Arrowtown - Wedding & the Summit

February 18th. The morning of the wedding was a rush. After our little morning routine, plus feasting on waffles & avocado toasts, we scurried around to clear our stuff out of of the airbnb. We head over to the hotel we’ll stay at through the weekend, & Corey runs some errands to help the wedding crew - kids and I make friends with a goat hanging outside, & hang in the well-worn travelers lounge with sticky tables and loud vending machine hums. We play some games while we wait to check in.   After an hour or so I go to check in….& the woman looks for our reservations…having trouble finding it….then suddenly gives me a disheartened look..

"So your reservation is for March 18th. ...."

Ohhhhhh no. 

Shoot.

That's a month away, the hotel is completely full, and the wedding starts in about 2 hours. 

Corey pulls in a bit later *face palms* and scrambles to figure out a plan while I work on some deep breathing and adjusting myself for a sudden pivot of plans knowing it's about to be a scramble to get ready for the wedding and figure out where on earth we're gonna sleep that night.

He finds a place in Arrowtown, that's actually less than 10 min from the wedding venue.  The one catch is that it's a campground, which means we're about to be thrust into camping whether we're ready or not! Good thing we bought some sleeping bags the day earlier, having no idea we’d need them so soon.

We hit the road.  Pulled in, scrambled to get some lunch and get dressed (thank goodness the bathrooms were wonderfully clean, complete with cheery music playing!), and head to the wedding in a rush.  Only to find out we had another hour until it started, after all, whewh. 

Celeste and Tom's wedding was absolutely stunning.  Aunt Therese hand-made all decorations, which filled this little venue with such an earthy and natural beauty.  The kids were asked to sprinkle flowers along the walkway before the bride.  The ceremony was simple, elegant, and full of laughter with these two adventurous spirits.  Speeches were wonderful, and was great to hear Uncle Steve get the crowd roaring with laughter.  Spreads of food were fantastic and even a homemade cake by the bride and groom! A major highlight of the evening was definitely the traditional Scottish dancing, that got the entire room full dancing, linking arms, spinning, turning, and bopping around to the lively music. Little Mel had a grand ole time linking onto Corey and my arms and trying to keep up with the grandiose spinning 'round.  Through the evening, Danforth looked like a high school photographer in his bow-tie, walking around taking pictures with our digital camera.  After lots of dancing, Corey noted it was time to get going.  We had a camping rig to figure out in the dark.

Oh man, so the adventure begins.

We head out, sweaty, tired out, and happy. The kids start coming down from their sugar buzz and start to get a bit irritable.

Rumbling back into the campground, we discover someone else’s TENT setup in our campsite!  We try several attempts to back in and squeeze in a little area beside (mind you it's about 10:30pm by now).  Rustling around with our phone flashlights trying to figure out how this tent pops out (& digging in bags trying to find our headlamps), kids getting increasingly cranky, and feeling like the most obnoxious people on the planet while we try to figure out this rig we've never touched before!

Finally, Corey finds the correct straps and zippers, and gets the roof-tent popped up.  Realizing we don't have enough space to fully extend it (stuck between two tents and a tree), we pull into another area that feels a little less crowded- no idea if it's even a site or not- and really not caring by this point.  I get kids cleaned up and ready for bed, and we get back to find the roof-tent all setup!

Inside, we’re pleased to discover all these little twinkly fairy lights, and the kids freshly cleaned up from their sweaty sticky mess, are entirely revived with joy at this cozy little setup!  Despite partiers bumping "Dancing Queen" across the way and having lively (read; loud) conversation into the wee hrs of the morning, we're thankful for earplugs and a place to lay flat, & we jam in together for semi-restless night of sleep. (Notice in the pic below - to the far right hand side of the pic beyond the tree is the tent in our spot, the unknowing culprit that took our site!) 

