got bored. The Outdoorsman even made me read a map, which gave me flashbacks to the Orienteering Field Trip of ’13, the first (but certainly not last) time I was truly humbled by a compass. There are a bunch of pine trees. I hate them. I’m so fucking unfit. Someone spots a flock of Paradise Shelducks flying overhead in formation, and I try and quack at them to carry me off to safety and WiFi, to no avail.
1:00pm
Okay, boob sweat journal. A quick stop. Vape. Fix my hair. I've got some ripe - and I mean RIPE - fucking blisters in my docs right now. My sexy new orthotics are turning against me, and my shoes are full of blood, sweat, and blister goo. I chow down on my salami like Belle Delphine on glass. I’ve got to cram food into my body so I can have some of the pills that keep my joints from dislocating – something I’d forgotten to mention to Will, who was less than impressed. Will has a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) with him, and even though I apparently can’t use it if he hurts my feelings, we won’t have to pull a YellowJackets if my hip pops out. We’re still on the gravel road leading to the actual track, and I already can’t keep up with Will and Arlo. I seethe at them, those long-legged floozies.
1:30pm
We finally make it to the Phillip J. Cox track, whose sign says it will take 2.5 hours, far from the 30 minutes I was promised. At least I’m actually in the wild now. We are ten metres in and I am already forgetting who I am. Salami salami salami. Am I getting the bush madness? Is bush madness a thing? I scream into the shroud of trees as we begin our descent. We pass two groups of other trampers in this first hour and a half, who to their credit don’t even remotely question why we look like two Boy Scouts being stalked by the Babadook. Will gives them a cordial “G’day” and threatens to teach me how to speak Outdoor. I would rather pull out my own intestines and use them to strap up my bleeding heels.
2:00pm
After half an hour of walking down a mountain – including crossing a fucking RIVER – we now get to walk up the next one. According to Will, this kind of steep crawling is called “grovelling”. It’s not nearly erotic as it sounds. It’s so fucking steep that there are ropes along the track in places where I need to use my minimal upper body strength to climb uphill. I did not consent to ropes.
2:30pm
More uphill. I think the fuck not. (Full disclosure: my voice memo for this one is just a series of guttural screams.)
3:00pm
Just had a good piss in the woods. As I squatted in the shrubs on the flattest bit of mountain I could find, admittedly marvelling at the view from the hill, I’m pretty sure a leaf went in my butthole. I also think I pissed on my shoe a little bit, but I'm not bothered. That's everyone else's problem now. Will feeds me a leaf plucked off a nearby tree and tells me they’re a delicacy. He seems surprised when I happily chew and swallow it, because the gag was that the spicy NZ Pepper Tree (horopito) leaves are meant to be disgusting. It’s actually the perfect thing to wash down all that salami.
3:30pm
We made it to the top… of the first hill. FIRST. The only thing that’s keeping me from stealing Will’s PLB and calling a rescue team for my mutilated sweaty ego is thinking about making it to the hut and eating my fruit cup. Looking out for shrooms along the way helps, too. I’m tempted to give Arlo the signal to ambush Will. Gotta be some good eatin’ on those meaty Tramping Club thighs.
4:00pm
Will walks back towards us with a concerned look on his face. “Ah fuck. Fuck. Sorry guys, I need to stop and do some nav’. I think we’ve gone the wrong way,” he says. My eye-gouging thumbs start to twitch. “Yeah, see, the problem is that there’s this blimmin’ hut just around the corner blocking our way,” he continued, pointing to the hut we’d been trying to get to for the last four hours. Fucking Outdoor Folks and their twisted dad humour. I run downhill to the Phillip J. Cox hut at long last, and start daydrinking.
5:00pm
I’m starting to enjoy nature just as more Outdoor Folks round the corner to the hut. Some of them are Will’s Tramping Club friends, because of course they are. I’m bad with names, and also people, so in my head I refer to them each interchangeably with words like Khaki and Tent. Scroggin, perhaps. They’re very welcoming and friendly, which startles goths, so I take Will’s saw and run off into the woods to cut down some dead branches for the tent instead.
6:00pm
Disaster strikes. An oopsie whoopsie, even. Will wanted me to whittle down the sticks I collected and try to pitch the tent with them, because face it: me trying to put up a tent would be hilarious. It did not go well.
Me: “Wait, do I cut it this way, or like this?”
Will: “Like that. And th-”
Me: “FUCK.”
