Climbing a majestic mountain is a wonderful experience in itself - but wait Brodie has more!

Mount Roy

By Brodie Thorpe

It was finally summer, and I was on adventure with my family: Mum, Dad and my sister Tiana. We were a few weeks into our whirlwind trip through the South Island. When I say whirlwind, it really wasn’t. Just mum and dad had been planning a whirlwind, only to remember we aren’t super human and we have two meandering photographers in our party.

One such “must do” adventure on this trip was was to conquer Mount Roy. As we drove into the carpark that morning, I looked out the window and up at the mountain. “It looks nice”, I thought, “very high!” If I’m honest, I was a little nervous about the climb ahead.

We got packed and racked, backpacks on our backs and we started to climb. Step by step we made our way up the mountain. Zig, zagging our way up through the terrain and South Island beauty. My sister and I decided to charge ahead. My parents were going a bit slow. We came across a beautiful picnic spot by a beautiful mountain lake, which made me think of food and letting mum and dad maybe catch up to us... but we soldiered on, taking in the sights and sounds of majestic Mt Roy.

We were around 10 minutes or so away from the look out, and my mum called out with in ‘come on guys’ kinda tone, “Ah, if it’s okay? - Do you want to wait for us?”

So we waited. Fifty minutes later they show up. Another fifty minutes go by with look out photos, family groupies and mum first selfie #gomum. After this and that we were back on the move, toward the summit. Now as most mountain climbers know the last stretch to the summit can be the hardest push. You’re tired, hungry and just want to get to the top. Tiana needed a drink of water. As I stopped and turned round to look back at the family, Richie McCaw casually jogs passed us, up the hill. “Afternoon” he called out as he jogged, that’s right, jogged past. Well that made us move.

We summited and as soon as we did, we sat ourselves next to Richie. After all there’s always plenty of room for new friends on family adventures. We had a few more groupies and scenic shots, a yummy yummy lunch, views, views and more views. I had a good morning's climb behind me, my family and Richie.

It doesn’t get much better than this I thought to myself.