from Queenstown, NZ
We’ve made our triumphant return to Queenstown after a week and a half in the bush! Queenstown remains the same touristy, overdone, and cold plastic town it was when we left it, with the addition of thousands of young university students freed from their academic shackles for Easter break, drinking, carousing and generally causing havoc.
Way back when we left Queenstown for our Fiordland adventure, we managed to hitch a ride with a pair of Austrian women heading to Te Anau, from where our track transport departed. We stayed the night at a tent site on the edge of town, stocking up on our remaining trail supplies (bagels and muesli bars) the next morning, and sending our food and tent for the second track to Milford Sound, where it would be waiting for us upon our completion of the Milford Track.
Milford Day 1: We boarded the Tracknet bus, taking it through forest and over stream to the edge of Lake Te Anau, near a little town called Te Anau Downs. An hour and a quarter later, the ferry dropped us at the trailhead with all our gear. Since the Department of Conservation (DOC) allows no camping on Milford Track, our load was much reduced as we didn’t need the tent, sleeping mats, stove, etc…. The first day’s hike consisted of only an hour’s trek up an easy, well-graded path to our first night’s shelter at Clinton Hut. We got in at five o’clock and took advantage of the little remaining daylight to explore a nearby side-trail boardwalk to the middle of an alpine wetland. By the time we hunkered down for the evening, all of our stuff was already a bit damp, as it had been raining lightly all day; a portent of what was to come.
We spent the evening eating our Backcountry Cuisine (Sweet and Sour Lamb; not so tasty) and dried Curry Chicken Noodles (quite tasty!), and playing cards with some newfound friends: Rob (music director, maestro of somesuch; originally from the UK, but living in NZ), Caroline (studying at the Royal Academy of Music, London; over visiting Rob for Easter break), Elisabeth and her mother (both from Austria; unknown vocations). Goodies were shared and stories exchanged, but our card game was cut off at ten o’clock when the solar battery-powered lighting cut out.
Milford Track Day 2: Although the weather was crappy (rain all day), we saw magnificent waterfalls and the awesome remnants of powerful landslides, drowned forests and some impressive mountain scenery as we trekked up Clinton Valley. Our next stop would be Mintaro Hut about two thirds of the way up the valley at Mile 13, and we were on pace to easily beat the brochure-estimated time when tragedy struck.
Shortly after we passed the twelve mile marker, my eyes down watching my next step on the path, Liz let out a yelp ten feet ahead of me, and I looked up to see fall hard, having tripped on a rock, striking her right knee on a second rock, followed by her forehead on a third as the weight of her pack took her outstretched arms by surprise, driving her towards the ground. Dazed and confused, a nickel-sized, but thankfully shallow, gash on her forehead, knee throbbing and ego bruised, she took a moment to sit up and collect herself. After a short while, with strength of will and fierce spirit, she evaded my attempts to have her rest longer and allow me to attend her with the first aid kit, and insisted that we push on towards the hut. Limping along, with blood on her forehead, we took an extra hour to finish the day’s trek, with hail pounding down on us, but arrived at the hut with little further incident. Cold, wet and tired, we sat down for a cup of tea and I washed out her wound with soap and water. We then discovered that she also had terrible blisters that almost covered her heels, her boots having changed shape with the constant moisture.
We both felt a bit better after a hot supper, more cards with Rob and company, and a share of our chocolate stash.
Milford Track Day 3: The morning dawned to a fresh layer of hail and snow blanketing the mountains, trees, and trail, and Liz’s blisters and knee causing pain and doubts. A cold breakfast of muesli bars was meant to help us depart quickly after packing up our things, but we spent extra time taping up the blisters and preparing psychologically, nearly the last to depart out of 41 hikers. The first leg of the day was a steep climb up 500m to the top of Mackinnon Pass, the track transformed into a trench filled with snow and ice-water. The climb was strenuous, every step treacherous. Through an unfortunate breakdown in communication when I bought my newest hiking boots in Edmonton a month and a half ago, the boots I purchased were incredibly comfortable, but apparently the only hiking boots that I looked at that weren’t waterproof. Having only discovered this after arriving in New Zealand, I decided that at least they were really breathable and that I would make do for our trip. On this day, I lived to regret that decision, my boots filling with fresh ice-water with every step I took. By the time we reached the pass shelter 3.5 hours from our start (2 hours in the brochure), my feet were so numb that I couldn’t feel the ground, and only knew that I was stepping on solid ground by the fact that by leg has stopped its downward journey. Sleet and driven rain pelted us the whole way, and a biting wind found what small cracks we had between pieces of clothing. Both of us were wearing almost all the clothes we’d brought with us. Water-resistant windproof glove shells and possum-fur/polypro inners weren’t enough to prevent chilled hands that could hardly manipulate the simplest straps, buckles, bags, and buttons.