After a slow morning we head back to the wedding venue for a BBQ and eating of wedding food leftovers. Afterwards, Corey and I sit for a while trying to figure out what’s next on the horizon of this trip- now that the wedding is behind us, there remains weeks of an open road ahead. 

Hovering above Arrowtown, there’s this peak that’s been calling my name, Mt Beetham.

Early evening, we head out for a “short” hike to check it out, cross a stream, and find a slow ascent up a gravel road, lined with berry trees.  Danforth and Corey turn back after a while, and Mel and I continue on.  Soon after comes a clearing along the road with sights of town below nestled between mountains.  The Golden Hour of light beginning. 

Melody meanders in her typical fashion, collecting berries, mining rocks, trekking along well with her walking stick. The road stretches on longer than expected, each turn bringing no site of the peak we’re in search of.  Mel starts seeming uncertain of how much energy she has, I coax her along with granola bars and the hope of finding our summit to climb soon!

After some time, comes an overlook.  Melody is more than ready to turn back. But the Mt Beetham summit is finally in sight! The mature version of me would accept our limits and head back down.  But the "determined to complete what I started" version of myself won, and urging us to at least head to the base and check it out and “just see.”   

Sure enough, it’s fenced and private land but with a trail welcoming hikers in. So, next thing we know, we’re ascending the 272 m steep assent to the summit. At first the thrill of the climb gets Mel going, but her little legs are already worn out.  Still determined to make it up, I offer to carry her the rest of the way - if that's what it takes.  Arms, legs, and lungs burning I embrace the challenge and huck it up this mountain peak, one heavy step at a time.  Melody sings songs to me, and I focus on making it one trail mark to the next.  

Seeing a rock up a ways, I decide we’ll stop and rest there for a bit.  But what do you know, the rock moves.  It’s a sheep!  Suddenly, eyes are opened to a dozen or so sheep sprinkled along the hill side.  We’re thrilled, and Melody starts clambering with renewed energy, gathering grass trying to coax the sheep nearer.  Between short spurts of carrying her, and her climbing a bit on her own…soon the rocky summit comes into view! 

Was far more epic than expected. Jagged cliffs, rocky outcroppings, thorn bushes, sheep dung, and 360* summit views. We climb a bit further to the highest point, and sit to take it all in and relish in the majesty of golden dawn on mountain top. After some snacks and rest, it’s time to descend. Mels little legs were toast at this point and her knees were starting to hurt.  So I carried her much of the way down.  Apart from the sheep sightings, which entirely revived her.  We made songs about the trail markers to help us on the way down, turning each one into a new character with a need that we needed to hurry and help them with. Back at the gravel road, she was still wiped out, so I carried her virtually the entire rest of the way down. Singing chants and songs together to keep a steady pace.

I realized, that though my arms were burning and foot was developing a cramp, I would still choose to be carrying my 5 yr old daughter down this mountain, to having done it alone.  Knowing these times and years are so short together.  Though they’re incredibly inconvenient at times, and I often joke about how “I’m exercising my patience” (rather than exercising my muscles) during many activities, as she pressed her soft cheek against me, fine little golden tendrils of hair crowding my face….I cherished our togetherness deeply.

Upon returning to the river, we soaked our feet in the cold waters and returned to the camp. Just as we returned, a light drizzle began and the last remnants of light faded from the skies.  Corey welcomed us with a hot feast of rice, broccoli, and sausage.  We showered and welcomed our beds!  

It was another restless night of sleep though, as winds picked up, and the tent extension we decided to try out was flapping around like a sail without any halyards attached.  Corey also tried out the cot for the first time, and the darn thing squeaked and scrunched so crazy loud with the slightest movement. That night was awful, but we laugh hysterically about it now.  Corey surrounded by these flapping walls, on his squeaky cot, when the wind was not even that notable! We laughed at how novice it all seemed. 

But it was time to move on and refine our camping setup.  We didn’t expect just how much of an upgrade our next place would bring.

-M