I cut Will off, and almost my thumb too. I put more force behind my unicorn switchblade than necessary, and promptly drove the knife into the meat of my left hand. Blood splattered onto the stick. I could see the layers of fat and flesh poking out of where my thumb meets the back of my palm. Will was surprised that I didn’t flinch, but that’s just because I’m so goddam brave. I pinch the cut closed as Will and Boot flock around me with first aid kits. I remember to pose for photos. The wild may be serving my ass on a platter, but I am still serving gothic audacity.
7:00pm
Dehydrated mashed potatoes for dinner. I refuse to help due to my crippling injury, even though I’m so brave about it.
8:00pm
I start taking off my makeup and brushing out my matted hair to settle in for the night, ‘cos apparently Outdoor Folks have an early bedtime, and not the 2am I’m accustomed to. My OUTC sleeping bag is a tight-fitting coffin model, which is extremely goth. The goon is passed my way, thankfully. I need it after being made to play card games.
Sunday
4:00am
I wake with a bladder full of goon and stumble outside to piss in the woods. I try to get to sleep but can’t, so resort to using the empty goonbag reinflated with air as a pillow for my arm while I play on my phone.
7:00am
I am still awake. Will wanted to wake up at 7 to start the tramp back. I let him sleep out of spite. Gemma leaves North D on a rescue mission to come meet us with first aid supplies, as even though I am very brave my wound is getting nasty, and with a rainy day forecast it’s only gonna start stewing under the bandages.
11:00am
With a belly full of more mashed potatoes plus a pancake provided by Scroggin, we finally head off. Scroggin and the other Outdoor Folk had left earlier, being blessed with the ability to function at the crack of dawn (10am), leaving me with Will and Arlo yet again. I don’t own a raincoat, but I’ll be fine in a leather trench coat, right? Right?
11:30am
It is slippery and wet and I hate everything. Gemma met us and switched out my pack for her little Outdoor Folk backpack, which is lighter and complements my fit more. I have rescinded to communicating in whines, mews, shrieks, and cries of “Jesus fuck” with every muddy downhill step. Will, hearing my constant blaspheming, asks if I’m religious. “Only sexually,” I say.
12:00pm
Mother nature fucked me over so good that I got jelly legs. I manage to wobble and slide back down the mountain, including the fun experience of abseiling down ropes with a slashed open hand. I slip on my ass four times. Luckily we kept the stick from yesterday (my child). We cross the river again, and I emerge a broken man.
12:30pm
Uphill now. I give up and try to take a nap on the side of a track. I want to burrow into the dirt but Will won’t let me. And everyone refused to tuck me in! The one time I have a chance to nest in a pile of mud and be covered with a pine frond and no one tucks me in!!! I’m so brave.
1:00pm
I’m ’bout to go full Lord of the Flies on a motherfucker. I make one final attempt to nest, this time by weaving a bunch of sticks together in a bush. As I lay back in it and looked up at the sky, rain poured. So I've angered some god, I guess, but I am an angry god in return. Will interrupts me. “Tāwhiri-mātea, god of the winds, is way scarier than you.” I retort: “Okay, well, how about you unclench your butthole you uptight little shit? It’s not good for your pelvic floor, man, take it from me.” I was hungry.
1:30pm
Exit log. Actually, I wish I could, but I'm constipated. Anyway, exit log because WE MADE IT OUT OF THE BUSH! Still have the gravel road to go, though. But I've conquered the bush! I dug a little hole in the ground and I fucked it. Metaphorically. I am the climate tirade! I'm the ensuing storm. I am one with nature. My brave little tummy hurts.
2:00pm
Mist! Mist everywhere! I want to succumb to the fog! Will had to hold me back from succumbing to the fog, because I stared down the cliff face and wanted to play in it. I wish to return to the fog from whence I came. It’s the bush madness. I AM the bush madness!
2:30pm
The end is in sight. I insist on making Will piggyback me across the threshold.
3:00pm
This part is all a blur. The glory of nature is far too much for my withered, introvert goth brain, and when juxtaposed with the taste of civilisation that was seeing Arlo’s car waiting for us, I went full ooga booga. Yes, you read that right: I stripped off all my clothes and covered myself in mud, victorious. It was never goth versus wild. I AM the wild, BABY! I do still wanna go home though. I'm literally so brave. I have a major flesh wound on my hand.
Aftermath
I ended up having to get five stitches in my left hand, so that’s one point to the wild I guess. However, through my self-diagnosed bush madness I found that I am the wild, which is a draw. Maybe the real wild was the friends we made along the way, like Boot and Carabiner or whoever. Okay, fuck it, let’s face it: maybe the only winners, like, ever, are the real Outdoor Folks. On the other, non-Frankenstein hand, the next day I packed and smoked a whole lot of Mother Nature, so as far as I’m concerned that’s a point to Goth and I fucking won. GOTH VERSUS WILD, BABY!