A frigid lunch of bagels and peanut butter in the frozen shelter and we stepped out once more to begin our 1000m descent into Arthur valley. Our view of the greatest landscape New Zealand has to offer was obscured by endless cloud and fog in every direction, through which we could see nearly nothing. Milford Track’s much-vaunted scenery was officially a bust, with the exception of the magnificent waterfalls created by endless rain and snow. Parts of Fiordland average greater than 9 meters of rain per year, with some years as high as 15 meters!
As we got closer to the valley floor, my feet slowly thawed and regained feeling, dispelling fear that I might have done some damage to them, having spent almost five our in ice-water. Near the bottom of our sharp descent, a side trail to Sutherland Falls beckoned, boasting the highest permanent waterfall in New Zealand, and sixth highest in the world at 580 meters in three jumps. With only a moments thought for the few hours until dark, we set off on what turned out to be a two hour return journey. Having passed a few struggling groups on the descent, we were the last group to opt for the side-trip, everyone behind us (at least a dozen) making their way to Dumpling Hut to ensure that they arrived before darkness. Sutherland Falls was indeed impressive. We were able to walk within twenty meters, the spray and driven wind from the falls drove at us with almost-irresistable power, making it impossible to look directly at the torrent of water for longer than it took to close our eyes, faces drenched, water cascading down our rainclothes.
Pushing hard to get to the hut before total darkness, we thought we must have missed it in the faint dusk light, but finally arrived; last into camp, but only twenty minutes behind the runners up. We slowly disentangled ourselves from our soaked gear and put on what few dry clothes we had, making our way over to the kitchen hut, where very little room remained to hang clothes to dry by the wood-fired stove, but where we could huddle over cups of hot tea and devour our last Milford Track supper.
Milford Track Day 4: Due to poor hut spacing, Day 4 of the Milford Track was an 18km sprint to catch the 2pm ferry at Sandfly Point. Remarkably flat after the previous days, but still rocky and quite slippery at times, this day would have been an easy stroll, given no injuries and plenty of time. Liz bravely pushed on through pain from heels, knee, and forehead, by this time with blisters on her toes as well, and we made it to the ferry with ten minutes to spare, tired, frustrated, disappointed in the poor views, but happy with the waterfalls, the verdant beech forest, and well-built trail.
We were overjoyed to stumble into our room at the Milford Sound Lodge, collapsing on the first real bed we’d seen in a month. A month in sleeping bags really put the luxury into perspective, and we spent the afternoon enjoying long, hot showers and naps, followed by a meal of pasta and sauce, with canned beans and tiny corn cobs scavenged from the tiny hostel shop, the only such establishment in Milford Sound; exorbitant prices, but delicious after our trail food.
Milford Sound: We had a day to “rest” between Milford and Routeburn Tracks, for which we’d previously booked a sea kayaking day trip, so we packed a lunch of bread, tuna, and cheese, and caught our shuttle down to the boat launch. Sunshine and blue skies were in sharp contrast with our days on the trail, and we enjoyed six hours of paddling on Milford Sound with seals swimming and sunning, gorgeous waterfalls, and nary a wave. We lunched while floating out in the middle of the sound with the rest of our guided group, and were able to look back up Arthur Valley (from whence we’d come the day before) on our way back into the harbour.
Routeburn Day 1: After an evening and the following morning contemplating whether we should even attempt our next track with Liz’s raw blisters and swollen knee, she decided that she wanted to go for it, since the forecasted clear days might make up for Milford’s dreary fog. We took our trail bus down Milford highway, through a ten-minute tunnel blasted and carved out of solid rock, with no other obvious man-made supports, to the trailhead. The day was amazingly clear, and we took a side trip up to Key Summit with views down three different glacially-carved valleys.
There are only two campsites on Routeburn Track, so we didn’t have much choice as to where we stayed the night. We trekked up to Mackenzie Lake campsite, with Liz battling her injuries the entire way, arriving shortly before dark to discover that we were the only tenters, everyone else having opted for the more expensive hut. We ate our hot supper, hot chocolate and cookies, shivering in the chill wind, with the temperature dropping quickly once the light disappeared. We read in the tent for awhile, but slept early, exhausted after a painful first trail day, our muscles not yet recovered from the previous track.
