Real Life Stories

Tui AllenMountain adventures in New Zealand

"Last winter, the New Zealand Search and Rescue wanted volunteers to go and 'get lost' on our local mountain, Pirongia, which is a large local national park here in New Zealand and is really a huge area of jumbled peaks, valleys, cliffs, and wild bush country, rather than one nice tidy mountain. They wanted to have an exercise to practice new search and rescue skills under development.

I volunteered to be a lost party. My new Macpac GORE-TEX® jacket arrived a few days before our adventure. There were two of us and we were to be 'lost' for three days and two nights while they searched for several other lost parties and ourselves. We were to be the last ones to be 'found.'

As soon as we set off into the bush up the mountainside the bad weather set in. It rained, it thundered, it 'lightninged' and it didn't stop. My brand new jacket was immediately put into advanced test mode, being drenched, covered with mud, teetering on rock ledges in howling winds on high mountainsides and negotiating dense bush in pouring rain and wind.

The first day was climbing up the summit area, the second was wandering around up there 'hiding' as though lost, and the third day was for being located and brought back down to civilization again. Conditions the whole time were such that if I hadn't had that jacket, I would have been in need of a real rescue. Instead I was perfectly happy, warm and dry right up until the moment of our 'rescue' and all the way out of the bush on the last day.

Woohoo! It was a real adventure and an unforgettable experience - I want to get lost again!"

Tui Allen, Hamilton, New Zealand