Routeburn Day 2: We awoke to a cold, clear morning, packed up quickly and set out right away in order to try to warm up. Passing the nearby hut, we were surprised and delighted to be greeted from the porch by a group of three Australian women with whom we’d shared the misery of Milford Track. Since hut-hikers usually take four days to hike Routeburn, they were now on the same “day” as us even though they’d headed to Routeburn the day that we went sea kayaking in Milford Sound. We exchanged news, with promises that we’d see eachother on the trail later in the day, and Liz and I began the climb up the side of the valley over a long series of switchbacks. As the trail came out above the treeline, we were rewarded with our most impressive views of New Zealand thus far, sun peeking over the mountains at the head of the valley, illuminating a clear green-blue lake and beech forest stretching out endlessly down the valley and around the bend, snow-capped mountains (very unusual at this time of year) covering the horizon. Our campsite and the nearby hut remained in view below us for a couple of hours, disappearing only when we crossed over a ridge to neighbouring Hollyford Valley. Now on the exposed east face of Hollyford Valley, we could see clearly all the way down its length to the Tasman Sea, likely more than fifty kilometers away.
Heading for Harris Saddle, the highest point on Routeburn Track, Liz insisted that I push ahead so that I would have time to make the sidetrip up to Conical Hill, above Harris Saddle, as she continued to march through the pain up to the pass shelter. I made my way quickly up to the shelter, dropping my pack, and starting up the side of Conical Hill, a summit about three hundred meters above the pass. Although the pass itself was covered in snow, it was a couple of days old, and the main trail was clear for the most part. I was quickly surprised by the depth of the snow up Conical Hill, and once the shelted disappeared around the bend, it became clear that many people had turned back within ten minutes, the number of footprints falling sharply. Buoyed by the sight of a couple of young men whooping and hollering their way down the hill above, I pushed upwards, encouraged by their exclamations of incredible views. It took half an hour to reach the summit, with snow sometimes four feet deep, but the lack of water made it bearable, as my boots dampened, but didn’t fill with water. Arriving at the summit, I was greeted by 360 degrees of fog, broken infrequently by brilliant sunshine and glimpses of the surrounding mountaintops. Entertained by the antics of a tiny mountain bird, and the spiders and caterpillars which made surprise appearances on the snow, I enjoyed a snack, waiting half an hour for the skies to clear, but setting out on the descent without having seen the Tasman Sea.
I caught up to Liz once again on the trail, and we continued down the other side of the pass, enjoying the views, but hindered by her injuries. We arrived into camp a half hour before dark, set up, ate supper, and enjoyed the beautiful but chilled flats beside which we were camped.
Routeburn Day 3: Frost and ice greeted us in the morning, and I’d slept poorly because of the cold, but all ill thoughts were quickly dispelled by the sun rising at the foot of the valley; another beautiful day on Routeburn Track. The last 6.5 km was an easier-than-predicted slight downward trek over a couple of swing bridges and along a “gorge” struggling to live up to that title. We arrived at the road-end shelter with an hour to spare before our trail bus back to Queenstown, sunny, happy, and ready to eat the last of our pita bread and peanut butter.
Routeburn more than made up for the fog on Milford Track, and both of us were definitely glad that we opted to push through it. Liz is one tough cookie.
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Back in Queenstown, we stayed once more at our previous rest-stop, Deco Backpackers, relaxing, showering, and eating. Picking up our new rental car the next morning ($16 per day!!!), we decided to test Queenstown’s reputation as the adrenaline capital of New Zealand (or the world depending on who’s talking), and went bungee-jumping at the original spot: AJ Hackett’s Kawarau Bridge jump; the first commercial operation in the world! Quite exhilerating! My weak-kneed hop off the ledge wasn’t quite the magnificent leap I’d envisioned performing, but I look pretty good in the photos (I’ll see if I can get a digital copy somehow)! I managed to get to the gym in the evening, followed by lots of beer and food!
Now we head north, up the wild West Coast, a narrow strip of relatively flat land (30 km at best), sandwiched between the towering Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea. We have yet to decide on a definite itinerary, but it will include stops at the Franz Joseph glacier, and the coastal town of Greymouth, possibly with a white-water kayaking course in Murchison, and one or two more tracks on the South Island before crossing over to the North Island at the end of the month.